Our Relationship with Make Up – are we able to truly embrace the Lillith within us? Part of my story to truly accept all of myself, both inside and out. Including an exercise we can all use.

I have been going through a very personal, very feminine healing journey over nearly the last year or so. I’m not going to reveal the full details to you all, but this information is being revealed within me, so that I can help facilitate this in others too. It will form the basis of workshops and a new healing modality I am developing.

So some of you may hear more in those vulnerable moments, where we discuss things face to face in a workshop.

I have not struggled to embrace the Maid/Modernity, the Mother/Creation or the Crone/Wisdom, we all must embrace. But recently I have been struggling with my self image.

I have clients and others that have pushed themselves too close; crossed boundaries which I haven’t asked them to do. Boundaries that I shy away from.

And this has been the story of my life.

I am friendly, I like to embrace and chat to people. Because of the way I look, people can read into that more than there is.

Then I feel guilty. I must have made them fancy me. How many women have been made to feel guilty about having other’s feelings pushed upon them? It is all violation and I have had many men make me feel like I’m dirty or just a piece of meat, and it’s my fault for looking the way that I do.

From the guy in the club that get’s aggressive because as nicely as you can you refuse his drink, to the old guy at work who can’t keep the sexual comments about a 16 year old, child like me, to himself, to being clearly denied work roles or promotions because your female, but still being placed in certain roles simply for your looks, to the guys taking it too far sexually because of what they want rather than the signs that we’ve given . . .

So I’ve always steered away from and purposefully not used my ‘power’, my feminine guile to get me anywhere in life. Proving my ability, and my intelligence and my strength in terms of the masculine side of my personality. But that doesn’t mean a girl wants to look after the way she looks.

But this has got me nowhere. Men still misread the signs and make our friendships uncomfortable or undoable for me but continually, and dis-respectfully, pushing it. Dirty old men still make the most lewd and disgusting comments. Odd balls are still attracted to me, and end up with almost stalker behaviour. Men telling me that I’m charming and alluring and I know it.

And the guilt and self-loathing I feel as a result of their view of me, of the shame of my own sexuality and my own beauty.

I’ve tried to change myself. I actually have.  I am friendly. I am chatty. I am interested in people. I luuurrrve to talk. But the way I am with women, is the same that I am with men. But why should I be a b***ch just to keep people at arms length? Why should I be someone I wouldn’t like? Why should I restrain what is actually a really wonderful side of myself?

Women accept it as friendship. But with some men they can’t. I provide a professional service. I am a healer. And it’s one thing being asked out in a gentemanly way, but those who try and try again, who come back at me in so many angles, I find it damaging.

I open my energies entirely when I work with people, whether it is readings, healing or development. So when I work with people over time, a bond is inevitably formed. When that bond is then tried to be forced into a direction and purpose for which it never was intended, actually causes me an energetic injury. Especially when my kindly, soft approach doesn’t work, on several occasions and I have to draw on a strong part of myself to ensure understanding and this normally means a bond needs to be broken.

This happening from time to time is something I can handle and work through. But this happened with several people in a very short space of time. Forcing me to react. I am not a believer in coincidence and knew this was a lesson for me somehow.

I retreated within myself; I can’t change who I am as a person, so maybe I shouldn’t be doing this work. Maybe I should just concentrate on the kids and the house. Ok, I love my kids but I’m a poor housewife! Can I have a caveat which reads I’ll only take on clients who are female, or gay or happily married men? Tongue in cheek yes, but my husband laughed at least.  Followed by you must be yourself, doing the type of work you do you are going to get the odd, damaged soul, who doesn’t get it. If they don’t get that you’re married and that they are hear to see you in a professional capacity then you maybe should be a little stronger and blunter to with your response initially.

Ok, I can do that. But still I felt injured and like I still hadn’t got through this, as a learning experience. I still felt angry; angry at my kindness being twisted into something it was not, angry at my friendliness being abused, angry at the violation. I knew I had more healing to do over this situation; I couldn’t go around being angry with men all the time, could I?

But what I really feared was the only way forward I saw. My self image. I had to reject my self image, I felt, in order to reject all who saw me as a sexual object, as a prize to be owned.

So I removed my own image from as much as I could. Sekhmet, the Lioness Goddess, in her power protecting that space. Giving me a face when I felt I could have none. Protecting me. And I thank her for taking me through this.

Female friends, quite rightly said, why should I be less then I was just so that men didn’t get the right idea. Why should I be any less a version of myself.

But I don’t see that beauty is one of my natural attributes. It’s a facet if myself that I paint on, that I create. I had very, very bad acne and very pale skin and eyelashes. So at a young age I learned to cover up and change my appearance so I didn’t have cruel comments; so that others would value me. My beauty was not won easily, but I know it had to be this way so I didn’t have a big Ego, so I wasn’t one of the ‘Mean Girls’.

Underneath this I feared the somewhat androgynous shy little girl. I feared her being my face; feared showing my vulnerability. But you know what, maybe this is what the world needed to see instead. The real me. F**k all men and f**k everyone. I’ve always said I would be myself and noone else. This would be the epitome of it. If they didn’t like it, didn’t like me, you know what? Shove it! The real me, the ugly me, they could have that. That would keep everyone at arms length.

