Category: What it is to be a Woman

Sacredness – The Truth Available to all Women

~ womeninlivingness

For many years I lived with depression, feeling totally hopeless and at the world’s mercy. But more recently, through attending Universal Medicine presentations and the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom I have come to rediscover that all I require is already living within me and the more I connect to and live from this space the more beautiful life becomes for me. I now love living, and working, where as I used to dread each day upon waking.

I have recently become aware of the feeling of sacredness that all women hold within. I am amazed that we live most, if not all our life, unaware that we carry such power and authority within. I feel like we have chosen to be led astray from knowing what is there to connect to and build a deepening relationship with, yet this is the very base of who we are as girls and women.  Continue reading “Sacredness – The Truth Available to all Women” →

Finding the Gift in Menopause

~ womeninlivingness

Exploring how women in the past and in other cultures have approached menopause was fascinating to me, and I used it as a guide to open up and deepen my own experience.

Part of continuing to expand my understanding of menopause meant, for me, finding simple ways to keep it real and maintain lightness. I tend to learn more when I don’t get hooked into an intensity of trying to absorb knowledge and information. It has to make sense in my body so I can experience the feeling and mark that as a learning point to use as my guide to evolving. One of the examples of this was my choice associated with experiencing the hot flushes.

I decided to rename “hot flushes” as “my meeting with the Elders”.

Continue reading “Finding the Gift in Menopause” →

Women, Intimacy and Friendship

~ womeninlivingness

I recently spent the weekend with a friend and felt an amazing connection. This is someone I have met only twice before, yet it felt like we’d known each other for lifetimes. It felt strange and odd feeling so connected with someone I barely knew, with nothing sexual about the relationship and no neediness from either of us. Just the simple confirmation and joy of a deep connection with another person, and reflection from an equally beautiful woman.

Part of what made this connection so strong was a natural intimacy between us. There. I said it. Intimacy! That little word, so loaded with ideas and expectations. It got me pondering why I’m so uncomfortable with the word intimacy, and also the relationship that I have with it, and myself.  Continue reading “Women, Intimacy and Friendship” →

A Woman’s True Beauty: The Strength in Fragility

~ womeninlivingness

Women – Are we living in a man’s world? We all know about boys having to be tough – “Boys don’t cry”, boys get given toys to confirm their future roles – trucks, footballs, fiction-hero’s, games of war….

We women may feel that we have to compete in this competitive male world, and many of us have tried to create an even playing field in our pursuit of equality for women – with the fight for the right to work, equal pay in the workforce, day-care for young children, female cricket and footy teams, promotions, baby bonuses and more. At the same time we have found ourselves often comparing with each other with regard to academic achievement, ideals of beauty, having more money or a successful career, being in relationships versus being single, and having kids.

Have we lost the precious qualities of true beauty and fragility in this battle for equality and respect?

Continue reading “A Woman’s True Beauty: The Strength in Fragility” →

Accepting and Expressing Greatness — A Story About Shoes

~ womeninlivingness

Since childhood I have had an issue with my feet.

They always looked too big to me and my toes seemed too long, out of proportion as to how I judged beauty to be. As an Asian woman, I grew up holding onto the image that beauty is being soft spoken, never drawing attention to oneself and about having tiny and delicate feet, as most of the women that I grew up with had small feet, and I would compare myself with them. I would deliberately buy shoes that were a little bit too small, convinced that my feet should and could fit into them. In consequence, my feet would suffer but there were always justifications for doing this, such as in time the shoes would either ‘magically’ stretch, or that my feet were actually as I believed them to be, smaller and more delicate than they are.

Continue reading “Accepting and Expressing Greatness — A Story About Shoes” →

A Woman’s Choice: To Become a Mother, or Not

~ womeninlivingness

I grew up with one older brother and three younger ones. There’s quite a difference in age between us. There are fifteen, nine and eight year’s age difference between myself and my three younger brothers. 

No one asked me, nor was it expected of me, that I take on the role as ‘a second mother’ to my younger brothers, but that’s exactly what I did. I would take responsibility for them and how they felt. I used a lot of mental energy worrying about them, and also being there for them and doing things with them. At times I would even yell at them and put them into place and really acted out the ‘mothering-role’ as a teenager.

Continue reading “A Woman’s Choice: To Become a Mother, or Not” →

Girl Power, or the Power of Women at Work

~ womeninlivingness

Girl power was all the rage in the 1990s and early 2000s. The phrase “girl power” is used as a term of empowerment, independence, and self-sureness, but what came of girl power, and is there such a thing as true girl power? Or more so, the true power of women?  Particularly when working together.

In 1994 the Spice Girls shot to the top of the pops with ‘Wannabee’. They were a group of women ‘working’ together, but is there more to it than that? The Spice Girls were a brand, a product, a group of women where there were friendships and where to the outer world there was a ‘spunky’ toughness. But is toughness needed in ‘girl power’ – or in truly power-full women when they are together?

Continue reading “Girl Power, or the Power of Women at Work” →

The Power of Women Appreciating One Another

~ womeninlivingness

I recently spent the weekend at a sporting event where I met many women. While I was there, I had a very ordinary, extraordinary moment that made me stop and appreciate just how powerful women can be when we support one another.

I met a woman with whom I had an instant feeling of knowing her, even though I was pretty sure we had not met. We didn’t speak that much to each other over the two days. There was a moment of chatting as we waited in line for a toilet, and another moment when her friend came to see me.

What I noticed about her was her grace, and a quiet dignity within her that perhaps she hadn’t fully recognised in herself.

Continue reading “The Power of Women Appreciating One Another” →

Woman Returning

~ womeninlivingness

Earlier this year I attended a workshop titled ‘Relationship with Self’, part of a new series presented by Natalie Benhayon, and Esoteric Women’s Health. The idea around these presentations is that as women today, we are not living the fullness of who we are, lacking that deep connection and knowing of ourselves as women which is impacting many areas of our lives.

At this particular presentation Natalie Benhayon was presenting alongside Miranda Benhayon and together the two women were speaking about intimacy, and in particular intimacy amongst women. They shared how as women this is actually a very natural part of us, yet in many instances it seems we are holding ourselves back from sharing this natural intimacy with one another.

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Menopause: a Deeper Connection to Myself as a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

My journey into menopause began as I started noticing and feeling certain changes in my physical body: my shape rounded slightly around my hips and lower abdomen, and there came a series of what felt like a volcanic heat erupting in my body, particularly from the chest upwards. These sweats would come and go quite quickly in duration but vary in their intensity as well as their frequency. At times the heat felt prickly and all consuming, and at other moments it was a feeling of letting go, with a quality of freedom. There were intermittent feelings of frustration, with a yearning to understand more of what was going on inside me. I found I experienced varying degrees of feeling light and heavy within my body throughout the months, and the cycles of no bleeding became longer and longer until a year had passed with no period.

What I am describing here are only some of the physical changes I began noticing. But there is more to menopause than just the physical symptoms.

Continue reading “Menopause: a Deeper Connection to Myself as a Woman” →