In this episode, I talk about why it’s not just fun, but essential for women to feel sexy for themselves. Feeling sexy isn’t just reserved for a small section of society, it’s something that is within all of us. I talk about how we can tap into that and how it will positively impact our lives.
The New Sexy starts on Sunday!
Email me at rebecca@rebeccasigala.com if you want in.
It’s not too late!
I would love to hear from you on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasigalaboudoir
In this episode, I talk about why it’s not just fun, but essential for women to feel sexy for themselves. Feeling sexy isn’t just reserved for a small section of society, it’s something that is within all of us. I talk about how we can tap into that and how it will positively impact our lives.
The New Sexy starts on Sunday!
Email me at rebecca@rebeccasigala.com if you want in.
It’s not too late!
I would love to hear from you on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasigalaboudoir
Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome back to the Body Image Revolution. It's been an amazing week and a crazy one. It's the last week of my launch and enrollment to my group coaching program, The New Sexy. If you've been listening to my podcast or reading my posts, and you've been thinking about reaching out to me, you still can. I'll be accepting women until the end of this week. So just send me a quick email to rebecca@rebeccasigala.com and we will chat. There are lots of people coming out of the woodwork this week, so please do not be shy. Today I wanted to talk about what feeling sexy can really mean for women, why it's actually important, and what kind of impact it can make in our lives. Because for so long, for so many years of my own life, I thought being sexy or even feeling sexy was dependent on external validation. For me, it really was dependent on that. It was dependent on if my body fit into beauty standards, on how many guys checked me out on any given day, on how many likes and comments I got on my selfies, on social media, on what my family and my friends thought about me and thought about the way that I looked. When I was in high school, I was even more about that, and I think I really felt sexy a lot of the time, or I thought that I felt sexy, but that energy and power was so wrapped up in other people's perception of me that it wasn't even totally mine. And then I became religious at 18. It was a little bit of a process leading up to that, but I would say that by 18 years old, I considered myself a religious Jew, and during that time that I was learning more about Judaism, I was really taught that it was not okay to be sexy. At least that was the messaging that I got. I was taught that you were only able to feel that way or express that part of yourself within your marriage, in the bedroom, and I was taught that you could be attractive, but not attracting. Like, what the fuck does that even mean? Like, oh, I get it. Don't be too loud. Don't take up too much space. Be nice. Be kind. Stay small. Don't give guys the wrong impression. Thank you patriarchy for weaving your way into my religion. Anyway, I think the sexiness in my life really did start to deteriorate once I started becoming more religious because I was associating feeling or being sexy with something that was bad or wrong. And maybe this wasn't such a bad thing because now that I think about it, my definition beforehand was so dependent on other people's perception of me. So it was like I had to burn that all to the ground to become the woman that I am today and to really redefine and reclaim what sexiness meant to me. So back to me being 18, 19 years old, I was married at 19, and because my feeling of sexy was dependent on my interactions with people, and specifically with men, I was of course not receiving that validation anymore. I was wearing modest clothing and I was married, and I would run away from even a smile from the opposite sex. And on top of all of that, I was just totally tapped out of my sexuality and feeling sexy in general. Looking back, I realize that I was so ashamed. Both of my past history and the present thoughts that I had at the time that ran through my mind. I just thought that I really needed to suppress that part of myself to be good. I hid beneath layers of clothing. I was scared to have conversations with the opposite sex. I kid you not, I would come home from Shabbat meals and like freak out to my husband because maybe I gave too much eye contact or I was being too friendly with someone. I would be like, oh my gosh, Shua. Am I being too flirty? Am I being too friendly? I was so self-conscious. My husband and I kind of laugh about this now, but then it was so consuming and very shame filled for me. I also pushed down sexual thoughts and desires. I was so focused on how to be a good religious Jewish woman, and thinking that I was probably inherently bad or too sexual, that I left out the fun and creativity of life and the sexiness that I could have been experiencing in my early twenties. My husband and I had a great sexual chemistry, but with this mindset and the shame that I held so tightly, it could only go so far. Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. This is not a representation of religious Judaism, at least not in the way that I think it was originally intended. It's only my experience of how things were presented to me, especially coming from trauma and experiences as a child and teenager that made me feel like I wasn't doing life the right way, and that there was something wrong with me, and that religion was supposed to be the answer to all of that. When I became a boudoir photographer at 24 years old, after I had my first two kids, I saw with my own eyes how essential and empowering it was for a woman to feel sexy. That feeling of sexiness that I saw, was not coming from external validation. It was really about creating a physical and emotional space for a woman to be herself. To feel sexy, for herself. The age old boudoir question that I always receive is like, so what's this for? Like what are they gonna do with it? Do women do this for their husbands? And while at first I thought that it was a great idea to market boudoir sessions that way, like partially as a gift for your partner because it sounded fun and it made sense because that's how society sees sexuality and being sexy. For others, not for ourselves. But I found over the last 10 years that women are not doing this for their partners. Oftentimes partners don't initially understand why their wives would even want to do a boudoir session. They'll say things like, I don't need pictures of you. I just want the real thing. Or, why do you have to do this? I can just take pictures of you myself. And if a woman is in tune with herself at that moment, that's when she'll realize that she was never really doing it for him in the first place. When I think of femininity, I think of surrendering, embodiment, allowing ourselves to really be who we are and be seen in our vulnerability and our power. Which is exactly what the boudoir experiences I offer provide women. We want to be seen, we need to be seen. We need to see ourselves, on a deep and all encompassing level in order to come to acceptance and then love for our bodies, our minds, and our souls. This is when I shifted my definition of sexy. Because when I saw it, it was just so sexy, so attractive, so desirable to see a woman in her body and in her power like that. And of course it wasn't about sex. I was just in awe. The energy of those moments, witnessing and documenting a woman in her power was what it felt like to just be alive. Those boudoir experiences completely shifted and redefined what sexy meant to me. When I think of the moments I felt the sexiest in my life, I would describe them as feeling confident, present, creative, open, embodied, free. Sometimes those moments intertwine with sex or sexual pleasure, but oftentimes it's not. I could feel sexy when I drink my coffee with my husband in the morning. And I feel energized and flirty and amused with myself. Or when I'm walking down the street and just feeling an aliveness in my body and I feel like people are magnetized to me, like we're having incredible conversations and everything just seems to be flowing. I could feel sexy and then just write a passionate post about my work. Or come on here and record a podcast. I could feel sexy and then want to organize my house or buy a plant and some candles to decorate my kitchen. I could feel sexy while I'm trying on new clothing or just be inspired to try something different with my makeup. Sexiness could be a delicious meal, or a bubble bath, or a walk in nature, or painting on a random afternoon, just because I feel like it. To me, sexiness is creative, divine, feminine energy. One that is within me at all times, just waiting, desiring, craving to be tapped into, and when I don't feel sexy, I feel burnt out. I feel tired and overwhelmed, anxious, out of my body, in my head. I feel stuck, like in a boring loop of life that I can't get out of. That is depression to me. It's those moments when you're just like, I don't feel like my myself. Out of freaking alignment. I can imagine those moments, way back in the day when I was covered head to toe and afraid to have a conversation with someone, or when I was a young mom and I couldn't even remember what it felt like to have energy and get dressed and go out, go dancing, go to a movie, go on a date. And when I think about that, I actually have this memory of like being so overwhelmed with the kids and then finally being able to take a shower for the first time in days and just like, thinking of the water going on my face and feeling so worn out and tired and old, and I was only 23 years old. Other times when I didn't feel sexy, it would be like when I looked around at my life and just thought, how did I get here? Who the fuck am I right now? I was definitely not feeling sexy in those moments. And that my friends, is why it's