Chasm Climbing - Women I see You
There is such a huge chasm women are climbing out of. I know so many men are baffled by it. Angered by memes on social media. Discussions on a page or in person.
Hanging on by our nails for generations, now women have sharpened them and are using them as weapons to defend ourselves. It’s scary when the oppressed start standing up. The energy is shifting and men feel it. I just read an essay from a woman who, like me, was raised in a religion that taught us that Eve was the original sin. Frankly coming out from under that belief seems so straightforward. Just acknowledge that you don’t buy in and live accordingly.
What you don’t understand is the insidious nature of being controlled my men so completely. Men used this simple teaching to shame women into disconnecting from our own sexuality. We were shamed for the curve of our hips and breasts and had to cover them. I was taught that my thoughts were bad. I was not to question any authority figure, ever. I was to dress a certain way. Eat a certain way. Act a certain way. Women were to be controlled completely. Mine was not the only religion that used this system of oppression. I now know how afraid men are of women’s power. Why they have worked so hard to control us. That fact is everywhere around us, regardless of any religious predilections.
Feeling so utterly helpless for the fist half of your life leaves you wholly unprepared for how to think for yourself and navigate your own intuition. Even though I have been “out” of the religion for as long as I was in it now, I still find myself with stray shaming thoughts popping into my mind to check in and see if they might be welcome again. Early programing takes a lifetime to come out from under and I am wondering when that lifetime ages out.
Not only do I have religious shame hiding in tiny pockets behind my ribcage, I have a lot of early trauma from a mentally unstable abusive mother and the reality of moving 70 times. What I do is hold things together really well for awhile and then have to step back and let myself process for a bit.
Lately, as a 51 year old who has settled into a really good place in my life, I have been very sad. Struggling to be inspired and full of hopelessness. I was confused by this state and how long it has stayed until I stepped back and realized that I am also dreaming of early experiences and traumas. My body is taking the time to process a new layer of what it has never had the time or safety to before. I am barely making it through my days and want to cry all the time.
Why bother to write about this since it’s just so sad. Why not write more uplifting things? I wish I could write the stories I read that make me giggle and bring me joy. Some day I hope to be the one who writes of escapades with my three cats, and the random people I run into while walking the woods with my dog, the joy that life serves me quite often. However, we write what we know and what we need to process. Until this old sludge is completely out of my system I will write about it.
It feels like a warning too. I wish it could be anyway. If you are broken and sad don’t go looking for a savior in god. At least not the god of organized religions who will be used against you and to control you if you are a woman. But I am guessing most women in that place in their lives aren’t here reading. We all have our own path to walk and all that stuff.
I also write so you know you aren’t alone. Just because you have spent years working on yourself, getting therapy, and doing well doesn’t mean you are once and for all, healed. As anyone who is my age can tell you, everything works on a spiral. Just about the time you think you are doing so well you will circle back and realize there is more work to do. A friend was telling me about the science of menopause and how this is the time in your life when you process the stuff you haven’t yet. Great, I think. Here I am.
On top of all the previously mentioned light happy stuff, which is in my opinion quite enough, I am affected by what everyone else in America is, the pressure to constantly produce something. To have a new set of goals. To work towards greater abundance, greater achievements, and a greater life in general. Anything I can share on social media to show how well I am doing. So I write this to tell you that I still live in the both and. My life IS good. I have so so many things that yes, I am grateful for, and so many things that I am struggling with at the same time.
I wonder some days what the point is. I spend some days trying to climb out of despair for our planet and our systems of justice that have totally failed humanity around the globe. I wonder how we have so completely lost our way in our lust for power and money. I feel hopeless to fix it. I wonder if my daughters generation will be the one to flip these fucked up systems.
I try and be hopeful. I spend time looking at animal videos because of the joy they bring to my heavy heart. I try and talk with my friends who love me. Some days I am just making it through. I go on Substack and read that I am not alone. That we are all here together trying to figure out these complexities. Trying to navigate being human in a broken world. Just looking for kindness. And people that understand us. See us. The women who, like us are climbing out of the chasm.
I see you. I am here too.
- Jen
Want to learn more about the work I do helping women climb out of old narratives? Click the link below to go to the course I created to help us shift old patterns and embrace ourselves right now.
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