Honoring Our Fierceness and Caring As Women

 

“I raise up my voice—not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. … We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.”

~ Malala Yousafzai

With less than one week away from our election here in the US I wanted to share just a bit about what’s on my mind and heart. This is such an intense time here with what feels so much at stake for many of us and for the future of our world. 

I have to admit I have historically been a very unpolitical person, mostly focused on pursuits of growing and healing myself. There is nothing that feels more at home for me than sitting quietly in meditation tuning into the still and wise world within. I try on most days to fit this kind of time in, finding my day and how I show up in it is so different when I do.

But with this current election climate I have found myself more involved with outer world events than ever before, watching, listening, and discussing what’s happening here. I’ve found myself outraged and frightened for our world and planet, impassioned feelings for a woman who is sometimes more comfortable sitting out the drama of life (when I can).

Mind you I am for sure doing my tapping to keep my nervous system regulated and taking flower essences as well, but I am also really trying to respect what is coming up for me. I wanted to share a bit about why this matters so much to me.

As always, my clients have been my teachers around this. When I am doing readings for my clients who are mostly women, I often see anger energy come up to be acknowledged. Now as we all know women are not supposed to feel angry feelings. We’ve been taught that angry women are not “nice”. Very early on we’re taught to squish anger down, and to defer to more acceptable “softer” feelings like sadness and fear. This training has been going on for many many generations.

In my sessions, when I see anger it almost always has the quality of what I call righteous anger. The word “righteous” is not a word I ever use in daily life, but in a session this word is linked with anger quite a bit. Righteous anger as I see it is an energy that is connected to someone’s truth. It’s has a vitality, important in informing us that there has been an injury to our dignity, our right to be here, to be safe, and to be respected. Anger is a light pointing to something important needing our attention.

This righteous anger sounds the alarm that something that is a human right, a humane right, is not being honored, a critical line has been crossed, and our anger is a natural response to this. This anger may be for ourselves or be felt in relationship to other beings, or even to our planet itself.

The key for me lies in whether we can choose to honor our anger and its message that “something is not right!”. Can we sit with this, hold it, honor the pure and immense energy and force of it in our body and being? Because out of this force, can come action and real change for good.

I know that even acknowledging our anger can sometimes be pretty hard because it feels scary, especially because we may have suppressed it for so long. We also can be carrying our female ancestors’ anger, as well as anger stored over many lifetimes.

When we feel our anger we can feel almost immediately helpless to do anything about it. In past times this was very true for many women and we may still be carrying that helplessness in us. Having some healing tools can really help to clear all of this out so that we can come into present time where we as women do have much more power to affect change. 

The journey to befriend my own anger has been long and hard, and it’s still a work in progress. Since I was very young I have had a strong temper at times, alongside a more gentle nature. I have worked to not see my anger as my “bad” side and something to be conquered, but instead to invite it as a wise part which can shine a light on what needs attention and action taken. 

These days I am finding it easier than ever to hold compassion for all beings on this planet as we struggle with the challenges of human life, and at the same time honoring the fiery parts of me that say NO to injustice and YES to empowered action.

As we move through this last pre-election week and beyond, no matter what happens, I invite you to take some time to sit with both of these qualities of energy and how they show up for you. I encourage you to invite your righteous and vital anger to sit with you and show you what needs healing, what needs action and what that can look like. 

At the same time invite in a great magnificent compassion for all of us as we travel this complicated path of being in a body on this earth, trying to learn our lessons so that we can all take a step. Can you hold both of these equally, allowing them to deepen their wisdom in you?

I know this is not my usual kind of post but I wanted to add my voice to the call for all women to own their power at this moment in history. Women are an amazing energy for good on this planet both with their unending energy for intelligent resourcefulness and practical solutions, as well as their limitless capacity for caring and joy. Never forget this!

love and blessings always,

Kristine