so important for women to feel sexy. Because when we feel sexy, we're in alignment with ourselves. We are in our bodies, we are in creative mode. We are more of our true selves. Imagine what could be influenced and accomplished from that place of alignment. Imagine if every single woman in the world felt sexy, aligned, creative, unstuck, really, truly free, like the possibilities of life were at her fingertips. She could be anyone. She could go anywhere. She could accomplish anything. Oh my gosh. The world would be such a better place if more women felt sexy. This is a part of body image, perhaps not in the traditional sense, but the way I see body image isn't just am I thin enough or do I generally feel okay with how I look? It's how we see ourselves, how we relate to our bodies, what we say to ourself, think to ourselves, and behave based on our own perceptions of who we are. And if we don't think we're sexy and don't feel like we're sexy, it is going to impact our lives and the people around us. One of the more relationship-centered examples that I always think about is when our partners tell us that we're beautiful and sexy and we don't believe them. And I think this has become so normal in our society today that men just expect women to respond in that way. Like, oh, I don't believe you, or oh sure, whatever. Because we were never taught how to love our bodies, and that is how most women see themselves. So men are almost just expecting women to say that. But in that moment, they're trying to make us feel good about ourselves. Maybe they are just giving us a compliment or wanting to initiate some kind of physical or emotional intimacy. And then our reaction, whether external, like the oh sure, yeah right, kind of thing or internal, when we're just in our minds and thinking about all the ways it's not true, and just like shutting ourselves down, shutting our libido down and our connection down and all of that. It really puts a wedge between us and our partners. Instead of an amazing moment of like flirtiness, and sexiness, and connection that a compliment like that could bring, our negative thoughts push us away from our partners, and ultimately from ourselves. What a cock block. Seriously, just think about it. What I really want to impart to you guys today is that feeling sexy is our goddamn birthright. It's not something that is reserved for people who fit into societal standards of beauty or status. It's something that is within you. Something that you don't need anyone to validate to make real. It's part of what it means to be a human. That is why I call my program The New Sexy, because we get to redefine and reclaim sexy. That creativity, that aliveness, that presence, that energy that is so deeply a part of us. That we just have to get in touch with so that we can let ourselves be free. Fuck that old paradigm of misogyny and racism and elitism that has gotten in the way of us really seeing and experiencing that beauty, and light, and sexuality that we all have. I'm so freaking excited to start The New Sexy in just a few days. To help women really feel sexy naked, but not just naked, literally all the time. When they have coffee in the morning, when they go to work, when they take a walk, when they work out, when they cook dinner, when they go shopping, when they bring their kids to the park. Think about bringing sexiness into all of that. Like if you feel sexy when you take a walk, you can feel present and feel the wind on your face and experience nature in a whole different way. Or when you work out and you're really pushing yourself and listening to like this awesome, sexy music and like just feeling awesome and in your body. Or when you're cooking dinner and you decide to drink a glass of wine as you cook and play some music and add a little bit more herbs and just like have fun with it. Or when you go shopping and you can actually have a good time and really put things on that you really love and express your creativity instead of it being a miserable experience and leaving the mall just hating your body even more. Or like I mentioned, when you bring your kids to the park and you're like, why do I need to feel sexy then? But when we talk about sexy in these new terms of being present, of being free, of being ourselves, we can really bring sexy, and we should bring sexy, to every single aspect of our lives. This, is always within you and my group coaching program gives women the tools to access and unleash that amazing feeling of alignment in all parts of their lives. Because the truth is, the world needs you to be you. The New Sexy goes for 12 weeks and it starts on Sunday, June 25th. So really email me if you wanna get in and be a part of this incredible revolution, with the other women who have already enrolled, and by the way, they're amazing women. We are going to have the absolute best time together. Okay, that's all for today. I have some amazing episodes coming up, and I can't wait to talk to you all next week. Take care and stay sexy.