{"id":19,"date":"2010-04-07T06:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T06:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/?p=19"},"modified":"2011-07-11T17:48:20","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T17:48:20","slug":"the-voluptuous-shopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/2010\/04\/the-voluptuous-shopper\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voluptuous Shopper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I had a chance to go shopping – by myself – so I went. I really needed some new clothes that don’t look like they’ve been pooped or spit up on (you know those oily spots?) or fingerprinted by loving hands. It’s not that I don’t love those precious little marks, but sometimes I\u00a0want to wear something that says, “sexy, smart woman” not just “mom” –\u00a0you know?<\/p>\n

Since I’d received a generous gift card to a department store for my birthday, I decided to head there. But, here’s the thing… Due to stress\/childbearing\/laziness\/happiness\/exhaustion etc. and despite my organic lifestyle, I’ve added a few<\/em> inches my waistline in the last several years. So, I have to head to the, um, VOLUPTUOUS <\/em><\/strong>girl section of the store. I started looking and as usual,\u00a0was underwhelmed by the style offerings available. First, over half of the clothes in that section look like something my grandmother would have enjoyed wearing – in 1970 – if she’d been any bigger than a thimble. Then, there are the natural assumptions some\u00a0“designers” make about fuller figured women.<\/p>\n

Poor assumptions: 1. If you’re bigger, you have big breasts to match. (Not true of me –\u00a0which means I need a seriously boosted bra or\u00a0an amazing tailor). 2. If you’re bigger, you’re probably ashamed (or should be) of your body, so here’s a rather shapeless, giant, floral tent to cover it. Ok, this may not be entirely fair. There ARE some great, fashionable clothes available in fuller sizes – and I found some to try. But, overall,\u00a0the\u00a0boring\/ugly\/insulting offerings\u00a0in\u00a0full figured departments can demoralize a curvy gal before she even gets to the dressing room!<\/p>\n

I made my way to the fitting room with a TON of clothing, determined to be open minded and to\u00a0bring something new and cute home with me.\u00a0As I got ready to try what I’d chosen, I could feel a critical spirit<\/strong> making her way into\u00a0the room. You know<\/strong> the one<\/strong>. I stopped, knowing that she didn’t fit in with my new commitment<\/a> to love me – now<\/strong> – as I am<\/em>, not as I was or as I could be. I placed my hand on my heart and said a quick prayer, then smiled into the mirror and purposely looked for a few\u00a0things I love about me.\u00a0The smile crept\u00a0from\u00a0my lips to my eyes as I recognized a woman I really like.<\/em> Me.<\/p>\n

Then, I tried on some clothes. Some of them\u00a0made me laugh, bringing back memories of really funny clothes shopping trips with my mom. Some of them went in the “Heck, No!” pile.\u00a0But some of them looked great so I bought them.<\/p>\n

This is a very personal experience – but I shared it because I don’t think I’m the only one who has to exorcise personal demons when\u00a0shopping\/or dressing\/or showering\/or having sex (YES<\/em><\/strong> – I said the S word!). I hope it will be an encouragement for all of us to find a person we love as we gaze into our mirrors – and that he or she will\u00a0be the person we are right now<\/em><\/strong>, not who we were or who we hope to be someday. I hope it will be an encouragement for us to daily choose awareness, joy and love – with abandon.<\/p>\n

Ruben’s Venus at a Mirror<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n

By the way, I looked up voluptuous in the thesaurus. Here are a few of the synonyms I found.
\n“appealing, attractive, delightful, desirable, enticing, erotic,\u00a0sensuous, sexy…”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I can live with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I had a chance to go shopping – by myself – so I went. I really needed some new clothes that don’t look like they’ve been pooped or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1GpYg-j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}