Last February, I had the unbelievable opportunity to experience Carnaval in Rio de Janiero. It was everything I imagined that the world's greatest party would be: throngs of people wiggling their hips joyously as the melodic thump of the samba beat hung on the balmy air, women in elaborate headdresses and barely there costumes sparkling majestically as they strutted their stuff down the parade runway. We took our place in the stands at 9pm and were still there dancing our hearts out at 6am, as the the last samba school shimmied its' way to the end of the runway and the sun rose gloriously over the Sambadrome.
After a few hours of much-needed sleep, we headed down to the beach in the hopes that the warmth of the summer sun and the soothing sound of the ocean waves would help us recover from the crazy excesses of the previous night. It turns out that a lot of other people had the same idea, which turned the beach into a blanket of bodies bronzing in the sun and people-watching into our spectator sport of the day.
Now, as you might expect, Ipanema Beach in Rio had more than its share of taut, shapely Brazilian beauties -- both male and female. Heck, even the garbage collectors had bodies worthy of being immortalized in a Greek statue. But what really struck me was sheer number of rotund middle-aged men with Buddha bellies hanging over banana hammocks (speedos) and fleshy, Rubenesque women in bikinis with crack-flossing thong bottoms sashaying down the beach with the sassy confidence of supermodels. I was gobsmacked. Here in the US, it seems that any woman with even a couple of pounds of extra weight dreads bikini season and is far more likely to cover up than to 'let it all hang out'. (I could certainly relate!) But somehow, this wasn't the case for these luscious Latin ladies. I was instantly intrigued. And I wanted whatever 'it' was that they had.
The more I watched them and thought about it, it occurred to me that the difference between them and me was that I always thought that feeling truly beautiful, sexy and confident would result when my body was perfect and rest of me was as well-manicured as a magazine layout. Yet, many of these women, who met neither of my technical criteria exuded more beauty, sex appeal and confidence than I did even on my best day of feeling cute. Utterly fascinating!
I was still transfixed by this experience as I got ready to go out that evening and was discussing it with my roommate (from the UK). Neither of us felt like we had 'it', so we decided that until we could figure out how to get 'it' all the time, we were going to focus on channeling our Inner Latina.
Channeling Your Inner Latina
So I'm sure that you're wondering what I mean by channeling my Inner Latina. For me, it means trying to find different ways to connect to feeling beautiful, sexy, and confident by owning and celebrating who I am today, rather the obsessing over what I'm not or what I 'should' be in the future; by embracing and accepting all of my beautiful parts as well as my flaws.
Sometimes just visualizing those women on the beach is enough to put a smile on my face and a bit of sass in my step. Sometimes I take a belly dance class.
Other times, as I'm getting ready to go out, I will crank up the tunes and shake my groove thing to some She-Wolf Shakira, bump to some Bootylicious Beyonce or -- my guilty pleasure favorite -- "It's Raining Men" by the Weather Girls. As you can see, it doesn't have to be Latin music to access your Inner Latina. In fact, it's amazing how just a few minutes of silliness can help me access 'it' and I start off the night in a completely different state of mind than I used to.
What are some of the things that you do to access your Inner Latina...or Angelina...or Beyonce? Share your ideas with us and pass along the blog post to your friends!
No comments:
Post a Comment