3 Unexpected lessons learned from topless sunbathing
It took all my courage, but once I did it, I was instantly hooked. The power was intoxicating, and the implications went far beyond the shores of Gran Canaria.
Like many of life’s unknowns, we don’t always know how an event or action will impact us. We may often need ‘processing’ time to fully understand its significance, sometimes weeks or months, sometimes years.
As an American holiday-maker visiting the UK and the Continent for 15 years, I encountered topless women sun-bathing before moving to the UK. I didn’t think much of it and chalked it up as another cultural difference. I had no strong feelings either way.
Reflecting back on it today, I realize that the reason I didn’t have strong feelings about it either way was because I was of two minds about it in general, essentially stuck between two ideological views.
On one hand, I was supportive of the long held European cultural tradition where it is neither sexualized nor objectified by media. Daughters, mothers and grandmothers exercised their right to sunbath topless together without judgement. On the other hand, I witnessed another side to it, mostly tourists seeking a near perfect tan. In this case, I viewed it as a sexualized act of defiance, frivolity or plain indulgence on the part of the privileged.
For 17 years I did not see the need to assert my right like a local, or indulge as one of the privileged tourists.
That is until my mid-40s, when I hit ‘rock bottom’ — after selling my business, getting laid off, selling my house, along with most of my possessions to move to another country — only to find myself as a hostile ‘homemaker’ with no job prospects and nothing else to lose! Why wouldn’t I go topless on a beach in the Canaries?
Two years later I understand why I had to do and how it has helped to release me from fears and realize my own power.
1. Fear of judgment by others
When I left home over 25 years ago to ‘make it in the world,’ I shed more than my ghetto clothing, speech and mannerisms, I lost the core of my confidence. In making the conscious decision to fit into a white business world, I slowly molded myself into other people’s definition of success. This transformational process was not easy, nor was it fun, but I knew that it was required to have a better life for myself. Today I am grateful for people who have helped me along the way, like my first badass female boss in New York City, whose constant correction helped me to avoid potentially threatening clients. ‘”You are not calling to ax’em, she’d say, “you are calling to ‘ASK’ them.”
However conscious my decision to ‘fit in,’ I was unconscious of the consequences. Over time, it eroded something more fundamental to me: the person I used to be before leaving my tribe. While I never lost confidence in my abilities, I had lost confidence in allowing myself to be the ‘real’ me. This is not an uncommon occurrence for many black professionals. It has many names and derivatives: ‘assimilating’, ‘leaning in’ and ‘selling out’. Regardless of the name, the principles are the same, and can be applied indiscriminately to anyone who fears other people’s judgements, for whatever reason.
When I took my top off, I was not expecting the immediate physical impact it would have on me. It brought me to tears. How could something so seemingly simple have such an unexpected impact? It is just that simple, and can be summed up in one word: freedom.
It was the first time in three decades that I felt the freedom to just be me — not the always-got-it-together, not the always-fitting-in, not the always-focused me — but, just the plain old me. Taking off my top symbolically peeled backed a career’s worth of trying to fit in to another world and instantly freed me from the mold of other people’s definition of success.
The relief was both immense and shocking.
2. Fear that judges others
Immediately after taking off my top, I also learned an important truth about myself- that I was both a coward and a hypocrite. I realized that it is far too easy to judge others’ actions, particularly when we ourselves do not have the courage to act. This phenomenon is a common occurrence in the business world, where successful women are particularly disliked by other women.
Once I accepted the fact that I was a coward, I realized that it was my own inability to act that was the cause of my conflict, not other women’s actions. And it was because of my lack of courage, which was the root of my well-hidden judgements about ‘some’ women who went topless. When I held up the mirror to look at my own judgements, I saw that I only judged those who I believed who were not ‘entitled’ to the right to go topless, that is, the privileged tourists seeking the near perfect tan. What my judgements prevented me from seeing was how much courage it took to do it.
That no matter the reason whether by birth or courage,
women are entitled to assert their rights and should not be judged for doing so.
3. Fear of my own power
The most profound lesson I learned is the one that has taken two years for me to process, and is how I feared my own power. Power is one of those overused words that often gets a bad rap.
What I mean here is the power from within ourselves. In Robert Firestone’s article “Personal Power: There is a clear distinction between personal and negative power,” he writes:
“Personal power is based on strength, confidence, and competence that individuals gradually acquire in the course of their development. It is self-assertion, and a natural, healthy striving for love, satisfaction and meaning in one’s interpersonal world. This type of power represents a movement toward self-realization and transcendent goals in life; its primary aim is mastery of self, not others. Personal power is more an attitude or state of mind than an attempt to maneuver or control others.”
It was this lack of personal power that gave rise to fears in the business world. Each time I attended a networking or chamber event I fought back a quiet panic attack whenever I walked into a room full of men in suits. I was intimidated by my social conditioning that led me to believe that they were more ‘powerful’ than me.
In my mind, it was obvious they knew more about business than me, a 5 foot tall black, fair trade retail, women business owner. It didn’t matter that my business survived The Great Recession when several dozen had not, nor did it matter that I advised others how to save and grow theirs. The problem was all in mind, my state of mind. I did not accept, believe or own my own strength, courage, competencies, determination…in other words, my own power.
Today, when I walk into a crowded room, I remind myself of the power I felt walking across a crowded beach in my size 14 bikini bottoms, over the age of 40 – and I say to myself, I got this.
Marcie L. Boyer is author of What I Know about Jumping: Real life lessons on finding the courage to make major life change available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.
#courage #jumping #IWD2016
