On Sunday I danced in my sports bra, leggings and heels.
I guess I should start by saying I’m on a dance team. A ladies SALSA dance team with some BADASS Bitches!!! Let’s not forget to mention I am the oldest member of the dance team in my WELL seasoned, RIPE like a PEACH ripe, age of 43. I won’t leave out that I am the mother of 1 and a possible teenagers not for sympathy or pity because MY BODY is BEAUTIFUL but just to drive home my point that I danced in my sports bra, leggings and heels at dance practice on Sunday.
YES!
For some this may be no great feat but for me this is big deal stuff. Big deal because when I gave birth to MY soon to be 14 year old Ray of Sonshine, it created a condition (think I can call it that) called diastasis recti which basically means our combined girth caused my abdominal muscles to separate and they never bounced back...but that’s another story.
So like many woman with this condition (and Erykah Badu about her “shit”), I’m a smidge sensitive about my belly. (Insert long pause. In this moment it just hit me how long I’ve been carrying around the weight of being sensitive about my belly).
BUT on Sunday I danced in my sports bra, leggings and heels at dance practice.
Honestly for no other reason than because I was hot. Yet this simple act of me unrobing, exposing, accepting and deliberately tossing my shirt aside gave permission not just to me but also to the other ladies on my team to do the same thing...and they did...
...and WE danced in our sports bras, leggings and heels at dance practice on Sunday.
You would think in this age of body positive talk and imagery, and the Girl Power Movement that there would be not one among us who feels any kind of way but exceptional about HER body, but the truth is many if not all of us struggle daily with loving self acceptance for this MIRACULOUS vessel.
Yes MIRACULOUS...
I mean MY body alone has given birth (twice), does things on the dance floor that make ME say WOW, shape shifted countless times and did I mention it breathes for me, PUMPS blood AND has a specialized thinking machine that predates ALL other such devices?!
YES MIRACULOUS!!!
Still, this knowing doesn’t cause me not to suck and tuck on special occasions nor does this knowing keep me from being a little insecure and feeling a lot vulnerable even just thinking about allowing my sacred pouch to be shown.
BUT may I remind YOU that on Sunday I danced in my sports bra, leggings and heels at dance practice...
...and I remind myself that loving self acceptance is a practice and a journey...