This story starts with a beautiful woman, a woman who crafts the way the world sees her.
In that style of dress which accentuates her most valuable asset…
With just this amount of makeup, enough to feel ‘earthy’, but not too much as to look overly ‘insecure’…
With this particular smile that always looks better from her right…
Do you know her?
I certainly do. I’ve lived as this woman my whole life.
Acceptable. Polite. Nice. Put together. Pretty. Great hair.
Totally PG and acceptable. Until one day I found myself on a photo-shoot where I was asked to express a side of me that I found ‘unacceptable’.
Unacceptable you say. Hmm. That sounds uncomfortable.
And uncomfortable it was.
For me a lens of beauty is a safe way to move through life. Aspiring to be admired and accepted. I hide my ugly wherever possible under clothes, makeup and the most flattering angle available to me at any given moment.
So in my photographic quest to capture my “unacceptable side”, my vulnerable and tender side…
I was called to be UGLY.
I was called to be unpolished, imperfect, raw, unleashed and not politically correct. I was called to embody not having my shit together, to being angry and frustrated and angry again. I was called to be real.
As I set myself the challenge (don’t we always do it to ourselves?!) I instantly felt uncomfortable.
My ego said – but who will want to buy anything or be coached by an “ugly” woman.
Yet my soul said – get ugly, it is the only way to be free.
Be the ugly side of yourself that you shut away, that you label unacceptable, that you suffocate and hide.
The part of you that’s crying to be healed and loved and expressed.
I arrive at the photo-shoot. Ready to channel ugly and get raw.
I’m nervous. I pause. It won’t come.
My mind is telling me it’s too contrived. This ugly is fake. And perhaps it is.
My body luring me into the safety of sensual. It’s easier to embody the siren….
I find myself, yet again, halfway between here and there. Ego and Soul. In the middle of nothing.
Not able to fully let go into ugly. And not feeling like beauty is the full truth of who I am as a woman either.
Before I know it the shoot is over. We call it a day and I am left feeling on the beautiful end of the scale.
A pretty place to be.
But when it’s the only essence your body knows how comfortably to express, it begins to feel a little shallow.
It begins to feel like you are only expressing a slither of who you are.
I desire the fullness of life to move through me. The deep love as well as the deep pain, the deep beauty as well as the profound ugly, acceptable and unacceptable.
I want to be un-apologetically me in all my glorious mess.
And ugly is part of that spectrum.
Fortunately my sisters (also practitioners) were there to shine a light on the very awkward call I felt to embody “ugly”.
They asked me to strip off my makeup and explore “UGLY”.
While my clothes might have stayed on, my soul was ripped open and bared to all who watched.
I was unpolished, and raw, and sad, and frustrated. And it was ugly.
And it was also so beautiful, that my openness and vulnerability moved us all to tears.
I felt utterly-un-beautiful. And it was such a relief.
There was so much truth in the surrender of my make up and my restraint, and my pain, and my belief that beauty had to look a certain way.
The real magic happened that evening.
I had opened up to myself so deeply – through embracing and expression my WHOLE self (‘ugly’ and all)…
That I began to see all the people and events in my life as part of a great constellation.
Where I had once felt frustrated – I now welcomed clarify.
Where I had once settled for less than I deserved – I now called the bullshit and championed change.
I stopped lying to myself.
I loved myself more.
And all because I gave myself permission to be ugly.
I expressed all of myself.
I threw out the script that said you need to look like XYZ to be accepted and I rewrite the story to say I ACCEPT ALL OF ME.
True freedom comes from expressing and embracing ALL OF YOU.
Not just the polite parts.
And now that I’ve gone to that ugly place, and know the liberation that waits there. I am called to do it again and again.
To get comfortable with my ugly and to embody it. Which is why I’m writing about it today.
The first step was was to acknowledge ugly within myself. Then to share it with my sisters.
And now the freedom of UGLY is spreading and I’m writing it here in this blog…
Each step is further liberation, further acceptance of myself. So thank you for reading and for seeing me as an “UGLY” woman. I am so honoured that you have.
And now I want to hear from you..
What unacceptable shadow side of yourself do you find hard to express?
What do you label unacceptable about yourself?
And did my incredibly “ugly” photo spark something that you desire to claim in honour of your fullness?
PS. Over at The Embodied Woman Facebook group, we are reclaiming our sensual power, embodying our enoughness + supporting a sistership of women reclaiming their power.
I’d love you to join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/embodied.women.group/
