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ОглавлениеThe Labels, Roles & Scripts of My Emerging Womanhood
Let me share with you the labels, roles, and scripts of my past. The accompanying costumes, accessories, and dance steps that were all a part of the choreography created for me by others. Why? Because oftentimes we see aspects of ourselves in the stories of others, bringing us levels of insight that we didn’t have before. What I want for you is to be able to recognize and release the choreography that no longer serves you so you can dance your dance, your own way. To see how my past informed my present, how it almost dictated my future, and how I used FLAUNT! to set myself free from constantly seeking external validation and find joy and satisfaction beyond what I thought possible.
What I wanted, deep in my soul, was to be wickedly smart, without being labeled an aggressive bitch. To be powerfully spiritual, using and developing my own intuition on my own terms, without being called a New Age, woo-woo freak. To be sexy as hell, my own way, and enjoy how my body looked and felt, without being called a slut. I wanted to flaunt and to be all that I was without apology and most certainly without cover. Without checking pieces of me at the door when I went into a professional environment, and without altering or limiting myself to suit others. I wanted to flaunt myself, not to be obnoxious but to allow myself the opportunity to live the full breadth of all that I was. Part Amazon warrior, part gangly pink flamingo, part regal countess, part traditional June Cleaver, part ethereal goddess. I wanted to set all of me free, to show myself and the world everything I was capable of. Without worrying what people might think.
What Women Should Do, Think, Believe, and Wear
I was a successful corporate attorney with a good life. I had a husband, two children, and a house, and everything was fine. Normal. Just what it was supposed to be. It was just that most days felt like a sprint to a finish line that was constantly being moved one mile farther away. No matter how hard I tried, I could never please everyone, get it all done, or look the way I wanted to look. Collapsing into bed, sometimes in the same yoga pants I had collapsed into bed in the night before, I’d wonder, Is this really all there is? Because, seriously, there’s got to be something more!
I think we’ve probably all had times when we’ve been overwhelmed and frustrated without really knowing why or having any idea what to do about it. My solution was to randomly invest in self-help books, sign up for personal-development seminars, schedule in more regular spa days, and rope my family into morning meditation. There, that should do it! If I were somehow on the proverbial “wrong path,” I sure as heck was going to figure it out and get myself, my life, and my family back on track. Perhaps you may have gone down this road a time or two? I thought so.
With my family rolling their eyes and finding excuses to skip out of family meditation hour, I homed in on finding my life purpose and living my highest good, making these concepts the gold standards to which I aspired. I was certain that finding these magical yet elusive things would put me on the “right path” (even if my wayward family chose not to come along) and give me the joyful, meaningful, and chaos-free life filled with intimacy and connection that I craved.
But try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to put living my highest good or finding my life purpose on my vision board, because I had no idea what those concepts really meant — they just sounded good. Like things I “should” aspire to, because if I somehow achieved them, my frustration would magically go away. And, as I’m sure you can guess, nothing ever really changed.
Which, ironically, was kind of a relief. Because the idea of disrupting my carefully orchestrated life was scary, too! Building my so-called perfect life had been no small task, and I wasn’t about to let it go in search of some elusive New Age concept. You see, my life wasn’t really about me anymore. I had a family who needed me to care for them; that’s what mattered now. Never mind that I had never moved to New York or Los Angeles, auditioned for the Rockettes, or trekked through Europe. I was his wife, their mom, and Lora Cheadle, Esquire, now. And proper wives, moms, and lawyers weren’t sexy. Or flirty. Or daring. Or too smart. Or too powerful.
So I stayed safely in my role of corporate wife, suburban mom, and competent woman, dancing within the bounds of the neat little box — labeled “what your life should look like” — in which I lived, performing the same worn-out choreography that I had been given, while feeling slightly dissatisfied and disconnected. From my life, but more importantly, from me.
Finding My FLAUNT!
With an explosion of color, FLAUNT! woke me up to the fact that I had spent my life dancing choreography that was not my own. I had let others choose the music, the costumes, and even the stage on which I was supposed to perform. I had willingly cloaked myself with costumes, labels, roles, and scripts that were not mine. In my quest for “perfect womanhood” I had inadvertently hidden my true self and dulled my own sparkle. FLAUNT! made me realize that in order to be happy and healthy and to joyfully dance my own life, I didn’t need to do more or try harder.
