Had an interesting breakthrough today, and I suddenly also realized why I hadn't been inspired to write anything for this blog. It's because I was trying to focus on the wrong thing -- on the relationship between the masculine and the feminine. Why this title and topic sprang into my mind was because I needed explore my own relationship with the Feminine, my relationship with myself as a woman. Alison has done a good job with the hunter/gatherer thing, and I don't want to just reiterate her stuff (even if I do add new layers to it from time to time).
What I need to do is explore and own my own Feminine. All this came out today because I realized that my housemate was reflecting back to me for recognition all those things about women that I despise in myself. She's just who she is, and I most definitely do NOT despise her at all. What was aggitating me was rather that she was making it difficult for me to remain in intentional ignorance of all the things about myself that I've been flat out ignoring, denying and villifying since I was a wee thing. Hell, one of my earliest memories was that my dad was disappointed with me because I, his firstborn, was a girl. This is NOT his thinking, it's mine, and I gave it to him and made him carry it for decades before I finally realized that it wasn't my dad that was disappointed, it was me. I was disappointed with myself for having internal plumbing. For being a ... *sneer* girl.
How on earth am I going to 'reclaim the majesty of the feminine' if I'm actively villifying it?!? As long as I'm doing that, clearly I can't reclaim a damn thing. So now I have to dive into exactly what it is that I am turning my nose up at.
While vacuuming, I was doing an exercise in which I assigned myself the task of listing all the adjectives I could think of that described Woman. Here's a sample of the list:
Emotionally unstable.
Harpy/Bitchy/Nag.
Clingy.
Self-Centered.
Insecure.
Useless.
Illogical.
Can you see the jist of this list? It's entirely negative. There's not a single positive attribute within my mind that I can identify as 'feminine'. Soft? Euphamism for weak or flabby. Multitasking? Euphamism for scatterbrained. Good communicator? Euphamism for gossip.
Eeee! Not good!!! Even trying to summon up positives associated with motherhood is just as riddled with warped and unhealthy perceptions ranging from careless slut to broodmare to angry and/or tired all the time. No wonder I never wanted kids -- there was nothing positive in the least associated with the concept. NOTHING. So I pour all this denied affection out onto animals. It's only very recently that I've allowed myself to smile fondly at the antics of a kid being a kid in the grocery store (not the screaming and being a general shit sort of antics, but the playful running around enthusiasm for life sorts of antics). But if someone's there to witness this stupid smile, you can bet I'll swallow it completely and instead ignore the kid.
Ack. My throat is burning again. Definitely an area of high unexpressed emotion.
Now that I can see just how exceedingly unhealthy and negative my view of what it means to BE feminine, the challenge is how to turn this around. How to own it, and find the gifts within the negatives. For example, while it may be negative to be a Bitch, the gift of this is the strength and conviction to go after what you want. The positive of the Nag is that it keeps track of what needs to be done, so if the Nag and the Bitch joined forces the combo would go from complaining incessantly to keeping track of it and acting on it.
One observation that I had as I was cataloging all the things I've done to repress this side of me was the patterns that I've chosen to purchase over the years. Curious, I went to my pattern drawer. There are more than 2 dozen dress and skirt patterns, and one shirt pattern. No pants or slacks. Almost entirely dresses. I almost bought another dress pattern this past weekend. How many have I actually MADE? None. Going to my closet, I have the reverse. I have 1 dress and over 2 dozen pants. Hrm. Interesting. Yet another subconscious and unrecognized wishful expression of who I am beneath all the masks.
I have to admit I'm terrified that there really IS no 'majesty' at all to the feminine. That I'm just deluding myself with wishful thinking. The rational part of me recognizes this is a groundless fear, but I have to recognize it, own it. I'm also concerned that by embracing this side, I'll become everything that I hate, and by extension my husband will look at me and think 'uk, I really did marry just another woman'. I feel that this is the fear with the most bite to it.
I don't want to be emotionally unstable, or an illogical raging harpy, or devolve into a useless damsel who cries for help with everything all the time. Fortunately, I can feel there is tremendous strength within the Feminine, most definitely a powerful majesty, and I'm just too mired in the dark side of it to see clearly right now. I can't ignore where I'm standing and expect to reach for the bright shiney successfully. I have to deal with where I am so that I can move forward, move toward integrating the ugly shadow side with the light majestic side.
This will be my next self-assignment -- list all the attributes I can think of which I consider "feminine". For every attribute, list the positive and negative expressions. From there, list possible survival reasons why those attributes are present.
- Lioness (in training)
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