Forged in Fire

 When a woman's response/reaction to deep disrespect becomes a problem for those around her - there's a much bigger issue. We're not talking about unintentionally hurtful remarks/actions or drunken outbursts with the heat of emotion, we're talking deliberate behaviours that feel like a slow death by a thousand cuts. The mind can't comprehend it, the heart is bewildered, broken, and the nervous system is on constant alert. 

I've always been pretty good at bringing calm back into my being through rhythmic breathing, meditation, and stream-of-consciousness writing... these things have barely scratched the surface over the past few months. I took a much needed break from social media, unfriended a bunch of people, and visited with those who've known my soul for eons. I cried the kind of tears that needed to escape, else they'd drown out the light. I lost trust in everybody around me.

There are a number of peer-reviewed studies that suggest emotional trauma is just as, if not more so, psychologically damaging than physical trauma, leading to statistically significant associations with long term mental health outcomes. I didn't need to read those studies to understand the truth of it. Unfortunately, I've been down this road before - and my capacity to rise above, again and again, has been forged in that fire.

Women are no longer burned at the stake, they are used until used up, then left to burn out - but, here... a phoenix. 

Transformation through consciousness is the reclamation. It is the remembrance of unity that patriarchy forgot. Leadership no longer looks like control and command. It looks like stewardship. It listens before it speaks. It serves before it rules. Success is not in dominance but in wellbeing. It is time to build regenerative systems instead of extractive empires. Both men and women, unconsciously and continually, light the matches of patriarchy, it is a systemic phenomenon.

I use personal experiences as metaphors for the larger issues in our world. And I will continue to learn and write and outwardly express because that's what I do. This winter, to compliment the course in Sylvotherapy (Forest Bathing) that I completed last spring, I am taking new courses in Neuro-linguistic programming and Coach certification -  mostly to regain internal fortitude by being fully aligned with the work I do and using the abilities I have to help mend the mind, heal the heart, and soothe the soul.

"I write at the kitchen table these days. It feels like neutral ground - safe and unassuming, a place where no one can say I've withdrawn too far into myself. People so dislike a woman who prefers her own company." -- This is the first line of the book.