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.

Angelia too recognized that through her church she is provided with initiatives such as;

They paired us with a couple that had been married 15+ years to be our mentors. Now and and in the future. What a great idea! Stuff we will be going through, they have been through. They can help guide us and support us.

We are in agreement about the need to connect intimately and you shared your own initiatives to foster connections and to take a lead in providing wise support to other women needing self-care. Initiatives such as Joy’s;

I saw a need among my friends and created a group to fulfill those needs.

Peggy too saw the contribution of her radio show in a new light;

I’m now looking at my radio show as a virtual *well*, helping women, helping stepmoms, helping families.

And Patty has plans for the fall;

Personally, I’m hoping to facilitate a small [wisdom] circle in the fall.

However it was Evita’s comment that I feel brought this discussion into perspective with her very honest observations that;

First off, I know how unsupportive and downright mean women can be towards other women. And I don’t know, was it always like this, through the ages? OR is this something that came out in the last few decades when women were pushed and pulled in too many directions trying to make all ends meet the way society expected them too? Is that what caused this unnatural competition amongst us? Today, perhaps more than ever women need to come together, perhaps like never before.

And then Evita went on to say how it is for her;

In my own personal life… I also cannot say that I have women in my life who I can count on as some awesome support group, at least not offline

Thank you Evita for your honesty, as it is important to speak up how we have lost the supportive connection of chatting at the village *well*. Women need to read that they are not alone in their isolation. That being isolated is common.
It is both my own personal offline experience and my observation of most of the women around me. Busy and surrounded as they are by people, that intimate sharing and knowing is not happening. Who is lovingly encouraging us to take care of ourselves first? That collaborative, caring support for each other that is having us do things differently to take care of our self is not there at the moment.

There is a breakdown and it is not our fault. It is a consequence of our current circumstances and we need to do something about it ourselves. Having us women become strong basecamps is the number one priority. As I’ve said before, the whole expedition falters when basecamp is not strong.

I’m serious when I say; give WomenLikeMe a go for a month and see for yourself, it is only three dollars a day. Let me and the other Women Like Me support you in becoming a strong basecamp, in getting the support to do things differently and having you actively taking care of your SELF.

I have a dream. I dream that we women become strong basecamps so we co-create together a new earth where the whole of humanity joyfully embraces each and every day.

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?

And that got me dreaming.

In my dream I saw a scene going way back in time.  I saw women being together at the village ‘well’ while doing their laundry.
They looked relaxed and out to have a good time while doing what was needed to be done.
Then a youngish woman walked up, joining the group. She looked tired and harassed while dragging two children along behind her.

I noticed that the women stopped and everybody let their warm gaze fall upon the approaching figure, paying her full attention when she joined them. They inquired in gentle tones, obviously desiring to gain insight into what was going on for her. The young woman blossomed under their loving attention, willingly answering and in turn intently listening as the women responded.
The scene oozed love, attention, closeness and connectedness. 
While the talking was going on amongst these loving trusting women who knew each other so intimately, another woman entertained the children, giving her uninterrupted time to sort out whatever was  bothering her.  At the end of my dream I saw her walking home, a different woman with two happy children walking beside her.

There have been many times in my life when I yearned for this support. Those were times when life was leaving me feeling depleted; when I was devoid of all joy and felt totally alone. Where were the women who would instantly see something was wrong, who could put a stop to my misconceptions that had me act in a way that wore me out? Where was that loving community of wise knowing women for whom  I would not, could not hide what was going on for me? Where was that support that I trusted to get me back to who I AM.

That dream hung around for days and it made me immensely sad that most of us are feeling the loss of that resource. Today most women are left to their own devices in their own private little houses doing the laundry alone, struggling to make sense of their full on, complicated lives. Most of us are not getting very far on our own with making sense of whom to lavish our love onto, how to take care of ourselves and how to make a happy family.

I myself have moved to the other side of the world, made new friends, but friends who did not know me intimately as the village women would know me and I did not know them. They did not know my struggles and I did not know theirs either. They did not see how in my home my family walked all over me and even if they did notice, they had no idea how to talk to me or how to correct me .  Most struggled with the same issues anyway.

BUT what the radio talk also did was give me an immense relief that things are changing for us women who know that things are not right but have no resource to turn to.

