My brother's granddaughter Tessa supporting a younger bridesmaid.
I have a dream. I dream that we women support each other’s self-care so we become strong basecamps. From being a strong basecamp we then can co-create a new earth where we joyfully embrace each and every day in peace and harmony.
In this Monday’s post; Let other women take care of your self-care, I shared an aspect of that dream which was the regular coming together as we once did at the village *well* to share and receive guidance for our daily troubles and challenges. I lamented that with no longer doing the laundry at the village *well* many of us have lost the intimate connection and shared wisdom that such frequent coming together provided. Instead we are tending to live isolated and distracted lives, with at best superficial connections happening at work and in social contexts.
On the other hand I was heartened to read in your comments that some of you do currently receive support in a variety of places. Belinda recognized that;
I am fortunate to have a strong circle of wise women in my work — women who are intuitively caring, nurturing, accepting and understanding. These wise women around me are like a balm for the figurative cuts and bruises that I sustain every now and then.
Thanks to support with my 'self care' I am now harvesting these pears AND my happiness.
Last week I talked on Peggy Nolan’s The Stepmom’s Toolbox Radio Show about martyrdom. I have included the link as all her and co-host Erin’s radio shows are available for downloads so you can still listen to them. That is a great win as they cover heaps of issues every woman struggles with.
What hit home afterwards was that we have become so isolated, so alone in our quest for a way out of our misery. It is sad to see how little support we are getting. We all seem to be yearning for guidance and wisdom from other women we love and trust to make sense of the things in life that do not seem to be right. Like never being acknowledged, not knowing where to put our love as it often gets thrown back into our faces or misused and last but not least we do not even know how to take care of ourselves.
Has it ever been different? Were there times when we had access to wise women who could help us out?
My mother's ring, oozing my mother's self care and self worth.
Is Martyrdom dead yet?
You wish now we have dishwashers, education & careers and the word ‘equality’ in our vocabulary.
But is it?
Are we confident providers, do we set ourselves up to be a well resourced basecamp capable of supporting everybody without depleting ourselves, losing out on fun in life and avoiding being resentful?
Hmm.
Although we all have great intentions to be the best basecamp for our families, we are NOT getting the importance of keeping basecamp strong, of looking after ourselves.
Most of us still go for martyrdom, most of us still tragically lose ourselves under the strain of all we have taken on.
We become grumpy while our guilt increases when having nasty thoughts about everybody and everything.
Many women still are drained and reluctant basecamps that are not much fun for anybody.
We all have seen people walking around as if on eggshells, afraid to trigger us off, haven’t we?
How many of us are sick of hearing our own nagging voices?
Haven’t we all heard partner’s or children exasperatedly asking us to please, please do something to bring our old smile back?
OUCH! and until all that stops and our complaints are no longer showing up in the bloggosphere, martyrdom is alive and well I am afraid.
Change starts within first
Wilma’s post A whole new world, a whole new community, certainly got a reaction from you this week.
The post is a realization that change must begin at grass roots level, within us and in our immediate world.
Wilma explained why we have been set up, from an early age to fail at it and why we need to be vigilant with ourselves, be patient, not be deterred by the world’s problems and remain focused.
Once we declare our possibility for change, our context plays a huge role.
To keep possibility continuously alive in conversations, to learn the skills to connect with people right in front of us, to have sponsorship and take actions is not an easy feat, not at all.
With that said, it does amount to fundamental change in the end.
My sister's grandchildren. May they keep being the change we seek.
Be the change you want to see.
So what is stopping us from ending the gruesome wars, world hunger and pollution?
Marianne Williamson keeps saying we are not trying hard enough to be the change that we seek.
I agree and I would like to add that we actually haven’t a clue how to be the change that we want to see and that we are not looking hard enough either.
Deep in my heart I know that I am extremely ineffective to create the change that I seek.
Because to create it I need to learn a very basic life skill and that is to get on with people in my own little world in a way that eliminates hunger, pollutions and fights in my own world.
We are the problem; is my own little world not a reflection of the bigger world?
I fight, I too am hungry for love and attention and we all pollute each others mental state.
Being in action is Do-ing community
Judging by the comments, Wilma struck a cord in all of us with her post on Community is Dead – Long live Community.
We all agreed that there is an incongruency between independence, money and fear
and community, favor bank and love.
Megan captured what is true for many of us when she shared how she became Ms Independence;
I was raised, especially after my father left and we went “broke,” to be fiercely independent. Letting people help me out was not something I was comfortable doing, especially not without attaching some sort of payback schedule to it. I learned very early on how to take care of myself… As a result, in my 20’s I was Scrooge-like in many ways, guarding what I earned and sharing it only with those closest to me.
George with his sponsor Beryl
Money as a currency is not evil, but society’s illusion that money is our primary and only currency IS evil.
To give us the illusion that to be safe and secure we need lots of money to buy our independence is a cruel myth.
Because of that very obsession with independence we live fearfully and alone and we are NOT splendidly playing a big game.
To think we can be independent is our downfall AND a far bigger goldmine has been taken away from us; that being our communities and other people.
It is community that gives us access to a far more reliable and valuable currency, the soft currency of the universal ‘favor bank’.
As our quest for money and independence has taken over our lives, we no longer need to practice community and now we have virtually lost our ability to DO community.
Instead of benefiting from community as a resource we ignore it.
We are reduced to only getting along with our circle of friends and immediate family, if that. Actually most families are no longer crash hot communities these days.
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