Lauren Geertsen - The Invisible Corset

Sounds True

Boulder, CO 80306

2021 Lauren Geertsen
Sounds True is a trademark of Sounds True, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author(s) and publisher.

Published 2021

Book design by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Printed in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Geertsen, Lauren, author.

Title: The invisible corset : break free from beauty culture and embrace

your radiant self / Lauren Geertsen.

Description: Boulder, CO : Sounds True, 2021. | Includes bibliographical

references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020016773 (print) | LCCN 2020016774 (ebook) | ISBN

9781683646181 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781683646198 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Self-acceptance in women. | Self-esteem in women. | Body

image in women.

Classification: LCC BF575.S37 G44 2021 (print) | LCC BF575.S37 (ebook) |

DDC 306.4/613--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016773

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016774

For the daughters.

The information contained in these topics is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, it is provided for educational purposes only. Statements in this book have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and no information in this book is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.

Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health-care provider before starting any new treatment or discontinuing an existing treatment. Talk with your health-care provider about any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

May you realize your body is a faithful and beautiful friend of your soul.

John ODonohue

The divorce rate between women and our bodies is sky-high.

Were told our worth is our beauty, and our glory is youth, and were told this so often we swallow it as truth.

Beauty culture clamors, Change yourself, rearrange yourself, shrink, shape, and buy! We slather our skin with promises, but our bodies never seem to comply.

Im choosing this, we say, because I prefer to look this way. But what about that small inner voice that says, I sort of like it... but partly, I dont feel like I have a choice.

Were afraid of our weight, our size, our face, our skin. We learn to see our bodies uniqueness as our special brand of sin.

The industry of patriarchy has told us beauty is pain, and we need beauty to win this survival game. We concede, and so internalize our oppression, holding our bonds in place with our own perceptions.

We believe beauty is our currency, a required vocation, so we spend more on beauty than we do on our education. Its a worthwhile investment, or so we believe, as if thin and pretty is required praise we must achieve.

Eventually, we find our bodies too poorly equipped for a lasting relationship. My body failed me, we cry. So day after day, we pack our bags and prepare to give our bodies a final good-bye.

Some women spit sparks of rage and scream, I cant do this anymore! as we slam the door. And yet others say, with eyes full of longing as we walk away, Body, why did you make it impossible for me to love you?

When women decide our bodies have failed us, we begin our search for a new home. We knock on the doors of money, lovers, friends, children, careers, food and drugs, products and prestige. We ask, of everyone and everything else, the question weighing down our soul:

Will you love me enough so that I can feel whole?

We are going out of our minds, looking for the love we left behind.

Weve spent years battling the natural circumstances of our bodies. But how can we find our way back to ourselves when we are trying to escape ourselves?

We must look in the mirror and see ourselves clearly. Shall we give up the fight? Shall we give ourselves over to the ocean of our untamed light?

The truth of our bodies stands before us, hidden in plain sight.

Remember, our beauty is not something to earn.

Its time to unlace the corset and let our true beauty return.

As a little girl, I wanted to do fabulous and creative things with my hands, voice, and body. I wanted to be a professional dog sitter, a singer, an athlete, a dancer, an architect, a businesswoman, a writer. I spent school recess either tearing across the playfield after a soccer ball or madly scribbling a story in a lined notebook. On early weekend mornings, before the family woke up, Id sketch out palatial floor plans for my dream bedroom. I saved Halloween candy, lined it up on my bookshelf, and in July, opened a candy store for my friends.

Being myself was all I knew how to be, and I liked being myself. Then, gradually but also quite suddenly, things changed. At the cusp of puberty, I put aside what I wanted to do and instead wanted to be beautiful. I remember examining the products in my moms bathroom at that time. There was the hair smoother, the self-tanner, the lip plumper, the skin primer, the cellulite cream. I did the logic backward: this meant her hair was too frizzy, complexion too pale, lips too thin, skin too textured.

After careful consideration, the implications hit me: My hair was hers, the same color and curl. My skin was hers, the same shade of porcelain. My lips and complexion, like hers, were worthy of rejection. At the brink of puberty, I realized the fate of being in the wrong body was coming at me like a freight train. I, too, needed to line up products like soldiers on the bathroom counter and battle my body.

I also needed beauty the same way I needed academic accolades. Here was the yardstick of enoughness: I just had to make my hair gleam, and chisel my abs like the women in magazines. I didnt question that yardstick but rather lunged for it. It seemingly offered me the opportunity to feel okay about myself in a world that told me, Youre not measuring up. Maybe I wasnt born with it, just like I wasnt born getting straight As, but with enough time, money, and discipline, I could climb the ladder of adequacy.

So I poured my time and babysitting money into concealing, shaping, toning, straightening, smoothing, and shrinking myself. The more I tried to change my body, however, the more I hated it. And the more I hated my body, the more I disliked being me.

Body hatred stems from the belief that our appearance makes us incapable or unworthy of our destiny, and it manifests in the attempt to change our appearance instead of a toxic societal system. Body hatred silences the womens souls. Like a rope, it is around the waist of every newborn girl and is yanked tightly when she gets big and bold enough to be a force of curiosity, sensuality, and self-expression in the world. When it comes to our pursuit of beauty, its not the intention that counts but the result. We intend to find confidence, happiness, and worthiness. The results, however, are exhaustion, frustration, and despair that we pass down from generation to generation.

As the years passed, I started to remember what it felt like to want my own life. I daydreamed about plunging into a pool without worrying about my makeup or my thighs. I yearned to eat a luxurious lunch without calculating my caloric intake. I ached to enjoy a vacation without panicking over a missed workout. I longed to relax under the gaze of a lover without feeling the need to apologize for my bloated stomach. I felt soul hungry, haunted by the echoes of untasted opportunities.