Phone: (917) 699-1284

A 20 Yr Old Woman’s Response to “Ripe”-Aging Out Loud

I created an eBook called “Ripe” with 12 images of myself on aging with grace, authenticity and aliveness. The book was mainly created for my own self-healing and to share with just some of the men and women in my life. I always knew it was not going out for public view, because I had a bigger vision of creating another book including many more women with many more stories including my own.

I sent the eBook to a young friend of mine in her 20’s who lives in Montreal, and here is her response which I felt important to share and asked her if I could do so. I asked her how she feels about her body.

“I think my relationship with my body is similar to that of 99% of the rest of the women in the Western world- it’s a love/hate relationship.

But from personal experience..

I think that the more one emphasizes importance on the soul, the more one realizes that the body isn’t something that should be scrutinized and objectified. If a person sees themselves in terms of being a soul, than they will cherish, respect and nurture the body – as a vessel to the soul.

Seeing yourself as a soul demands upon a high level of self-esteem and is a notion that goes against the American perception of self. I think that’s the reason why women in America are so unhappy because of all the images they are bombarded with, that demand them to see themselves as a body, rather than a soul (with skills, potential and abilities)- this is definitely a concept that we can applaud the Feminists of the 60s for bringing fourth (mind you, this idea is a basic notion in the Jewish tradition). ”

This response was quite unusual to me coming from a young woman in her 20’s, but was so gratifying that she has such an awareness at such a young age. Thank you dear Joelle for sharing your wisdom.

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 28th, 2010 at 8:19 am and is filed under Clients, Friends and Colleagues, Industry News, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “A 20 Yr Old Woman’s Response to “Ripe”-Aging Out Loud”

  1. Stephanie Potter Says:

    Hi,
    I agree we can applaud the feminists of the 60’s for the concept. However, upon the recent death of Jill Johnston, Village Voice columnist and author of Lesbian Nation from the day, I’ve been taking some time to look around. I’ve been at conferences addressing rape on college campuses and many are saying that we have lost a lot of ground in the current young generation, that women are being objectified more than ever, and the women are buying into it simply for social/survival reasons. Picking up the current editions of People, Star, US, OK, the Enquirer, Life and Style: the running commentary is that these shoes are “sexier”, she had a “sexy” vacation, and 20 year old gorgeous actresses are getting botox, and all kinds of plastic surgery to fit the image of “sexy”. Are we stuck in one chakra or what?

  2. Sherri Rosen Says:

    Thanks Stephanie for your comment. I think what the biggest problem is with the parents. If the parents aren’t there to give the kids a good foundation and confidence, then the kids look at media and FB for everything. One of my friends who lives in Ca. is having a terrible time with her l4 yr old daughter being out of control and also being so smart knowing how to hack into all sorts of computer programs. My friend and her husband are trying to deal with this, but my friend tells me that many of the parents don’t even care. They are in complete denial with their kids, what they are doing, inappropirate photos they are uploading on FB. Yet, on the other hand there is the wisdom of this 20 year old woman and I am also blown away by my granddaughter who has this incredible confidence and wisdom at l8 years old. I know in these instances these 2 young women were fortunate enough to have families that supported and cared about these 2 young women.

  3. joanie Says:

    With young girls seeming to be willing to do almost anything to be accepted eg bjs in the hallways in grade and highschools. Plastic surgery, implants, Women wearing shoes with heels that are definitely ruining their body, to look sexy. Often what they look like is wobbly and scared. Hopefully the sensuality in Sherri’s book can give freedom to women both young and older to see what is really beautiful and sexual about themselves and women. We need some of the mentality of the women’s movement now and Sherri’s book is inspiring. It actually gave me a little freedom once I read it.

Leave a Reply

Categories

Archives

Search

  • Google Plus Link
  • Twitter Link