health & wellness
FINALLY FREE by Breanna Phipps
Joanna Whyte Photography: Family Photo
Society as a whole has kept women hidden and silent for generations. Our voice, our passion, our bodies, our beauty, our human rights, our choice of thought, our careers and our lives were controlled by men, kept in secret, chosen for us until now. Until women, one by one, as a collective, began holding men accountable for their actions and taking back control of their lives, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Ending the cycle of control began. For me, this personal cycle lasted for 26 years.
My Story I was born and raised inside a religious cult in Sherwood Park, Alberta and as you can imagine, the control over women’s lives was rampant. The control was over our bodily anatomy right down to what height of heel we were allowed on our shoes. I lived the way of generations before me, but women everywhere struggle. They suffer the challenges that come with finding their confidence and self-worth as measured by society’s standards that have been engrained for generations. Three years ago, my husband and I were kicked out of this cult and we started to live, creating a life on the
40
|
outside. As a woman who was hidden physically, mentally and spiritually, these last three years have been what I describe as a journey, a deconstruction, and a process of reclaiming me; the authentic me.
My Personal Pain I have conceived, carried and birthed five incredible humans, I witnessed my body endure and survive the immense pain and pressures that childbirth brings. I stood in awe of myself as my body transformed in a short span of nine months, five times over to create and house new humans. Yet here on this journey, this deconstruction of myself, of these layers that have been poured upon me over 26 years, this is the hardest, most incredibly complex, excruciatingly painful thing I have ever done. Twenty-six years of manipulation, control, abuse, brainwashing, self-hate, doubt, and shame does not disappear as soon as you walk away. Perhaps in many ways, it intensifies as you fight your own thoughts and ingrained mannerisms and you step into a freedom of self that you have never known, lived and experienced before.
