WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE TRUE ABOUT WOMEN

I spent a lot of my life believing that as a woman, I was the inferior sex.

I remember when I started to realise the reality of being female – aged about 6 and doing a running race for sports day.

Beaten by all the boys, even the unsporty one. Easily beaten.

I remember the shame. Why is my body not as strong as theirs?

I remember the moments through the teenage years when I noticed that, somehow, the boys seemed to have more power than we did.

They were stronger.

I had this sense that we had to be ‘chosen’ by them.

I remember the shame I felt about actually being academically smarter than a lot of the boys and realising that maybe this intellect, although I was forever told it was something to be proud of, could actually be a hindrance in some respect.

Too much.

I remember realising how difficult it was for me to ‘hold things together’ compared to my brothers and compared to my male friends.

My emotionality was too much.

Damn this emotionality.

Why can’t I just fit into the mould that they seem to fit so easily into?

The ‘get sh**’ done, not overemotional, pragmatic mould.

Why?

I’m too much.

Too smart. Too emotional. Too big. Too tall. Too much.

So I stopped.

I squashed myself into a little box which fit the mould expected of me, and many women I know.

Smart, but not too smart. Outspoken, but not too much. Pretty, but not too much to ‘distract’. Polite. Accommodating. Easygoing.

It’s it wild that in most mammals, the female is the power house? The female is the one to fear. The female is the most powerful sex?

What if that were also true in humans?

What if the reason that so many women feel stuck and stagnant is because they’ve forgotten their wildness?

I can’t help but notice in my work that the majority of the work I do with women is actually a work of remembrance.

A work of remembering that actually, underneath the layers of conditioning, they are more powerful than they could ever comprehend.

I see it everywhere.

The grief and stuckness and lack of inspiration which are prolific are actually a deep deep disconnection from the depth of power and insight which all women have access to.

We know it, deep inside. If we didn’t, there wouldn’t be any suffering, we would just be as we were.

The suffering comes from knowing that we are SO MUCH more than we are allowing ourselves to be.

So here is to reclaiming the wild.

Here is to allowing ourselves to dive into our emotionality. Our mess.

Here’s to remembering that deep down we have more depth in us than we could ever comprehend.

Here’s to remembering that we don’t need to fight with men anymore.

Here’s to remembering that our differences can be honoured and allowed.

Here’s to remembering that there is a place for our sensitivity and softness in a world gone hard.

Here’s to remembering that as women remember the essence of who they really are without trying to fit into moulds which don’t inherently work for them, we also free men to be the real versions of themselves too.

Here’s to remembering that we have the power to change.

One woman at a time.

I’ll go first, if you follow?

L x

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