I see ‘virtual watering wells’ showing up all over the place, my program WomenLikeMe is one, Peggy Nolan’s  The Stepmom’s Toolbox Radio Show is another one and there are many more. Although we do not know each other personally at those ‘wells’, we know our struggles intimately. I feel connectedness, I warm myself in the love of women who participate.
What is more, our collective wisdom that has been suppressed for so long gets encouraged to rise and speak up and I see women blossoming once more, me included.

It is moving to see the preparedness and commitment of women who come together to make the change in themselves. It was inspiring to hear Erin so courageously sharing her confusion on the radio show with how to deal with her own powerlessness and misconceptions about her role within the current complex stepfamily architecture. Her sharing added so much and must have touched many of us in recognition.

Most of us are still fumbling to find ways to do things differently, to do things in a way that relieves us from that inner turmoil that screams to us that things are NOT right the way they are. 
Although not always knowing who to trust and what to believe after having so often been fooled by mighty egos, at least we are doing something. At least some of us are prepared to come to the well and respond to each other’s committed inquiry about how life could be done differently, how we could become a strong joyful basecamp.

Those women’s courage and commitment fills me with joy and encourages me to keep opening myself to new wisdom that lifts my heart. It encourages me to keep sharing my experiences with doing things differently and to keep learning with and from other loving women on our learning program called WomenLikeMe. 
WomenLikeMe is my business AND it is my life.

The program and its 13 topics are about self-care, it is about taking yourself serious enough to work on becoming a strong, joyful basecamp. As a consequence of reading this post I would love you to have a look at the self-care you allow yourself.

• What is your weak point when it comes to managing your own self-care?
• How many people do you have in your life who strongly encourage you to look after yourself and are actually helping you to achieve that?
• Would you dare to spend $3 per day which is the price of joining WomenLikeMe to become a strong basecamp so you can look after your loved ones in far healthier ways? How many people would be generous enough to encourage you to spend that on yourself?

I know that I am openly promoting WomenLikeMe with this post but it is time that I get over my shyness and start telling you what is on offer. I realize that I am not doing anybody a favor by keeping it quiet thanks to emails from some lovely women, thank you!
I am on my own program and it is making a difference. I am living in the most amazing place in nature, because of it.  I have created a relationship that is making me fly, because of it. I have become a woman I am proud of, because of it. I can stand tall in front of my daughters despite all my mistakes, because of it. I am sharing my journey what happened to me because of the program and you can judge for yourself what is possible.

All I ask is that you take a look at your life and feel that you are worth $3 a day. If you are then give WomenLikeMe a go for a month and see for yourself. We need to do something together to become the change we want to see.

"Yeah, yeah your food is coming", but soon all this demanding work will be all over for this mother. Lucky her.

This is our second week of talking about martyrdom and I’ve still got plenty more to say on the skills required to become martyr free.
You certainly could see my point in this Monday’s post; How to kill of martyrdom, that children are takers and they will get their way with a martyr every time.

However children being takers is not the issue, they are only one of the many daily challenges that recovering martyrs have to face up to.

Diantha explained this clearly for us with her comment;

You are right about children (and husbands) taking until one is just a puddle on the floor. For years I thought it was THEIR fault until I wised up and realized I PLAYED INTO IT! Gulp. Truth can be a hard teacher…

Yes Diantha, the critical first step is to own up to the truth that we martyrs play into it. We allow children (and husbands) to take advantage of us. It is easy for us to look external to ourselves for the cause of our troubles. It is much tougher and requires honesty to recognize and acknowledge how we are the cause of our troubles.
I’d like to add, if you have martyr, people pleasing, doormat tendencies, you will play them out everywhere, not just within the family, but at work and with your friends as well.
How we cause ourselves to be treated as doormats is invisible to us. This is where we need gentle friends to support us and reflect back the wholesome ‘what is so’ of our martyr behavior.

Once recognized, this  is only the beginning of what needs to change. We also have to be clear that martyrdom does NOT bring about happy families or a strong basecamp in us.
Then we need to be VERY determined to STOP and instead choose to be a strong basecamp, no matter what it takes.
Finally we need to be 100% committed to following through on the consequences, just as Peggy did in her example;

I called it quits when my youngest daughter, then 16, begged and pleaded with me to take her car shopping three days after my first chemo treatment…I felt like death warmed over…but I got out of bed and went car shopping with her. About an hour into it, I told her I needed to go home. She threw a fit. I had the car keys, got into my car, and started driving away. Of course she ran after me but that was the end of my guilt ridden martyr days.

