“You are more than eye candy and male intentions. You are a temple, a home. A sacred dwelling, and you should carry yourself like that.” – unknown
Honor and respect. The journey has been about honor and respect of myself as a woman, and honor and respect of myself as a mother.
For twenty years I was married to a man who wanted me to stay a girl. He liked the girl he met who needed his help to pay her bills, who asked him how to do everything, and who made him feel like he was a king with a pretty young thing. He liked the girl who gave in and told him he was right, making herself ‘wrong’ every time to keep his love.
Despite my education at Smith, which breeds feminists, the pull of societal domestication was stronger. I knew from all my subconscious training that I needed to be pretty, thin, smart, fun, the life of the party, and earn a good income to be a good catch. I needed to entertain everyone to be loved. And this meant stepping over my own feelings to be what everyone else wanted me to be. It meant dishonoring myself by not listening to my own truth. It meant adopting roles and putting on the costumes society expected me to wear even if they pinched and constricted my breath like a corset.
Then I bore a child. My hips widened. My breasts filled with milk from which I GREW A CHILD. And the dawn of a woman began with a deep dark chasm of shadows…I had to face all of the childhood traumas, the self-sabotage to attract guys, the masks worn to earn acceptance and love. The mother woke within me and she called bullshit on my whole life. She demanded me to be real and authentic. She required me to speak up for myself and protect my child.
And that’s really when the arguments started. He wanted me to stay a girl…so I wore tiny bikinis and got my boobs done and spent hours on acrylic nails and laughed a little too fake and high-pitched and waxed all the hair off so I’d be like a girl down there.
The mother within me called bullshit. Louder. The battle inside me raged into the second child and beyond. The girl trying to stay a girl and dishonoring herself at every turn, and the mother demanding to be seen, heard, honored and respected.
Eventually, the mother won and I left the marriage. The messages from Spirit grew louder. Trust and love are earned. Boundaries. Be authentic and real. Speak your truth. Heal your inner child and love her like you love your sons. I worked harder than I had ever worked before in my spiritual path. I claimed my power back. I let go of being a girl and started the uncomfortable journey into the dark feminine where I knew I would not be “liked”…in fact, I might even be despised.
The more self-power I gained, the more vitriolic the interactions with the father of my children. At several points, he dug the dagger in “You fucked up our son! I should have taken the kids away from you! You’re crazy!” He was sending all those messages into the minds of our sons as well.
As I stood opening sacred space this morning considering all these things, I asked Spirit what is left for me to learn here? Why has all of this been happening for me?
I realized my story is the story of many women in the world at this time whose motherhood has been dishonored and disrespected and denied. If we are waiting for the wounded fathers of our children to respect us as mothers, we will wait a very long time and be disappointed because they are lost without strong mothers of their own. It’s up to the mothers to chart the unknown course to love, honor, and respect THEMSELVES and to teach our children how to treat their mothers by demonstration.
The indigenous people ask why the women in the Western world don’t tell the men to stop … stop consuming the Earth’s resources, stop building more buildings, stop taking down the rainforests. They know it’s the women who have the power to bring things into balance. But we forgot we have this power and we don’t speak up.
It’s the mothers who have the power, and always have, to teach the children. We can speak directly to their hearts. We can claim healing on their behalf. We can choose to reclaim honor as the vessel of life, and we can choose to stop being polluted by the words of wounded fathers.
But we have to choose to let go of being girls, and fully embody the dark feminine mother that has been calling our hearts and wombs to step into our power.
Yes it’s a hard journey. And our children are worth it.
Let’s chat about how the One Year Inner Medicine Program or REBIRTH: Awakening the Mother Goddess, will serve your PRESENCE. The next circle begins in just a few weeks, so schedule a Discovery Session here:
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In the meantime, join us at the Calling All Earth Mamas Sacred Virtual Gathering on Saturday Octotober 30, 2021.
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