The third in a series of Outer Banks posts I wrote while disconnected from the internet for a week. Hope it helps all of you who must endure swimsuit shopping.

This week, I was blessed to experience a magical swimsuit moment. Now, if you’re anything like me, swimsuit shopping usually brings up every insecurity you’ve ever had about your body and wallops you with painful feelings of inadequacy. Even the most beautiful women I know, who have what I would consider perfect bodies, suffer from the swimsuit phenomenon. You know, the one where swimsuit shopping transforms a Pink Goddess with loads of mojo into a sniveling, shriveled shell of a person.

Setting The Right Mood For Swimsuit Shopping

This week, I’ve been on vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, disconnected from the internet, away from my daughter, just hanging out with one of my dearest friends, my husband, and a whole crew of groovy folks. We stopped in the town of Duck (Duck?) to do a little shopping, and lo and behold, I saw this adorable bathing suit hanging on a sale rack outside of the store.

Now, mind you, the last time I shopped for a bathing suit was over four years ago, and I was fourteen weeks pregnant, which is probably the absolutely worst time in a woman’s life to shop for a swimsuit, because you don’t quite look cute and pregnant yet. You just look very, very fluffy. If Matt and I weren’t going to Hawaii for a two week vacation, I would have avoided swimsuit shopping like the plague. But since gaining some weight, none of my old swimsuits fit, and I had to buy something. So I went to this great little swimsuit shop in Mission Beach, and I was for sure the oldest, biggest girl there. Everyone else was about 18, and they were all modeling their swimsuits in front of the mirror for each other, twisting and turning to check out how big their asses looked. “Look at my thighs. You can see my cellulite. If only I had bigger boobs.” And these chicks were drop dead jailbait gorgeous.

There I was, thirty-five and pregnant, feeling pretty grim about the stack of swimsuits the store clerk was loading into my dressing room. Just then, I realized that there was no mirror in the dressing room- that you HAD to come out of the dressing room in your swimsuit if you wanted to check out how fat your ass looked.

Suffice it to say, swimsuit shopping that day was an all-time mojo low, and I haven’t shopped for a new swimsuit since. But there I was, in Duck today, admiring this PINK Patagonia swimsuit on the rack, feeling relaxed, even a little bit confident about how cute I would look in that swimsuit.

Try To Love Your Body In a Swimsuit, Even If You Don't Look Like Cindy Crawford

So I bit the bullet, grabbing the swimsuit, plopping it into a dressing room, stripping off my sundress, and donning the suit. And wouldn’t you know, it actually fit. Sure, I wish my boobs were bigger and my butt was smaller and my belly was flatter, and I wish I didn’t have that weird tan line I’ve gotten from hiking (a sock tan and shorts tan that makes me look really bizarre-o in a bathing suit). But all in all, I looked sassy and perky, if I do say so myself.

So I bounced out of the dressing room in the pink swimsuit so I could show Matt and get a second opinion, and Matt gave it a big double Pinkies Up. I couldn’t believe it. I had actually bought a swimsuit by trying on only one. That has never happened in my entire life. Usually, I try on 103 swimsuits to find one or two that don’t make me look absolutely awful. But a one-shot success? Never happened to me. In fact, I can still recall every single bathing suit shopping experience in my adult life. I can tell you where I was, who I was with, what I was wearing, and exactly how shitty I felt all day. But this day was so without angst, drama, or self-hatred. And then when I went to buy the suit, the clerk told me it was 60% off. I consider it a divine swimsuit miracle.

Mojo Comes From Within

When I was about to leave, the store clerk said, “Girlfriend, you are my hero. I’ve been working here for five years, and I have never- not once- seen any woman come out of the dressing room wearing a swimsuit. But you- you just bounced over to your husband, got an opinion, and pranced on back. You’ve got balls, sister. I admire that.”

It wasn’t until she said that that I realized how different this swimsuit purchase was from every other swimsuit shopping experience of my life. What changed? How did I go from bitter self-loathing of my body in a swimsuit to simple acceptance that I am who I am, and this body is what carries me from A to B? Maybe it’s the Body Blessings I’ve been doing. Maybe it’s related to turning forty and realizing that I have to surrender to the inevitable aging and changing of my body. In truth, my body looked much better when I was twenty, but I accept and love my body much more now. I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with mojo. I think it’s related to my realization that my true beauty lies within, and that, even if my boobs sag, my face wrinkles, my belly pooches, and I get varicose veins, I am still a beautiful person, as are each and every one of you.

What Did I Learn? Here Are Some Tips For How To Survive Swimsuit Shopping

1. Bring someone who loves you, no matter what.

2. So a Body Blessing before you even enter the dressing room.

3. Remember that a swimsuit is merely something to wear while swimming, playing, and having fun.

4. BELIEVE that your beauty lies within. Everything else is just icing.

5. Don't compare yourself to how anyone else looks in a swimsuit.

6. Be compassionate with yourself. This is not the time for harsh criticism.

7. Find yourself berating yourself in the mirror? Turn it around by expressing gratitude for something you love about yourself.

8. Understand that mojo makes you beautiful to others and insecurity and self-hatred don't. Get your mojo on and OWN it!

What about you, Pinkies? What do you need to Own and accept your body, just the way it is right now? What might you do to silence your inner critic, the one that tortures you when you’re swimsuit shopping? Please share your wisdom.

With sassy swimsuit love,
Lissa