What I needed was to strip out of all that I had layered on in an attempt to be what I was “supposed to be” and expose myself exactly as I was. FLAUNT! showed me that I was a smart, capable, and dedicated mom, wife, and career woman, who also happened to be smart, sexy, and spiritual. And that was okay! Revealing my truth, my core essence, the divine goddess I was inside, and bringing in all versions of everything I had ever been, empowered me to re-choreograph a new life that was more spectacular, more satisfying, and more fully my own than I had ever dreamed possible.
Through the five steps of FLAUNT! — Find Your Fetish, Laugh Out Loud, Accept Unconditionally, Navigate the Negative, and Trust Your Truth — and using burlesque as the vehicle, you can recognize and release the inhibitions and judgments that are covering you; reveal all facets of your authentic, core self (ahem, your inner burlesque star); and re-choreograph a brilliant, connected, and deeply satisfying life that reveals your beauty, brains, and beliefs so you can find the authentic joy, fulfillment, and self-acceptance that you crave. Are you ready to find your Naked Self-Worth and to sparkle? Then let’s FLAUNT!
The Costumes and Steps Required for the Dance of Perfect Womanhood
Most of us have been wearing the costumes of the roles we play for so long that we’re not even aware that we are wearing them. We play a million different roles and have a million different responsibilities, and knowing our roles so well, we are adept at quick costume changes, of switching seamlessly between our various identities. Yet while we are often clear on how to live up to these roles, we are rarely clear on how to live up to being ourselves.
Growing up, I asked myself what I wanted to do with my life, not who I wanted to be. I never asked myself, Who are you, Lora, deep inside, exclusive of your labels, roles, and scripts, and what kind of a woman would you like to be? or What do you need to do in order to create and sustain internal satisfaction, despite external circumstances? No, I was more focused on answering questions like, Where should I go to college? What should I major in to ensure that I get a job? and What are the next steps to take in order to achieve my career goals? Nor did I ever sit down and plan out how I was going to do what I aspired to do while still being who I authentically was. You may have been the same way, more focused on doing than being. And it’s my hunch that you never asked yourself deep, provocative questions about who you were inside and how you were going to integrate your honest expression of self with all that you wanted to do, either.
In my case, I modeled the behavior of those I loved, adopted the actions of those I admired, emulated beliefs of those I respected, and fumbled my way into adulthood, for right or for wrong. I’m guessing that I’m not alone, and like mine, many of your identities were created inadvertently over time, with little or no conscious awareness on your part of how they showcased or masked the woman you were inside.
Come with me, as I reveal the stories that created me, the masks that hid me, the costumes that enhanced me, and the roles in which I was cast.
My Childhood: The Tightly Corseted Little Princess
If you have seen a sitcom or a movie about a stereotypical family from the late seventies or early eighties, then you know much about my life. I had an unremarkably normal, white, Protestant, middle-class childhood, smack-dab in the middle of the good old US of A. Probably the only feature that made my family distinctive was that I was an only child, an only grandchild on both sides, and the only great-grandchild.
Yes, I was spoiled, but as the pride and joy of so many adults, I had to be perfect, because I was the only one. In order to get the praise that I so desperately desired, I had to live up to everyone’s expectations, and I laced those expectations, like a corset, around the foundation of my being, dancing everybody else’s choreography and making myself into exactly what others wanted me to be.
But, as perfect as I tried to be, I was still a free-spirited, fun-loving little girl, and there was no better way to express myself than through dance. Dancing got me out of my head and enabled me to flow free. Not only did dance provide an outlet for everything that was inside me; it also necessitated fancy dresses, sequins, rhinestones, tiaras, and feathers. I loved makeup, glitter, fancy hairstyles, and everything beautiful, feminine, and larger than life — exactly what my tightly laced soul wanted me to be!
This is how my journey into “perfect womanhood” began, and how my foundation was created. No matter what roles I added to my repertoire, and no matter what costumes I wore, underneath I kept the role of the perfect little princess alive and well, corseting myself into the ideals others set forth for me and oftentimes putting my own needs last. Much of my sense of worth came from how well I could please others, doing what they expected, following their rules, and dancing the dance they choreographed for me. Never mind that I sometimes had to cover, or mask, my true self in order to comply.
