I just had the most unexpected spam come into my inbox, a haunting from a time I’d forgotten. I don’t think I’ve ever received an email from this business, so my assumption is that they’re really scraping the barrel and digging into old records to bump up their mailing list. I get it. Tough times.

Also trusting that the world’s getting an overhaul, and what’s meant to die will die.

I’d been deep down in my magic womby world these past days. I’d just come up for a group call with some of my vibrant tribe. Then I checked my email. All I could think was – “Really? This is the world?”

It read like this:

“Ditch the Dimples! Banish The Bulge! Target your problem areas such as bingo wings, abdomen, stomach, back fat and love handles. You’ll feel more confident than ever!”

I’m not judging anyone for wanting to be slimmer or look younger.

I just hate that we’ve allowed the phrase “problem areas” to exist.

We’ve let the demon in.

I’m trying to not even judge the industry. Whatever.

I’m trying instead to bring more awareness to how I feed that “not-good-enough” demon. Because everything is fractal.

So many industries thrive off feeding the demon – they know we don’t think we’re good enough, and they tell us why. And vice versa. I drove through a deserted high-street shopping district last week, during lockdown in Auckland, on the way to buy groceries. In the absence of people, with the absence of participation, the vapidness of the whole show was stark, almost comedic. All the shit we never needed, that was never going to make us feel better, on display in unlit shop windows.

What if you started your day with the supposition that you were absolutely fucking perfect? With the assumption/assertion that you were pure spirit, sung into a unique soul that is YOU, that happens to be living in your absolutely gorgeous physical body?

Where, then, would you put your time and your money?

Becoming aware of your true nature doesn’t mean that you have to remove yourself from the world of things and money and consumerism – instead, bring your soul, bring spirit into it.

Because spirit is already in it. And your noticing makes all the difference.

There’s a reason I received that email – I had breast reduction surgery at that clinic in Ireland about nine years ago. I was having back pain and was assured that I could get it funded because I was an “emergency” case – BMI and cup size were disproportionate enough that I was considered a medical abnormality. Lol.

I’m not complaining.

My back pain disappeared. It was a “medical procedure”.

However, it was also cosmetic. It made me feel a lot better. It made me feel more confident not carrying around these things that I hated. HATED.

My breasts made me feel like more of an object than I already felt like at twenty-one, a woman who’d been brought up basically told that, to most men, that’s all she’d ever be.

I’m blaming no one here. The only person who has the power to truly objectify you, is you.

I love my breasts now, scars and all. But if I had learned just a little earlier what I had learned later – that I could love myself and claim my sexuality and womanhood – I’m not certain that I would have put my body through so much trauma. I had years of pain and shame afterwards.

I would never judge anyone for going under the knife – honestly. But was it the “right” thing to do for me?

I truly don’t know.

But what I do know is that nothing mattered until I started truly loving myself.

The physical pain from the scar tissue only went away when I started loving myself.

And now, not a soul on this earth can “objectify” me. Because people will see you how you see yourself.

But get this.

After I started writing this in my fuming outrage, my fire started to fizzle to a mild confusion, it then turned into a quiet questioning – am I actually okay with getting old gracefully?

Do I really love my scars? Do I love my grey hairs? Do I love my changing face?

I shit you not, I visited their website and ended up passively researching cosmetic treatments for about half an hour; what started as outrage turned into self-doubt very quickly.

I had let the demon in.

The demon that whispers “yeah, go on, have your opinions, but you know what – you’re not good enough.”

That shit is evil.

And it’s not me.

So what to do?

For me, the only option is to banish it, with tough love.

I can love the innocence, the naivety, the porousness of ME; how easily energies and thoughts can come in and pollute the mind and the heart. I can love my human weakness and the psychic battle scars that leave me vulnerable. But I don’t have to accept that demonic energy as the truth. That energy of not-good-enough, of sabotage, of wanting to disconnect and self-destruct – it is an energetic force that exists and is not me. Although it is my responsibility to disengage from it.

If that doesn’t resonate, there are other ways of understanding all this – go figure.

The point I’m making is – love yourself through the not loving yourself. It’s okay. You’re perfect.

Of course, I’m happy to see a much more varied expression of beauty and body type than I ever saw when I was a teenager. Mainstream media is catching on.

Still, no matter how smart the marketing gets, nothing’s as smart as you when you close your eyes and listen to what’s inside.

That is your power.

What are you going to do with it?