You think you've got body image issues?
After two bouts of cancer and having her breasts, uterus, and ovaries removed, Sister Goddess Lisa Zafran thought of herself as an "asexual amoeba". The worst part was that she was absolutely okay with that... until she entered the Mastery classroom.
Despite her rough ride, SG Lisa was no downer. She was a natural, vibrant, sensual goddess. She knew how to use her illness to take herself and everyone around her higher, taking party bags into chemo with her and choosing gorgeous scarves to cover her bald head. Everyone praised her for being such an inspiration, including her daughter, who wrote about “My Mom, My Hero” in her college application. In the midst of everything, SG Lisa and her husband began studying tantra to reignite their “extremely sensual chemical connection” and they quickly escalated to become teachers and facilitators in that community.
Her spiritual self had kept her afloat, helping her navigate and find meaning in her journey. She had come to understand her illness as the result of emotional trauma she endured as a child. She valiantly worked to heal those wounds, but the cost was her sense of womanhood.“I got to the point where so much was taken away, and I didn’t love myself enough to go out and find it again. I said, ‘okay. It’s gone. I’m a really accepting person and I’m just going to live the rest of my life like [an asexual amoeba].’ For whatever reason, I was led to the School of Womanly Arts and it gave me an awareness that not only do I not have to do that, but that I can’t afford to do that.”
SG Lisa had planned to sit quietly and soak in the Mastery experience, but her story emerged during a class exercise. She suddenly found herself center stage with Mama Gena presented with the question, “Wouldn’t you do anything [to revive your sense of Woman]?” As a child, SG Lisa learned to check out emotionally whenever things got frightening, so she was surprised to find herself not only fully present, but willing. What followed was womanity at its best -- an incredible display of pure sisterhood and love, an impromptu ritual so moving and profound that it shifted everything.
“It was one of the first times in my life that I was aware and conscious that I was safe enough. I looked around and saw women just as scared about their bodies as I am, so it really put it in perspective for me…and in [the experience that followed] of people giving me back something that was taken away from me, and it wasn’t just the breasts, or the uterus and the ovaries -- it was my whole life that was given to me. I feel that I got a large amount of the love and nurturing I’ve gotten in my life from that experience. All of those things that I didn’t get when I was a little girl. I manifested that and it freed me. “
A few weeks later, SG Lisa was spotted sunbathing topless in Miami, reveling in her own beauty. She has completely revolutionized her relationship to her own body.
“I make sure to fill myself up by doing really good things for myself, loving myself, and just treating my body like a temple. Putting good things in my body, exercising, dressing nice, and decorating my body with clothes, not waiting for anything. Everyday is a new day, a new life. I’m 52. It took me that long to realize that. Fill yourself up first. Don’t rely on your man, your job, or all the things you want to be with your money. Have that all just be the frosting.”
And the asexual amoeba?
Long gone.
She says now, “I’m not just a woman. I’m a total woman. I’m a complete woman and I feel like the essence of woman.”