My Adolescence: Girls Who Wear Glasses
As a preteen, although ready to take off the tightly laced corset of my childhood and begin creating some of my own choreography, I was way too self-conscious and softhearted to show my peers who I really was and risk rejection. After all, I was not a jock or one of the pretty, popular girls. I was a studious ballet dancer who loved horses.
To make matters worse, I had recently gotten glasses — huge, round things with swooping sides and a hint of lavender — and popular girls didn’t wear glasses! Since being a nerd was not what I aspired to, I wore my smart-girl glasses only in class, when I wanted to see the chalkboard, shoving them in my purse between classes and squinting my way down the hall the rest of the time. Because my parents said embarrassing and unhelpful things like “Just be yourself, sweetie!” I looked to my peers for interpretation of what made preteen girls fabulous, popular, and worthy. And because the image I saw looked nothing like me, I knew that covering up was my only option.
I surmised that if I could make myself look like a popular girl on the outside, nobody would notice that I was a total misfit on the inside. Great plan, right? Covering my body with the requisite dress code meant Levi’s 501 jeans and IZOD polos, with a coordinating ribbon around the neck and Nike tennis shoes. Except that my family didn’t have room for extras in the budget, and name-brand clothes were definitely extras. Not to be deterred, I focused my back-to-school shopping efforts on obtaining suitable knockoffs. JCPenney had polos with a fox instead of an alligator that I could obscure with the ribbon, leaving me confident that others would think it was an alligator, but the coveted Nikes were too expensive. Kinney Shoes had knockoff tennis shoes with a whale-shaped logo instead of the real Nike swoosh, and better yet, the knockoff pair came in lavender!
Happily covered in my knockoff popular-girl clothing, I marched to school, where the most popular, gorgeous eighth-grade boy ever looked down at my bright white shoes with the lavender whale swoosh, smirked, and said, “What kind of shoes are those?”
If you were ever an insecure adolescent girl, then you may relate to my level of mortification. I might as well have been naked, I felt so exposed! Shoes that I dearly loved the night before now filled me with embarrassment. How could I have been so stupid as to pick lavender? Real Nikes weren’t lavender! Those shoes had been a terrible cover.
Speaking of terrible covers, I was terribly weary of covering my love of school, reading, and studying. Although I had always excelled in school, my role of the good girl kept me quiet about my achievements. After all, good girls didn’t brag or make others feel bad! If I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted in the fashion arena, maybe I could drop my cover in the academic arena, play the role of smart girl, and stand proud in my lavender smart-girl glasses instead of hiding behind them.
I registered for a science class rumored to be taught by the hardest teacher at school. The first day of class, the teacher’s antics did not disappoint. Pacing around the room, he gestured to the pull-down periodic table of the elements and carried on about how we needed to memorize that table by the end of the week. No problem, I was great at memorization!
The day of the test I was ready. Both to ace the test and to publicly step into my role as a smart girl. Handing out the test, our teacher once again launched into a lecture about not underestimating the difficulty of his class. Get over it! I answered back in my own mind. Just give me the test; I’ve totally got this! He glanced down, just as I rolled my eyes in emphasis to my thoughts.
His explosion was cataclysmic. There I sat, tears welling up behind my lavender smart-girl glasses with the swooping arms, all eyes trained on me, as he carried on about my wanton disrespect. He slapped the test down on my desk and announced that he would grade my quiz aloud, in front of the entire class.
Quivering, I pushed through the test. Thank God I knew all the answers! My intelligence would shine through, I would be seen and accepted as the “smart girl,” and everything would be all right.
Whisking my paper off the desk, he graded aloud: “Class, let’s see what Miss Plank thinks Fe stands for.” And then shaking his head sorrowfully and rolling his eyes in mock disappointment, he’d look at my answer, one element at a time, and ask, “Class? What does Fe really stand for?” as if all my answers, which were correct, were wrong!
What had just happened? Showing my intelligence had gotten me nowhere and had actually embarrassed me further. Burning with emotion, I saw that there were other, hidden factors at play. And although I didn’t understand those factors, I knew that if I wanted to succeed, I was going to have to cover my body, my brains, and my beliefs.