So I spoke to a couple of ‘sisters’. I decided to sit down in front of the mirror and remove all my make up and really look at myself. Something I hadn’t done for 24 years. And I would encourage everyone to do the same thing, whether you have layers of make-up to remove, or just those additions to your own image which you use to define yourself.

I stripped off everything, right down to my post baby body and removed my wedding rings. I called in Reiki healing and watched myself take my make up off. Removed every strip of mascara, all foundation and cover up. Scrapped my red hair into bun off my face.

When I looked at myself, I didn’t see the scared 14 year old that I had last seen. I wasn’t retrieving a part of myself I had ‘lost’ and felt that I should see in the mirror staring back at me. I instead saw a woman. Who was strong and beautiful, with knowledge and knowing. Powerful and mighty, but soft and comforting. I fell in love with myself.

So I went back to heal the little girl who still hated herself, who hated her acne ridden skin and feared the cruel comments of many, including her ‘friends’. Who felt no boy would look twice at her or her red stretch marked, post pubescent breasts and hips (I literally ‘blossomed’ over a few months!).

As I held her and allowed her to cry, staring in the mirror, telling her she was beautiful, knowing she heard my words but would not accept them. After a few minutes I realised that I was in fact ethereally embodying a Native American aspect of myself. I could hear the songs of my tribe and feel the wind blow through my long dark hair and could see my brown eyes and eyelashes. ‘It’s alright for you’ I said to myself, tongue in cheek ‘You never had to worry about being as pale as chalk, or having bad skin or not being labelled the most beautiful woman in community’. I wondered what I was supposed to do; do I leave this aspect of myself with my 14 year old me? Do I merge my native american me, with the 14 year old me? Then I watched myself pick up a mascara and paint my eyelashes black. It hit me; when I was guided to pick up mascara and put it on at 14 years old, I was infact connecting into a part of myself, a part of my higher self, that I needed at that time. I was growing and this was an aspect of myself I needed to nurture and become. I was not stifling the true me, a part of me was not lost. I was infact reuniting parts of myself, drawing on strength and depths at 14 I had no idea I had. Having a deeply healing experience I would not have thought in my wildest dreams I would be facilitating at 38 years old (nearly! lol).

This initiation in make-up was a major part in me becoming the woman I was meant to be. And is was an initiation of adult hood. (the fact that I had to initiate myself is an oddity only I could have lol!).

Then I remembered some wonderful image I had shared onto my Facebook business page; beautiful tinted images of Native Americans. With all their ‘war paint’ and their jewellery. Men and Women had been applying facepaint for thousands of years. The Egyptians, the Mayans, the tattoos of the Mauri’s. Applying face paint is a sacred rite, and you do it to connect into something else; a higher being, a part of your higher self.

And so when I put on my mascara, I was channelling the wild, confident and beautiful Chief’s daughter. A bit of myself I needed to navigate myself into adulthood. But I had not embraced her for giving me that, now I was rejecting her. I was currently rejecting a part of myself that I needed to embrace.

So, I looked at myself in the mirror and slicked on a bit of mascara and a swipe of pink lipstick. There I am. This is me. And then I cried; as I could look at myself and for the first time in my life I could say that I truly loved myself, on the outside as well as the inside.

And when I looked at myself crying, I realised I was even more beautiful. And I know that I can say that to you guys without you thinking I’m a total Egofile! It occurred to me that I feel the pain of my clients when I heal or read for them. They will often see my tear up as I help facilitate their own emotional healing in some form. This is what they see. It was beautiful. But what was even more beautiful is the fact that all they see is their own emotions reflected back at them, to see the beauty of their own pain.

And there is was. That ping I had been looking for; that moment of understanding and clarity. No wonder men fall for me from time to time. But what is truly amazing is that in falling me, what they are infact doing is falling for themselves.

Anger released and gone. I am happy that I am meant to be beautiful. This is part of who I am. Not in an arrogant way, but in a way we should all be able to see our own beauty. I embrace my Maid, my Modernity, that youthful side of myself and see it reflected strongly in my children. I embrace my Creativity, my motherhood, my soul and the total understanding and acceptance of myself as a woman. I embrace my Crone, my wrinkly soft bits, my story telling, my wisdom. I embrace the Chief’s daughter, my dark, deep eyes, the Enchantress, Lillith, with her power and ability to reflect everything back to those who need to look within the depths of their own eyes. I love her and her beauty, her charm and her playfulness.

In order to heal myself from the hurts I had perceived these men had given me, in order to not take responsibility for their actions, by feeling guilt and shame, I was not meant to reject them. In rejecting the fact that I induced a feeling in them, I was in fact reducing my own power, dis-empowering myself. By accepting myself and my feminine charms, I have tapped into the power which means that I can reflect back at others those aspects of themselves that I need to, in a way that I need to. Those that view my femininity as love and nurture and care and purity, that is what they will receive back from me. Those that twist it, they shall receive back in such a way. A part of myself, thankfully, I don’t have to use often, but a part of myself I now have the power to use correctly and without feeling guilt or shame or anger.

I would love to hear if this resonates with you, or if you have had similar or on your own similar journey, whether it is true acceptance of your femininity or another aspect of your personality.

Love as always

Rachael