Women’s Issues
Beauty.
Objectification.
Power.
The Feminine.
Four huge issues that affect women…everywhere…since humanity began.
I’m a man. And by no means do I pretend that I will ever know what it is to have certain issues that I will just never have, based on my biology. AND. From my experience in working with women, what I’ve found is that apparently, I’m safe.
As I understand that (being safe), part of what that means is that I won’t try and fix you. I’ll listen to you. I’ll hear you. That’s my goal, to hear you…and to help.
Beauty.
Many women have beauty issues (Men, too, but in a different way that I’m going to talk about here). I’m talking about women who already know their beauty, and, who because of beauty issues, have attempted in some way, maybe out of necessity, to attempt to hide their beauty. Maybe you’ve wanted to dress just terribly so that you wouldn’t have people look at you–but they still do. Or maybe it’s hard to receive compliments because it triggers issues that whomever is giving the compliment is only seeing your physical beauty and not seeing the totality of who you are.
Beauty shows up in very nuanced, very subtle ways, but the impact on women’s lives is powerful and present.
Beauty is powerful. Sometimes it can affect us in healthy ways, and sometimes in unhealthy ways. It can affect others in that they don’t know how to handle beauty so they themselves attempt to control it, usurp power of it, take over or put it down. So how do I stay “myself,” with my beauty, which is powerful in and of itself, and navigate the world around me. Together we can have that conversation, but, it’s important for each woman to answer these questions for herself, as each has answers as uniquely as she is.
Objectification.
The amount of physical and sexual objectification that women go through is amazing. When updating my site, I was looking at other sites to get some ideas. One website that I looked at, the counselor bills himself as a “Men’s Counselor, who also works with women.” “OK,” I thought. I looked at his “Men’s section,” and it had to do with “The Man that you can talk to….” OK. Great. Then I looked at his “Womens section,” and it said “A Happy Wife is…” “Huh?” I thought. Wow… for this man, a woman is immediately valued and understood in relationship to a man and in relation to a role as a “wife.” I was amazed.
To be clear, my talking here is about the experience of being objectified. Not being seen as human, and not being seen as you, for who you are. In my example above, women aren’t valuable unless they are wives. This is just one “innocuous” example.
Power.
Power. It’s my ability to control my environment.
From Wikepedia, “Power is a measurement of an entity’s ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities.” From Thefreedictionary.com “The ability or official capacity to exercise control; authority. A person, group, or nation having great influence or control over others.”
Often, power is taken away sometimes subtly, unknowingly, sometimes overtly, and with malicious or even an intent that’s indifferent. Sometimes power is given away. When power is physically taken away, it can take the form of Trauma (from Greek τραῦμα = “a wound.”). We may give it away to “make the peace,” even though our true feelings and experiences are quiet different. The most polarized form of giving my power away, I call that self abandonment.
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Physical Level
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Mental Level
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Emotional Level
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Spiritual Level
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While a huge majority of people look at trauma as exclusively physical in nature, because I’m me, I actually look at it psychically, and, I don’t believe all traumas are exclusively physical in nature. When I say that I look at traumas psychically, I mean that I look at them emotionally, spiritually, mentally. I look at how a trauma impacts how I look at life…my life…life in general…from that point of trauma, onwards. There are emotional/mental, physical/sexual traumas that happen, not that can happen, but that happen, and that colors how I see things from that point on–it just does.
When I tell women clients that it wasn’t ok for that person to do that to them, that it wasn’t ok for that to happen…I often get puzzled looks…like, “What? You’re telling me that I was right? That I didn’t have to feel that way or do that?” Sometimes it’s an “Oh My God, a man…understanding me.” Well, I’d like to.
In my view, these traumas and violent intrusions (even the subtle intrusions) affect the very molecules of one’s being, and, yes, they affect my relationships with friends, strangers, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents and children. When I’ve had something like this happen, it affects my life and my world view. Sometimes, radically.
I help people come back to Center (The place in consciousness that experiences wholeness and peace, regardless of what our ego is experiencing). When in Center or Core, I know that what’s happened doesn’t affect my value or my worth as a human being. I help empower women to know that they are OK, as is. I help empower women to feel exactly what they feel, even if it’s anger. In fact for women who’ve had a hard time experiencing anger, I encourage it. We’ll set up rules of how to safely express anger, so no one gets hurt, and for some, it starts by knowing that anger does not mean violence.
The Feminine.
When talking with women, I find it’s really important to talk about what I call The Feminine. What it is, how it shows up, or hasn’t shown up, in your life. I also help women in identifying the Immature Feminine and distinguishing that from the Mature Feminine. As with men and the Immature/Mature Masculine, there are the Immature and Mature expressions of The Feminine. The immature forms have Shadows (Dark and Gold), parts of us that we don’t own, take responsibility for, or even know about, but we can operate from those parts.
Part of a Dark Feminine Shadow may be Anger Expression, Sexual Expression, and expression of Feminine Power. Part of a Gold Feminine Shadow is Goodness, Generosity, Compassion, Empathy, Caring, Authentic Leadership and Sexual Expression can fit here, too. I’m not talking the political women’s movement, here, I’m talking about the Sovereign Feminine who leads from her Core Self (The part of us that experiences only wholeness, peace). To be clear, I’m not even talking the physical strength of a woman, and I’m really not talking about Girl Power, as that is immature; I’m talking about of the power of the Feminine and the Feminine through the woman.
To FULLY express The Feminine, I need to own the various aspects OF my Feminine, including the masculine parts that are within that, and the Shadow parts (Dark and Gold) of The Feminine, itself. Instead of “being pretty, respective and compliant,” I can own…
Aspects that often aren’t owned within women are AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP, STRENGTH, EMPOWERED BEAUTY, and yes, even
THE BITCH.
The Feminine is POWERFUL. And right now, in our society and from my point of view, it’s VITAL that the Mature Feminine step up in her power for not just a better life, but a better humanity for us all. The Immature Feminine will look at men and masculine aspects as “bad,” “wrong,” and the like. The Mature Feminine will accept the masculine, and use Feminine power if concert WITH The Masculine.
You know that Tao symbol of a tear shape of one color that leads into the beginning of a tear shape of another color? That’s of one energy merging into another at it’s fullness, and arising out of the other from its’ newness. I’m talking about owning the Power that is ultimately within us all, at the Center of our beings, beneath all the pain and sludge, and even fleeting happiness. The Power that allows me to show up in ALL of my beauty, ALL of my pain, and ALL of my ugliness, and from that space, living fully while I’m here. That’s what I’m talking about here.
I help empower people to feel exactly what they feel and to speak their truth. And the truth is, you are valuable, you are powerful, and no one can take that away from you.