The Flirt in the Pom-Pom Skirt
By the time high school rolled around, MTV had taken the world by storm. On the days I was not wearing my pom-pom uniform, I wore cut-up sweatshirts, short skirts, fishnets, anklets, and high heels, just like the girls in the ZZ Top videos. As you can probably guess, revealing myself got me seen! But not in the way I anticipated.
To me, a lifelong dancer who was used to costumes and showing my body in leotards and tights, short skirts and revealing clothing meant nothing. I thought dressing in a way that was authentic to my dancer personality would show people who I really was: a dancer who loved school and was tired of corseting herself into perfect-princess-hood or hiding behind her smart-girl glasses and was ready to reveal herself authentically so she could be seen and accepted for all that she was. Apparently I was wrong.
The attention I received from wearing short skirts and heels to school, while intoxicating in some regards, was confusing. How could a simple skirt create such a stir, and why weren’t the boys — in their tight corduroy Ocean Pacific shorts, which were much shorter than my skirts, and fitted tank tops — ogled in the same way I was? Seriously, what was the big deal about my clothing, and why did my level of undress matter more than who I was inside, what kind of person I was, or what I achieved academically? How was it that I could spend my whole life being a compliant, good little girl and barely get noticed, but show my body and — bam! — everybody noticed in a way that overshadowed everything else I had accomplished?
I didn’t understand why I was called a slut for exposing too much of my body, when I wasn’t doing anything that actually was slutty. And paradoxically, why I was called a prude and teased for being a “goody-goody” and looking like a librarian when I covered my body and hung out in the library. No matter which side of my personality I revealed, I couldn’t win!
The turning point happened one spring day in choir when I bent down to grab my music folder from the bottom shelf of the music rack at the front of the room. The choir director, frustrated by the lively and unfocused mood of the class, seized the moment and claimed that the chaotic mood of the class was my fault, that I had distracted the boys with my outfit.
While my initial reaction was confusion and embarrassment at getting in trouble, the whistling and catcalls of my friends soon had me doubled over with laughter and filled with an unquenchable sense of power and glee. For the next fifty minutes, student after student dropped their pencil or accidentally spilled their music folder, asking me loudly if I could please pick it up for them. I rose stunningly to the occasion with as much exaggerated bending over and hair flipping as I could muster.
Being teenagers, we inferred that if bending over in a miniskirt and heels garnered that much of a reaction, the response provoked by a bathing suit would be epic! The next day I came to school in a bikini covered by a long, belted jacket. In the middle of class, one of the boys announced loudly, “Wow! It’s getting hot in here!” at which point I stood up, said, “It sure is!” and took off my jacket.
My subsequent visit to the principal’s office taught me that my body, and the way I revealed it, held an enormous amount of power. It also taught me that being smart and being sexy were mutually exclusive concepts, that women who tried to embody both would be judged harshly, and that any previous accomplishments would be immediately dismissed. I learned that most people didn’t care what I did or did not do in actuality; they saw only my outfits, and not the person inside those outfits. It made no sense why I couldn’t be both a good girl and a flirt who loved to show off.
Irritated by the narrow range of acceptable behavior for a smart, good girl and by the burgeoning rumors about my lack of virtue, I decided to rebel. I was tired of covering my intellect, my dorky passions, and my love of dance-inspired clothing. I had lived much of my life according to other people’s standards, constantly seeking praise, and I was done trying to figure it all out and covering certain pieces of my identity.
My mission became to reveal it all! Well, not exactly to reveal my authentic self, because that would mean risking real rejection — I couldn’t take that — but to reveal a bold, sexy, funny, in-your-face version of myself who could never be stung by rejection or rumors or by being misunderstood again. I disconnected from my body and covered the pain of not being seen or accepted for who I was with the wildest, sexiest outfits possible, doing and saying what others only dared to think. Inside I was still a good girl in glasses who wanted to please and be praised. Nothing had changed at all except my clothing, yet changing my clothing changed everything about the way I was perceived. And despite my cavalier, “nobody can hurt me” attitude, the gossip hurt deeply.
