Women and mothers have the most amazing, difficult, passionate, and inspiring stories to tell about their bodies, their tiger stripes, stretch marks, or their thinning out, their gaining weight, their breast-feeding, their miscarriages and beyond. So many stories swirl around these bodies of ours and sharing our stories is the best way to empower ourselves, to realize we are not alone, to help others embrace their own bodies.
Silence is a killer, emotionally.
By telling your story maybe you help another woman feel strong enough to tell hers.
Why do we hide, why do we cover these amazing vehicles for new life, why do we sometimes live in shame about that which is magical?
If you have a story to tell, please email [email protected]
Please include your name, city/state/country, phone number, email, and your story. Please do NOT include a photo. My partner Alok and I read through all of your stories and we try to respond to everyone. If we pick yours for inclusion, we will notify you about finding a way to get you into my studio for a private shoot or I may be able to come to you!
Take Your Time! Compose your thoughts. There is no rush. Take notes. Maybe write an outline of your memories, thoughts, & feelings. Then, sit down, and write your story!
Here are some questions that can guide your story but by no means are these required guidelines:
- How do you feel about your body?
- What story or stories have you been carrying with you?
- Was there a specific moment that defined your story or is it layered over time? Explain.
- What hopes and dreams do you have for future generations of women?
- What has helped your progress to feel beautiful?
- Do you have marks from child-birth and what story do those represent for you?
- Have you been keeping anything inside that you wish you could finally get out?
- Have you been able to improve how you feel about yourself and if so, how?
- Did you struggle to get pregnant? Did you have a miscarriage?
- Did you ever have to abort a pregnancy?
- What is your story about your body?
- What would you like to be different in how you view your story and your body?
The Drum Is Beating For Women To Feel Empowered Around The World! -Jade
By sharing your story, you are agreeing that it may be shared publicly by me online, in print, for my book projects, and beyond. If you prefer to be anonymous, please indicate that.
Women around the world, the drum is beating for you to be heard!
Thank you,
-Jade
You are embarking on a long over due concept and for that I thank you.
I love what you’re doing
I’ve miscarried, had a Caesar and a VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesar). All of them have shaped who I am today, both physically and emotionally.
My miscarriage was relatively emotionally and physically painless.
At the time, I was deeply upset by my Caesar, but I managed to moved on, partly by deciding to have a VBAC with my second child. My Caesar scar is very faint, and can hardly be seen now (4 years on) but it holds a special place in my heart. Two years ago I successfully gave birth vaginally to my second child, however about 1/2 an hour after giving birth, something ‘popped’ just on the inside of my left hip bone, and a golf-ball sized lump appeared. Within 20 mins I had lost consciousness and was being rushed to theatre, with a large mass in my pelvis. I went in for emergency exploratory surgery, which lasted over two hours, and came out with a scar running from just below my belly button to my pubic bone. The scar is about 1cm wide, slightly crooked & puckered in places, and about 12 cm long - and my tummy bulges slightly around it! I also have a small indented scar where the drain was. So all in all, in my size 12-14 tummy looks somewhat scarred…..but in a strange way I am proud.
I am proud that I miscarried easily and painlessly when my 8 week old baby had failed to develop properly.
I am proud that I gave birth via c-section to a gorgeous healthy baby girl - my scar reminds me of meeting my wonderful baby for the first time.
I am proud that after a long and difficult labour, I gave birth vaginally to a beautiful baby boy. I still don’t know what happened after giving birth to cause the massive haemorrhage that almost cost me my life, but I am proud of my battle scars. They remind me that I am strong, and that life is precious.
While I sometimes lament my ‘pot-gut’, I try to remind myself that my less than picture perfect body has served me and my family well, and that that is far more important than looking like the unrealistic images we constantly see portrayed by the media as ‘real women’. Real women have battle scars!
