This past Monday marked 5 months since my prophylactic double mastectomy. I am wrapping up physical therapy that I have extended and I have officially been cleared to get back to my life without having to be careful. One thing I did recently that helped me was choose to step out shirtless in front of a large crowd of people and go for a (freezing) dip in this lake in a mountain nearby the campsite I was staying at. I worked through this emotional journey to come to peace with losing my breasts and to feel pride in my new body as it is, and to now get to the point of feeling I can go topless for a swim or a hot hike without worrying what other people think. So much weight has been put on breasts by society. It has fed ideas in women everywhere, including myself, that without breasts, we might be less woman or feminine. That’s simply not true. But I had to process that and work to truly believe that. Stepping out like I did for that freezing dip, as you see in the video below, was a big deal for me. A great step. And nobody minded. There are fears in a lot of women that they will be criticized by people for doing this because society isn’t used to breastless women. That may still be true to some extent, but that’s changing. Let’s normalize this and empower breastless women who want to be able to go swimming without a shirt to do so! Let me help encourage by sharing my own moments!