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body love & body image

Sep 09
0

Getting tattoed – a powerful healing moment

By | body love & body image, health & well-being, self esteem & self confidence, women's life changes and transitions | No Comments

Today was a day I took flight in a new direction.  Age 54 and with half my life of parenting under my belt and my last child about to fly the nest, I chose a tattoo as my marker of my menopausal moments which are part of my current rite of passage of flying my own nest of what was, to what is becoming.

My tattoo symbol is the feather.  A spirit messenger totem – and one that asks me to continue my close intuitive, conversational and enquiring nature with my inner spirit and to open my senses to promptings.  It represents a bird flying the nest – reminding me that I have watched 5 of my 6 children fly the coop while the next one is slowly finding his wings in preparation for flight somewhere in the next few months.  It is also the sign of my Dad in spirit as he reveals himself through the sound of his / a bird’s whistle.

The feather too lead me 7 years ago to my soulmate Pierre with whom I got engaged this week.  After a chance meeting with a Native American man, who presented me one day with a feather, and then a Maori man who did the same, this seemed too much of a coincidence to ignore, with both men being strong, salt of the earth types with strong cultural roots and leadership and warrior-like qualities. This series of feather totems was followed by the third man, my lovely French man, arriving on our blinddate with a “feather /fern” tattoo on his arm and his “warrior” type energy.  His cat too, named “Plume,” (French for feather) sealed the deal!  Soulmates coming together in that moment was meant to be.

So fresh to being tattooed, having never ventured there before, and just having celebrated my birthday engagement and entering a “new beginnings year” numerologically, it felt right to be marking my life’s milestones today in symbols at this pivot point in my life.

Whilst noticing the physical discomfort of being “inked”, I chose to drift into reminescing and connecting in Spirit to important people in my life who had passed.  I wandered through my maternal grandparents’ place and recollected memories, smells, rooms, and reminders of them both.  I headed into my paternal grandparents’ place and reminded myself of the “haven” it had been for many guests.  I revisited the house where my husband (now ex) and I brought up the 3 oldest of our kids and the memories of all things family.   I cried in this moment.  My Spirit recognised many aspects of the people, places, pain-points and life’s pleasurable moments which had placed high on my life’s impact list, and the ultimate healing message today was this:

“You have given all Janelle.” 

Who thought having a tattoo could be a healing moment?  Today, it felt some “lightness” came over me after many years of pain, struggle and transitions as well as so much joy, and this message soothed my soul, like a mother’s light touch or that of a feather.

www.janellefletcher.com

Apr 05
0

You make me feel like a natural woman

By | body love & body image, health & well-being, relationships, intimacy & sex, women's life changes and transitions, Written Articles | No Comments

Do you know the Aretha Franklin song “Natural Woman”?  Listen to it here.  a natural woman

My favourite lyrics are these:

When my soul was in the lost-and-found
You came along to claim it

And that got me thinking.

Do we need some “other person” to help us feel like a natural woman?  And what is a “natural woman”?

As always I simply give you my humble perspective, but for me, my experience of feeling lost for numbers of years, lead me down a dark path.  Where did that lost feeling come from?  From not feeling included, from feeling different and from feeling very alone.  My soul simply felt lost and didn’t know where to find itself or find its place.

During that period of teenagehood where I isolated myself within the world of academia and imprisonment of eating disorders and the secrecy and privacy of that,  I really did not feel womanly, and certainly not a “natural” woman. And the same goes following my marriage split when I felt so alone and humbled to little.

If I reflect on womanliness, in those two periods of my life, I found myself dressing quite asexually.  My religious upbringing also herded me into less than “natural-free-spirited-woman clothing”.

I didn’t enjoy fluidity in my body. Yes I played some sport and yes I did my daily walking, but I did not feel the flowing, flirtatious and fun-induced movement in my step as a “natural woman” would.

I did not learn the art of make-up, and therefore opted for “natural.”

During my singledom I opted for what I call “mechanical” sex.  Some would call it “friends with benefits”.  This, for me, is not natural.  Love-making within a loving relationship is.  Allowing myself since then to learn fuller sexual expression is the freedom I gift myself and another as I learn to embrace more of my “natural womanliness”. It is an interesting path to explore such vulnerability, nakedness and naturalness with another.

A natural woman oozes femininity – but that is not something I was schooled in, role-modelled or had the option of exploring until years after my marriage split, when I started to see some light.  Dresses and shoes and sexy lingerie, I chose to enjoy. Being less controlling and more receptive became my way of being.  Seeking someone to compliment my femininity became my yearning – in the sense of finding a man in his own natural strong masculinity.

I guess when I think about the lyrics, my soul was in the lost and found department and yes I was desiring someone, not to come and “claim me”, but for two souls – each complete – to find each other and create a brand new “whole”. And this is what happened after years of patience, finding my own wholeness and learning to be more of my “natural” self – void of too many material possessions, too much “baggage” and too many tick-charts of what my ideal soulmate would be like.

And what do I think about someone claiming my soul that was lost?  I’m not sure it’s the right word.  For me it felt more that we found each other and we are each part of each other’s soul healing and we are both part of finding ourselves again in a new light.  Yeah to that and the joys and challenges that brings us!