Open a new eye. Begin to scan TV, magazines, library, your office, the street, stores, for examples of women (and men) who are living their second lifetimes in the way you would like to live yours. Study them. How did they do it? Where did they start? If you know them, ask. If you don't, consider asking anyway.
Perhaps you'll find yourself a mentor who will help guide you through this miraculous, marvelous phase of your becoming.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Friday, November 23, 2007
Wrestling with "The Change"/Becoming Wise Woman
In the book of Genesis (32:24), on the eve of a great battle, Jacob sends his family ahead and makes uneasy camp in a passage between, literally, a rock and a hard place.
As he lays fitfully sleeping, Jacob is accosted by a stranger with whom he wrestles all night long. Finally, exhausted and depleted, in the first rays of dawn, Jacob and his opponent realize that neither will win this battle and the stranger withdraws, leaving Jacob with a new name (Israel) and a wound that he'll carry the rest of his life.
In archetypal work, a renaming heralds a sea change, a rebirth--we were one person and now we are another; and the word "blesser" means "to wound", and this wound, delivered by an angel at a moment of transition in Jacob's life, would herald the beginning of great blessings for Jacob.
A woman enters the between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place phase of menopause in the same way. Knowing she's about to leave behind all that she's known--her fertility, her children (who are grown now), her "work", she falls asleep, sensing that around the corner is the most power, wisdom, and freedom she's ever known. She is both eager for rebirth into the next phase of her live and mourning the phase that is ending. Making this kind of passage requires deep contemplation and a turning inward—as she explores her memories, sorts through her triumphs and regrets, and sets her sights on building her future.
But suddenly, she is yanked from sleep, enmeshed in the wrestling match of a lifetime: Peri-menopause. The photographic memory becomes a sieve, the strong-willed woman becomes a tearful bundle of insecurity, the mother is shy around her own children. Wrestling with the symptoms and emotional upheaval of peri-menopause is a struggle out of one state and into another. But unlike other blood mystery passages (puberty, pregnancy), we have few role models for this passage.
As author Gail Sheehy observes in, "The Silent Passage" ours is the first wave of women to push beyond the embedded assumption that menopause is a one-way ticket to decline. Sheehy--and other pioneers like her--inspired millions of women to view this time, not as a prequel to death, but as a passage toward something bright and new and free.
Inspired by these ideas, with independent income, skill and the potential to live longer than any generation before us, women today can approach menopause as a time of great possibility. Still, for some, it can be a struggle--and an archetypal one.
When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, its plump body must squeeze through a passage that is so tight that it forces the bodily fluids backwards, out and up into its wings. Without this struggle, the butterfly cannot fly and the delicate creature will die. We, too, must struggle through a tight passage. Our struggle may demand a little suffering, a little crying; it will certainly require a great deal of patience.
My menopausal symptoms fluctuate -- I had a bout of severe migraines, which affected my 9-5 job, I had crying jags and mood swings from depression to euphoria.
My hair is thinning, my jaw softening and my waistline expanding. I feel a sadness and a desperation that comes and goes like an unpredictable tide: Desperation that I wont be able to dig myself out, lack of confidence in my own ability and flexibility; and a loss of hope that I’ve never before experienced.
As for many women, this upheaval coincides with the growing up and out of my children. My empty nest parallels my empty soul, which seems, at times, to be cracking open; at other times it seems to be filling with light. I console myself with the thought that perhaps this cracking open and emptying is necessary before the filling up with something new can occur.
I have been the kind of mother who filled her whole life with her children so that when it is time for them to go, I am torn between what I know is best for them, letting go, and what feels "best" for me, holding on forever and keeping them in the cuddly cocoon of childhood.
But I've also, always, been the kind of mother who counted the days until this event; planning what I would do with my life and freedom (and money!) when, kids gone and healthily launched, I could reinvent myself--entering the world of books and learning and teaching and doing.... and I am thrilled to be here, most of the time.
So I am also angry as hell that as I arrive, I am met with this wall of menopausal symptoms that seem designed to distract me from the work I feel ready to tackle, and keep me in the cage as I deal with doctors and treatments and other distractions.
But maybe, these are "symptoms" of a deeper something, my fear of re-entry, my trepidation about letting go of the Mother archetype and pulling on the cloak of the Wise Woman. Maybe the struggle, for me, is caused by resistance to assuming the mantle of my own power.
Giving myself this name means that I can no longer hide in the house, making cookies and watching seedlings grow. For the Wise Woman is the mother of all children, all creation—and she must take her wisdom into the world where it is needed.
What can you tell me about the Wise Woman archetype? Where do you see her walking in the world? Where is she needed? What does she look like? How has she introduced herself to you--and to your life?
As he lays fitfully sleeping, Jacob is accosted by a stranger with whom he wrestles all night long. Finally, exhausted and depleted, in the first rays of dawn, Jacob and his opponent realize that neither will win this battle and the stranger withdraws, leaving Jacob with a new name (Israel) and a wound that he'll carry the rest of his life.
