What is the Liberated Woman?

I've been listening to the backlog of Caroline Myss' Hay House radio show called Sacred Contracts. If you are not familiar with either her work or the Jungian concept of archetypes then I'd highly recommend investigating both of those.

The topic of her October 14th 2008 show was on the archetype of the Liberated Woman and her supposition that this archetype is actually a myth. She was inquiring exactly what we were liberated from. Overall, a good show. Her definition of what this archetype represents is what I think is fairly typical for what the modern woman thinks she should be: one who "has it all" -- supports herself, doesn't need a man, is a strong individual who is completely independant, yet somehow has and raises kids successfully. Since her idea of the Liberated Woman is quite exactly what I describe as the lioness with a false mane, this show got me to thinking.

What I particularly love about her is that she does what I do -- ties everything into a historical perspective. Afterall, in order to understand the complete picture one must first SEE the complete picture and this includes the history behind how and why we got to where we are. While she did do this to a small degree, she didn't explore it overly much. She was looking more at what we lost by demanding 'liberation' than in what was being rebelled against.

What exactly did women want to be liberated from? In order to answer this question, we have to go back a few hundred years and understand why women started to demand equal treatment under the law, to demand the right to vote and thus participate in and therefore influence the world in which they lived more directly. This then became a demand for work opportunties, most especially after WWII as I've already talked about, and then it became a demand for 'equal' treatment in the work place.

After looking at the things that women were actually asking, I realized that what she was REALLY wanting was nothing less or more than "treat me like an adult". As a collective, Women were asking to stop being treated like little kids who didn't know their own mind, who weren't even potentially sophisticated enough to grasp the magnitude and complexity of the adult world. Look at the objections of the time of the Suffragette Movements and you'll see statements which pretty much baldly state that men didn't consider women either smart enough or emotionally capable of handling the responsibility voting would bring with it. Indeed, through the previous centuries, women were by and large handled just like kids with the exception that women were interchangeable while a man's kids were not. You can see it in the laws, the social attitudes, and the expectations.

So if the root idea behind the original Liberated Woman was simply 'it's time I be allowed to grow up', where did this other 'need to have it ALL' idea enter the picture? When did she forget that she wanted to finish maturing and instead attempted to cut men out of her life as extraneous baggage? The transition can be seen in the 40s through the 80s. As always, it was a long slow building process.

The absolute irony is that by trying to be so strong and independent and "I don't need a man ever", that's actually a pretty immature stance. It's identicle to the sheltered teen who leaves home for very first time ever to go to college only to end up doing crazy stupid stuff.

I recall watching a movie called "Bounty Hunter" with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. In it, the woman is complaining that the man isn't mature enough for her. In her tirade, the character all but stomped her foot in a childish temper tantrum. In that moment, I could see the frustration and eye-rolling tolerance toward women than a huge number of men have. She WANTS to be mature, demands it of others, but has no idea what that really means. Archetypally, she's in college, first time away from home, doing crazy stupid stuff yet thinking she's being mature and adult.

I see the last century or half century as growing pains in the maturation process of the feminine. At some point though that first time college student has to realize 'whoa! what am I doing?' and from there true maturity begins. The first step is always taking personal responsibility for our actions. Here are the things that women in western society have gained in the last century alone:

• We can own our own property.
• Our worth is no longer based on what we bring into the marriage contract.
• We have equal protection under the law, even if the abuser is our husband.
• We have the right to work without having sexuality used as a bargaining tool.
• We have an equal say in the running of our democratic republic.
• We can do more with our lives than attach ourselves to a man and have kids, if we so choose.

These are things our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and more fought for. They are serious things, important things. I don't ever want to see them eroded or taken away!!!! But with these come responsibility. I think that the reason collective Men at the turn of the 20th century started to grant these demands for adulthood was exactly the same reasons a parent allows their child to move out on their own when it's demanded: "ok, you want to prove to me you're an adult, here's your chance".

The Liberated Women was freed from the puera eternis (eternal little girl) notion and granted the right to grow up. We've had our growing pains and I think we're starting to settle back into ourselves. I can see the trend starting. What we collectively have to do is make sure that we don't go backwards because that's the pattern we know. If we do that, we're doomed to repeat all this over again at some point.

