These are strange days to be a woman.
Even though I consider myself to be a light being – a messenger of hope and healing – these past few weeks, I’ve felt more like the goddess Kali herself ready to destroy all who stand in my way.
I know. It’s not very “good girl.” It’s not very “Christian.” Here’s the thing though: Christ wasn’t nice. He was here to turn the tables on the establishment. He was here to burn shit to the ground.
I wasn’t born to be a good girl.
Neither were you.
Maybe there’s no such thing as a “good girl” except the cardboard cutout existences that many of us are forced to be happy with… the versions of us that don’t really exist.
This past weekend I traveled to the east coast for my baby sister’s wedding. On the morning of the big day, the women gathered in her hotel suite to have our hair and makeup done so that we could all look perfect for the day.
When the hairstylist put my hair in this fancy updo and asked if I liked it, I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. It didn’t look like me. It didn’t feel like me.
I also realized, however, that I didn’t really know how I wanted to look because I was trying to fit into some cardboard cutout…like an image that I pinned of a woman at a wedding.
All of a sudden, instead of feeling like the confidant, radiant, sexy 50-year old woman that I am, I felt like I was my awkward, chubby 13-year old self. So I lied and pretended that I liked my hair, convinced myself that it was good enough, and then went on to get my makeup done.
By the time I left the hotel to go home and get dressed, I was completely overstimulated from stuffing down my disappointment and aloneness, and from the collective residue of all the women in that room filled with their own anxiety of wanting to be perfect.
Women have been disconnected from our bodies, our hearts and our desires in order to fit in.
We lie to ourselves that the lives we are living are good enough.
Eventually, I found myself standing in the kitchen of our AirBnB, and it all felt like too much. Every cell in my body needed release. I needed to cry, scream, grieve, wail and rage.
I needed to move all that emotion that I felt for myself and everyone else. I felt like my arms and chest might burst open from the pressure.
Except that I couldn’t do any of those things. Because hair. Because makeup. And what a fantastic metaphor for womanhood, right? All dressed up and no place to scream.
So, instead, I breathed.
I allowed my ribcage to soften and so that my heart could expand and make more room in my body for the feelings. And then Jeff and I made love.
Through our intimate connection and through orgasm, I found healing. I was was able to find the release I so desperately needed by connecting with my sweet husband with my own body. All without disturbing my perfect hair and makeup, of course!
For those of you who’ve been traumatized by your husband’s sex addiction, you might be triggered and thinking that what I did was just like an addict using orgasm to avoid feeling their feelings. It wasn’t.
I need to dispel this myth for you. Your body is yours. You get to feel good. You get to have orgasms. Your body was designed to experience pleasure and release.
This judgment that we have about sex…
The shame we carry about our bodies and our emotions…
All the bullshit that we’ve been handed about what it means to be a woman…
That’s what I’m here to blow up. That’s the big shift that I’ve been feeling lately. That’s why I have FINALLY started writing my memoir about a lifetime of wrestling with sex and shame and what it means to be a woman.
We’re not here to swallow our words, our desires, our sexy.
We’re here to scream and laugh and wail and live big, messy, beautiful lives. And be sexy as fuck.
I don’t think I am alone in feeling this way. What about you? What big shift have you been feeling lately? Hit reply to this email and tell me all about it so that I can hold space for you as you blow your shit up too.