Were you welcomed into Adulthood?

Did you receive a ceremony? Had a Mentor? Experienced a sense of belonging to your community as an equal member once you turned a certain age?

Most adults living today haven’t…

When I speak with Jewish folks who had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, they, too, feel that it was lacking. Most say that learning Hebrew was a task that didn’t relate to their life as an adolescent, and that although they felt honored by their synagogue’s community, their feelings at the time weren’t addressed. Nor were their bodily changes, their hormone fluctuations, their confusion, or their budding sexuality…

Most adults I speak with tell me that their parents, teachers, and extended community had no idea about what was really going on in their life during adolescence. Desperate acts such as excessive alcohol drinking, substance abuse, or shop lifting — have all gone unnoticed. Sexual advances from a boy on a date, or questions about sexual identity were not on the adults’ radar. Perhaps it is because these were all good students with high grades, that the adults surrounding them assumed all was well.

How can this happen?

How do parents believe that all is well in their adolescent child’s life while all the while their child feels internally tortured? Why do they think that even though their child doesn’t talk with them, everything is actually fine?

It’s not that we, adults, don’t think of our children. We do, excessively sometimes. We worry about them: about their lack of conversation with us, about their social life, about the grades they bring home, about their future career and prospects.

None of the above meets the adolescent where they are, or truly sees them!

The obsessive thoughts we run through our heads are, lets admit it, mostly about us… Why they wouldn’t talk to us? Are we bad parents? Have we done something wrong? Would they grow up to be professional/successful/married/divorced like us?

We are so busy worrying about how our adolescent child’s behavior reflects on us as parents, on our parenting skills, on our ability to raise young people that would mirror our values to the world, that we forget to see them…!

We mistake Worry for Care…

We confuse our self esteem with theirs, and miss seeing them in the process!

What can we do differently?

As always, we need to start with self exploration, with a deep inquiry into who we each were as an adolescent girl, an adolescent boy, what did we need then from our parents (as oppose to what we need now from our children).

Remember how misunderstood you felt by Mom or Dad? How distant they felt to you? Get into the skin of the adolescent you once were and find out what might have felt better at the time? What could have your Mom or Dad say or do, which would have given you a feeling of being seen, heard, and met?

Then, turn around and give this to your adolescent child!

You will be watering many fruit trees with one watering can!

Your own Inner Adolescent would be soothed in the process; You will stop worrying about your child and start making a real connection; Your child may start feeling seen and acknowledged, and may even begin to think of you as a cool parent! (and wasn’t this what you wanted all along?)

______________________________
© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

It is my pleasure
to invite you to
RITES OF PASSAGE –
Skillfully Guiding
Girls to Womanhood
& Boys to Manhood

http://www.ritesofpassageevent.com/

A 2-week virtual conference (to which you can listen from the comfort of your own phone) filled with exciting speakers, such as:

- Internationally acclaimed author & lecturer Marianne Williamson
- New York Times best seller author Michael Gurian
- Internationally renowned herbalist Susun Weed

And an array of speakers, each an expert in their field, who will share with you words of wisdom, inspirational guidance, and practical tools to apply with your Tweens & Teens right away!

Online Event Dates are:

Monday-Friday, February 6-10 & 13-17, 2012

]]> http://www.deannalam.com/2012/02/coming-of-age-its-never-too-late/feed/ 2 http://www.deannalam.com/2012/01/coming-of-age-how-does-one-become-an-adult/ http://www.deannalam.com/2012/01/coming-of-age-how-does-one-become-an-adult/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:40:47 +0000 DeAnna http://www.deannalam.com/?p=2779 How does one become an adult? Well, mostly by imitation…

I grew up in a household of two (heavy) cigarette-smoking, coffee-drinking parents. For me, this was the epitome of adulthood… And when I started smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, at the age of seventeen, I felt that I have arrived!

The “arrival” was not celebrated in any way. However my Dad, who used to buy cigarettes in cartons (for him and my Mom) added a few packs to the family monthly cigarette shopping, on my behalf. I was given the stamp of approval: I belonged.

And isn’t this what Rites of Passage are all about?

Arriving, belonging, getting in par with the adult world around us, which was mostly beyond our reach as children, and is now accepting us as rightful members.