I am not an eternal little girl looking for a daddy figure to take care of me! I am a Woman. I roar. I am fierce. I am intelligent and opinionated, caring and compassionate. I take responsibility for my life and my actions, but I am not alone. I have a Partner, who will hunt the deer and protect the campfire so that I can tend the homestead, gather berries and see to the social bonds of our group. I can't do it all. I don't WANT to do his job and mine.

I think that the majesty of the feminine is rooting here: confidence and maturity.

- Lioness (in training)

Link between Sacred Feminine and Civilization?

I talked in the last post about a possible link between the strength of the cultural concept of the Sacred Feminine and the fertility of the land. I also made mention of a book that I'm currently reading called "The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine" by Nancy Qualls-Corbett.

While I'm only about a 1/4 of the way into it, I have to admit that I'm a bit disheartened. She's pulled out some decent examples of the role of the Sacred Feminine in ancient cultures which have been lost to us through time and the villianization of the Feminine. Specifically, as you can guess from the title of the book, she's looking at the role that the prayer-through-sexuallity priestesses carried.

What has me rather disheartened is that so far there is zero mention of the role that the Goddesses played in bringing civilization to humanity. For example, Inana-Ishtar is the goddess credited with that role, but she was also associated with love, fertility and passion. The author focuses exclusively on her on-going roles and basically gives a nod to the whole "BRINGER OF CIVILIZATION" role. She brings up the Epic of Gilgamesh in which the wise king Gilgamesh has the wild-man Enkidu sleep with a sacred priestess and after laying with her for 7 days he is transformed from wild man into human, capable of thinking and acting like a man now instead of an animal. That the author utterly whiffs on this as an example of the civilizing power of the Sacred Feminine had me grinding my teeth.

She also overlooks the role of Athena, which is very nicely covered in Elizabeth Wayland Barber's book "Women's Work: the First 20,000 Years". Barber talks about the symbolic power struggle between Poseidon and Athena for the patronage of Athens. Originally, Athena was the patroness of weaving -- the very first of the technologies which allowed humanity to begin taming and controlling his environment for his own use. The myth of Arachne illustrates Athena as the weaver, not to mention highlights the Dark Feminine response to being bested in a contest where pride is at stake. Anyway, the people of the city asked both Athena and Poseidon for a gift to demonstrate why they would be the better choice for the city. Athena's gift was an olive tree, and Poseidon sent them a large wave. The olive tree blocked the wave and saved the city, ensuring that Athena became the patroness of the city.  Here is the quote from the book relevant to my point here:

Pg 242: "... Athena is the beneficent deity that protects humans and makes them prosper, pushing back the untamed forces of nature represented by Poseidon. More exactly, she represents everything that human skill and know-how can accomplish; she is a goddess of "civilization" itself."

Indeed, even the olive tree is a manifestation of humanity's ingenuity and ability to take what was wild and make into something useful -- the domestication of fruit trees. Alas, no mention of this myth is found within Qualls-Corbett's references because she's focusing on the role of sex.

There is one reference I recall reading but cannot place, which Qualls-Corbett has overlooked. In parts of ancient Greece, when men returned from long campaigns, they were considered to be unfit to enter the city. By going to war, they had reverted to their uncivilized, animalistic selves -- it's why they succeeded! But in order to be allowed back into the city, they first had to have sex with the priestesses, which would restore them to their Manhood, what we today would phrase as "return them to their Humanity".

I would argue that the role of the Sacred Prostitute, or Hierodule (priestess whose duty includes sexual functions), is a manifestion of a woman's civilizing influence on men as well as a manifestation of her procreative powers.

Alas, somewhere along the way this vision got horribly perverted. Myths such as Pandora's Box ('box' being a very old euphamism for female genitalia) as well quips by Pythagoras such as "There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness, and woman." It's no secret in the least that the later Atheneans were not too fond of women in general. This sentiment is echoed throughout much of the later middle east and is carried into Europe by the Christians, until eventually women are the very embodiment of the evil temptress sent to seduce men and thus prevent him from attaining spiritual perfection. This idea is the foundation behind the Church barring women from any leadership roles, a stance which continues to this day but was hardly part of the founding principles. There are examples of females bishops in the early church, a fact which was attempted to be struck from the record until recent digs unearthered the murals depicting them and their stories.

