Sometimes you have to question the reasoning that people have to allow for such improper events to occur. What am I speaking of? Parenting choices and the personal level of respect that we help our children to have for themselves. As a mother myself this very thought topic effects many of my choice’s day to day. What sort of example am I setting for them? How do they perceive my happiness, comfort in self, self-esteem and love of self? Are they seeing a strong, morally sound, well centered, loving woman or are they seeing an ill, repressed, confused, emotionally unstable, blaming woman who cannot get through her own garbage?
The fact of the matter in my life is that I have come to a state of being where I am who I am in each moment. I am an emotional creature as god wired me so, but I am not quick to erupt or tormented by past traumas that I cannot seem to release to the shadows of a time gone by and lessons learned. The harmony outside of my physical body stems from the inner peace, self-love, acceptance and realization that reality is what it is in the present moment. I have learned through the course of time and many harsh lessons that I am perfect and divine just the way I am and in however I choose to show up in the moment. There is no need to make apologies for being. This is what I hope to share with my children, peace, acceptance and self awareness. But how do we share these lessons? How do we make certain that we are walking the walk of the internal guru? How do we really know that our children see and hear these valuable life models of being?
Let me share a story.
“It was a cold dreary day and the power kept resetting as the storm blew through causing our clocks to be off by who knows how many minutes. Mornings are always a quick moving, testing time within my home as three of my children have to be awoken from their slumber, eat breakfast, get lunches made, signatures in planners and the biggest ordeal, their shoes on. Like all mornings this was happening except with the time being wrong, we ran late and I decided that I would drive them the two blocks in the rain and wind instead of them getting cold and soaked as well as any later by walking. We get to the school and they say goodbye and I love you as they slam the car doors shut and make a mad dash to the front doors of the school. Just then my attention goes from mommy mode and taxi driver to a deep breath. As I inhaled my ears opened and I tuned into the radio station that was playing in the car. The hosts on the station were having a deep conversation about some of the current events happening in some of our local schools. They were sharing that a few middle schools and even a high school (I think) were passing new dress codes, as the schools had come to the conclusion that yoga pants should not be allowed to be worn as every day dress.
One male host shared his take that the parents allowing their daughters to wear yoga pants were just trying to be “cool parents” instead of instilling in their child a proper way of dressing and how when one dresses in this uncouth manner (yoga wear/exercise wear/COMFORT wear) that they are actually causing issues for others. The focus was not on the girls comfort and ability to JUST BE THEMSELVES but on how the boy’s in school were being tormented by the yoga booties and that girls need to take full responsibility for the boy’s reactions. “
What about jeans?
Who remember’s the perfectly fitting, beautiful ass showing Rocky Mountain Jeans from the 80’s?
Okay, so I get that I am not the average parent or individual for that matter in my viewing of things and how I process what the world brings to me. I get that I am far more open and a realist to life when it comes to everything especially my children and them growing up. But seriously, this whole talk seemed to be on shaming young women ages 11-18 for wearing yoga pants. And to this the shame that is being bestowed on this group of young women carries out into the world to ALL women. And effects ALL males.
My questions to this topic of shameful yoga bootie are:
Is there anything that does not turn on or side track a young man when he is in his hormone high season?
What is more empowering to young men and women: teaching that someone else is responsible for our thoughts, feelings and actions (thus happiness or lack thereof) or that we are the creators of our inner world, it is OUR choice to focus on what thought, feeling or action we have or make?
Is socially shaming anyone or a group for something really benefiting the morality of the whole?
If a woman or girl who is wearing “yoga pants” is raped or sexually assaulted should we let the poor blinded boy/man off the hook because it was actually the girls fault?
By shaming a young woman for this or a young man for something else are we really creating a healthy sexual future for this person(s)?
If we allow tank tops, tighter fitting t-shirts, yoga pants, or whatever else comes up to be illegal attire for everyday wear for young women because it side tracks the boys then should we also start having young women bind their bosoms so that their forming breasts do not side track the young men?
How about we just cover young developing women up from head to toe; only allowing their eyes to be revealed so that the boys can learn how to suppress and get a grip on their hormones and desires?
The fact of the matter here is we exist in a sexually repressed culture. One where more and more people are turning inward and shutting down. Depression, anxiety, sexual issues, mental illness, anger, fatigue, and dis-ease are all at an all time high. More and more cases of people suffering from being bipolar, ADD, ADHD, and stress induced illnesses are being reported. Sexual crimes and abuse in many fashions are also growing at phenomenal rates. Our fear for the young women in yoga pants is that they will fall prey to someone who has not learned how to deal with their sexuality in a healthy fashion. We also fear that if young men are surrounded by too much mental stimulation that they will burst and become one of these ill acting sexually challenged souls.
As parents, teachers and a society we want the best for our youth but we really have no clue of how to create it. The reason for this is because we are all victims raised by victims and has been programmed to believe that our sexuality is the source of all evil. Okay so maybe you were taught that money was the source of all evil, well money and sexuality is what causes ALL the worlds’ pain, suffering and demise. MmmmHmmmm! Sure.
Pain, suffering, ill behaviors, war, terror, rape, and more are all caused not by money and sexuality but by power hungry ego thoughts that manifest into actions of control. When we start to believe that someone else is responsible for making us happy, providing for our love, our bliss, our stress release and that if they do not do the right things and give us what we “need” then they are causing us suffering in some fashion so we have to TAKE it or at least try taking it (forcing our will onto another), we have the true culprit of suffering.
By teaching our young male population that a girl should not do this, say that, wear this, listen to that or act some certain way we are in fact teaching the young male population that their thoughts and actions should be based on what someone else is “causing” them to feel or think. This is not being proactive for the self. We are also sending mixed teachings to young men saying that it is okay for a man to speak, do, act, go topless, etc. But not a female, thus teaching that man rules woman. In the same essence we tell boys to respect women and treat them like ladies, yet we pump our media, games and movies full of the reverse. We worry about young men seeing a girl in yoga pants and a t-shirt at school and getting a hard on but we have no worries about the porn he has on his phone, his computer or the virtual women he is in combat with that are almost naked and portraying women in a plastic sense. We tell young men to not act on their sexual desires as they are sinful or sex is only for marriage or a committed relationship, that masturbation is nasty or dirty, yet when we walk into a store or turn on the TV we are bombarded with sexual advertising and shows and games that show the opposite. The same goes for young women.
The policy change on yoga pants for some schools will not prevent boys from being sidetracked or have sexual desires and act on them, but these policies will go to feeding the sexual shame and repression that so many women suffer from. The next generation will have one more lashing of shame to overcome. Sadly the young men of today who are being tormented by this shameful yoga ass will in future years be tormented in a much more severe way. That once hot yoga ass girl will not be able to open up to deep loving penetration and orgasm with her lover because through the years the suppression of who she was and the ability to be comfortable in herself and in the pants she chose to wear will cause her to block physical and emotional feeling. She will need healing for shame and taught how her sexuality is empowering not sinful. That is IF she awakens to why she feels so lost, so ill, repressed, confused, emotionally unstable, blaming and possibly even suicidal. IF she can find the courage 20-30 years down the road to deal with her garbage that was tossed into her youth by a sexually repressed and ill society.
Some do, most don’t. Welcome to the world of pharmaceutical drugs, street drugs, alcohol, 70% divorce rates, affairs, domestic abuse and emotional whirl-winds!!!!
–KW