Indigenous cultures similarly rewarded their youth with belonging and acceptance, only that their requirements were far more meaningful. Youth were given a multitude of things that our young lack today:

- Spiritual guidance from an early age, toward discovering the gift one was born to bring to their community

- Active mentors who fostered different skills in a youth, each bestowing their own gifts on their young protegee

- A prescribed set of challenges that will stretch a youth beyond their comfort zone, and will call them to find within them the ability to endure, overcome, and emerge triumphantly

- A tradition of Spiritual Eldering designed to pass on wisdom and knowledge from one generation to the next

- A tight knit community that is eager to collectively honor and celebrate all milestones in an individual’s life

In contrast, the guidance I received, growing up, consisted of explicit messages, overt assistance, and covert expectations, all directed toward achieving high grades at school, an academic degree, and a career that will guarantee enough money to ensure a secure retirement.

There was no conscious guidance toward grounded, balanced, intentional adulthood, and in its absence I could only imitate what I saw around me. It took many years of unlearning (including quitting cigarette-smoking and coffee-drinking) to develop a sense of deeper meaning in my life.

Deeper meaning is what the youth search for. The need we have as young human beings, while transforming from childhood to adulthood, is for meaningful challenges that will help us prove to ourselves that we are courageous and worthy; role models that will inspire us to strive, and communities that will accept us as equals.

In the absence of such cultural offerings, the youth of each generation will devise their own tests that would lead them to become accepted by their tribe. For me, it was cigarettes and coffee that made me feel grown up and ultimately belong. For many today it is gang activity or teen pregnancy. These are the shadow manifestations of an authentic need. They seemingly include every element of traditional rites of passage:

- Going beyond one’s comfort zone to prove worthiness (gang activity and teen sex)

- Performing daring acts that lead to approval (in the eyes of gang members, or boyfriend/girlfriend)

- Ultimate acceptance or belonging (this last one applies to gang members but hardly ever to girls who get pregnant. They often end up shunned by both their boyfriend and their family)

This grim picture only exists because we, as a society, abdicated our responsibility to our young!

It is in our hands to restore the picture to its natural balance. It is our (exciting!) task to rally around our young in meaningful ways, to provide them with meaningful challenges that will stretch them positively, and to receive them as equals when they triumphantly emerge from their trials.

______________________________
© 2012 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

To learn more about Rites of Passage,

It is my pleasure to invite you to  -

RITES OF PASSAGE:

Skillfully Guiding
Girls to Womanhood
& Boys to Manhood

http://www.ritesofpassageevent.com/

Please join us!

The events dates are: Monday-Friday, February 6 – 10 & 13-17

Art by Jessica Jarman-Hayes ©

All indigenous cultures around the world revered women for their ability to birth Life!

In order to birth Life, we must first Menstruate!

In native cultures menstruation was known as the time when the veil between the worlds is thinnest

In native cultures menstruation was considered a time when women have access to the Divine

In native cultures women had special places to go to when they Flowed: Moon Huts, Moon Lodges, Red Tents.

It was understood that when a woman bleeds
she is in a heightened state, and cannot be bothered with everyday tasks!

In native cultures women spent their bleeding days in Moon Lodges talking, crafting, resting, dreaming, laughing, crying, napping, chatting, being quiet, simply having time-off to re-charge their batteries!

In native cultures women in Moon Lodges dreamed prophesies for their tribes

In native cultures people brought questions to the bleeding women: from personal matters, to elders asking whether to wage war…

The answers that Bleeding Women received in dreams, were followed with reverence!

In today’s cultures -

most women have nowhere to go to when they bleed, most women act as if their bleeding time is no different than any other time, most women don’t rest or renew their energy when they bleed, most women don’t talk about what they need when they bleed, many women think their blood is gross…

What’s wrong with this picture???

YOU now know what’s wrong with this picture, so make your own picture, instead!!!

________________________________________

Excerpt from A Diva’s Guide to Getting Your Period – A hip, artsy, full-color, empowering booklet for Tween & Teen girls -
by DeAnna L’am © 2011
Art by Jessica Jarman-Hayes, © 2011
All rights reserved

Is this a coincidence? I doubt it…

It seems that right when girls start moving toward puberty, when their bodies start budding and expanding, when they start coming into their own identity as young females — is when their mouths are being bound by metal.

Reminiscent of Chinese girls’ feet-binding, braces seems to be mouth-binding for Western girls. The rational in China was strongly rooted in cultural traditions in which the beauty factor was paramount. Is it any different in the West?

