If you had asked me not so long ago (maybe 5-6 years ago) if misogyny, inequality or discrimination against women existed, I would’ve answered that was bullshit and didn’t exist. I would’ve said people who believed in those things completely made it up and that they were weak. I thought these things were in the past.
You see, my experience of being a girl, and much later, a woman, was that I believed that I could achieve anything a man could. I would even say I thought I was better than most men, at most of the things I did. Therefore, inequality never existed, for me.
The problem is that I secretly held a grudge against men and I was also in complete avoidance of what it truly means to be a woman and honouring all of those parts of me.
Instead, I had denied and suppressed anything that was feminine in my body, in my system, in my mind, everywhere. I was a woman disguised as a man. Not physically, but it terms of my value system and my way of operating.
I took the pill continuously (without stopping) so I didn’t have a period. I was physically taller and stronger than at least 50% of men. I was powerful and successful in the business world and financially independent. I had strong opinions and a swift mind. I was eloquent and knew how to put my ideas in order and express them, orally and in writing. I was productive, organized, structured and conscientious. I looked pretty and I was polite. I was a good girl with a little touch of rebellion, which made me very likeable. I didn’t take up too much space. I was book smart and street smart. When I wasn’t working, I was playing sports or partying. I had disconnected my heart from my sex. I had no time and no desire for deep conversations or intimacy. I didn’t consider myself much of a “talker” …
The parameters were masculine. I was good at playing the masculine game, I even had good chances of winning at this particular game.
All of these things were encouraged and valued. I even believed myself so much that I thought I was just constituted that way, naturally.
Until I started looking inside myself. I questioned every belief, every way of being, every thought. And what I found was life changing.
There were so many layers.
Layers of conditioning (family, school, society, mainstream media, etc.), layers of learned people pleasing and good girl patterns, layers of codependency and putting other people’s needs first and myself, last, layers of enmeshment and having no boundaries, when you don’t even know what is yours and what is not, layers of low self-worth and feeling not enough, layers of scarcity, layers of having so many things to prove to myself and to others and various shields of armour and protective mechanisms to cover all of that up.
Underneath all of that, was me.
I started combing through my life very intently when I became a mother. When I was pregnant I started reading about pregnancy and giving birth and how both of these things are completely normal and natural processes that need little to no human intervention and just how much they have become medicalized and some sort of “inconvenient problem to solve” by some outer authority that seems to know better than you or your body what is best for you. Women have been giving birth since the beginning of time. No human being on this planet would walk the surface of the earth if he or she hadn’t come through a woman’s body. Pregnancy and giving birth is truly magical. We seem to have forgotten that, but I know some of us are slowly remembering.
That is only one example.
Valuing women, their bodies, their inner knowing, their power to create life and to bring little human beings into this world.
Instead of thinking some external authority knows better.
Women have been giving birth before medicine even existed.
And so, one belief at a time, I questioned things.
Why do I think what I think? Why do I act the way I act?
There is a huge difference between equal, as in equally valuable, and the same, as in given the same opportunity to do/achieve/learn anything.
Men and women, here in Quebec anyway, are given the same opportunity to do/achieve/learn anything their heart desires.
The problem is that it comes with a price tag. What do you need to put to the side in order to succeed in this world that is mainly constituted of masculine values and ways of operating?
There is some debate around the equality of salaries, but I wouldn’t know anything about that, because I have never worked for anyone.
What I do know, though, is that masculine and feminine principles are not valued equally, in the modern world that we live in.
To me, truly valuing women and all things feminine means admiring pregnancy and birth and mothering as much as we admire money, business and productivity.
All of this to say, underneath all of this externally built structure, way down in the basement, underneath the ground, curled up in a little ball, I found myself.
I took her by the hand and brought her into the light.
You can call it whatever feels good to you.
Your essence, your soul, your truest most authentic self, your Higher Self, your happy and nourished inner child self, your fear-free self, your enlightened self, your wild and free and unconditioned self, your conscious self, your healthy and happy self, your healed self, your pure, innocent, unwounded self.
In other words, the best version of yourself.
I believe that we all came here to be the truest, most authentic version of ourselves.
That’s what I came here to be.
And I can help you find your way back to you.
Are you ready ?