Inherently, I don't like meditation because I feel like it's one long exercise of someone else telling me what to do.  If you've been reading me for any length of time, you know how well I respond to being told what to do except in very specific consensual contexts.  The second you tell me to close my eyes and make that mandatory and not optional, you've lost me.

Needless to say, this has been problematic in my budding yoga practice.  It is one of many problems with my budding yoga practice.  Almost everyone in my classes looks like a sexy yoga toned sex kitten who effortlessly flows from one movement to another.  I spend a lot of time in class wondering why non-waifs don't do yoga.  I also spend a lot of time in class wondering if I will ever be able to do half the movements being done as my boobs impede my entire life.  Every time I say this, it's like a revelation so I'll say it again.  If you are above a DD cup, everything is not awesome.  Everything is not awesome at all.  First, try spending less than $80 a bra if you are not in the Lane Bryant spectrum.  I get three bras at a time and I have to replace them every six months.  Yeah.  For reals.   Second, buying a bathing suit is like the fourth ring of hell.  Third, sexy nightgowns?  You are the hilar.  They don't exist for us.  My boobs never fit in the designated boob area.  Fourth, athletics are super difficult to do because you have two quart sized baggies of peanut butter hanging from your chest.  Fifth, good posture is a pipe dream.

So that's the long way around to say that it's impossble not to compare myself to all the yoga models I take class with with their C cup boobs that don't impair them from movement or racer back tank tops.

What I'm also trying to say is: Feeling beautiful, feeling glamorous all the time is really difficult.  It's part of why I keep doing yoga classes because I need to be in a sea of conventionally beautiful people and try to find the grace, glamour and beauty within myself, while feeling like I'm a frizzball of hair, boobs, belly and imperfect who is sweating like a whore in church.  It feels like sticking my face in a blender full of self loathing to be completely honest.  But by the end of class, I feel proud enough that I made it through the class and that I took another step in my journey to keeping my body moving and keeping my fibro flare ups to a minimum that it's worth it to me.  I have even started looking in the mirror to look at my form, something that is incredibly hard for me to do.  I can work through the internalized self loathing that's still in me by about the half way mark and admire some of the grace I have.  It makes me feel closer to my college self that did modern dance and trusted her body to do what it's supposed to do.  It reminds me that I still have some ability to move as I once did.  While it makes me anxious and forces me to deal with some really uncomfortable feelings, I also feel the most present in my body during a class.  More present than I've felt in close to a decade.

Feeling present in your body is something that helps glamour magic flow more naturally.  Once I started feeling more present in my body and connected, I noticed all of my magic working more easily.  It's hard to do for most of us, but it's really worth working on.

We all have friends who are more naturally charming or more conventionally pretty than we are and they get all the positive flirtation cakes while you sit there, looking at your shoes and wishing someone just once would see that you are of value too.  I had a real gut check moment on the day of my birthday party.  I've been writing and talking about glamour so much, you would think that it would all come very easily at this point.  It doesn't.  I was just shy of breathing into a paper bag because someone attending my party was basically like, I'm going to get blinged out, wear a micro mini with my boobs hanging out and go full on beauty queen.  You should do the same thing.  And . . .I just totally twibbled as my friend Jen would say.  I don't own a micro mini.  I have a few nice pairs of shoes/purses but no "real" bling.  I immediately felt anxious and depressed that I would just be the girl in the kitchen who makes the food and she would have the spotlight at my party.  It sounds silly, doesn't it?  Like, we're all supposed to be so past all that after high school/college but if we're being radically honest with ourselves, most of us aren't.  My sister very smartly snapped me out of it by reminding me that everyone was coming to see me (another terrifying thought) and they would be happy to see me, no matter what I was wearing.

I got more complaints on my PaganSquare blog, all blahblahblah I'm not doing tips 'n tricks enough, I'm a 101 basic bitch, glamour is a falsehood . . .I'm going to stop reading the comments for real finally because these people clearly don't get where I'm trying to take us.  I'm writing about very real internal alchemy which is way more important than if you say blah and work with blah, blah will happen.  Because honestly?  I'm past that.  If your life isn't changing in very real and very terrifying ways by doing your magic and doing the mundane work, there is no incantation in the world that will help you.

You want two things that will blow the window of your glamour practice wide open?

1. Be present in your body.  Truly, really present.  Observe how others treat you once you ar.

2. Once you're present in your body, manifest your own truth by breathing in "Sooooo" and breathing out "Hummmm".  This means, "I am that" in Sanskrit (सो ऽहम्).  Focus on enchanting your life into becoming what you want to be (beautiful, sexy, loved, powerful, confident, whatever) with every fiber of your being while completely present in your body.  Keep doing it until you blow the roof off your internal ant farm.  Magic.  Ta-da.

End of Lesson.