Dentists will tell you that it is, yet the cosmetic factor is present in their narrative as much as it is apparent in their ads, showing (mostly) women close up, flashing perfectly-toothed smiles at the camera. You, too, can have such a smile!

But at what price?

The price seems to be many-fold: there are the years (1-4 generally) of daily constraint on a girl’s mouth, the monthly tightening of the braces at the dentist’s office, the restrictions on what foods can be consumed during the brace-wearing period, the excessive need for teeth & brace brushing, and the awkward look of one’s teeth during those years.

And then, there are the messages hidden in these practices…

To begin with, the message conveyed in an orthodontic devise is that one is not good enough as they are. But even more apparent is the message that “you have to suffer to be beautiful.”

For Chinese girls the message inherent in feet-binding was that they can’t walk too far, run too fast, or even stand too firmly on their own two feet. The metaphor for Western girls is that their voices, indeed their self expression, needs a harness, a continual tightening, a molding to a certain norm, an adhering to a generic ideal of beauty.

A well known joke in Europe asks “How can you tell an American anywhere” and the answer is: “They have perfect teeth!” Herein lies the last hidden message in orthodontic devises: uniformity.

Girls who are just coming into their adolescent years, who are beginning the journey of defining themselves, who are striving to discover their unique voices, to define their own expression in the world, are fitted with braces that will work toward uniformity of looks (in teeth at least) and will abide by a uniform ideal of beauty.

Indeed, some girls (and boys) need braces for health reasons, such as the correction of an over-crowded moth, an over-bite, or an under-bite. But are they the majority of brace-wearers?

I know many grown ups with no apparent oral health issues, who have crooked teeth with which they live in peace. Interestingly, most of them are men.

But if a girl of a certain generation missed the boat, it is not too late for her to become uniformly beautiful after the required period of suffering:

More than one woman I know endured (or is still enduring) two-to-four years of braces on their teeth during their forties. When I asked one of them why she was going through this, she exclaimed: “Because I am ugly!” These, mind you, are not women looking for a partner. They are all married, have beautiful children of varying ages, and are fulfilled in their professional lives. Yet the idea of their beauty being absent until such day that their teeth are uniformly lined, has won them over, and they were willing to suffer for that ideal of beauty…

As the global village equalized merchandise consumed by folks, and works toward a common language used by all, can we allow beauty to be diverse?

Can we let our girls find their voices unhindered by devices in their mouths, and accept that their unique voices are in themselves the measure of beauty, rather than looking for it in the teeth through which they are uttered?

__________________________________
© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

“First menstruation is welcomed with much celebration and fanfare in Hindu and Buddhist Sri Lankan cultures”

However, On October 4, 2011, Sirohmi Gunesekera writes in ‘The Daily Mirror‘ of Sri Lanka:

“Menarche marks a major change… If only the ceremonies marking the event were cut to a bare minimum, the girl would feel less shy and embarrassed.”

What is happening?

Why is the traditional celebration of a girl’s first blood, which has been in place for generations, is seen by a contemporary writer as obsolete? Why would a ‘modern’ writer call for such traditional rites to be ‘cut to a bare minimum’???

It seems that like Alice, we live in a world in which the looking glass distorts time and perspective.

While we in the west long for the enclosure of tight knit community, the warmth of celebration, and the recognition of passages in our lives, there are voices in cultures that enjoyed these for generations, which call for their elimination.

The writer hopes that “If only the ceremonies marking the event were cut to a bare minimum, the girl would feel less shy and embarrassed.” I ask myself why a girl who is celebrated, witnessed, and welcomed on her first period, in ways she witnessed her cousins, sisters, relatives, and friends being welcomed, would feel embarrassed?

I wonder if she compares her life to that of a girl her age seen on a typical American sit com? Does she see those girls discuss, like, makeup and boys, and measures herself short? Does she long to be cool? Does she perceive her community’s ways as old fashion? Would she trade places with an American girl who, cool on the outside, may starve herself to death, feeling lonely, isolated, not good enough?

It’s a painful thought…

Through Alice’s looking glass, the indigenous customs of Sri Lanka seem powerful and empowering to me, just as American customs may seem to a Sri Lankan adolescent girl looking from the outside in.

