Have you ever been threatened by another woman’s success?
Has any other woman been a cause for you to deem yourself less?
Has any other woman’s beauty, her crown made you feel like you are not a princess?
That is but wound of sisterhood – One of the core feminine wounds
Countless industries feed on this wound- be it beauty industry portraying unrealistic standards, entertainment industry portraying unhealthy fitness benchmarks and some strands of feminist movements that equated promiscuity with freedom. All these in many ways caused women to weaponize their own feminine energy, which at times came at the cost of pain to other women.
Feminine energy is not yours or mine but a collective thread that runs through all of us. You and me, we don’t exist in silos. This can be understood by a simple generational thread- Any trauma that your great-great grandmother experienced, any suppression she was subjected to, any dreams that went unfulfilled didn’t go unnoticed but were passed down. They sit as patterns within their own progeny. My great-great grandmother and me are interconnected and what happened to her sits within me as a pattern. Similarly when a female crosses the path of another female, she suppresses her full femininity. When a female sees other woman as a threat in any possible manner, she is not standing in the fullness of her femininity. A feminine that is whole in herself sees every other woman as herself- The same Goddess energy that flows through another flows through you, the same energy that flows through you flows through another. It is not mine or yours, but ours. When I shame you or otherize you, I bring shame in myself and otherize a part of myself. I am not full now because I have otherized a part of myself in thinking that you are separate from me.
Every other sister becomes either a mirror for your own wounds that seek healing or a new possibility for you to attain.
“We’re connected, as women. It’s like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there’s trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we’re just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don’t help each other, who will?” ? Sarah Addison Allen
No my hands don’t speak all things clean for I am as much a product of conditioning as you are. Does the pattern need to be carried for is a perpetual question we need to ask. Today when I know better, I seek to do better, be better for my own sake, and a bit more sane in the choices I make.
A woman’s worth is not a scare resource that will get depleted. Instead it is a gushing spring of endless energy waiting to be harnessed. Any society that lays too much premium on unrealistic beauty and fitness standards causes women to believe that they have to earn their place by competing against other women. Somehow differences in choices that each woman makes for herself results into creation of superficial hierarchies. The same circles that were meant to be safe spaces to heal have now become stages of performance. A large part of this conditioning also gets passed down the way we saw feminine figures around us. To go into your wounded energy is not shameful or a failure on your part. It is a product of larger conditioning prevalent in society. To get back into your healing energy is where your true power lies.
We are in the season of a festival that celebrates Nav Durga- The 9 forms of Divine Mother.
The verse “Ya Devi Sarva Bhuteshu Shakti Rupena Samsthita” is a sacred Sanskrit mantra from the Devi Mahatmyam, meaning:
“I bow again and again to the Divine Mother who dwells in all living beings in the form of inner strength (Shakti).”
May we all be there for each other when we need each other the most. May we stand in solidarity.
“Because there?s one thing stronger than magic- sisterhood.”? Robin Benway
Love and light
Yasmin
