Boudoir, the Pool, and I
Floating in self connection
TW:SA
Feeling comfortable and at peace with the water wasn't on my boudoir bucket list goals. I did a boudoir session to reconnect (really connect to my body for the first time) but that's for another post in the series.
It was a couple of months after the photoshoot that I starting having-and listening to my internal voices of desire to go to the pool. Now anyone who knows me, knows the pool has never been my safe space or a place I desired to go. Every hydrotherapist I have ever worked with would be completely shocked that I got into the pool voluntarily after always getting stiff and nervous before each session and always fearing the lack of control I felt in the water. The pool and water always symbolized a loss of control of my body and myself.
Reclaiming connection was what I sought to do with my boudoir shoot, and to build a new connection. I wanted to heal a dissociation that had occurred because of trauma and a lack of tools at the time to handle sexual trauma. My body had become divided into three parts. My upper body, where I feel strong, powerful, and mostly in control (except for my breasts but that's for the gender post). My hips, butt, and vagina area which for years I felt uncomfortable saying the words and hold the most trauma, and have gotten used to dissociating from since I was five years old. Then there are my legs and feet, another complicated relationship. They sometimes work as requested, and sometimes let me down literally and figuratively. Sometimes they just like to send spasms or pain up my body, reminding me I’m not in control. The connection is, therefore, touch and go without a whole lot of trust between myself and each part of my body, forget energetic flow.
The process before the photo shoot that Rebecca has you journal through before the actual session started healing the channels of connection through my body way before I got in front of the camera. Connecting my mind, heart, and body, creating a channel from the charred remains of childhood connection. It built back the foundation of trust in my body, which has been missing for over 15 years. That trust was the same trust that I felt to be missing when I would get in the pool, and be told to be one with the water and my body.
The expression of the rebuilding of connection came to light in our pre-shoot meeting, in searching for what I wanted to wear, and finding inspiration shots for the photoshoot. It came sitting in my wheelchair getting my hair and makeup done and getting dressed in the outfits previously chosen. It came when I was sitting on the bed taking off the clothes I thought I needed to facilitate the connection. Which they did they started the connection between my body, heart, and soul but they were able to be mostly removed to facilitate a deeper connection of trust and love. It gave me the ability to listen and hear what my body is saying and move together with it. To trust what my body is saying, doing, and desiring and to let go in spaces it knows it can be held.I can trust my body to hold itself, to know what is good for it, when it needs to hold on when it can let go, and trust itself and float into freedom.