Category: ON RELATIONSHIPS

My Relationship with My Breasts (Breast Trilogy – Part 1)

~ womeninlivingness ~ 1 Comment

The first memory I have relating to my breasts is at 11 years old. I was in 6th grade  (primary school) and liked the idea of wearing a bra. My breasts had not begun to grow yet but I was interested in wearing a bra anyway. So I wore a bra to school underneath my uniform. I don’t remember the finer details of this but I do remember feeling a little clandestine about it, like I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing.

At this time I remember fantasizing about what type of breasts I would like – big ones, small ones, soft ones, hard ones, attention grabbing ones, perky ones, etc. etc.

My breasts began to develop at age 12 and I felt very sensitive about this.

I could feel that with my breast development there were other changes occurring too, such as starting my periods, and I knew this meant I was beginning my physical transformation into a woman.

But what did being a woman really mean? At this time I was unable to answer this question.   Continue reading “My Relationship with My Breasts (Breast Trilogy – Part 1)” →

Mothers and Daughters – The Ties That Bind Us, Even Beyond Death

~ womeninlivingness ~ 1 Comment

by Anonymous, Australia

Last night I was blessed by a heaven-sent dream. In fact it was much more than a dream. It was a realisation and a bodily experience of my mother’s death. I learnt that Mum died peacefully. She simply let go. The experience of that moment in my dream was of a peaceful letting go, a beautiful golden light. A smile came to my face, my body relaxed and I let go too, as she let go. I let go of the guilt I had been holding since her death two years ago.

They say that people find it hard to let go at the end of life because of their attachments to people, family, partners or children. My mother’s attachment was to her house.

The time had come to move Mum to a nursing home. Continue reading “Mothers and Daughters – The Ties That Bind Us, Even Beyond Death” →

Rising out of my Refuge in Writing – Reclaiming my Expression

~ womeninlivingness

by Fumiyo Egashira, Japan

Everyday, I spend a fair amount of time on the Internet. I read various blogs and check out Facebook posts, but I hardly ever contribute my own input except for liking/sharing some posts every now and then. I remain pretty much invisible.

I have been OK with this position of mine… until I saw a post about a month ago which challenged me to feel into myself when I click on those ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ buttons: what is it about these particular posts/articles that I feel inclined to share with other people? What am I communicating? What am I actually feeling about them? Continue reading “Rising out of my Refuge in Writing – Reclaiming my Expression” →

YOU

~ womeninlivingness ~ 2 Comments

by Jeanette Macdonald, Healing Arts Practitioner, RN, New Zealand

Note from the author; Where I have put ‘* your name’, do just that and read it to yourself, or better still, have someone read it to you, with your name where it states to do so.

* your name

You have been a daughter, and, no doubt, a friend…

and you may have been a sister… a girlfriend… a wife…

a lover… a mother… a grandmother… a nurse…

a teacher… a doctor… a farmer…

an artist… a scientist…

a practitioner…

and so on

These are some of the many things you may have been and you may have done

But who you are is so much more Continue reading “YOU” →

Relationships with Men Begin with My Relationship with Me

~ womeninlivingness

by Anonymous

I recently wrote a blog entitled Sex, relationships and a True Fairy Tale. Since then many things have unfolded for me (something I am sure many blog writers will relate to). Each time we publicly proclaim something (anonymously or not) we are asked to step up, and this time was no different.

Reading has been a big part of my life so it’s no surprise that my recent experience has reminded me of another type of story, the ‘Choose your own Adventure’ kind.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept a ‘Choose your own Adventure’ book is one that asks you to make a choice at the end of each chapter. This choice then dictates the next choice that would be available to you and so on. Continue reading “Relationships with Men Begin with My Relationship with Me” →

Women Working Together in True Harmony

~ womeninlivingness

by Sharon Gavioli, Registered Nurse, Birth Educator, Counsellor, Brisbane, Queensland

I attended an event for the celebration of the International Women’s Day held by Real Media Real Change (RMRC) in Brisbane, “Nurturing the Woman Within: Reclaiming Your Natural Rhythm Within our Modern Times”. It was one of a series of events presented around exploring how expectations and pressures women face today can impact our general wellbeing and how we can reconnect to our natural rhythms and to reconsider self-nurturing.

