“Because You’re Worth It”

Do you remember this tag line from the most successful ad campaign in women’s beauty product advertising?

Up until L’Oreal began using this line for its premier hair colour, Preference by L’Oreal, women’s role in advertising was to support their men, even when the product being advertised was made for women!

I was 4 when these ads came out. I used to sit under our old ironing board, which my mother set up in the living room, and watch her daytime shows on our old, furniture-style black-and-white television while she ironed my father’s shirts. Looking back on this memory, I wonder whether my mother knew she was worth it, or whether these words went over her head, content as she was to look after her husband as she had been taught to?

I was a tomboy, playing with my Evel Knievel race car set and outrunning the boys with my mantra, Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better! I was also a budding feminist, though I didn’t have the word for it until it was hurled at me as an insult when I tried to start the first all-girls hockey team at my middle school in Montreal. I took it as a compliment!

What I knew in my bones was that not only could I play with race cars and climb trees, but I could also play with my Barbie dolls and pretend to be a world-class figure skater or a princess – one who didn’t need her prince, of course.

How much the advertising tagline I’m Worth It influenced my perspective on the world, I can’t say. I had many strong influences as I grew up, not the least of which were popular TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s that featured women as the main players. Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Cagney & Lacey, to name a few.

By the time I was in university, I was marching in Take Back the Night events, grieving for the 14 women attacked and killed on December 6^th, 1989, at L’école Polytechnique – Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, and Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz – and learning everything I could about the false narrative that women have always been barefoot and pregnant throughout history.

When I graduated from Dalhousie University with an Advanced Major in Women’s Studies and Social Work, I was ready to take on the world and right every wrong perpetrated against women, past and present.

My father used to say I had a strong sense of justice. I often complained that the world wasn’t fair, to which he would reply, “No one said it was.” He had his views on women’s place in the world, which, ideally, was at home, looking after the family. Not that he minded women being in the workforce or that they could sometimes be brilliant (outliers!), but not in the same way as men. One of our biggest arguments (everyone went to bed and left us to duke it out) was about women in sports and whether women and men could be on the same team and still provide good sports entertainment for the masses. You can guess which side I was on – go co-ed teams! In the end, we had to agree to disagree and never speak of it again!

I am a feminist and continue to fight for women’s rights, health, respect, and equality. Equality isn’t about being the same; for me, it’s about being equally respected, valued, and acknowledged. This is what I fight for on behalf of my clients, my daughters, and women the world over.

And yet, somewhere along the way, I lost touch with taking care of myself. I realize I have been unconsciously stuck in an old pattern of not giving my needs equal weight to those around me. I have recently uncovered a deep, limiting belief that I don’t have the time to put my needs at the center of my life. There’s too much to get done in the day. I have responsibilities to others. I can’t possibly go to the gym, take a walk in the middle of the day, or sit in the sun with a good book and a cup of tea. I. Have. Too. Much. To. Do.

Interesting. So, what’s beneath that?

As I sit here at the end of June, I look back to last September and see where the shift began. A dear friend told me she was starting a new choir for adults who want to sing with others for the sheer joy of it, not to perform. Having recently been asked to leave a community choir because my singing wasn’t good enough, I felt the opportunity to heal that wound was perfect! So my husband and I joined Voices! Where we met each week and belted out tunes, off-key much of the time, but with mounting confidence.

Next came archery lessons. For my daughter’s 24^th birthday, I signed us both up for beginner archery lessons. Mother-daughter time every Saturday for 9 weeks. Amazing! I found muscles I didn’t know I had, discovered a new community, and learned a new skill. Watch out, Robin Hood!

And then, a chance (?) encounter at the Highland Games this past May. A vendor’s booth caught my eye. Inside the booth, there was a balance beam, which reminded me that when I was young, my best friend and I would walk across the beam of chain-link fence that separated our backyards, seeing who could make it all the way across without falling off. I had an exceptional sense of balance when I was younger and entertained dreams of becoming a professional gymnast, only to be told I was too tall.

I almost made it across his balance beam without falling off, and then signed up for his free assessment of flexibility and strength at his gym!

Before I received the text from Tensegrity Fitness confirming my free assessment, a dear client reached out and invited me to join her for a healing treatment at EHLA Wellness, as she intuitively felt I needed support. Two beautiful hours in the frequency room and then the salt cave. Pure nourishment! Heeding my body’s wisdom, I booked myself and my husband for that weekend for another few hours of bliss as a gift to ourselves for our birthdays.

And then my assessment. Oh, my! How have I become so stiff in my body? So not bendy in my joints? Unflexible. It was sobering.

And so, I have made a deep, profound commitment to myself to finally take care of my body for Future Megan. I have never been a gym person. And Yoga? But I don’t enjoy being on the floor! I tell myself I prefer to stay physically active as my exercise. Gardening, hiking, foraging, kayaking, and walking. All of which are great, none of which happen as often as they used to, and none of which address the deep trauma my body has held for many decades. This gym is different. It has a down-to-earth vibe and people who genuinely care about deep health. Like-minded. And, yes, Yoga!

It’s time. It’s time to release what my cells have been holding for me until I was ready. Our bodies hold unhealed trauma for us. It lives in our fascia, joints and cells. It lets us know what it’s holding through the pain and discomfort we feel. Aging with aches and pains is not natural aging; it’s getting older with unresolved, unhealed wounds.

I made a promise to myself when I was very young to live to be 100 and then die peacefully in my sleep, without pain or disease. I just turned 57. I have always held the vision of aging well, healthy, and strong. And while I feel I have done a pretty good job of staying strong – 17 surgeries and multiple serious illnesses aside! – Now is the time to soften into long-lasting wellness.

It’s a rebirth of sorts, and I can share that opening my fascia and releasing old trauma is more physically painful in the moment of release than either of my birthing experiences! No oxytocin to ease the pain – just a white-hot, intense release. But worth every second.

During the first release, while lying on the floor with a fascia-release ball supporting my body weight, it was so intense that I cried from both the physical pain and the emotional release. I suspect there will be more tears to come, but once I can move smoothly and freely again, I can begin to rebuild my strength.

And the words that came into my mind in that moment of first release were “Because I’m Worth It,” which, in turn, is the genesis of this conversation. Let’s make this our collective mantra moving forward because we cannot rise as women if we don’t know our worth, and the world needs us to rise.

“Because I’m Worth It, Because You’re Worth It, Because We’re Worth It!”

XO Megan

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_m8jRiOpcTA – a short history of the tag line, Because I’m Worth It (read by AI)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_m8jRiOpcTA – a longer documentary about the woman who created that phrase and helped shape generations of women fighting for change!

(https://youtu.be/_UB1YAsPD6U?si=yrptUzWg_JAXEUqp) “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better!”

(https://musicalia.ca/voices-community-choir/) Voices!

https://www.pacificarcherybc.com/ Pacific Archery

https://www.ehlawellness.ca/ EHLA Wellness

https://www.tensegritytraining.ca/ Tensegrity Fitness