Culture of Scarcity

(Sea lions are symbols of

abundance in many Northwest Coast tribes)

We live in a culture that tells us there is never enough. That we are not enough, that we are not good enough, that we can never be safe enough, perfect enough, certain enough; that there is never enough time, energy, money, love, creative ideas, etc. I grew up with this message. My psyche was imprinted with this message. This message is like a cancer that permeates every area of living and eats away at the passion of living, of being fully alive. For women it is often mirrored in our relationship with food.

How aware are we of the many images and messages of scarcity we are constantly collecting every day? Consider how often you “should” or “shouldn’t” yourself.

And how many times do I hear myself say “I don’t have time” or “There’s never enough time!”? Scarcity of time.

Or what about “I’m so stressed because there is so much to do and never enough time!” Scarcity again.

Our culture strokes and rewards busyness, and programs us to numb our feelings of vulnerability. “I’m so busy!” in our culture translates into productivity, importance, carrying one’s weight, and the *right* to be here. Think about it. What are your internal messages about work and productivity?

My father had an internal message I don’t believe he was conscious of. The message, productivity is determines one's value and worth, means the more productive I am, the more value and worth I have. Living with him and being raised by him, I too carry this message, although my awareness of it has helped me choose how much it drives me and my choices.

Our compulsive busyness has a payoff. It keeps us distracted from the truth of our lives. The truths we don’t want to look at. We all have truths we don’t want to look at. It’s the product of being a fallible human living in a world with other fallible humans.

What are the consequences of avoiding those uncomfortable truths and numbing our vulnerability? Well, for one thing, it is not possible to only numb the unwanted emotions. If we numb the unpleasant, we also numb the joy, the love, the passion, etc. Personally, I’d rather be vulnerable. I want to feel it ALL. Our culture wants us to believe that vulnerability is weakness. Vulnerability is at the core of fear and shame and anxiety and the difficult emotions that we all experience, but as Brene Brown points out, vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, love, belonging, and creativity. I love that idea. It is a *birthplace*. How cool is THAT?

These are the kinds of things we will be exploring on the Women’s Body Wisdom weekend July 18-21. For more info, e-mail info@sagesoulsisters.com

An Expansive Life

Challenge yourself to 

do one courageous thing every day. 

Katherine Martin wrote, “Courage has many faces: challenging injustice, breaking barriers, reaching out, being vulnerable, being different, persevering against all odds . . . just for a start.”

I would add to that list, *being seen*.  Allowing myself to be seen, really seen, is an extremely vulnerable and courageous act. As such, it is not an easy thing to do. It requires stepping out of one’s comfort zone.

When I speak of being seen, I mean the beautiful *and* the not-beautiful. The neat and tidy about ourselves and the not so neat and tidy. The messy. The unfinished. The I-haven’t-got-this-all-figured-out parts of ourselves.

Author Anaïs Nin said, “Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.”

What is an expansive life? What is a shrinking life? I don’t know what  Anaïs had in mind when she said this, but I do know that for me an expansive life sure sounds a whole lot more interesting and rewarding than a shrinking one.

I was raised with scarcity thinking. I was programmed with an all permeating not-enoughness kind of lens through which to view and experience my world. I’ll tell you right now, it’s crap. I mean crap as in a diminishing and unfulfilling way to live, and crap as in a false, bullshit message to live by.

The question is, am I willing to risk being seen, really seen, in order to expand my life? You bet your ass I am. Right here. Right now. Tell-the-truth-faster kind of being seen. Yes, those truths that might repel. Truths that might offend. Truths that might “hurt other’s feelings” (whatever that means, but that’s a post for another time). Telling the truth faster about what I really want, what I really think, what I really feel requires that I trust the other person to take responsibility for their own feelings.

As a girl I was taught that a good and kind and loving woman *manages* other people’s feelings. She takes responsibility for how another feels. She does this by changing and monitoring who she is in a multitude of small ways in order that others might be more comfortable.

No more. Not my job. Not even possible. Even more so, it creates martyrs and manipulators of women. That’s not a happy place. It’s a bitter place. It is a place of scarcity, and now we have circled right back around to where I began. An expansive life, or a shrinking one?

I want a life of abundance, and that means I have to be willing to dare greatly, call up my courage, bring ALL of who I am. In doing that I am saying to myself, “I AM ENOUGH.” Now, *that’s* what I call living from a place of abundance!

Down There

Cunt. 

Yeah, I said it.

C  U  N  T.

Those four tiny letters. What visceral response does that word bring up within you? Four letters arranged in a specific order. What about “TUNC”? Do you have the same emotional reaction to those letters arranged in a different order? I doubt it.

So what or who gives that word “CUNT” so much power?

We do, that’s who. You and I and each individual.

When I was a girl growing into womanhood, we called it “down there”. It was the unspeakable. Un-nameable. Today I call it whatever the fuck I want to.

My body. My choice. Your body. Your choice.

Each individual woman has the power to call her vagina whatever she wants to call it and to express her feminine sensuality and sexuality however she chooses. *That’s* where the power comes from, not the sequence of letters. Some women like the word “pussy”, others “sacred yoni”, still others “vagina” or “hoo-hoo”, or yes even “cunt”. 