Despite all of this, women still remain a civilizing influence on men. All you have to do is walk into a long-term bachelor's house and listen to a woman's typical response to what she finds. It's women who insist on manners and proper behavior, though men definitely have their own code of ethics when they deal with each other. It's women who traditionally tend the house, and the house and household is the heart of civilization. The Vestal Virgins may not have included sex in their duties, but as priestesses of Vesta -- "Vesta represents the sacred heart or hearth of the home, the central fire which supplies heat and on which food is cooked. Nourishment and warmth, home and the center are Hers" -- they were the epitome of the Feminine which is indeed the center of the home and the source of warmth (love, children, caretaking, nourishment). This to me is the epitome of the Sacred Feminine, the true Majesty of the Feminine.

This is the role that I said I wanted to take up, even though I didn't have the language. Indeed, finding that language has been the purpose of this blog! What is truly amazing to me is that, after I left my job of 7 years, people who knew me came to my husband who still works there, asking why I left. He replies simply that I stopped working so that I could focus on taking care of him. He brags that he now gets 3 home-cooked meals a day and so far has lost 16 pounds in 3 months. He loves coming home to no worries in terms of household stuff because I've been able to do it. As a result, now we have time to spend together without me worrying about all the things I haven't had time to do. He reports to me that several women have replied to his stories with a wistfull "I'd do that too, if I could" and so far my actions have inspired three different men to have a talk with their wives about them working in the home, at least of those who've gone back and talked again with my husband.

The more I look around and see the Feminine manifested in her Glory, the more I realize how immensely powerful she truly is -- quietly powerful. There's no need for chest-beating or demands for recognition as to her contributions. She KNOWS exactly how majestic and magnificent She is. It's us mortal women who've been listening to several thousand years of blame and anger and villanization by men who themselves have never even glimpsed her Light Side that require the recognition etc. Instead, we've focused on the Dark Side of the Feminine for millenia. It's time to shift our focus! I can't change history, but I can set some examples for going forward. I'm certainly far from perfect and therefore can never really manifest the fullness and majesty of the Sacred Feminine, but I damn sure can try. I'm really really hoping at least one reader of this blog is inspired to try the same, in her own unique way.

-- Lioness (in training)

Correlation between Strength of Cultural Feminine and Land Fertility

Last year I read a book called "The Triple Goddess: An Exploration of the Archetypal Feminine" by Adam McLean. Now I'm reading a book called "The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine" by Nancy Qualls-Corbett. The combination of these books along with this blog and the books by Alison Armstrong as well as archetypal discussions had by Caroline Myss on her Sacred Contracts radio show has me thinking about the subject of Femininity, Masculinity, Patriarchy and Matriarchy through multiple different filters.

Within Qualls-Corbett's introduction, she's talking about the passing out of active consciousness of one aspect of the Divine Feminine which occurred at the same time as the rise of patriarchy as a social system. Now I'm relatively familiar with the rise of civilization in the middle east and its progression through the systems. Since Qualls-Corbett is specifically lamenting that this aspect of the Divine Feminine is absent from modern Western culture, I know to bring the roots of that culture into the picture: Christianity and pagan Europe.

Christianity, as one of the Abrahamaic religions, is pretty firmly patriarchal. Despite this, the Divine Feminine remained a powerful figure in the form of the Virgin Mary, and to a lesser extent in the Lover Mary -- whether you want to argue Mary Magdelene was a literal or idealogical lover of Jesus is still hotly debated, but in either manifestation she is the Lover. My question upon seeing this was: Why? To my limited knowlege, neither of the other Abrahamaic religions has a positive Divine Feminine to speak of. Why the difference? Why did Christianity, which became entrenched in temperate Europe, retain a Divine Feminine while the other convert-seeking religion, which became entrenched in largely arid climates, not have one?

It suddenly struck me: Land of Origin.

