This blog has moved. You can read it at: Walking with my Awesomeness: Connecting to myself and the World as a Woman
Category: What it is to be a Woman
Getting Lost in Mothering
I wanted to be a mother from as early as I can remember.
This was not due to seeing my mum love being a mum, it was that I felt I would be good at it and that it would be great to be able to love something I created. Well, my childhood wish came true and I ended up being totally lost in mothering my seven children – yes you read correctly, it was the wish that kept on giving.
In being caught up in fulfilling my childhood belief that I would be a good mother, I lost my connection to the fact that I am a woman before I am anything else for anyone else.
The True Beauty of Pregnancy – Embracing the Stillness of a Woman
Pregnancy is a time of new beginnings and not just because there is a new person growing and developing inside. The true beauty of pregnancy is that it offers the opportunity for a deep change to take place in the way we live as women. A change that is initiated from deep within and supported by all that is offered during pregnancy.
Pregnancy is a time for us, as women, to experience ourselves more deeply as the delicate, sensitive and nurturing women we naturally are.
I have had the opportunity to be pregnant twice and from these pregnancies I now have two amazing daughters. Each time I learnt a profound amount about how I was living as a woman leading up to each pregnancy and the changes that were needed as each one progressed.
Continue reading “The True Beauty of Pregnancy – Embracing the Stillness of a Woman”
Who Creates the Image of Women
If you look to the media you could say that there are constant pressures from the world and society as to what a woman should be, what a woman should look like and how a woman should behave. There is constant finger pointing and blame about how women are represented and even sexualised to create the image of the perfect woman, but the question arises to deeply consider and ponder:
Did that image and projection come from men and the media, or is it at all possible that it actually began with women themselves?
As a woman today it is an interesting perception to fathom that we are constantly being governed by what we see around us.
Being A Delicate Woman – Is My True Strength
Whilst swimming in the pool I observed a young girl injure herself whilst playing, albeit only slightly, yet the response from the adults around her was to immediately suggest she ‘get over it’, ‘harden up’ or ‘laugh it off’. And as I observed, it had me wondering…
Why don’t we allow ourselves as women to feel how delicate we truly are?
Have many of us not been taught from an early age that being girly or delicate means that we’re just not strong or tough enough to be out there in the world?
Continue reading “Being A Delicate Woman – Is My True Strength”
The ‘Fairer Sex’ – the Trick of ‘the Pink Treatment’
I love pink. It is so naturally tender and feminine, but at some point as a girl I clocked that being dressed in pink was being branded with staying submissive, being weak, and being less. It was at times a feeling of being made to ‘look pretty’, so the focus was on the ‘girly’ appearance and not the expression of what was inside – the stark difference between pink being weak or less and actually being full of powerful, loving, radiant beauty. Continue reading “The ‘Fairer Sex’ – the Trick of ‘the Pink Treatment’”
The Woman, The Mother
Walking into a business this week being complimented on how great I looked, then being met with utter confusion by the clerk as to how I could look so great when she found out I had 2 children (a 6 yr old and a 12 month old), made me ponder on how we women see ourselves when we become mothers.
A lot of women feel a sense of losing their identity after having children – they become someone’s mother. Some also believe it is impossible to maintain the same level of care for themselves when they become mothers. Continue reading “The Woman, The Mother”
I am a Very Sensitive Woman: Discovering the Strength of Sensitivity
by Luz Helena Hincapie, Colombia
Learning to work on my hypersensitivity and starting to love and appreciate my sensitivity hasn’t been easy, as I tend to get ideas of how I should behave and how I should fit into society. Self-judgment, the need for recognition and feeling hurt all insist on hanging around. If I let them, they insist on pulling me back into the old ways. However, with the consistent commitment to lovingly assess where I am at and the trust I now have in myself it is certainly a joyful process.
I’ve found that the answer in dealing with ‘distorted’ sensitivity is inside of my heart, never in my mind or practicing the sports of intellectual and emotional self-defence. The mind will only mask things, chose strategies and it will be a saboteur in the long run. The self-defence sports will only make one awkward and hard. Continue reading “I am a Very Sensitive Woman: Discovering the Strength of Sensitivity”
Indian Inheritance – Re-claiming my Worth as a Woman
I grew up one of three girls with a brother eleven years younger. My parents immigrated to the UK from India before I was born. My mother made it clear for as long as I can remember, that to have girls was a sin and she must have done some very bad things in her past lives to get 3 girls this time round. When my mother was pregnant with my brother I recall her saying she wanted to be sent to a mental institution if it was a girl.
Continue reading “Indian Inheritance – Re-claiming my Worth as a Woman”
Media & Women: True Qualities of Women
by Shannon Everest, Australia
While sitting eating my lunch at work, and fanning through the latest Vogue mag. in the patient waiting room, I read bits and pieces of an article about a new and upcoming young actress called Alice Englert. The article was titled ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
The article itself is not what is important here – what is important is the ponderings that occurred after reading the article.
This young woman of only 18 years was being celebrated with such expressions as ‘Englert heads into the light’… She was being placed on a pedestal for all the world to see, described with such beauty and awe, but for all of the things she can ‘do’, the way she looks, the way she ticks boxes – and not for who she actually is. Lauded for how she has managed to carve her way into the industry, descriptions of her physical beauty and the uniqueness of her old-world ‘look’.
I found myself wondering, how does she really feel? What does she do to care for herself working in the film industry? What did she have to go through to get there? Continue reading “Media & Women: True Qualities of Women”