Huffington Magazine Issue 57 | Page 78

Exit And the expectations faced by women who have given birth are particularly harsh. “Shaming mothers for not ‘bouncing back’ after childbirth can cause feelings of failure when being a mother is challenging enough and when a big number of us have already lived a life of feeling un-beautiful prior to giving birth,” she says. For a glimpse into the experience on the other side of Beall’s camera, yoga therapist Michelle Marks wrote about her journey from terror to exhilaration on Off- SECTION HUFFINGTON 07.14.13 We are facing an epidemic of women who feel unworthy of being called beautiful.” beat Home. Marks says the final product made her cry: “I had exposed myself to Jade — not just my flesh, and typically hidden parts, but the angles, and lines and aspects of me that came with being a mother. The exposure called to light remembrances of how my body changed shape over two different pregnancies, and two births, and the stories that my body has stored from the act of