When Christianity moved from arid climes into more temperate ones, and the people converted from their polytheistic systems into it, they refused to allow the Divine Feminine to fall into obscurity. A sort of mini-cult around the Virgin Mary developed, and no matter what the early Church tried, this adherence and reverence remained staunch. So they gave up and just went with it, even further elevating this impossible Virgin Mother ideal far beyond the emulative reach of mere mortal women -- and then they villified the Lover into a reformed Prostitute, making her likewise one not to be actively emulated. But Europe and the people there were steeped in the fertility of the land. The Mother Earth was everywhere, and she cannot be stopped -- controlled and channelled, but short of poisoning the land the earth all around the Europeans was immensely fertile.

Compare this image with the arid climates, in which the fertility of the earth is less abundant, less in-your-face. Oases and river valleys are the centers of life, but surrounding this is harsh and unforgiveable land. There is little softness in the desert -- it is hard and cruel, prickly and unwelcoming. It then is not a huge stretch to imagine the Protector Masculine swinging into action to corral, contain, cultivate and protect what precious little active fertile land is present from others who would seek the same -- a haram of land, adopted by and emulated within the society. Women then are precious resources, to be tucked away and hidden lest they be stolen away.

I live in Southern California now, having grown up on the East Coast. What a contrast! If you haven't experienced it, this approach may not make sense but having seen both, I can now easily see the correlation between what the land is doing and how it manifests in stories and the native cultural psyche.

So here it is in a nutshell: I would posit that there is a correlation between the strength of the Cultural Feminine and the level of Land Fertility -- more fertility means a stronger feminine, less fertility means a weaker feminine identity. It's certainly an idea I've never seen anywhere else before, and it might actually make for a very interesting Masters dissertation.

In our modern way of life, we don't even bother to pay attention to when the sun rises and sets anymore, and even fewer have any realistic awareness of the native fertility of the land on which they live. For the average person, food is derived from grocery stores, not gardens or farms. The Solstices are just dates on a calendar. I could see, given this, that our connection to both the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine is currently rather compromised. If this is the case, where might this lead us as a people? Is it a positive or negative thing? Is reconnecting with the Divine Manifestations part of the process of reclaiming and celebrating my own individual femininity?

-- Lioness (in training)

Digging Through the Dumpster: Finding that Trash is actually Gold

Ok. It's been a few days and I've been working on my list of adjectives that comes to mind when I think of "Feminine". For those not remembering, I had assigned myself the task of (1) listing all the adjectives I could think of, (2) then listing all their positive and negative expressions, and (3) listing why those attributes might be survival contributors. Afterall, if those are generalized feminine traits than they have been selected for biologically speaking and eventually culturally speaking. They serve a role -- what could those roles be?

For this exercise, I'm picturing a very primitive stone age society type of living. No ammenities -- no sunblock, no toasters, no ovens, no maids, no guns, no cars, no antibiotics, etc. In this world, those who survive do so because they are clever, tough, and make it work.

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This is one that I didn't think of in my initial tirade, but was reminded of it later that same day: Sympathy. Sympathy, empathy and compassion are all related and are used interchangably by some. I make a distinction. Empathy is feeling what another person feels; compassion is feeling along with another; and sympathy is extending our own feelings toward another generally for the purposes of consulation. All three are actually feminine traits, and since they are closely related I'm going to try lumping them into one category.

A positive expression of this emotion serves to create bonds, social bonds (hehehe) with others. Sympathy and compassion both help to sooth ruffled feathers in others, or to console the wounded - emotionally or otherwise. Empathy helps do the same by creating the awareness that what we feel, others feel, and vice verse.

The positive side has the pure survival skill of enabling the individual to work within a group, to cement relationships and clan status so that in times of danger they will remembered and protected. It enables a woman to raise children effectively, to negotiate with men well, to have friendships with other women.

The negative side has more to do with how those emotions are put to use. I can use sympathy to actually destroy someone, if I wanted to. If I feel threatened by someone who turns to me for sympathy, I can use that position to ego-wise strip that person to the bones. It's the foundation behind a lot of social manipulation, and women can use this tool in their arsonal with devastating effects.

This has the survival function of allowing a woman to recognize situations and use the emotions of others to our advantage. Getting rid of threats ensures our own objectives become more likely -- whether I am trying to put my own son on the throne or trying to oust a competitor for the limited protection or food available.

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Here's a huge one that's been pinged repeatedly: multi-tasker. This means simply having the capacity to manage multiple tasks simultaneously. In Allison's parlance, she uses "diffuse awareness" -- being aware of everything in the surroundings without being focused on any one thing.