Like Peggy, not only do you have to be prepared to drive off and leave your 16 year old daughter standing on the side of the road, but you actually have to do it, no matter what your Little Voice maybe screaming inside of you.
And you will have to do it more than once, perhaps daily for as long as it takes. For Peggy it took her 18 months for her daughters to come around, but the rewards are worth it as was the case for her when her daughter shared;

“it’s taken me a while, but I get it. You are the happiest I’ve ever seen you and I want to be more like you. Because you are happy, everyone else around you is happy, too.”

Essential as it is to let go of people pleasing, martyr behavior, the challenge is huge and the tendency to back down is real as Catrien shared;

When there are too many challenges it becomes so much simpler to back down on all of them because we lose our nerve. But to stand firm on one can be such a breakthrough that releases even more reserves of courage. And we become ever more brave.

Invisible as this maybe for you, currently you have organized your whole world to support you in being the way you are. It is not that your children, spouse, friends don’t love you, they do; it is just that you have them trained to expect you to do ‘martyr type’ behavior. They too can’t see how they support you in being the old you.
To successfully follow through on your determined intention to be a strong basecamp requires support from other strong basecamps.

I doubt you can do it on your own, I couldn’t and as Catrien says; “it becomes much simpler to back down.”
Seek out strong basecamp women and ask for their support.

You need support wherever you can get it so join me and Peggy on the StepMom’s radio show this Monday, April 26, 2010 at 8PM EST on http://blogtalkradio.com/thestepmomstoolbox as I talk more about “Death to Martyrdom: Reclaiming Your Happy, Healthy Self!” Peggy and Erins’ radio shows are such amazing resources and NOT just for stepmoms. They actually cover all aspects of parenthood, only step parenthood amplifies parenting issues even more.

The very best support I can offer you is to join WomenLikeMe where you will be both supported and learn the skills to be a strong basecamp.

My daughters who do love me.

I so want to acknowledge all your sharing in the comments on this week’s post; My fearful pursuit of love and its pathetic results. Your comments are a beautiful example of our connectedness; how we all have fears and how we all are committed to moving beyond them.

I got to see how in talking about my fear of losing the love of my daughter by saying ‘no’ to her, it had many of you share similar fears. Jodi summed it up well;

the tug and pull of saying no vs. feeling you should say yes to validate your love but then deciding to say no and struggling with how to say no–gosh it’s all so frustrating.

While most of us have this fear in some form or other, the flow of comments made it clear to me that our fears are completely unfounded. The evidence is there in our lives. Love will prevail, it does not walk out the door because we say ‘no’ or stand our ground. Hilary summed it up nicely by saying; “Fear needs to be put in its place and addressed.”

In particular many of us know all about the difficulties of expressing love between mother and daughter. I particularly appreciated Jillian sharing her daughter’s perspective with candid honesty when she said;

Mother/daughter relationships are very complicated. … She says that my expectations for her are so high that I make her nervous the point where she can hardly think straight.

I tell myself that it is not her irresponsible behavior with my children that makes me so angry … she has a right, as their grandmother, to feed them ice cream for breakfast, and I will do the exact same with mine.

I wish that my mother would stop trying to please the world and just be strong and say “no” for once and of course, I too will be irritated when she does!

I can so relate to the whole scenario from both sides.

It is great how we all reveal the demon ‘fear’ together’. As we reveal fear, it loses its grip. As we share, we get to see that we are not alone. It is our separateness, our apparent aloneness that is what fear feeds on.
Is it not a case of fear doing; divide and rule?
Ha, fear has no validity once exposed to the light of our words and love, so good on us for exposing it!
Now we no longer feel we have to hide it and be ashamed of it, we can go beyond it.

That is why I’m hugely thankful for the opportunity that blogging is providing us to write and share and compare notes; especially on the topic of our fears. I believe that we now have a powerful tool for over throwing fear. I can hear it in the gratitude of Sara when she says;

Thanks for talking about this. It felt good to express my feelings about the situation with my divorce and my daughter:~)

Having the courage to write out our stories and our fears not only serves us as it did Sara, but provides all blog readers  the benefits of reading a version of their own stories, their own fears. We have no idea how far our comments ripple their effect.

I love Kristie’s words;

you really put your feelings out there and faced a part of you that isn’t always easy for people to face. It’s hard to point out your weaknesses to yourself, especially when you want to live another way so badly.

Thank you all for sharing your stories, your fears, your mother/daughter challenges. Their value can not be underestimated as we go for living another way, free from fear, basking in the love that we all have in abundance, obviously :~).

John being encouraged by Wilma.

In last week’s post I wrote; “Great base camps understand sponsorship.”