A part of me would like to trade places with a Sri Lankan girl in a heart beat! Another part realizes that I, too, felt embarrassed by my parents and their ways… I, too, looked at what my family and community had to offer as something I needed to get away from in order to re-invent myself, find my own voice, make my mark…

My heart aches thinking of a Sri Lankan girl being lavishly celebrated by her culture, yet feeling embarrassed inside… It also aches when I think of the girls I worked with in the U.S. who, upon hearing of how Menarche is celebrated in indigenous cultures, exclaimed: what happened? Why did it stop? How come we are not celebrated anymore?

It is clear that adolescent girls long for meaningful, substantial, significant experiences that will help them make sense of the changes inside them, as well as the world around them.

It is up to us to provide them with such experiences.

In a quest to reclaim girls’ rites of passage and bring meaning and depth to the transition into womanhood, we may look to indigenous traditions to find rich models that have been working for millennia.

How ironic, though, that such models become stale for contemporary girls in indigenous cultures, as they look to us, bereft of ceremonies to mark our passages, and find our ways attractive…

__________________________________
© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

How do you like being called a “baby bearer”???

‘The Times Of India’ refers to you as just that, in an article by Saadia S. Dhailey published on May 18, 2011, saying: “Too much is involved as baby-bearers are reminded of their natural role every month…”

Not only are you a baby-bearer, but this is also your ‘natural role‘! The article goes on to say: “There’s no denying that many of us wish to get rid of the monthly trial forever. Maybe we can…”

Do you want to stop the phenomenon of rain just because it’s inconvenient to be outdoors while it’s wet?

We have become such a convenience-based culture, that we seek to eliminate anything slightly uncomfortable, regardless of the consequences. Lets imagine a world without rain: warm temperatures abide, the sun is shining year-round, we can enjoy the great outdoors 365 days a year, no need to stock up on warm cloths or boots, it’s just another day in paradise! Or is it?

Have you noticed how the great outdoors is slowly but surely drying out? The grasses have turned yellow, as did the trees. Creeks, rivulets, rivers, and lakes slowly shrink and dry out, having no rain to replenish them. It takes time for them to evaporate to nothing, but their disappearance is inevitable. Animals start to die as their water sources vanish, and wait, what about us? Where do we get to drink from? Our reservoirs are almost empty. Well, but no more bothersome rain is falling, isn’t that a good thing?!?

Devising a pill that wipes out menstruation is like creating a method for eradicating rain!

Both menstruation and rain are crucial to our life cycle. Either can be inconvenient, or enjoyed, depending on your attitude and willingness!

If you ever bundled up and took a toddler out in the rain, splashed in a paddle, or lifted your head up and tried to catch raindrops on your tongue, you know how joyful the “inconvenient” rain can be! And, yes, you must have also been terribly inconvenienced by rains on many occasions, as we all have. Is this a good enough reason to start working on methods for rain suppression?

Suppressing menstruation is as short sighted as rain suppression!

Starting with the fact that we don’t know what the long term hormonal repercussions might be, suppressing menstruation is tempering with the blueprint of womanhood! Women are cyclical beings. We ebb and flow with the moon, we dance a monthly rhythm of expansion and contraction, we move from outward- to inward-bound modes of being, from action to dreaminess, and back again… In the same way that we can not thrive in a no-rain world, we can’t thrive in a mono way of being. It is not how we are wired as women…

But what about PMS, cramps, mood swings?

Remember being miserable in the rain versus reveling in it? Rain is not there to inconvenience us. It’s there for a reason, and it calls us to be joyful in it if we so choose. Likewise, PMS and most physical or emotional symptoms related to menstruation are therefor a reason. They are our body’s wise way of calling our attention to the need to stop, rest, go inward, replenish… Suppressing menstruation is killing the messenger!

We can thank it instead…

We can thank our body for reminding us that we’ve been on the go and it’s time to stop for a while. We can appreciate the opportunity for taking stock, for renewing ourselves emotionally, just as our womb renews itself physically by shedding it’s inner lining monthly.

Fighting our body’s message will produce symptoms, or aggravate the mild ones which we ignore. Taking time off, on the 1^st day of your period, even if you can only spare a few moments in the morning before anyone else in the household gets up, will help you attune to your inner rhythm. Spend those moments (hours, or the entire day if you are able) reflecting on what you are letting go of from the ending cycle, and what you wish to welcome in the one beginning…

You may soon discover you are drawing strength and renewal from your body’s rhythm, rather than wanting to do away with it.

The manufacturers of the menstrual suppression pill would want to encourage you to not bother. To have every day be the same: sunny, dry, and linear. But who would you rather listen to: pharmaceutical companies or your own body?