Positively, this serves to help protect (did you see that grass move? is there a lion stalking there?), to populate the database (which berry bush that I can recall is ripe at this time of year?), to monitor (water boiling, child playing with dog, friend scraping hides ... everything good!), and to plan the day. Actually, I really like Elizabeth Barber's take in "Women's Work: the first 20,000 years" where she conjectures that women took on the role of spinning and weaving because those tasks were easily interupted. Think about it -- women have a radar going at all times. Problems cause pings, which need to be attended to. That means dropping everything being done right now to tend to that. When that ping is taken care of, the original is task is resumed as if it had not been interupted.

Why is that a survival skill specific to women, to the feminine mind? Men can do this too, to a limited degree, though it does improve with practice. I would argue that it's because women are the primary raisers and trainers and caretakes of children, but they still have duties to the tribe to do. If a woman became focuse on berry gathering and her radar went down so that she didn't even notice her kids were all eaten, she's not going to have too much luck getting her genes into the future. Men, conversely, don't generally take young children with them hunting. They aren't tending to toddlers while running down a herd of mammoth!

Negatively, this aspect becomes what can be described as scatterbrained, being unable to maintain any degree of concentration long enough to complete anything. The bread gets burned because they forgot they'd put it into the firepit, that sort of thing. Ultimately, this is bad management. Running a bad household is pretty unattractive, inefficient, and potentially wasting precious resources that aren't exactly limitless. This ineffectiveness can easily lead to putting the family in jepardy in the form of poor long term planning -- such as failing to recognize theren't not food or warm clothing for the winter. While in today's world this negative is hardly lifethreatening, but I can easily see it as being a large problem in more demanding world.

Hrm. So in what way can this negative expression be a survival tool? ... That's a harder one to supply. I do know that in women it's a learned skill. and if the tribe as a whole is effective enough to compensate AND the scatterbrain has some strong social skills, it can easily be overlooked as a powerful negative.

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Emotional. ... I'm wondering if this is tied back into the first one. Emotional awareness, living within an emotional world, means relating to others more easily, more readily. If the primary job of the feminine is the rearing, training and caretaking of the young, this makes total sense. Kids aren't exactly power houses of logic -- that's learned, and comes only as the brain develops. If women spend more of their time with each other and with kids, it makes sense to be immersed in emotions -- all the better to relate with.

That would be the positive use. And it's survival function is tied to the society, enabling the female to be integrated into the fabric of her culture such that she and her kids are cared for enough so that her kids survive to follow suit.

The problem in this comes I think with lack of maturity. Much of what I listed originally (instability, self-centered, insecure, etc) are often seen within women who haven't been challenged, who'se lives are 'easy' when compared to primitive stone age life. Good lord half the women I've seen on Montell would be kicked out of my tribe so fast it'll make your head spin. If that kind of behavior is tolerated, it becomes an acceptable tool to get what is needed.

And here is the negative side of it -- emotional blackmail, and other forms of emotional manipulation. Think of the kids who are acting out violently all in an effort to get some attention. Boot their ass out of the hut at nut, leaving them to fend in the darkness until they straighten out and fly right, and you'll see some behavior modification right quick. I see it all the time in horses -- young stallions raised with mares are perfectly well mannered, sequestered and isolated and those young stallions are unmanageable assholes.

At the least this negative does serve some survival role -- if it's fostered, allowed by the tribe, then it's acceptable and expected behavior. It becomes the means by which the individual earns their place in society, securing their right to food, shelter, protection and mates.

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Ok. I think I've been through enough of my list to see the trend. Almost all my problem with the concept of the Feminine comes from the negative expression of the emotional self, but now I can see just how integral it is and how it serves a key survival role. I don't know about other folks, but I'm a "why" kinda person. If I don't see the why, the what's makes no sense. The Why's give me perspective.