In archetypal work, a renaming heralds a sea change, a rebirth--we were one person and now we are another; and the word "blesser" means "to wound", and this wound, delivered by an angel at a moment of transition in Jacob's life, would herald the beginning of great blessings for Jacob.
A woman enters the between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place phase of menopause in the same way. Knowing she's about to leave behind all that she's known--her fertility, her children (who are grown now), her "work", she falls asleep, sensing that around the corner is the most power, wisdom, and freedom she's ever known. She is both eager for rebirth into the next phase of her live and mourning the phase that is ending. Making this kind of passage requires deep contemplation and a turning inward—as she explores her memories, sorts through her triumphs and regrets, and sets her sights on building her future.
But suddenly, she is yanked from sleep, enmeshed in the wrestling match of a lifetime: Peri-menopause. The photographic memory becomes a sieve, the strong-willed woman becomes a tearful bundle of insecurity, the mother is shy around her own children. Wrestling with the symptoms and emotional upheaval of peri-menopause is a struggle out of one state and into another. But unlike other blood mystery passages (puberty, pregnancy), we have few role models for this passage.
As author Gail Sheehy observes in, "The Silent Passage" ours is the first wave of women to push beyond the embedded assumption that menopause is a one-way ticket to decline. Sheehy--and other pioneers like her--inspired millions of women to view this time, not as a prequel to death, but as a passage toward something bright and new and free.
Inspired by these ideas, with independent income, skill and the potential to live longer than any generation before us, women today can approach menopause as a time of great possibility. Still, for some, it can be a struggle--and an archetypal one.
When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, its plump body must squeeze through a passage that is so tight that it forces the bodily fluids backwards, out and up into its wings. Without this struggle, the butterfly cannot fly and the delicate creature will die. We, too, must struggle through a tight passage. Our struggle may demand a little suffering, a little crying; it will certainly require a great deal of patience.
My menopausal symptoms fluctuate -- I had a bout of severe migraines, which affected my 9-5 job, I had crying jags and mood swings from depression to euphoria.
My hair is thinning, my jaw softening and my waistline expanding. I feel a sadness and a desperation that comes and goes like an unpredictable tide: Desperation that I wont be able to dig myself out, lack of confidence in my own ability and flexibility; and a loss of hope that I’ve never before experienced.
As for many women, this upheaval coincides with the growing up and out of my children. My empty nest parallels my empty soul, which seems, at times, to be cracking open; at other times it seems to be filling with light. I console myself with the thought that perhaps this cracking open and emptying is necessary before the filling up with something new can occur.
I have been the kind of mother who filled her whole life with her children so that when it is time for them to go, I am torn between what I know is best for them, letting go, and what feels "best" for me, holding on forever and keeping them in the cuddly cocoon of childhood.
But I've also, always, been the kind of mother who counted the days until this event; planning what I would do with my life and freedom (and money!) when, kids gone and healthily launched, I could reinvent myself--entering the world of books and learning and teaching and doing.... and I am thrilled to be here, most of the time.
So I am also angry as hell that as I arrive, I am met with this wall of menopausal symptoms that seem designed to distract me from the work I feel ready to tackle, and keep me in the cage as I deal with doctors and treatments and other distractions.
But maybe, these are "symptoms" of a deeper something, my fear of re-entry, my trepidation about letting go of the Mother archetype and pulling on the cloak of the Wise Woman. Maybe the struggle, for me, is caused by resistance to assuming the mantle of my own power.
Giving myself this name means that I can no longer hide in the house, making cookies and watching seedlings grow. For the Wise Woman is the mother of all children, all creation—and she must take her wisdom into the world where it is needed.
What can you tell me about the Wise Woman archetype? Where do you see her walking in the world? Where is she needed? What does she look like? How has she introduced herself to you--and to your life?
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Reversing False Mirrors: True Self and Soul
"After I fix what is imperfect about my appearance, education, personality, work, home, clothing, children, husband... etc.; then I can go after what I really want without risking exposure or humiliation. "
This is such a LIE. Why do we perpetrate such nonsense?
We all do this--some more than others. Everyone has a list, conscious or unconscious, written down or stored away in their psyche, of the things that, until they are remedied, will keep us from everything we want.
It's so *&^%$ frustrating. I mean, here we are, these enlightened spiritual counselors, yoga teachers, Reiki masters and still, this chatter, this daily wrestling with the most negative self-talk, and we know better!
Here are the most obvious examples from my own thoughts which I offer as an illustration. But as you read them, please don't worry about me (when I posted this originally, many readers wrote to reassure me that I am really not that bad!). I know these thoughts are ridiculous. What I'm trying to show is the way that they work as as kind of inner gatekeeper AGAINST our success. (In archetypal terms, this is the voice of the Saboteur and, in some cases, the Victim--the guardians of self-esteem and boundaries. Their function, though it may not appear this way at first glance, is to keep us on the alert to violations of self-esteem or boundary. In other words, the FEELING of, "I am sabotaging myself is actually a sign that the Saboteur is awake on on the job, pointing out something you've done to damage your own self-esteem) Does that make sense?