__________________________________
© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

Or are you immediately under attack from your ‘Inner Critic’? Does your gaze zoom-in on the features you dislike most, and an inner harassing litany starts? Or do you focus on giving yourself a message of appreciation about who you are as a person?

If you criticize yourself every time you gaze at your own image in the mirror, you are not alone. Most women, unfortunately, are socialized to do just that.

If you have been working on loving and accepting yourself, you are not alone either. Many women have been laboring on this very path for years. Most find that they are successful some of the time, and slide back to the familiar judgmental-mode at others. One women wrote to me to say she is very mindful about not judging her body in front of her daughters, but when she is alone the internal barrage is as strong as ever…

Women understand that the self-critical current has to stop with us, or we will contaminate yet another generation with its stickiness: the precious generation of our daughters. Most women know we would highly benefit from loving our body in earnest, but don’t know how to turn off the Inner Critic’s voice…

Let’s start by playing detective!
Lets put aside the Judge’s hat, and put on an investigative cap instead With your detective cap on, ask yourself: Whose voice is that judging my body? Where did I first hear this voice? Is it one of my parents? An advertisement from my youth? A line from a movie?

Whoever this voice may belong to, it is Not your authentic voice!

Tracing the origins of your Inner Critic’s voice is the first step to liberation. This may be a slippery road, because you may get fully hooked by the temptation of wearing the Judge’s hat while trying to determine its origins… You might launch into a full-on criticism about yourself, but — each time you hear an inner judgment about your looks , you have the option of stopping, and tracing the origin of the voice. Whether or not it becomes clear who’s voice it is, the asking of this question alone gets you one step removed from being in its grip. You can send the voice back to where it came from, and breathe. Next, think of something you like about yourself and speak it in your mind.

You are erasing old tapes and replacing them with new ones. It takes time, indeed, but not nearly as long as it took to imprint them in your mind in the first place! And the freedom that comes as a result is priceless!

And here is the cherry on top:
Not only will you gain freedom from an exhausting, never-ending inner dialogue of negativity, but you will start modeling self-love and-self acceptance to your daughter!

The road to self-loving may be windy, but it starts with tracing the origins of the negative, self-loathing voices, and returning them to their originators. Practice this for a while, and see how liberating this feels… The next steps will consist of replacing the negative messages with positive ones, and we will talk about this in another article.

Meanwhile, help your Inner judge retire, and revel in your new-found freedom!

__________________________________
© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

Amy Elifritz 10.16.89 - 6.13.10

I first heard of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) in my late teens. I was still living in Israel, my country of origin, when my friend Sheila, a young American woman who recently emigrated to Israel, spoke about how it was possible to die of using tampons!

This was shocking (no pun intended) since neither my Mom, nor any of my friends, have ever heard of TSS. At the time everyone I knew was into the convenience of using tampons. Except me, that is, who couldn’t use them since my Mom was worried of a tampon piercing my hymen…

Looking back, Sheila didn’t give me a whole lot of information. She may have not had much herself. What I remember mostly is fear, and something about not leaving a tampon inside you for too long.

My next memory is from my early twenties. By that time I was already using tampons, since I’ve “lost” my virginity. Funnily, starting to use tampons felt almost like a bigger deal to me than my first sexual experience… The use of tampons, which was a “forbidden fruit” for quite a few years, seemed to me to be the epitome of “having arrived” to womanhood…

On that particular day I was on the beach, vacationing with my Dad and my brother. Upon going to the bathroom to change a tampon I discovered, to my young horror, that it started to split. Some of the tampon fiber stayed inside me. Remembering Sheila’s warning I was paralyzed with the thought that I could die from having these fibers in me, having tried unsuccessfully to pull them out. I thought I should go to the emergency room, but had no way of getting there by myself. There was only my Dad to turn to, as my Mom had died the year before. I remember not knowing what was worse: the risk of dying from some shock syndrome I knew nothing about, or the need to speak about tampons with my Dad…

Dad was understanding and supportive, as was the ER doctor, and the matter sank into oblivion until recently, when I realized women DO die of TSS, and I had hardly any information about it! Having been a Menstrual Empowerment Educator for some 20 years, my own lack of education on the subject felt embarrassing to me…

Not only did I not know that women still die of TSS, but I had no comprehensive information about symptoms, risk factors, or prevention. I’ve set to fill up this gap, and to spread the word among as many women and girls as possible. Education, as we all know, is power!

