Nobody understands disdain like a woman whose man has found himself a new woman. Nobody understands self scrutiny and criticism quite the way a teenage girl does. Though for the teenage girl, this initial fear that she might not be ‘enough’ usually subsides. But then adulthood presents yet another card, the physical changes of growing older and of being pregnant [for some].

I once asked my mother what it felt like to be old. I definitely hope that I phrased it better than that.

“I feel like I’m still the same inside. It’s the outside that has changed,” she replied.

It is one of the paradoxes of life, I suppose. That your inner spirit would remain the same, influenced only by your experience of life while your outer body ages. Some have attempted to reflect the youthfulness they feel inside with silicon boobs and fillers but it has not been a total success. It is interesting that, the age at which most women will eventually wish they could freeze in time is the same face and body, that they did not at that point in time find beautiful. The severely fragmented body part fetish culture that is the norm today definitely makes it more difficult. It seems to condense women into only a pair of twerking bums or a private part.

It has its advantages. It compliments the age old running theme of the world – the power struggle between men and women, whereby the objectification and lessening of one part of the human population has scored us women very poorly on the value card.

A woman’s value has been tied to her beauty for a very long time. That is why, whenever we look into the mirror, more than looking for whether we are still beautiful, we look for whether we are still valuable.

And because women’s beauty has been tied to age (‘Sweet Sixteen’), we think our value has an expiry date. Many women joke that they have declared themselves the same age for many years. And those are the honest ones! That is why the dreaded, “How old do you think i am?” always actually means, do you think I’m STILL beautiful? Do you think I’m lovable?

Back to pregnancy

Pregnancy for me came with both the anxiety of spontaneous body changes, a sense of duality and a loss of connection to my body. A duality perceived and cultivated by righteous perfectionism that I struggled with during another season.

I got the round popping baby bump I wanted but later on in my trimesters I began to worry that it was a little too big. Having a short torso and a big baby not only meant that I got too tired to walk or stand for long periods of time without reeling back and forth but it also meant that my baby pushed out on my intra- abdominal muscles and affected my back alignment. And in these aspects, part of my fears of losing myself had manifested.

One evening at committee meeting for a wedding ceremony, seven months pregnant- tired, round and roughed up by acne, a friend of my mother’s came up to me and exclaimed, “You look beautiful!” My response was a muddled and confused, “Really?” and “Thank you” and then I rushed to the bathrooms filled with emotion and brimming tears. I could tell that she really meant it.

After birth

I would say, the first look after birth should be extended to at least a week. It is not just the swollen touched out body, it’s just that the demanding wails and absolute rights to the milk tanks is enough to burn you out.

But when you do take that first look, you must treat myself with dignity even though you might not like what you see. Your body will probably always remember that it carried a baby. Your heart does too. Treating yourself with dignity means speaking well to yourself and taking steps to get your physique where you want it to be. I have found, that yoga and dancing do that for me. Though I have not been free to do yoga due to the high risk of increasing my diastasis recti. This I did not anticipate.

In the meantime, I have discovered that it is important to appreciate our bodies WHOLLY but that it is also important to go deeper. We will most probably also find that we are good friends, business women, caretakers, professionals, good cooks, writers, dancers, singers, tailors and we offer much more than just tourist incentives.