37Do you love this article?Show the author your support by hearting.
This week was World Breastfeeding Week and you may have come across magical pictures like this on your social feeds.
Because Instagram and Facebook now allow photos like this as well as uncensored birth photos.
How pictures like this make you feel can help lead you to your next actions:
Are you disgusted?
Educate yourself. Educate yourself about birth and about women’s bodies. Ask yourself why you feel that way. Now take all that information and use it to empower yourself—to be an advocate, an ally, to teach others, to add empathy into the world about something that touches us all.
Feeling embarrassed?
Don’t be! I’m not. I did have fear posting this photo. But my fear is breakable, my community strong. I remember that it just takes one drop to ripple an entire pond.
Sexualizing my body?
Know that you can’t—only I can, and I’m not giving up that power. Those thoughts say more about you than they do about me. Think of the females in your life—how you would feel if someone dictated what their body meant and acted on it? Change your thinking and make the world a safer place for women to celebrate their bodies.
Feeling like you could never?
You could. You may have lain vulnerable and open, raw and powerful, bringing life into this world. You may have roared as contractions rocked your body, bearing down. You may have given in to a space where shame doesn’t exist, just unbridled strength.
You could never? Mama, you already did. Remember your strength, your beauty, and never forget that those things live inside you—are you—and you can draw on them when you need to empower yourself.
Feeling pride for this community, the birth community that you are a part of because you were born once too?
You see the magic, you get the movement. You’re tickled pink by that drop of mama’s milk, you understand the history it holds, and you honor those roots. Take hold of them, plant them in others, and watch them span generations.
Your actions matter. Your words matter. Make them count.
Happy World Breastfeeding Week!
AUTHOR: LAUREN ARCHER
IMAGE: AUTHOR'S OWN
No comments:
Post a Comment