Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is woman.

A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.

Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

 

Our daughters, granddaughters, and nieces remind us that in the very beginning the girl-child loves herself. She comes into the world with feelings of omnipotence, not inferiority. She loves her body, expresses her feelings. She tells the truth. She is interested in herself and enjoys private time. She is involved with herself and her own pursuits. She celebrates herself and expects acknowledgement for her creativity and accomplishments. She does not expend one ounce of her precious life-energy trying to figure out what is wrong with her body, feelings and thoughts. She just lives. She makes a statement with every thought she shares, every feeling she expresses, and every action she takes on her own behalf.

Sadly, this season of the girl-child's life is short-lived. By the time she reaches junior high school, she has forgotten her original delight in herself. Her vision is narrowed; she sees the world as everyone else sees it. She loses her ability to act spontaneously; she acts as expected. Her original trust in herself is shattered; she waits to be told how to live. Her original spunk is exiled; she learns that it is dangerous to venture outside the lines. Her original goodness is twisted and labeled unnatural/unfeminine/ to intense by the adults in her life. The girl-child emerges from adolescence with a poor self- image, relatively low expectations from life, and much less confidence in herself and her abilities than boys have in themselves.

She grows up asking, "What's wrong with me?" This question regularly punctuates women's lives form adolescence on as they search far and wide for someone to give them an answer, for someone to offer them a magical insight, treatment, or cure. Because we women have learned a criticism-based way of perceiving ourselves and relating to the world, our automatic tendency is to feel inadequate and that we're never quite good enough no matter what we do. The question "What's wrong with me?" does not develop within us naturally. On a personal level, the question is shaped over time by the critical words, images, experiences, and expectations of childhood. We become convinced something is wrong with us and that our life-task is to discover what it is.

A closer examination of the question, however, reveals the critical words, images, experiences, and expectations of many lifetimes of women convinced that something is wrong with them because of views expressed through theology, psychology, societal scripts, family customs, and intellectual and social history. Clearly, the question's presence within us is not an arbitrary occurrence. The belief that something's is fundamentally, inherently wrong with women is woven into the fabric of Western civilization.

Many of us assume that our quest to discover what's wrong is particular and unique. Caught in the swirls of every day living with demands and challenges, we have no time to wonder about the larger dimensions of the question: Perhaps the very design of society itself does not sanction our full satisfaction and contentment. Perhaps it requires us to "fit in" at the expense of our sanity, health and pride. Perhaps fitting in requires us to become alienated form ourselves, from all that is naturally and organically ours as Children of Life. Perhaps the question is much larger and more encompassing than we could ever have imagined: What's wrong with us? What's wrong with women? A mantra passed down from generation to generation...... a mantra formulated by others.

 

Daughter of Woman, it is right and good that you are woman.

Honor your experience and tell your stories.

Refuse to carry the sins of others within your body and life.

 

taken from Imagine a Women in Love with Herself-Patricia Lynn Reilly

Our beloved planet is in desperate need of women who have moved from self-loathing to self-love, from self-criticism to self-celebration.------Patricia Lynn Reilly

 

Learning to admit when something isn't working is the same as teaching yourself what will.

 

Wisdom is having more questions than answers

 

"Women need images that validate their femininity, their sensuousness, and their mysterious magic, and that reveal the sacred dimension of their own gender, It's only natural that the goddess should have special significance for women, who long to know, too that they are made in divine image."

----Jalaja Bonheim, Goddess: A Celebration in Art and Literature

 

The road to becoming a woman to be reckoned with offers an extraordinary journey to those who dare....yet it requires us to tap into a deeper well of self-worth, strength and an internal power that many of us have barely glimpsed. Women who make their mark in this world share an important trait-they have learned how to access their own true power. While some women have gone about it the way men tackle the world, there are others who have mastered the art of tapping into the goddess within.

How do they do it? They live their lives from a state of entitlement akin to the consciousness of a goddess; it empowers them to feel worthy and destined for success, and hence, they create magnificent lives based on their personal, self-fulfilling prophecy of divine entitlement!*****Laurie Sue Brockway-A Goddess Is A Girl's Bestfriend

 

Competition among women is woven into the fabric of a society that prefers men. We compete with each other for the attention rivalry and suspicion among women; we lose touch with our original connection to the women in our lives. They function merely as fill-in companions between boyfriends. Inundated with homophobic messages, we become even more deeply alienated from each other and from the organic resources available in women-centered relationships. Like the steady drip of an IV inserted at birth, we absorb attitudes and fears designed to keep us separate...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">

At some point in our lives, most likely when we're reeling from another relationship failure, we reach out to a woman therapist, author, minister, or friend. Our original connection and solidarity with all women past, present, and future are reawakened. We begin to trust women, to know and be known by them, and to relax in their presence. They become the feminine face of god to us. As the face of god changes in our experience, we are reminded of the community of women that reaches back to a time when women valued each other, when they sat in circles to tell their stories and to remind each other of the truth. Tired of swirling around men, we begin to spend more time in the company o f women. In each other's presence, the tears of a lifetime are shed, the forgotten stories are remembered and spoken aloud, and our former dignity and power as women are reclaimed.

Reminded of the truth about ourselves, we relearn the vocabulary of connection. It replaces the competition- and separation-based vocabulary we learn in a society that revolves around men. It supports us to define our own relationships. It reaffirms our primary connection to women as we embrace our primary connection to ourselves. Consider the following examples of the vocabulary of connection. Highlight the ones that resonate with your own experience. Incorporate the vocabulary of connection into your daily conversation, interactions, and challenges.

 

1.) We speak to ourselves with integrity, incorporating self-celebratory affirmations into our inner dialogues:

 

"I am developing intimate and honest relationships with beautiful, powerful, intelligent, and spiritual women. I no longer see them as a threat. They are a part of me and together we all become beautiful and strong, I am learning to love women as I learn to love myself."

 

2.) We take responsibility for our competitive attitudes and behaviors by acknowledging the women we have been jealous of, gossiped about, called names or slandered, and competed with for the attention of a man. We become willing to make amends by changing our behaviors.

 

"I will make amends for my competitive attitudes by strengthening my relationships with women and giving them support rather than focusing on receiving the approval of men at work and in other settings. My colleagues and I are struggling to keep from feeling inferior to men so we compete with each other for their attention. I will make amends by learning to express appreciation and support, and by affirming our solidarity as women."

 

3.) We spend more time in the company of women and less time swirling around men. Women are no longer just fill-in companions between our relationships. They are the ground of our support.

 

"The community of women abides with me, comforts me, and provides me with a kind of security that a male lover can never do. The point is that I am a woman. The struggles and triumphs that other women experience as they go through life can guide and inform me as only women can."

 

Daughter of woman, value the women in your life.

In the company of women,

You will be reminded of the truth about yourself when you forget