Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) Aug/Sept 2017 Aspire Mag Full Issue | Page 77

Yes, the body of EVERY woman is freakin’ gorgeous and alluring beyond measure, but physical beauty is only the tip of the iceberg of what your body is made for. The rest of the iceberg reveals itself when you back away from the magazine stand and shield your eyes from the shiny promise of Ten Ways to Get Flat Abs in Ten Days. You gaze down at the massive iceberg underwater, and start to see your body not as a misbehaving mess but as a wellspring of intuitive intelligence — of the magnitude that funded Einstein. You start to see that being in your skin can be about fully embodying your genius. You start to understand that your pleasure mediates your confidence; meaning, the better you feel, the better you will feel about yourself. (Which is about as far as you can get from the evangelism of under eating and over-achieving). You start to realize that you needn’t sanitize your body or purify your desires in hopes of becoming spiritually worthy, but that, baby, you were born that way. We learn to fear our brightness and dim down out of duty and deference, like a plug dangling from the wall. (And I wonder why we feel powerless and disconnected). And that built into your bones and into your hottest longings is your very own factory- installed, direct line to the Divine. It is as though we are in a pitch-dark room, groping for the light switch, grasping at each piece of fad advice to help us see where we are going. MISCONCEPTION #3 You can be polite, pleasing, or perfect, but not powerful. It’s dripped into our veins via our baby bottles: don’t be too big, too loud, or too much. Stay small. Don’t overpower anyone. Don’t take up space. And if you do, damn it, apologize. But the truth is, the light switch is located in precisely the last place you’d ever think to look, right inside you. You ARE a light source. In this wacky world, it takes something to stay lit up. In fact, because it seems that modern life and dominant culture is designed to dull your shine, you need to joyfully practice cultivating your light. 77