Brushing my problems away
There's a saying in French that goes "il faut souffrir pour être belle", also known as "you must suffer to be pretty".
I resent it, even though I grew up with my mom trying to brush my curly hair and calming my nerves with this particular phrase as if it would make the pain go away. I hate the idea that as women we have to always be silently in pain, and yet I keep inflicting myself with the same daily ritual for the past month: dry massage.
The original idea: thinking I could feel better about myself and stop inflicting my body with the idea that I have to be thinner.
The reality: not seeing any results but believing I actually feel better (well kind of) after installing this body and self-care ritual.
If you're not familiar with the ancestral ritual of dry massage, where have you been? I was first introduced to this type of self-massage which consists of essentially brushing yourself from feet to belly and then from hands to heart when one of my friends was getting married. In search of body care that could help her get in shape for her wedding, she came across some beauty guru dry massage routine and sent it my way for me to review it.
It didn't take long or me to get my hands on Ruhi Dry Body Brush and start my own journey of dry massage. I must say, my ritual didn't last too long. I couldn't tell you why... Probably the lack of energy to have a sustainable self-care routine. Yet, here I am, 2+ years later, giving the dry massage another chance.
What started as a way for me to inflict yet another idea that my body wasn't enough and needed to be thinner, smaller, better, quickly turned into an almost daily ritual, and an excuse to spend way too much time in my bathroom. As I'm writing this, it's been a month or so, maybe two, since I started dry massage again. And I can confidently say now... That I don't see any results on my body. In fact, my cellulite has been left intact.
I've never been a truly consistent person. In fact, I was never able to keep a routine going. Take my lockdown push to start having a green smoothie for breakfast, for example, it lasted as long as the lockdown went on (the first one). And as for my wish to follow a 30 days pilates challenge, I kept going until day 8. So it's safe to say that I don't really like to stick to a routine. The good news is I've been able to be (almost) successful with the dry massage because it forces me to stop and just take the time for myself. And even though it's not the easiest task to brush your dry body for at least 5 minutes until you turn red, before hopping into the shower, I couldn't be prouder of myself, at 28 years old finally succeeding at keeping a ritual.
Being written down, and on the web space, I'm confident in saying that it might be hard to stop now, and face the risk to disappoint the 2 or 3 people that visit my blog.
Love,
Elsa
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