If I as a woman say to other women, “Vagina is the only proper term to use” or “Yoni is the only proper term to use” or “the word CUNT is an affront to all women”, essentially I am saying, “you are not interacting with your vagina the proper way.” 

In doing so, I am perpetuating the same suppressive bullshit that the patriarchal culture puts on women. In my opinion it is even more heinous because it is a woman suppressing other women. The message is “You’re not interacting with your femininity in a way that makes me comfortable.” That’s what the patriarchy says, and it’s exactly the fight that feminism is fighting against every day.

Women are taught from the time we are girls to change who we are and how we are so that others can feel more comfortable. We are taught to take care of other people’s feelings. “Nice Girls” and “Good Girls” don’t offend, don’t rock the boat, don’t upset the apple cart, don’t get angry, don’t hurt other people’s feelings. In fact, they take responsibility for how others feel. News Flash: I am not a girl. I am a grown-ass WOMAN. 

TRUTH: How you feel is not my responsibility.

It’s *your* responsibility. That is unless you want to live from a Victim place, as many people in our world are prone to do.

TRUTH: There is power in naming. There is power in choice. We each get to choose what we call our vagina, pussy, yoni, hoo-hoo, cunt. There is even more power in supporting and respecting each woman’s right to choose the word that feels *right* for her and to express who she is as a woman in the way that feels true to her own soul.

(Mic drop.)

I Know a Woman Like That

(Reposting from my Facebook page just 'cause I like it)

July 26, 2011 at 3:19pm

Last night I attended a local networking event. It was a smaller group of about 16 women. The venue had a peaceful vibe, and I enjoy meeting new women. But I’m writing this piece because there was something I noticed that nagged at me as the night went on. 
I first perked up my ears during early introductions as I heard 3-4 women laughingly make mirror references. Most of the comments were about intentionally avoiding looking at themselves in the mirror, or doing it very quickly, if they had to. The implied message was that they couldn’t stand looking at themselves in the mirror because didn’t like what they saw.

Much of the talk for the remainder of the evening was about products and discoveries related to health and longevity. That’s a good thing, right? But something was buggin’ me. Later in the evening as I stood ready to leave, women saying their goodbyes and closing conversations, it finally came to me. 
I was hearing a deep underlying message that said we are not okay the way we are. We (women) must continue to seek out products, remedies, solutions to alter and yes even hide our age. I had the sense that it was a deeply unconscious message, but there none-the-less. If I can find the best creams, the best vitamins, the best anti-aging treatments and put all I can find to work on improving me, thenI will be acceptable.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in good health. I want to live a long, vibrant, radiantly alive life. But where is the line drawn? What drives my motivation? Am I driven by a desire to look and be different because on some level I believe I am not acceptable as I am? 
Why is it that so many women cannot bear to look, and I mean really look at themselves in the mirror? I’ll tell you why. It’s because they cannot bear what they see. And why not? Because we are told over and over again from culture and media alike that we are not okay as we are. We are supposed to look a certain way, and it is a very narrow margin.

So yes, I want to feel good in this body I have right now.  Not the body I will have. I want to own these lines on my face. They mean something important. I want to treat them with value. Imagine that.

These lines represent the life I’ve lived; the joy and the struggles. The struggles have been great discovery times for me. They are part of what makes me the incredible, vibrant, radiant woman that I am. Yeah, I just said that. Out loud. I say it loud and proud.

The extra fat deposits on my hips and my arms are soft and curvy and FEMININE. These fatty curves are juicy and full. They represent my juicy and full life. Slap my ass and it jiggles. I point with momentum in a sleeveless shirt, and my arm waves with me. When I walk up the asphalt road in my neighborhood, I feel my tummy jiggle with the impact of my feet on the pavement.

When do I get to love ALL of me? When are we as women going to model for the rest of the world what it looks like to be “a woman like that”, a woman who knows who she is and doesn’t try to cover it, change it, improve upon it because SHE IS ENOUGH. Women are the ones who need to lead this radical movement, this kind of radical self-acceptance.

My husband is attending a film festival in California. He saw a film while he was there called I Know a Woman Like That. He said it was an incredible film about women in their 70’s who are vibrantly alive and passionate and beautiful. Women who are living their lives perhaps even more  fully now than when they were 40 or 30 or 20. 
Afterwards he talked to one of the women involved in the making of the film. He told her how much he enjoyed the film and spoke to its powerful message. Then he said, “I’m 36. My wife is 53 and she is a woman like that.” When he told me that, I shrieked and cried. I felt such joy and gratitude. Do you know why I felt such joy? Because it’s true! I am a woman like that. I felt gratitude because I can allow myself to know it and he knows it. How brilliantly awesome is that?!

Do you know a woman like that? Are you a woman like that? A woman who is vibrantly alive… a woman who is radiant. A woman full of soul. A woman bawdy, laughing, inhabiting her body in this moment as it is. A woman who wears her years proudly, unabashedly. A woman who can look into her own eyes and love, truly love, what she sees. This is a woman who inspires social change. I invite you to be that woman. Make no excuses. Love who you are, exactly as you are right now. No dress rehearsals. This is it. Do it now.

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