by Julie Ferguson, Mackay
A little while ago I attended an Esoteric Women’s Group in Mackay. This is my experience…
As I sit here, trying to support myself to write what I truly feel instead of what my head is telling me, I realise how challenging for me this is.
The me I have become is all about how I look, the house I live in, the car I drive, the friends I have, the way my children behave or any of the million other boxes I feel I have to tick to show the world I’m doing just fine.
I feel vulnerable, fragile even to go here with myself, as I realise I don’t feel fine.
I breathe gently, allowing myself to feel how afraid I’ve become to simply be myself as I, like many women and men I know, have grown up with feelings of not being enough.
I realise that life has changed for me since that meeting. As I sat and listened to women sharing, I became aware that when we are in a truly supportive, loving and judgment-free environment, we open up with all the simplicity and beauty of a flower on a spring day: we don’t question how we feel, we just express how we are truly feeling.
What we do is only relevant as we share how hard we are on ourselves to make sure that it all gets done.
Amongst other things, we discussed the making and the ticking off of jobs on our lists for the day, and the feeling of failure should we not get it all done.
The choice is too often made to ignore our body and how exhausted it actually feels, should we be nearing the end of our day and there are still jobs outstanding.
Is there kindness and understanding for how hard we now push ourselves to keep up the illusion that the equality we so vehemently sought is working for us? Or do we accept that try as we might to do it all we can ultimately sacrifice ourselves to the point of exhaustion.
We look around, comparing ourselves to others and buy into the belief that it’s just us. We blame ourselves with internal negative talk about how inadequate we can be. When all that gets too much we turn to the instant energy booster – sugar, or one of the many accepted stimulants available to us such as caffeine, energy drinks, alcohol or / and drugs, to make it all seem better.
Eventually we fall into bed unhappy with the many demands we have placed on ourselves to do it all again tomorrow. Even if we afford ourselves the luxury of believing we can do something about it, most of us put it into the ‘too hard basket’ and comfort ourselves that at least our lists are complete, so when others look in we can say, “see what I can do”.
Where is the love? Where is the nurturing that as women we naturally have?
The truth as I feel it is that we sell ourselves out. Self-nurturing and self-loving are absent in too many of our lives.
The question was asked: “Where do we begin?”.
Honestly, I don’t feel it matters where, just that we do.
I have come to know that there is so much more to me than how I look on the outside. I have an understanding of who I am not and I welcome the opportunities to dig deeper and find more of Who I Am.