As a woman in this world, we face so many obstacles directed at us from public media, familial pressures, our quests to find love and acceptance, tradition, raising our children and other loved ones with our full and true hearts, fearing the worst and planning for the best, and above all grief for our losses, our dreams and hopes. There are other obstacles I cannot think of right this minute but as a woman you know what they are.
I want connection with my Higher Self, with my Source, my Creator. I want to help myself and thus help others. I want to demonstrate to those giving up that they are worth fighting for because I am worth fighting for. I have fought for and will continue to fight for me.
Like weeds wound around my body, pulling me down, while lying for weeks unable to move due to a broken leg, I saw clearly all the tendrils and murk that lies below the surface of me. I came face to face with my bitter doubt about myself, my life, my purpose, my love, my life and my losses. My face was right up against a struggle that I have never won, always being the fighter who gets out once again leaving behind the mass of strangling pain waiting for another time.
Parker J. Palmer writes about an experience in his memoir, “Let Your Life Speak”:
“Imagine that from early in my life, a friendly figure, standing a block away, was trying to get my attention by shouting my name, wanting to teach me some hard but healing truths about myself. But I – fearful of what I might hear or arrogantly trying to live without help or simply too busy with my ideas and ego and ethics to bother – ignored the shouts and walked away.”
“So this figure, still with friendly intent, came closer and shouted more loudly, but I kept walking. Ever closer it came, close enough to tap me on the shoulder, but I walked on. Frustrated by my unresponsiveness, the figure threw stones at my back, then struck me with a stick, still wanting simply to get my attention. But despite the pain, I kept walking away.”
“Over the years, the befriending intent of this figure never disappeared but became obscured by the frustration caused by my refusal to turn around. Since shouts and taps, stones and sticks had failed to do the trick, there was only one thing left: drop the nuclear bomb called depression on me, not with the intent to kill but as a last-ditch effort to get me to turn and ask the simple question, ‘What do you want?’ When I was finally able to make that turn – and start to absorb and act on the self-knowledge that then became available to me – I began to get well.”
What do I want?
My life has got my attention.
My accident makes me pay attention.
I have always known better what I do not want. Easy to feel ick with choices. But what do I want? So much more comes into the declaration. Once I start imagining my wants, in comes the wandering minstrels reminding me if I change up who I am, what I am doing or where I am going, who is it going to effect? How will it impact others? I give myself away again by taking care of other’s needs.
Parker goes on to identify what he believes was his “true self” who was speaking to him. “This is not the ego self that wants to inflate us”… “nor the intellectual self that wants to hover above the mess of life in clear but ungrounded ideas, not the ethical self that wants to live by some abstract moral code. True self is true friend.”
My proverbial silver cloud slowly emerges after such a tragic accident in my life. First, I survived a harrowing, bone-breaking, head-first tumble down stone steps without a concussion or broken neck.
Second, I clearly see my plans, direction and purpose swept clean off the platform of my life, leaving me with what appears to be nothing, an empty, blank space that was my life.
Finally, I feel gratitude to be alive which does not coincide with depression. Can I feel grateful and depressed at the same time? My depression needs help. I want to start listening and stop denying it exists. It is there. I have many reasons to be depressed and yet I continue to dance around reasons and whys and ignore my truth.
As a woman in this world, we face so many obstacles directed at us from public media, familial pressures, our quests to find love and acceptance, tradition, raising our children and other loved ones with our full and true hearts, fearing the worst and planning for the best, and above all grief for our losses, our dreams and hopes. There are other obstacles I cannot think of right this minute but as a woman you know what they are.
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