It Starts with Us
”It’s in our DNA and programming to find other women untrustworthy. Many of us have personal experiences of another woman competing/stealing from us/stabbing us in the back.
We have to tear this shit down.
We have to help each other first trust ourselves, our intuition and our inner authority. Then slowly, and with deep, deep compassion, we have to find ways to start trusting each other again.”- Lisa Lister
Loves,
Many of you know that a lot of my writing and teaching comes from what I observe in the world around me. I pay attention, I listen, I respond. And lately I have observed some things, not a new observance per se (in fact a very ancient one), but one I feel its time for me to speak to. And I might be fierce, please forgive my passion around this. If you have daughters, I ask for you to pay particular attention.
It's Up To Us
It's up to us to begin to heal the sisterhood wounds, and the stories of mistrust we have around ourselves and each other, and being in space with women. Because once we do, and we gather, we heal the next generations, maybe even the next 7...this includes girls AND boys. Why is this important? Well let me tell you what I have observed lately and see if it speaks to your very core as it does mine. I could go back to the beginning of when women started to compete with each other and why, but there is no need, we can't change that story, we can just heal for ourselves and for the future. I have been blessed to learn from and carry the torch from women who believe to their very core that women gathering for transformation is the path to healing....ALL OF IT, and I am proud to carry on the lineages. And yet some days I look around and say, have we made any fucking progress at all? Are the women hearing the call, do they even care to remember who they/we at a soul level, do they care that their daughters are still doing the same shit to, and having the same shit done to them? I know that you, we, they do. We care very much, but perhaps don't know how to heal, how to shift it. And I can say it takes one act of bravery and stepping into space with other women and trusting that all will be well, one act of healing and forgiveness, one woman at a time if needed. So let me share a few things I observed this week.
A woman shared with me that she was always a Lone Wolf, for fear of being wounded, stabbed in the back, and so she decided years ago she would have to go it alone. Then she made a choice to shed that story, step to the edge of fear and join a sister circle. She has now learned trust, that she is loved in all facets of her being by her circle, and that she can be in co-creative partnership with other women for both personal and professional endeavors, and by doing so things happen with so much more ease and grace. But she did not allow any of this until her middle years. She wished she did it so much sooner.
Another woman I met decided to come to a workshop as a participant, but when she got there, she shut down entirely, she hid the beautifully wise woman I know her to be, and was like an entirely different person. Why? Because she told herself a story that she wouldn't belong before she even got there. The result of that, was she did not get to share her gifts nor hear the gifts of the wisdom of the other women, to know that she is not alone, and missed out on the connections that are possible in this type of gathering. I can almost guarantee that 90% of the women who walked in there were afraid of not belonging, and yet this was a space about belonging, and that they stepped through that fear and showed up, in whatever way they were ready to. THIS HAS TO STOP. If we are on this planet, we belong. And we as women need to stop making others feel like they do not belong intentionally or unintentionally...even if we are different or don't agree on everything. (I have my own story about this..read on).
This is from women of a certain age, and I hear similar stories, ALL THE TIME. And until we heal them for ourselves, there is no way our daughters (and sons for that matter) will not go into adulthood with the same stories of being hurt and hurting each other.
We have to be the way-showers.
Because here is what I have observed from our young women recently.
I have been blessed to be in space with some teenaged young women recently. Smart, capable, dynamic, stunning young women, with deep wisdom and gifts. I have found they cannot look anyone in the eyes. And speaking is very difficult for them. That speaks volumes to me.
I belong to a few FB groups that are primarily comprised of millenials..who by the way are doing their best to support each other, but don't know how. AND YET, I observe over and over the mean girl behavior. AND the lack of friends and isolation. Mostly, what I see is young women saying they are in depression and anxiety because of a breakup. And now they are isolated and friendless. Mostly because they allowed their romantic lives to usurp who they are, and gave up all their friends in service to a relationship, more often than not a relationship that was not in their highest good for their sovereignty, and certainly not a partnership. And if I recall I have deep wounding around friends leaving me for a man. I may have done it myself. But we have to teach our young women that if a relationship of any kind (romantic, friendship, work, you name it) is calling for her to give up who she is, and her friends then to run far, far away. (Staying sovereign in relationship and partnership is a whole other conversation, but this is what I am observing). The sister wounding as it relates to this comes from the either the friend feeling "left" or the friends "leaving" when a romantic relationship begins during our maiden years.
My spiritual mentor pointed out to me today, that some of this with our younger women is also pandemic of the disconnection from being over-connected and not knowing how to actually be in front of and communicate with a person in real life. And certainly not as their real selves as opposed to the online persona they have developed. Again, we as women of a certain age have to teach our young women how to do this, because they literally do not know how. (What is this VCSO thing anyway..can someone help me out here...I have a son)
These are just the few of the things I have observed. And here is what I KNOW. When we step through the fear of being hurt, when we show up and walk through that door of being in space with women, when we gather together, through our presence with each other and sharing stories we begin to heal them. But this is experiential and does not happen with words, facebook likes, and good intentions. When we show up, and by that I do not mean:
Getting drunk
Having a man-bashing or bitch session
Business Networking
Although these are valid and fun, and have an outcome, they are not meant as sacred space to just show up, know we are not alone, and that we do belong... that we begin to heal the stories, heal each other, and show the way for our younger women. It is also a chance to take radical responsibility and apologize (even to the collective if not a person directly) for hurting other women (including ourselves) AND forgiving ourselves for it. We did the best we could we what we knew at the time.
But now we know better.
I am not writing this because I don't have the same pain and wounds that all of you do. It's because I made a choice to end and transcend it. My story is one of not belonging, not being included, not being invited, because I was always a little behind and ahead of my time, and esoteric when it wasn't cool. And this led to some very self-sabotaging behavior the results of hiding who I am in order to belong. And so I made a choice. I made a choice to create the space from which I could do the inviting, welcoming everyone, and inviting everyone, even those who choose not to accept the invitation (which also used to be a core wound) but no longer runs me. And through doing that, I healed these stories. By healing these stories, and showing up, and standing in my sovereignty, I no longer experience or even "see" those women who continue to hurt others. I see it in the collective, but it does not enter my field. So if you are still experiencing this. The remedy is to gather the women, call the circle, invite, step in, show up. Call them to the park, the coffee shop, your living room, wherever you can find sacred space.
Just Gather
And include your daughters.
Love and Light,
Dina
PS.As a gift, if you would like to read my story about moving from self-sabotage through owning my light and my shadow, no longer trying to be something different than who I am in order to belong, loving myself, and finding my tribe. I have attached the chapter of the book I am published in. Ready to Fly-Volume II. ENJOY!