Given this exercise, I think that I've tried to distance myself from the emotional core of my nature because I mistook the negative expressions as 'normal', and they are not. Because of my rejection of this, my survival is actually at stake because I'm failing to integrate into the society. Instead, I stand outside of it because I lack the emotional awareness of myself to connect in a mature and healthy way. It's entirely self imposed, but it's run the entire length of my life. I've had one friend, if I was lucky, at any given point in my life. At my high school graduation, I got my diploma and walked off the field, feeling utterly no need to say a single thing to anyone. I left my place of employment after 7 years without saying too much to anyone, figuring no one would miss me anyway. A friend pinged me and mentioned it would have been nice for me to say goodbye at least, considering that I'd been working with these same people for 7 years. It never crossed my mind. Honestly! Now I feel bad, and I think back to high school. I went to school with some of those folks since second grade, when I moved into that school system. From second grade through twelfth, from age 8 through age 18, 10 years with the same kids, playing soccer, running track and cross-country, helping with homework, etc, and I didn't feel a part of the group enough to feel the need to say farewell to a single person.

Conversely, my brother cried at his graduation as he went from person to person, telling them how much he'd miss them, to wish them well on their life's journey, etc. I remember laughing at him because he laughed at me when he tried to shove onto me an emotionality and sentimentality that was utterly lacking. Projection. Now I think ... he's the better person. He's made himself part of the social group, and I'm the outsider. In a primitive society, I would have been left out in the cold to be eaten, freeze or starve.

My early childhood rejection of the Feminine within myself, the villification of all things 'weak' and 'frilly', has had some serious life consequences that I never really saw before now. I never really fully realized just what a large hole is here. No wonder the subconscious spat up this subject, the subject of reclaiming the majesty of the feminine, when I sat down to think about what it was I needed to chronical during this transition in my life!

What do I do about it?? I find myself mockingly asking "what am I supposed to do - go emote all over people now?" And that is exactly the tone of a rejection, the phraseology of villification. How can I do this constructively? Positively?

I'll have to think about it. I'm wondering if simply wearing the clothes I've snubbed (despite the deep down secret admiration for the look) is a good first step. I can't run out and buy a bunch of clothes, so that means I'll have to make some of the patterns I've been collecting. That'll also be a literally constructive act. I'm MAKING the clothing, consciously. It'll be interesting to see what that act does, internally speaking.

Onward.
-- Lioness (in training)

Reclaiming usually starts with dumpster diving

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)

Hunters give Positive Reenforcement; Gatherers give Negative Reenforcement

Ah finally, a moment to do some writing AND I remembered what I've been wanting to blog about but kept forgetting.

In my house, we have a reference to bursting someone's thought balloon. You know that moment when you think of something you want to say, so you open your mouth and suddenly that thought just utterly vanishes and you're left completely blank? Yeah, that's a thought balloon being popped. Sometimes, we do it to ourselves, and sometimes someone else says something and pops that thought balloon for us. All that just to say that every time I had a spare moment to write, the thought balloon with the contents for this post went poof.

Until today.

On Allison's website she has two short video clips which are hugely important: How to Change Women and How to NOT Change Men. Before I talk about my experiences with this information, let me share another background idea that she talks about which I have learned over the years is VERY true.

Gatherers, as a general rule, have a less strict sense of Self than Hunters. What does this mean? Gatherers are malleable, flexible, and capable of becoming what their loved ones require based on the needs of the moment. They'll put their own needs and wants aside, often for decades, because they have to. It's native to the Gatherer mindset, and our society depends on it. Example: women have the capacity to become what their children need, then shift to become what their bosses needs, then shift again to become what their spouses need. I've said and heard a HUGE number of women talk about "loosing themselves" in relationships, but I can't recall ever once hearing a Hunter make that statement. I recall in my own youth that I was pretty much putty, forgetting my own needs in favor of those I was emotionally attached to. Over the years that has slowly stopped being the case, but I think that's a product of age and experience and the expectations of our society. I'm looking around me at the younger late teens and into their early 30s women that I know and I marvel at how many of them completely lose touch with themselves - their own desires, needs and wants. Eventually they all wake up, but it's exceedingly common that women do this. With this in mind, I can completely buy the idea that Gatherers indeed have a more flexible sense of Self than Hunters.

With this in mind, how then does a Gatherer get another Gatherer to change? It's very easy - criticize. Gatherers, by and large, want to fit in with the group. With a flexible sense of self, it's easy to absorb a lot of criticism and just bend to accommodate. The example in the video mentions a Hunter telling his Gatherer  that "blue is not your color", with the outcome being that she'll never EVER wear blue around that Hunter again. Of course, I will add that a Gatherer is only motivated to listen when the speaker is someone that she cares about or is in some way attached to. If she doesn't care about the speaker, then who care if he thinks blue is unappealing on her?

