The other day I packed up six relatively new, gently used bras and sent them off to The Bra Recyclers, an organization that provides bras and underwear to women and girls in transitional programs and shelters who lack belongings and safety.

When I purchased them this past fall I had no idea that come March 3, I'd no longer have breasts.

While I don't miss wearing them, I had a pang when I put those bras in that box. They were really pretty. They, and others like them, were a part of my identity for five decades!

I wouldn't call it grief...it was more like marking the end of an era, and an identity, which, weirdly came with a mind blowing realization: I am no longer trying to solve for worthiness.

No sooner had those words settled into my bones, I came across a Facebook post by Michelle Obama:

"Finally, I can say that I'm good enough. I know that might be surprising to hear, but it's true. It's just taken me some time — and some therapy — to believe it."

I have long understood that worthiness is made up and that identity isn't fixed.

I have long understood that healing and growth happen slowly over time and then all at once. From head to heart to body.

It doesn't happen on a schedule, it doesn't happen by force or coercion...it's what happens when we are intentional about our identities rather than letting shame decide who we are.

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” ~ Anais Nin

​Come work with me on this. I'm good at it.

Much, much love,

Karen

In this picture (taken in January) I am wearing one of those pretty bras underneath my clothes :-)