Anna, will you send me your story to [email protected]? Thank YOU! -Jade
i have a so many surgeries ive lost count. I was born with a congenital defect of the urinary tract.
when I was young I tried to coax life out of my broken body. I suffered early miscarriages and then lost my son 22 weeks into my longest pregnancy. 20 years later I grieved again when I had to have my uterus, ovaries and cervix removed, i felt attached to the place where my baby once squirmed and kicked. After I felt empty and castrated. My brother passed away a few months ago, and i still have his kidney (via transplant in 2003) implanted in my abdomen, still working, still giving me life. I have the most beautiful son in the world, a gift from my sister who was 16 and to lost to care for him. My belly is a patchwork of scars, reminders of past procedures and old sufferings. But i can go from scar to scar and tell my story, Im the only one who has this belly! bless you and your project! When are so much more than the narrow standard of beauty by which we are defined, and then discarded as we age…..t
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i have had so many surgeries ive lost count. I was born with a congenital defect of the urinary tract.
when I was young I tried to coax life out of my broken body. I suffered early miscarriages and then lost my son 22 weeks into my longest pregnancy. 20 years later I grieved again when I had to have my uterus, ovaries and cervix removed, i felt attached to the place where my baby once squirmed and kicked. After I felt empty and castrated. My brother passed away a few months ago, and i still have his kidney (via transplant in 2003) implanted in my abdomen, still working, still giving me life. I have the most beautiful son in the world, a gift from my sister who was 16 and to lost to care for him. My belly is a patchwork of scars, reminders of past procedures and old sufferings. But i can go from scar to scar and tell my story, Im the only one who has this belly! bless you and your project! When are so much more than the narrow standard of beauty by which we are defined, and then discarded as we age…..t
.
I have a lot of body hair. I’m tired of being ashamed of my body hair. I’m tired of feeling like people think it is dirty. I have a lot of pubic hair. I have wiry hairs around my nipples. My arm pits want to grow long wavy hair. I have a few hairs on my chest, my chin, and the mole on my cheek. My 7 and 8 yo daughters swear that they will never grow body hair. Please include some hairy women in your book.
I don’t have a story and can’t find my scoliosis beautiful. all I can do is be glad it is not worse. and I do not have enough special people in my life. like some guy I was attracted to loved me and i felt it. but I do not feel the kind words, and I need to put myself down to have people say I am beautiful.
Like many women I know, I spend a lot of time looking back at 5 or 10 year old pictures and wishing I still looked like that. Yet, I hated my body back then too. I decided that before I make grand sacrifices to improve my physical body, I need to correct my self image. I haven’t felt beautiful since I was pregnant. I had my daughter in my 2nd year of grad school. This year I graduate with a PhD in Mathematics. I got offered a great job and my daughter, almost 3, is absolutely amazing. I am very proud of my accomplishments, but I keep hearing a voice in my head that says “She’s accomplished a lot, but she used to be beautiful, and now she’s fat.” And I get defensive for a minute, thinking it is a stranger’s voice. “Voice, you can’t judge me!, You don’t have the right to diminish my accomplishments down to my physical appearance!” Then I realize it is my own voice. I have a lot of work to do.
I want my daughter to grow up knowing she is beautiful, and not equating beauty to physical characteristics. Yup, I have a lot of work to do.
Ghazal for Unspoken Sorrow
What will become of us, our son resting along the line of my hip, hum.
The sweet whimper-whine his breath makes, lip pressing lip, hum.
In our half-dark, we hush hands and mouths while he’s asleep in the room,
the stretched and scarred afterbirth of my body unfolding a deep rooted hum.
Thin white milk streams from my nipples onto your chest, a praise of unspoken sorrow. My body weeps without permission, a primitive, broken hum.
A Monk said, you cannot know compassion until you love your own mother, absolutely.
If I exhaled completely, I could die from such abandon, my heart shutter-stopping hum.
Today, I light three candles, chant, Om Mani Padme Hum.
Megan, let compassion have the gravity of stone. Om Mani Padme Hum.
Mother of 2 beautiful girls that I love and I would not trade for anything in the world. Like many other mom after the birth of my first daughter appeared stretch marks on my stomach, my thighs, my buttocks and breasts, it does not bother me too much until one day someone told me that I should hidden them, that was not beautiful. When I got pregnant with my second girls, stretch marks have grown and intensified. I just finished my nursing and my breasts have not and will not resume their shape and size before the pregnancy. I did not lost all the weight after my second delivery. I still 20lbs to fat. I no longer wear bikini in public, and I’m still afraid of the way others look at me. When I see what you are doing, I said, I should be proud of what my body performs: he create two children. The marks on my body are evidence and memories of my two pregnancy. I hope that your work will help women of today and future generations to accept their body as it is. I shared your page hoping it will help the most people as possible around me and shows all those who laughed at me and at the other, that all women are beautiful despite the scars, stretch marks, over weight and more.
Thank you for your good work
Katia