For the sake argument, let's assume that the Gatherer is with people that she cares about.

If Gatherers use criticism to change other Gatherers, what do you think will be the logical tool that would be reached for when a Gatherer wants to change a Hunter?

Yup, she'll reach for criticism. Why? Because people in general assume that everyone thinks the same way that they do. So a Gatherer will assume that a Hunter will think and react like a Gatherer, and then be very hurt and upset when he doesn't! "You should have just KNOWN that!" is a statement which springs from the very heart of this bad assumption.

Let me now turn to Hunters, who don't generally have a flexible sense of Self. Just as with Gatherers, the older a Hunter gets the more inflexible he's willing to be, so the most flexible you'll ever find is a young Hunter. He may still be trying to figure out Who He Is, but at the same time I've never heard a man say he just lost himself for any length of time while in a relationship. You'll get a blank stare of unrecognition or a snort of absurdity from Hunters at this idea.

Given this stronger sense of Self, how does a Hunter react to criticism? Not very well, and then both Hunter and Gatherer are frustrated with the other.

With this background, I started listening to word choices of those around me. I noticed that most Gatherers tended to be somewhat negative. Say something and if there is ANY way that a statement could be taken negatively, it would be. The younger a Gatherer is, the worse this tendency. From that, I formulated that the more elastic her idea of herself is, or the more insecure with her position in the world that she is, the more likely this is to happen. She's LOOKING for criticism, so she can use it to shape herself into what the group will accept. Granted, this often comes with tears and drama as well.

Then I started listening to Hunters, and I noticed that if something could be taken even remotely positively, they did so! Again, the older they are the most likely this is to happen, and I'd expect that the reasoning of more secure in Self and Society he is the more this will be.

I listened to Hunters interacting and it was fascinating. No criticism, ever. UNLESS one specifically turns to another and says "dude, I'm not getting it and I recognize you're an expert on this, ideas?" Hunters will INVITE criticism only from someone they look up to and respect, and as such will then listen to criticism with the assumption that it's offered with the best possible intention. Without that invitation, however, the criticism is seen as an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which he's failing. Since he didn't ASK for that, he knows he's not failing and so the criticism is largely ignored.

Gatherers, however, rarely have anything nice to say to each other. When there is a compliment, it's usually either backhanded or comes with claws or has some other motive. The more insecure the Gatherers as a group are, the uglier this gets. But they are listening to every barb and insult and false positive, because that's 'their' crowd and they have to figure out how to fit in and survive. The more secure the Gatherers are in terms of Self and Society, the less this negativity is the case.

Now that I'd gathered the evidence for Alison's stories as well as my own observations, I went into the testing phase. Now, when a Hunter says something to me, I actively work to take it in the BEST possible way, assume that his intentions are golden goodness. That especially includes things like "that shirt isn't as flattering as it could be." Instead of running off to my room crying before I burn the shirt, or going on the offensive and demanding an explanation, I'm working to assume he's trying to be helpful for my own best good. I can say, it's done WONDERS for my overall outlook as well as make me much safer for him to share his thoughts with.

I'm also working to be aware of my audience, and not criticize Hunters anymore. If I want them to change, I'll instead really applaud the positives that I was overjoyed with. He takes out the trash and I give him a huge smile and a hug and a sincere thank you and believe me, he now looks for opportunities to get that reaction out of me again. I've learned that if I want to change my Hunter, I have to encourage all those things he does which I like by reacting with sincere happiness.

Have you ever heard a Hunter say "I just want to make you happy"? That's what motivates him -- my happiness. If all I do is criticize, then clearly I'm not happy. That means, in his mind, he's failing to do the one thing he really wants to. Now that I recognize the truth in that statement, have seen it in others, and experienced the results of my tests, I'd highly recommend that Gatherers change their tactics to something that actually works. Besides, it's MUCH nicer to be happy and take things constructively than the alternative.