My body was not my heart, my soul, or my thoughts. How I showed or covered it had nothing to do with who I was, and I strove to be immune from comments about my virtue or lack of self-worth because of the way I showed off my body. I saw how the roles I played, the costumes I wore, and the labels others assigned to me became more real than who I actually was. If my coverings mattered more than who I was or what I accomplished, then why bother trying?
Embracing the Neutrals
Frustrated by not being seen for who I was inside or for all that I had rightfully accomplished, and confused by the backlash from revealing my body — and tired of working so hard, only to be overshadowed by rumors and falsehoods — I hoped that college could give me a fresh start. I wanted to meet new people who could finally see the real me. Not my corset of perfection from elementary school, not my smart-girl glasses or my denim miniskirt and heels, but me, and everything I was inside.
The only way I could think of to accomplish this was to let go of every costume, mask, role, or identity I had ever embodied. I strove to become neutral, transparent, flat, and free of any type of covering or enhancement that could cause people to judge me in any way. I quit dancing, gained the “freshman fifteen,” and began rolling out of bed and heading to class exactly as I was. I cut off my permed and frosted hair and tossed my makeup, and instead of being enthusiastic and perky, which were my normal, natural traits, I intentionally cultivated a personality that was free of personality.
Which did not allow me to be seen authentically any more than wearing a bikini to choir had. Instead, it caused me to disconnect so completely from everything that had ever brought me joy that I lost all sense of who I was or what I liked. My quest for transparency led me straight into nothingness. Without any cover, who was I, and what could I possibly be worth?
Learning to Accessorize
Unsure of who I was or what I wanted, I quit school and moved home. As summer was drawing to a close and I still had zero idea who I was supposed to be, a friend called me in a panic. One of the girls on her university’s pom squad had dropped out, and they needed one more dancer for camp the following week. My inner compass locked in immediately. My direction had found me! I wanted to dance, and I wanted to go back to college.
I was going to quit covering and judging myself, quit seeking approval and being embarrassed for who I was and what I found important. I was going to stop worrying about what other people might think. I was going to show my body, my brains, and my beliefs my way. I was going to build my dreams and live my sparkle. I was ready, and I couldn’t wait to dive in!
This is how I uncovered myself, found my sparkle, and, for the first time in my life, released judgment about who I was — who I thought I was supposed to be — and stepped fully into my Naked Self-Worth. This is how I came back to life, challenged myself with every opportunity I could find, and ended up going to law school. Nothing was going to stop me now!
My Adulthood: The Power Woman in the Conservatively Cut Navy-Blue Business Suit
Nothing was going to stop me. . .except myself. I wish I could say that I remained so connected to who I was that I was never undone by my inhibitions or self-judgment again, but that was not the case. Which is why FLAUNT! is a practice to be gently but vigilantly embodied throughout our lives. In order to transcend our stories, to become the kind of women we aspire to be instead of the kind of women created by default by the sum total of our masks, we must stay vigilant. We must reveal ourselves fully and allow ourselves to be seen. And most importantly, we must abide by our own internal valuation system.
During my last year of law school, I was accepted in the university’s student-law office, a program where students represent low-income clients under the supervision of licensed attorneys. In one of my cases, I represented a couple who purchased a used car from a dealership but quit making payments when the wife lost her job. Although my advisor and I had gone through the entire case file, the night before the hearing I went back to the law library to do some more research. Just in case.
Poring over case law, I discovered that there were various notice requirements the dealership had to fulfill before repossessing the car, and those notice requirements had not been met.
You probably know how it feels when you have a secret that is so joyful and thrilling that you can barely sleep? That’s how I felt! I had found something that had been missed by everyone. I was ecstatic! I was going to win the very first case I had ever tried!
The next morning, even though I had barely slept, I put on my best (only) conservatively cut navy-blue suit, spent an hour on understated yet elegant hair and makeup, and made sure that I had all the necessary research and files. Beaming, I entered the courtroom with my advisor and presented both opposing counsel and the judge with a memo explaining what I had found.
After a couple of tense minutes, the judge banged his gavel and ruled in favor of my clients, who gave a whoop of joy as I broke into a relieved smile. I had done it! Looking up, I caught the judge’s eye. He pointed straight at me and said, “I want to see you in my chambers now!” And he was not smiling.
