REPOST: FEAR OF CELLULITE AS FEAR OF POWER AND SEX!

Here's a subject that just kind of jumped out at me via two short and superficial blog pieces by Keli Goff that nonetheless launched me onto a less-superficial connection. One post was entitled, "If Men Don't Care About Cellulite, Why Do We?", and the other, "The Five Things Men are Actually Thinking When You Are Worried They Are Thinking About Your Cellulite."

You can read the pieces by following the links below:

If Men Don't Care About Cellulite, Why Do We?

The Five Things Men are Actually Thinking When You Are Worried They Are Thinking About Your Cellulite

Here's a quote from one of Keli's posts:

"Women, not men, are increasingly responsible for making women feel bad about themselves, and for perpetuating ideals that may be physically and mentally unhealthy and unrealistic."

I can tell you both as a man and as a psychotherapist that Keli's observations are quite accurate, though she doesn't even attempt to offer any understanding of why this is so.

I will make the attempt here.

It is about power and sex.

And really, you can use the two words interchangeably, and by that I mean this: true power is sexual and true sexuality is powerful. And yes, so many women still avoid the full expression of themselves through their second and third chakras.

Now, a couple of qualifications - first, I'm not saying that men don't have their own variation of the same problem. They do. It just shows itself differently, often by an excessive use and abuse of power and in their distorted expressions of sexual impulses through a mask of hypersexuality.

Secondly, I'm not ignoring that there is social conditioning at work that adds to a woman's tendency to create a mask of deference and hyposexuality.

That being said, why do so many women, and men, fear and resist their power/sexual energy?

One reason certainly is an attachment to childhood illusions.

Children not receiving what they need early on - the support, validation and free flow of unconditional love that comes naturally from self-actualized parents - ultimately and always will blame themselves for their own deprivation. It's just way too threatening to see the parents upon whom they are utterly dependent as flawed and limited, so instead, they see themselves in a negative light, which offers them the hope of somehow "fixing" themselves in order to get the above-mentioned needs met.

One idea that kids come up with is: "I'm too much for Mommy and Daddy." "Too much" meaning too sensitive, too sensual, too exuberant, too assertive. The child will develop a belief then that if it holds back on its second and third chakra expressions, and often the 5th chakra as well (self-expression), perhaps Mommy and Daddy will then be pleased and give more.

Of course, that approach never works, but children are persistent, and such self-taught behavior to squelch one's power/sexuality can become deeply habitual in the adult self.

Another reason for this inhibition is an irrational fear of the energy itself. Everyone who's ever been in their "Zone of Genius," as Gay Hendricks calls it in his great book, The Big Leap, knows that it is a kind of "unknown," that inspired place where the full thrust of your soul energy carries you to the highest expression of yourself. When you are fully in your power sexually or creatively, you know, you feel that it is not the "you" that you are familiar with, not your ego moving you, but rather something greater coming through you. So may people fear that surge of power, whether it be the power from a deep orgasm with someone you share love and Eros with, or the power of creating your masterpiece.

Finally, let me just end with this note about the whole "body image" illusion: we are energy beings.

Our physical form is merely a reflection of who we are at a higher vibrational level. What makes someone truly "attractive" or "hot" is not the arrangement of their body parts, nor the percentage of fat cells or muscle mass or skin tightness.

That perspective isn't even 3rd dimensional; it's two-dimensional, folks!

What makes someone attractive is how truly they are being who they truly are, how fully charged they are with their own power and sexual energy.

Look around. We know this.

Even the most narcissistically disturbed in our culture have glimpses of this. That is why they behave so desperately. They know that their futile attempts to undo their childhood injuries by attaching to some imaginary state of arbitrary "perfection" are doomed.

Come on, ladies! Love your bodies! Charge them up and get out there and do what you came here to do in the world creatively... and indulge yourselves sexually while you're at it!