Mother's Day on a Pole

This Mother's Day, I decided to devote part of the day to loving myself a little bit more. As mothers, we spend most of our time nurturing our children and our spouses, and we are often last on the to-do list. The outcome of this lack of self-nurturing is that everyone eventually suffers. Happy moms = happy families. Balanced moms = balanced parenting. Depleted moms = impatient and poorly functioning moms.

I got an email a few days before Mother's Day from a dance fitness instructor I met at a  hip-hop class back in December. She now teaches at S-Factor, the school of Pole Dancing in New York, and she generously invited me and a friend to a complimentary intro class on Mother's Day. I jumped at this opportunity to stretch myself way out of my comfort zone and experience this new form of self-expression, even though a part of me was totally freaked out. 

My kids were a little embarrassed that mom was going to be dancing on a pole. Here's what my fourteen-year old daughter wrote in her Mother's Day card: "I love you so much and I hope that you had fun stripping today : )" 

Well, I need to point out that no stripping took place in my intro class! What did happen is that I learned to get really connected to loving my body. I realized that most of the time I am paying attention to the area of my body that exists from the neck up. Most of us are comfortable with our heads, our brains. The body is often in disconnect and disapproval. 

We begin to criticize our bodies from a very young age. I remember somewhere around age twelve when I first became conscious of not liking my thighs. I would be thrilled to have those twelve year-old thighs now! And I am learning to love and appreciate my body right now, in all of it's wonder and glory. There is much freedom in learning to love ourselves more.

Pole dancing, as described by the instructors at the end of class, is a journey to the self. It has brought women to a new level of self-acceptance. Wouldn't it be great if we all accepted ourselves just a little bit more? 

I invite you to thank your body for all that is has given you. You can begin anywhere you like, just begin with a body part and thank it for it's gifts. Today, I thank my feet for their ability to walk, dance, hop, skip and jump. I just had my toes painted red with flowers on the big toes. Every time I look at them I smile.

What body part will you thank today?