Sorry for the long lapse - we have been ridiculously, fabulously busy - my blogs have been suffering because of it.

So, I saw a fantastic documentary a few weeks ago called, “In The Family,”by a local Chicago documentary film maker named Joanna Rudnick.  Joanna found out at 31 that she is a carrier of the BRCA-1 genetic mutation which means she has an increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.  (See http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/brca/test.html to learn more about BRCA 1 and the test for it)  The movie shows Joanna’s journey to understand this “condition” and in doing so, she meets some amazing women who have or have had breast or ovarian cancer - some late stage and others who are in remission at the time of filming.

The most powerful moment in the film, to me, came when various women, survivors of breast cancer, showed their bodies to the camera - with all their scars and imperfections.  Some are proud, others look sad, but it was so powerful just seeing these women’s bodies after under going various surgeries and procedures.

What I keep thinking about is how the scars we bear as women show the road maps of our lives; scars from a C-section, even the wrinkles on our face are lines of a journey, lines of wisdom, of sadness, of joy.  These women have unique scars they received from treatment from cancer and it’s incredibly powerful to look at em.  Everyone has scars.  I have scars from my surgeries, you, potentially from yours, or maybe from the bumps and scrapes of life.  Sometimes those scars and lines are hard to bear, hard to look at and sometimes it’s hard to even feel feminine with them.  As I watched the movie, I though, “How do they do that?  How do they feel feminine with all that “stuff” happening to them?” 

I don’t have the answer to the “how” of that; I think it is really hard.  The commitment I’ve made in my life is to help women through my work and through our organization to try and help them do exactly that.  Feel sexy, be powerful and life positively while they struggle wth the challenges of reality, sicknesses, challenges and other bumps and bruises of life.

We do it at WHF through health, fitness & education, all channeled, all starting in the pelvis.  Things like Total Control are not the end all, be all, but they can help change the quality of a woman’s life - and maybe even how she looks at her body.  Maybe what we can do is even help a woman connect back to her true center of power (the pelvis) and, in doing so, she may be a little more apt to really look at herself a bit more positively the next time in the mirror.  Bumps and bruises and scars and all!

Be well,

Missy

p.s. Tell me how you stay feeling feminine, sexy or even “OK” with your body if you have dealt with a major illness……