-          Lioness (in training)

Emotional Awareness and What I Can Do For Me

I find it ironic that just last month I did a post on insecurity, only this month to find myself staring it in the face. Every time a situation changes, that means the triggers change. Where before I felt secure, suddenly I am no longer sure.

Fortunately, perhaps because of the post so recently, I was able to identify the source of my destructive behavior and put a stop to it before it morphed into something truly ugly. But catching such things does not automatically mean they go away. The absolute worst thing possible is to pretend that insecurity doesn't affect me. The very idea of "pretend it's not there" is tantamount to giving a toddler a loaded gun. The situation will not end well.

So how does one go about dismantling insecurity rather than denying or supressing it? I would argue that emotional awareness is the biggest ally we can have. Being aware of how we feel, TRULY and honestly feel, can alert us to things long before they become a problem. Being so aware can also give perspective. For example, I know that for me I always spiral into a mini-depression 2 days before my cycle starts.

EEEW!

Yes, I went there. Let's be real. Women are emotionally jerked around by their hormones to a terrifyingly high degree. When that is not recognized, or given validity, or minimized and ridiculed, this gives these hormonal driven emotions free reign to be a complete ass. Those women who use PMS as excuses to justify behaving like total bitches make me grind my teeth in fury. PMS justifies nothing, and yes, I recognize fully that it's a valid condition.

Awareness is the key. How do these tie together? I've been working with some friends to help them become aware of how their emotional outlook is affected by their physical condition. Does tiredness increase a tendency toward irritability or depression or other? Does ovulation increase emotional fragility or libido? Does eating high sugar foods lead to anger?

If I'm aware of how much my body is directly influencing how I feel, I can put responses into perspective. Let's return to the example of the mini-depression. If someone just happens to say something on this day which could in any way be construed as a negative comment, it gets blown all out of proportion. I used to act on that, not being aware that my response to the situation was wildly inappropriate, and as a result caused all sorts of needless tension and drama. Now, I'm keenly aware of my body and the relationship between how I physically feel and how I emotionally feel are related. With this awareness, I can take a breath, despite the rioting depression, and say I'm going to have to get a good night's sleep and re-examine this situation in the morning.

That said, let's return to the concept of PMS. It's very real, and I say that the emotions it brings to the surface are equally real. What I think it does is magnify things. Biologically speaking, that part of the female cycle is a 'cleaning house' in preparation for a new cycle. That it hormonally drags to the surface all those emotions that we'd like to pretend aren't there also make sense from the 'cleaning house' perspective. "Hey, found all this trash in the basement here. Get rid of it." And women, especially those who are emotional unaware, go nuts. Erratic behavior, violence, verbal viciousness. Yick.  And they laugh it off as "just PMS". No. It's not. PMS just augments what's already there. By A LOT. Find yourself acting violent, or extremely controlling, or 'uncharacteristically' jealous, or anything like that? That's a wake up call. Take it. Wake up. Become aware of what's going on. The kind of Lioness I want to be a deliberate one, taking actions inspired by choices made.

Again, awareness is the key. So how am I going to use my long history of emotional awareness to address this instance of insecurity? Listen for the triggers. Acknowledge those little pings in the moment they happen. Examine them. Understand the relationship between how I'm interpreting the situation and what else is going on. Mainly, I need to change the way I see the situation which is inciting it. I can choose to change the way I see something. It's beautiful! And it takes only a moment to decide that something can go from being A Threat to being An Inspiration. Being equally aware of my hormonal reality means I help maintain the Inspiration perspective, rather than letting the response devolve into the Threat level. It's my choice, and my power to make that decision. I can only do this if I am aware and honest with myself.

Here's something most folks don't like to know. Insecurity has nothing to do anyone other than the individual it is affecting. It cannot be blamed on anyone else. Cannot be cured by anyone else. I have to own it, be aware of it, and then engage it. I have to engage the foundations behind why this or that makes feel insecure, makes me feel as if I have to defend myself. Awareness is the best tool in my arsenal to help me defuse and dismantle this emotional time bomb.

My vision of the Lioness is one of emotional security, one of complete self-possession. She knows fully who she is, what she's capable of and not, and accepts herself while still challenging herself to strive for better. The Lioness is not immune to self-doubt or occasional insecurity -- but she does not allow such emotions to make her into their puppet.

- Lioness (in training)