Bringing up that whole idea of sponsorship and making ’ME’ - base camp – a prosperous structure has unlocked something huge in me.
I never considered that any personal relationship could have a sponsorship theme as well.
If I look back, most relationships, be it with partners, relatives, friends or with works colleagues have been one of limited possibilities because of that.
As I went through life, I have learned to look after myself, not to expect too much, to keep score so I would not become a doormat or a victim and to compete for mostly everything from attention and love to promotion and opportunities.
Most of my adult life I have been going it alone, I relied on myself and in my previous marriage I never considered my needs.

Now when I look at sponsorship, I get a whole new view on how a relationship could be.
I could become the sponsored one as well as a sponsor AND have everyone in the relationship fly.

That is so in contrast with the old fashioned way of relating in which instead of sponsoring each other we clip each other wings, we jealously guard our rights and we never believe in and bring out each others greatness.
We nag, we accuse, we disappoint and ultimately we are going it alone, being secretive, mistrusting and never daring to ask for much.
We try not to rely on one another and yet we call what we have together . . . ’a relationship’.

Hmm.

Now look at a the description of sponsor in WomenLikeMe;

“A sponsor is someone who supports and champions people, causes and projects.
They can be relied on to give a great deal of support and comfort, to encourage courage and to back the person all the way. They fully believe in the people they so generously contribute to.”

(WomenLikeMe – Who am I)

Hmm again.

While sports people get championed and the relationship contributes to all parties, I’ve never seen ‘ordinary’ relationships in that light.
But what if we would?
Would consciously bringing in the element of sponsorship change how we prosper from being together?

It sure does. I am noticing the difference right now as John champions me and I am learning to champion him.
Looking back I have a great example to illustrate this.
When John declared he wanted to complete with his father and mentioned his intention to take him on a three day trip, he went blessed with my sponsorship and in the end we all have prospered from this experience.

Although I am still having my training wheels on (as Ann-Marie would say); by looking back on what I did, I can now clearly see how being a great base camp and sponsoring people is the way to go.

When John first mentioned his plan, he nearly did not get my support and my first stingy, non sponsoring reaction was;
” What? Excuse me, you do not particularly like being in your father’s company, so what is this all about?”
I am sure that my body language and facial expression showed my disbelief and disapproval loud and clear.
No championing of his cause there!
Then I followed this up with thoughts like;
“That is all good and well for you buster, but what about me? I am not going off to see my daughter on a whim, and I find her actually more important than your father.”
I honestly went there albeit not for long. I so can see how this reeks of competition and guarding my rights and how I totally disregarded John’s and his father’s interests.

And if that was not enough I went to questioning his intentions and telling him how hypocritical this all was.
I even complained how this would leave me holding the fort, all alone in this isolated house and for what?
Who was more important here, me, my daughter or his Dad?!

I do not have to say more as I am sure you are getting the picture of non sponsoring behavior.
My; and this is going on in relationships all the time!
Oh; no wonder why I used to have trouble feeling good about myself.

However living with John and having lapped up his generous contributions has obviously made me a far more generous and effective base camp.

My stronger and wealthier base gave me a chance to change tack and correct this base camp’s output.
Having gone through these first old fashioned stingy, clipping wings reactions I then changed to;
“Oh? Completion, what do you mean?” taking an interest rather than automatically judging something I had no idea about. After John had explained his intention, I used it to look at my own parental completion issues, leveraging his to sort out mine.
I then corrected my thinking about my own daughter’s visits. John has never stopped me, it was I who stopped myself. His taking the trip with his Dad was completely separate and did not take anything away from me and did NOT make my daughters less important. Hmm, here I was unnecessarily jealously guarding what?
It was this constantly correcting my position that in the end had me freely choosing to sponsor John’s trip.

I could totally and freely contribute with being genuinely and generously supportive in the preparation of this completion. This was love in action.
I provided most of the food so they had one less detail to worry about and to give them more time to enjoy themselves.
John and I looked at how to get work sorted and I got over the fact that I had to get used to rural loneliness and isolation.
Needless to say that this experience has deepened our relationship as well as making all of us more aware about completions.

Seeing the change in my relationship behavior has been fascinating.
Over the years I have been accepting his sponsorship more and more.
I allow him to contribute to me by accepting the good things he says about me and I am going it alone less and less. I even let him help with the cleaning as I no longer feel the need to be a victim or a martyr.
I start to trust him to back me, I start to believe in the integrity of his intentions.