Confused, I followed him to his chambers, where, instead of congratulating me, he berated me for unfairly springing my research on opposing counsel, an older, established (male) attorney, and for making him look ill prepared in court. He told me he didn’t like the way I was all smiles with my clients. He explained that if I wanted to be taken seriously, I should wear pants, instead of a skirt. He also suggested I wear my hair up.
Have you ever had an experience that was so shocking that you didn’t even know how to respond? Frozen to my advisor’s side, I stood, incredulous. My smackdown was not the only source of my dismay. I was floored at the way my advisor respectfully kowtowed to the judge to his face, but later, outside his chambers, told me how out of line and flat-out wrong he had been. I drove home, mortified and confused, not registering for several hours that I had won my first case and should be proud of what I had accomplished.
If you have ever worked or played in traditionally more male-dominated arenas, you may have been confronted with the same decision I was: to play by the rules, fit in with the good old boys, and succeed or to be your true self and risk losing out on the career that you rightfully deserve. Because I wanted to succeed, I covered, going deeper and deeper into my female-lawyer persona, cutting off my hair and trying not to smile or connect with support staff the way I wanted. But in the process, I disconnected from myself. From my passion for justice, my body, and my love of dance and movement. I disconnected from my intuition; from my bubbly enthusiasm for, oh, everything; and, most profoundly, from my innate, feminine self.
Instead of being the lawyer I wanted to be, one who compassionately helped clients find solutions and solve problems outside the courtroom, I kept myself firmly in check and became the kind of traditional, detached, see-you-in-court lawyer others thought I should be. Once again I began dancing choreography that was not my own, wearing the costumes that fit the stereotypical version of the role I was playing, and masking who I was inside to avoid being rejected or hurt. And although I was successful, my success was not fulfilling. I had everything I could desire both professionally and personally, but something was missing. And I wasn’t sure what it was or what I should do to find what I was looking for.
Aprons & Pearls, Spit-Up & Sweats
The birth of my second child brought with it the realization that I was being lied to. By both society and myself. Society told me that women could indeed do it all. All I had to do was lean in, be bold about taking on more at work, structure my time with my children clearly, and be proactive about planning date nights and self-care, and the world would be mine! But the truth is, no woman — let me rephrase that, no human — can sustain that level of superwoman intensity, constantly managing, planning, and rushing around, without sacrificing herself and her experience and enjoyment of life. Instead of questioning the message fed to me by society, I’d perceived myself as the failure, and I was done living that lie.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact that I was going on my third year without sleep, and I was suddenly disillusioned with my role as a powerful career woman who could do it all. I wanted more time with my children, and I was unhappy leaving them at daycare. Even though staying home hadn’t been my plan and everyone thought I was crazy for “throwing away” my career and becoming a “lowly” wife and mom, I wanted to do it.
On a wave of conviction and coffee, I entered full-time motherhood, where I believed I would be welcomed with open arms into the mythic sisterhood of stay-at-home moms. I could while away the hours, babies playing happily at my feet, reconnecting with myself and shedding the layers I had accumulated during my time as an attorney. In reality, I stepped squarely onto the bloody fields of the mommy wars, where competition, self-judgment, and guilt threatened to overtake me at every turn.
The working moms were judgmental of the stay-at-home moms; the stay-at-home moms were judgmental of the working moms. Not everyone was willing to talk about the frustration and exhaustion of raising babies and toddlers. In fact, women who spoke freely about their bad parenting moments would sometimes be ostracized or, worse, be condescendingly told by the perfect mothers, “All you have to do is. . .”
Those perfect women — you might know the type — wearing a June Cleaver apron (or Athleta yoga gear) and carrying a tray of organic zucchini muffins, surrounded by their perfect children and bunco-club friends, all the while prattling on about their ah-mazing date night with their adoring hubby, made it seem like once again, I was two steps behind, an impostor in my own life.
What was wrong with me that I sometimes missed the peace of being at work, or my kids could make me want to run from the house screaming? I don’t know if you can relate, but I felt like no matter how hard I tried, I could never be that perfect wife and mom. Which I found unbelievable, because I had been so capable on the work front! How was it possible to fail at being a stay-at-home mom?
This is how I lost myself to motherhood.