I found out how real TSS still is, by learning of Amy Elifritz, a healthy 20 years old, who died of TSS on June 13, 2010.

Amy’s mother, Lisa Elifritz, set out to educate women and girls worldwide about the risks and how to avoid them, by founding the non-profit organization ‘You ARE Loved.’

The organization’s opening statement is this: “TSS is real, it’s common, and it kills. 1 in 700 women will get tampon related TSS in their lifetime. It’s estimated that nationwide 5,000 to 10,000 cases of staphylococcal toxic shock syndrome now occur each year, making it as common as Lyme disease. TSS can strike any woman or girl without warning and can act so rapidly that more fatalities among tampon users are inevitable.” This is a sobering and thought provoking statement.

Lets take a look at the ‘You ARE Loved’ brochure:
“The Bottom Line -
If you have been using tampons and you experience flu-like symptoms and a fever, remove your tampon and go to the hospital immediately. Insist on getting blood work. If it is caught early enough, you have a much better chance of survival. Your Life Depends On It!”

“What is Toxic Shock Syndrome?
Toxic Shock Syndrome develops when the common bacteria, Staphylococcus Aureus, produce a toxin which is absorbed into the bloodstream. The toxin rapidly overwhelms the immune system and attacks the major organs, leading to kidney failure, collapse of the lungs and in severe cases, cardiac arrest. Alarmingly, half of all known cases of Toxic Shock are women using TAMPONS.”

“Symptoms of TSS -
* Sore throat.
* Aching muscles
* High temperature; over 102F
* Vomiting
* Headache
* Watery diarrhea
* Red rash
* Confusion
* Dizziness
* Very low blood pressure
Only one or two symptoms may occur. They do not necessarily occur all at once and may not persist.”

“What You Should Do -
* Remove the tampon (save it if possible)
* Seek IMMEDIATE medical attention
* Inform the doctor that you have been using tampons
* Take a TSS information leaflet with you”

“After Effects of TSS?
Survivors of Toxic Shock Syndrome may have been hospitalized for weeks and there is usually a long recovery period. They may have suffered:
* Loss of fingers and toes due to gangrene.
* Permanent kidney and liver damage.
* Deafness and blindness.
* Peeling skin, and loss of nails and hair.
* Continual infections
* Short term memory loss.
* No energy for months or even years.
* Psychological and emotional distress.”

“To Reduce the Risk of TSS
* Only use tampons made of organic cotton.
* Use the lowest absorbency needed at each stage of your period.
* Avoid using tampons continuously during a period. Alternate with sanitary pads at night so the toxins have time to dissipate.
* Use a pad at the end of your period.
* Change tampons every 4 to 6 hours.
* Don’t use tampons if you’ve had any unusual discharge.
* Wash your hands before and after use and handle the tampon as little as possible.
* Alert your family and friends to the symptoms and emergency action required.
* Read and keep this information leaflet or the leaflet inside the tampon packet.
* If you’ve ever had TSS, NEVER – EVER use tampons again!”

Being an all-or-nothing gal myself, I wonder why would any woman want to take the risk and continue using tampons at all?
I stopped using tampons (or any disposable menstrual products) some 17 years ago, as part of my journey of reclaiming menstruation. Using menstrual cloth pads has been a consciousness-altering experience that helped me shift form seeing menstruation as “the curse” (like my Grandma called it) to experiencing it as a deepening into my inner well-spring.

And we haven’t yet mentioned the environmental impact that would be saved by moving away from tampons and disposables, which are the number 2 cloggers of land-fills (following closely behind disposable diapers).

Learning of the real risks of TSS associated with tampon-use, I am given yet another reason for not using them. But for women who like the convenience of it, I recommend getting educated. It can truly save your life!

To find out more about TSS, go to: www.you-are-loved.org

I haven’t shopped for bras in a long time,

Eventually I found a little aisle that had a small un-padded selection. Checking for sizes my eye was drawn the tag, which shouted out in bold letters: Reduces size by 1.5”! I was dumbfounded. I realized I just couldn’t be alright the way I am! If I didn’t want to enlarge my breasts or push them up, I must want to reduce them…

Enhance or reduce, that is the question!