I attended due to my involvement in the Brisbane Esoteric Developer’s Groups offered by Universal Medicine, that has been running a women’s group over the last 2 plus years.  During that time, I have consistently attended this group and have come to understand that the way we are currently living as women doesn’t truly support our natural way of being, and that nurturing ourselves is essential for us feel the loveliness of the women we are. Continue reading “Women Working Together in True Harmony” →

Relationships – Inspiring Love in Another

~ womeninlivingness ~ 3 Comments

I recently read a blog written by Raymond Karam about “The True Beauty of Women”.

This was a very inspiring blog in which I felt the depth of what this man was saying and what he was claiming for himself and also for all women. I felt how Raymond was very willing to deeply connect with, appreciate and celebrate the sacredness and power of a woman when she is really herself. Not only this, but he was sharing that every woman has this quality or way inside her equally, and that it is very natural.

I began to consider the possibility that maybe many men around me (such as Raymond) are starting to accept and reflect the truly lovely, tender and powerful men that they are, which is inviting women to feel that they are this same powerful person naturally on the inside, ready to be it at any time.

Pondering on this further, I recognised that when in a relationship, people will often ask their partner to be more loving. For example, a wife may want her husband to be more caring, loving and considerate, or the husband may ask his wife to be more understanding and less demanding or needy. I am now seeing that there are two ways to ask such things:- Continue reading “Relationships – Inspiring Love in Another” →

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Only to Find it Was Already Within Me!

~ womeninlivingness

by Sharon Gavioli, Registered Nurse, Birth Educator, Counsellor, Brisbane, Australia

All my life I have had a knowing that life was about people and loving people. Despite this, as a young girl I learned that love meant that I should be good and put others’ needs before my own. This meant working hard to please my parents and friends. Throughout this, I felt a frustration at how I felt I had to be and at times would step out of line, which left me feeling bad that I had let another down. Then I would brush myself off and get back in the game in the pursuit of this love.

In my teenage years, I directed my quest for love in pursuing boys, hoping that a relationship would bring me the elusive love that I hadn’t quite found as a girl. After a few false starts, I found the man whom I was sure was going to bring me the love. Within a year of marriage, I started to feel disappointed and again frustrated that the love wasn’t pouring forth in our relationship. I tried to express this, but in the end decided that maybe having a baby would definitely be a sure winner to finally find that true love that I so longed for. Continue reading “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Only to Find it Was Already Within Me!” →

Sex, Relationships and a True Fairy-tale

~ womeninlivingness

by Anonymous

I remember watching and reading fairy tales from a young age. I loved these movies and books full of beautiful, gentle and loving princesses that were friends with the animals (sometimes they were even able to train them to do the housework). These princesses were always truly good, kind and lovely in every way and I could feel that same princess loveliness in myself. Sometimes these princesses were persecuted by wicked step-monsters, but they retained their loveliness no matter what hardship they endured and always triumphed in the end, maintaining their grace and loveliness all the while. They would find prince charming and true love and get married, living happily ever after. There was no need to know what happened next, I could assume it was all smooth sailing from then on. Continue reading “Sex, Relationships and a True Fairy-tale” →

Women and their Daughters

~ womeninlivingness

Growing up, I had a picture in my mind of what it would be like to be an adult. Slowly, as I got older, this picture kept changing and adjusting to keep up with all that I saw displayed by the varying influences around me. Even though I grew up in a home where there were yelling matches (which eventuated in divorce), as a really young child I didn’t see any of these problems existing in my own future. Instead, I saw the rosy pictures that were depicted on TV and in fairytales to be my own future. As I grew up I soon realised that life was something of an arduous task. The idea that life could be fun and or rosy slowly slipped from my created reality…

No-one at any time that I can remember sat me down and asked me how I viewed my future – I was a female, so it was assumed I would get married and have children. But I was never asked if this is what I wanted, or not. When adults would see either myself or my sisters play with our toy dolls, they would comment “Oh she’ll make a great mother one day”, or something along those lines. And when I started to cook, the comments would be “You’ll make some man really happy one day”. So I learned from a very young age that I was destined to become a mother and a wife. Continue reading “Women and their Daughters” →