My days are spent trying to get my thoughts clear about how to run my life now that I’m a working mom. Something I never thought I would be…which now as I write is interesting since I was constantly trying to create my own business from home these last 8 years or so. I guess the difference is back then, I did not have to be a working mom even though the expectation by me (and perhaps by others) was that I would find some way to earn money…and in my own thoughts – to justify my existence which was always tied to money.
Back then, I lived in a dualistic reality of needing to be the perfect 1950s stay-at-home mom and wife but also be the perfect modern day career woman earning her keep – even if from home.
So what is the difference now, I think to myself? Well, I do not have the 1st income of another to help support me and my family…
But it is more then just income that drives me. So much more. It is a passion and a vision, a mission for my life. As you read yesterday, I know why I am here now. I know what lights me up and sets me on fire…and to live into and IN that vision is what is different for me now.
Yet, the amazing surprise that has revealed itself to me this Fall is how deeply rooted my own personal identity still is WITH the GENDER ROLEs we associate with womanhood. I mean, here I am starting a business that is all about teaching and sharing with others how abuse is connected to our labels of gender…how that gender is related to the ideas that are formed in us through patriarchy….and how if we can free ourselves from patriarchal thought, we can free ourselves from our definitions of gender and thus from abuse.
I guess this is exactly why I was picked to teach this…because as I teach I am asked to face my own inner dark side and those parts of me that loom in the shadows that seek to keep me just one degree off from fully reaching my truths.
PREPARING FOR WINTER THROUGH THE FALL
As I pulled out The Way of the Happy Woman once again at the beginning of the season, I reminded myself that the Fall is a time to shed the leaves – the old, used up parts of our life that no longer serve us – and to start to figure out what I would take with me into the cold, dark Winter. As I took my mini-retreat last week, I embarked on a walk where I would symbolically let go of an old belief or thought with each step going out and ask myself to retain whatever it was I needed for the winter on the way back in.
This is where my surprise happened. Over the last couple of weeks, I have begun to realize that being a single mom with no family – real or adopted near-bye – to assist me in the childcare and household duties leaves me with not as much time to work and develop my ideas into fruition. Initially, my desire to create my own company and not return to the corporate world was so that I could still be the mom I desired to be. I had accepted that I would only have about 20-30 hours a week in order to devote to my business so that I could still play mom.
Yet, as I have begun to take a closer look at my schedule and try to figure out how to organize my time, I started to develop this idea: what if I could hire some help? What would that help look like? Who would she look like? What would she take care of?
As I played around with this idea I got excited that finally I was a point in my life where no one could tell me no – except myself – and that I could take the reigns to get the help I needed in my life where I see that I need them.
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| Today’s Woman is not only encouraged to do and have it all, but to THINK she must in order to still be a woman. |
I then took this idea to my coach, who is helping me set up my strong Masculine banks of support and structure so I CAN relax into my feminine creative side, who fully encouraged me to find the right help and to go for it.
This is where the resistance started to really rear his ugly head. I know I felt him before hand, but when I had another woman who has gone through this process of birthing her business and share her wisdom with me encourage me to hire help – something in me really started to get uncomfortable.
As I have sat with this bit of myself this past week, I have unpacked a lot – and continue to unpack a lot. I wish I could say that I have reached a conclusion and that I was now fully comfortable with hiring help for around the home and with my business. The truth is that I am not. I am squirming and ancy beyond what I would like.
Truth is, at least now I have learned that this is something for me to lean into instead of run. So this is what I am doing, especially as I prepare for my next moon cycle to begin any moment.
SOME SEEDS OF TRUTH ABOUT THE “I CAN DO IT ALL” WOMANHOOD MENTALITY
The truth is that what I am finding as I have unpacked what is behind this resistance to hiring help, I have not liked to see that I still am for some reason tightly holding on to what our society has defined as being a woman – and that is her tightly associated list of roles because of her gender/sex.
I have put my finger on the fact that I still see myself as a woman and a mother when
* I cook under the disguise that this provides healthy and nutritious food for myself and kids.
* I clean, this provides a healthy environment and an orderly way of living both in mind and spirit.
* I do the errands, take my kids to their events and spend any time they have off from school with them.
* I am the one that helps my kids with their homework and life skills they will need in the world.
I have put my finger on the fact that much of this has to do with control. Control over my environment. Control over my finances. Control over my womanhood.
I have put my finger on that to give all this control up would mean that essentially I would become the “man” in my role and that I am hiring myself a stay-at-home mom. I have even joked with my friends, a bit uncomfortably even though we all laugh – that I need a “stay-at-home”.
I am seeing that this is how deeply rooted patriarchy is in my own system…that I would be willing to sacrifice my time to develop and create my baby for the purpose I am called for – just because I have so bought into the idea that gender, that my sex as a female defines my roles…and that those roles define who I am as a person.
I am seeing that if this is how deeply rooted gender is in me, that this is how deeply rooted gender is in the World we live in…for everything interior finds a reflection in the exterior.
Join me next Friday as I explore how Gender, Gender Roles & Patriarchy are connected and how I use this knowledge as I practice letting go, of divorcing my identity to my gender role.
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