It seems that women can’t win. The main message these rows of merchandise were flashing at me, and all women, is that we need to hide what our bodies truly look like, and reshape it, so as to fool the eye of the beholder (men). A similar message was pushed on girls at the ‘training bra’ section. Aiming to get girls in the habit of disguising their natural body shape, the tags enticed them to make their bust look bigger (while everywhere else girls are looking the ads push slimness as the only desired shape). The one exception was that there were no Reduces size by 1.5”! models on offer here. All girls’ bras were heavily padded, insisting that they look like women before their time.

This is pure training in the art of deception!

Girls are offered only products that will enhance the size and shape of their young bodies. Women, on the other hand, are offered products that will either artificially enlarge their breasts, or put them in a straight jacket to make them appear smaller.

Like any other mask, such Breast Masks make sure that those looking at a girl or a woman’s body will receive the wrong impression. It also ensures disappointment on the observer’s part: when one is to look upon a woman’s bare breasts, the reality would be different than the marketed package. Either smaller or larger, there is going to be a clearly visible difference, which may well lead to a pronounced (or subtle) reaction. The message received by the beheld woman will be clear again: her body, her breasts, her natural form, are not good enough… And this, perhaps more than anything else, is what corporations want to imprint on women’s consciousness, starting at a very young age indeed.

Feeling not good enough will keep women in pain, which in turn will perpetuate their insatiable hunger for the next product to get them closer to the “ideal”; the next mask that will better hide their nature, or enhance it, to more effectively deceive their beholders.

I, for one, am not going to get my daughter anywhere near a department store for a “training bra.” What would it train her for??? Low self-esteem, dissatisfaction with her appearance, and the art of manipulation, designed to deceive herself and others regarding her body.

Instead, I tell her every day how beautiful she is!

_______________________________
© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved

My daughter, now 10, knows that her Yoni (Sanskrit for Vagina) means ‘Sacred Space.’

Last night she talked about her budding body, referring to it as sacred, in the manner she heard it spoken of since she was very young. Then, after a pause, she asked: “Mom, do men have sacredness in their body?” “Of course,” I replied. “In the same way that girls and women have a sacred space called Yoni, men have a sacred organ called ‘Lingam,’ which in Sanskrit means ‘Wand of light.”

- “Wow” she exclaimed, “that’s nice!”
- “In English the word is Penis” I said, “have you heard it before?”
- “Yeah,” she replied, “but I didn’t know what it was…”
- “In English,” I continued, “the word for Yoni is Vagina”
- “Yes, I remember” she said
- “You may hear the words ‘Vagina’ and ‘Penis’ more often than Yoni or Lingam,” I went on, “they describe the same parts of the body in different languages.”
- “People are embarrassed when they say them” she commented.
- “I think it is because they forgot the sacredness,” I replied.
- “And it’s private, too” she added.
- “Yes, these parts of us are the most sacred, and we keep them private. When people forget that their body is sacred, then all that’s left is the privacy part, and it can become embarrassing.”
My daughter changed the subject at this point, yet the exchange stayed with me well into the next day.

I was pondering the recent campaigns fighting sexualization of girls’ and women’s bodies by the media, which I wholeheartedly support. Yet when I read them, and more poignantly when I see the continual barrage of commercial sexualized images they are fighting, I am left with a sense of profanity. These images are horrifying, and I don’t want to see them, in a continual loop, to remind me what I am fighting. I don’t, actually, want to fight! I want to create alternatives!

I would like to see a barrage of strong, empowering images of girls and women. I’d like to be immersed in solutions! Similarly, I don’t want to “Stomp out Hunger” I want to Feed All! I don’t want to read bumper stickers that say “War is Not the Answer!” I’d like to see Peace is the Only Answer!

Eradicating girls’ sexualization is essential and deeply needed, starting with the fact that my computer underlines the word ‘Sexualization’ as an error, and the spell check has no alternatives. This is a metaphor to societal denial of sexualization as an issue.

I invite us all to decorate our homes with images of womanhood we wish our girls to see! It is not enough to shield them form the degrading ones, to raise our voices in protest, and to work toward their elimination. We need to seek, gather, and create the images that we wish today’s girls to be inspired by!

Inviting you all to HELP CREATE THE ALTERNATIVES:

Please post empowering images for today’s girls,
here, or on my Facebook page – Red Tents In Every neighborhood:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Tents-in-every-neighborhood/122438694447745
Together, we can change the world!

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© 2011 DeAnna L’am, All Rights Reserved