Here is my list:
1) My teeth are kind of crooked. Having refused to wear my retainer in my teens, after thousands of dollars of othodontia, my teeth shifted back. Now, they are caving in on the right side of my face. No one else seems to notice but I am ashamed of this and wish I could get it fixed. I could get this fixed. (This is the positive, hopeful action I could take.) But I'd have to wear those railroad tracks on my teeth like Ugly Betty and I am 50 and it's too late for that. (This is the sabotaging thought where I trip myself up.) This makes me look really bad in photographs so I avoid having them taken and resist public appearances where people would see how bad I look. (This avoidance is really about fear of humiliation, as is the resistance to "being seen", and both are the net result of not having taken action to resolve the problem.)
Let's skip the rest of my list, which detailed aging skin, stretch marks, cellulite, and an extra 35 pounds I can't seem to shed. I got into it so deeply that I wound up having to remind readers: Please remember, this is not how I walk around all day long, feeling sorry for myself. I am REALLY exaggerating the intensity to make a point.
The important thing is to notice how, oddly, each attempt to resolve these so-called imperfections, creates a cascade of negative self talk. Frozen by self-doubt, it is difficult to take even the smallest steps in the direction of improving what are, supposedly, the roadblocks to happiness.
But as in all psycho-spiritual work, there is a light side to every darkness.
All of that negative self talk is mirroring a genuine TRUTH, one that feel very threatening (and makes a part of us feel incredibly vulnerable about revealing it). For under the lie that we are bad, ugly, wicked, and shameful lurks the TRUTH that we are good, beautiful, strong and proud.
But if we're wonderful, why in the world would be afraid to reveal it? Because it's dangerous.
In a stunning reversal of our natural instinct (to shine, to create, to be joyful) and of the teachings of every avatar who has ever walked the earth, we have picked up the idea that expresing ourselves fully is wrong, bad, selfish and shameful.
Where in the world did this reversal come from? Did it come from the world? One might think so, pointing to our culture's obsession with appearance over substance, with wealth over humanity, with being served over service. But those are actually the SYMPTOMS of the reversal, not its cause.
The reversal started way back, before our parents or grandparents were born, long before there was a media to distort our self-image, a deliberate and conscious decision was made to suppress the authority (and the power) of the divine feminine. This event (or series of events) has been discussed and explained by historians far more eloquent than me and I refer yo uto their texts: When God was a Woman by TKTK; "A God Who Looks like Me" by Patricia Lynn Reilly, Elaine Pagels' "Adam, Eve and The Serpent".
The brilliant work of these and many other authors and historians illuminates this conundrum: How we come into the world filled with bright, shining light and are literally TRAINED to self-suppress, to tamp ourselves down, to live lives empty of creative expression that leave us feeling, this can't be right.
It's not right. The soul has a different plan for us.
Throughout our lives, we;ve been encouraged to "play small", as Marianne Williamson calls it, but when we do, we lose touch with our thread to half of the wisdom that we need in order to fully shine. The wisdom of the completed union of masculine and feminine.
Think back to age 7-9. There she is, sitting outdoors on a summer day without a shirt, playing a drum that she fashioned out of a tree stump. There she is, swinging as high as she can, trying to beat the record the boy next door set when he touched the highest branches of the oak tree with his toes. There she is, digging a huge hole in the earth with sticks and setting a protective ring of stones around its edge to mark it, "mine". There she is, swimming naked, rolling in leaves, experiencing and expressing the fullness of her body, the wildness of her spirit, the deep, penetration of her curiosity into the natural world. Desire, creativity, experimentation. There she is.
Now I will share a little secret: This true self, expressed so fully, so wildly, so freely, by that little girl is simply this: Grace, also known as Holy Spirit, Higher Self, God, the Universe, Allah, White Light--shining straight through the focused, clarity of the Soul.
The Soul is a structure, a vessel, which holds, shapes and directs the shining white light that streams through us. The Soul is the structure and form of our life's intention, the vessel through which our true self is focused into the world.
The Soul is experimental, asking: What if? What would happen? How about this? The healthy soul is experimental
The seeks expression, it directs our light toward creativity, building, speaking, singing, dancing; The soul expresses honest outrage and the fullness of its physical body.The healthy soul is creative, expansive and expressive.
The Soul wants to connect with others. The healthy soul is related--invidually and collectively--to people, to the world community and to the natural world. The healthy soul seeks and shares reciprocal energy.
The Soul wants to use the body at its peak potential; it craves peak experience, peak performance. The healthy soul guides us toward fitness, health and wholeness.The healthy soul seeks embodied joy.
We nurture the Soul (so it can support the shining through of spirit) by creating an environment that is rhythmic, warm, responsive, fleible, welcoming, honest, and free. The principles of FLOW come into play here. For the healthy soul is fed by experience that is: Free, Light, Organic and Whole.
When we nurture the soul, we are reversing the false image in the mirror--building the spiritual muscle we wil use to reclaim our birthright: To shine our gift into the world.
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