If you’re sexy and you know it, clap your hands.
Dear Sistar,
Can I share with you the struggles I had around being “sexy?”
It started when I became pregnant with my first daughter. I was 27, and was the smallest I had been in my adult life, slightly underweight. I was recovering from a bout of depression after the loss of my best friend-cousin, and I had fallen in love, hard. Both my physical and emotional bodies were going through a lot of changes.
Falling in love with who I thought was my Soulmate (but turned out to be a karmic relationship) had been intense! The sexual chemistry was unmatched to any other partner I had been with and the passion was thick! We allowed ourselves to surrender to each other as we explored our innermost fantasies. We missed many engagements due to not wanting to disrupt the cocoon of love we had created within our home.
I felt sexy.
I can’t tell you if I felt sexy just because I felt sexy, or if it was because he made me feel sexy through his words, actions, and attention but I’m guessing the later because when I became pregnant, and his words, actions, and attention changed, sexy was the furthest thing I felt.
Being pregnant with your first child changes you long before you see the growing belly. Unless you’re properly preparing to get pregnant – taking supplements, eating healthy – your habits have to change if you want to have a healthy baby.
Okay, so part of our sexy cocoon of love involved a lot of “elevated nights.” IYKYK. Wine too. Obviously, those things came to a screeching halt once the pee stick was positive. Naively, I thought this meant that my partner and I would start living a healthy, sober lifestyle together. I was wrong. He continued our vices without me.
If I look back at what was the main thing that drove a wedge between us, I’d say it was that. We had lost our connection. We had built this fairytale romance, fast and deep on a foundation of sex, drugs, and pipedreams and thought it could sustain the real life.
Maybe it could have if we were strong enough to push pass the hiccups that most relationships faced like maintaining open communication, being intentional with our actions, and working through our personal traumas, but once I became a mom my priority shifted to learning to be a mother and essentially a wife. Long gone were the nights of wild sex, and passionate love making in the mornings.
I did not feel sexy.
My body had changed, I was nursing so my boobs no longer belonged to me (or him), I was still working so any chance to rest was solely for resting’s sake, and we had the added stress of financial turmoil.
How I became pregnant with my son less than one year later is still a mystery to me! Luckily, I already knew not to expect much from my partner. I found out later that while I was learning to mother two toddlers, he was carrying on an affair with an old friend.
I lost myself during those years. I was operating on autopilot and heavily in my masculine energy because all I wanted to do was get things done. Get the kids here, get to work, pick him up, get dinner done… All while having an inner knowing that my relationship was falling apart. I dissociated to cope. And on one day where I was extra tender because my dog had died, I stepped out of my marriage – just to feel something more than what I had been feeling.
Control.
In that moment of control, I also felt powerful. I felt seen. I felt wanted. I felt…sexy. All the feels that had become so foreign for me. All the feels I had secretly yearned for but didn’t want to express.
Later. Again, however – I found myself pregnant with baby number 3, but this time was different.
Maybe because I was older or because the kids were older, I was able to focus on me and what I needed. There was still a part of me that had a feeling that my marriage would not last but I was open to working on it. Tales of our affairs surfaced and we were forced to deal with the aftermath. The aftermath was…brutal. Lots of tough conversations over that next year, lots of secrets revealed. Lots of pain and anger. Lots of… passion.
Is it strange that I was actually feeling sexy again?
Maybe it was hiding under all the baggage that I had allowed to suffocate me. Not speaking up when I knew something was amiss. Biting my tongue to keep the peace. Hiding behind my masculine energy. Hiding behind motherhood. Settling for whatever I got, and not asking for more. Not wanting to face my own shadows out of fear of what I might lose in the process or who I might find there. Maybe all, maybe more… but I could feel my power return and I could feel a new version of myself emerge.
A Modern Goddess. She spoke her truths. She knew there was strength in her vulnerability, not weakness. She focused on the beauty within herself even when she didn’t feel pretty. She embraced all of her Self. Self-care became a word in her daily vocabulary. She finally acknowledged that she could be both a loving and attentive Mother AND a badass Woman who knows who she is underneath the labels. She didn’t let others define her.
She stopped cowering at the gesture of his hand coming her way, and she left.
In writing this, I see how I allowed my self-image to be wrapped up with how others perceived me. If he thinks I’m sexy, then I must be. If he thinks I’m worthy, then it must be true. I’m a mother, I can’t be sexy too…
I’m in recovery, I can’t be sexy.
I’m healing, I can’t be sexy.
I’m not the ideal weight, I can’t be sexy.
Bullshit.
It’s all bullshit, Sis.
Sexy is…
An inner confidence that you are perfect just the way you are. The who you are and the what you are, is just perfect! It’s knowing that your aura draws in people and experiences that will light you up and connect you to the most intimate parts of yourself. That’s powerful! And to feel sexy is to embody how powerful you truly are.
I struggled to write this but I’m glad I did… because I’m over here just clapping my heart out!
About Toni
Dear Sistar is my love letter to the Awakening Woman.
Toni Moné is a certified Spiritual & Life Coach and a Human Design practitioner. Her mission is to Activate Women and support them as they awaken to their divine natures, helping them shift limiting perspectives and define life on their own terms! She helps them to embrace their radical truths, express their unique dualities, and create their personal journeys to freedom!
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