Being a Woman

I had a bit of a breakthrough the other day… 

“ A bit” is probably quite an understatement…this, for me, was monumental.

I’ve tried to be a complete open book in my rambles, this whole journey , selfishly, has been a place to unload my thoughts and give a timeline for myself, so that I can look back and see where I’ve been. Its reflective.

It’s given me a sense of clarity and lightness, even in the midst of what seems perhaps a more melancholy post.

My experiences sit very obviously in the category of grief and loss. And the journey of grief isn’t a linear one, but no journey is for that matter. Everyone has good days and bad days regardless of their circumstances. 

Grief is universal. As is loss. Without sounding extremely confrontational, we are all going to die and we are all going to lose someone that leaves an unmeasurable hole. This is the journey of life. 

But there are other journeys within this life, and the one that I want to talk about is the journey of women. 

Female, girl, woman, lady, her, she….the Devine feminine.

I could go right back to the start, to when I was a girl, and the blueprint that was created… but it’ll take a while, so to sum up, I felt unheard and un-worthy and that had a direct impact on my self-worth as a woman. ( this by the way, is very common, I don’t mark it down as particularly poignant , I got to an age , with the help of some therapy, where I was able to recognise it.) 

But as women we have some significant milestones in life that whether it be of societies creation, or genetics, they impact how we feel and grow as a female. 

Socially (and forgive my bluntness), we are the humans that birth new life into the world. I mean, without us there isn’t going to be a population. Perhaps it’s safe to say this is quite possibly the most poignant and unique thing about women. 

We are the bearers of life. 

Men, to simplify it all somewhat, pick women subconsciously (or not), with an innate attraction as to whether the woman will make a good mother. Is she from what they qualify as good breeding…you can even throw in the old classic, she’s got good “child bearing hips”. This sounds exceptionally old school I know, and especially now with the rise of empowered women, but this is an important thing to acknowledge whether it offends you or not. Unless the entire world does some serious ancestral healing its always going to be there in some shape or form, even if we don’t like to acknowledge it. 

Subsequently the milestones for women do somewhat link to these historical social patterns. 

And here’s where I come in. 

I’ve been stuck for a while now in a place of limbo. I couldn’t really pinpoint exactly what it was but I was uncomfortable, I didn’t feel like a fitted in society , especially women and more specifically, mothers. I’ve had no place that felt like home. I struggled to relate with other mothers, and quite honestly, women in general. 

Don’t get me wrong, I have the most fierce girlfriends that I would be lost without , but there’s always been a part of me that didn’t feel I fit , or that I was worthy of their friendship. 

As your journey as a women unfolds and you find yourself growing a child to welcome into this world, something shifts energetically. There is an empowering force that levels you up in your growth as a women. 

This continues once this magical soul enters the world. Having kept them safe and grown them in your belly, right through to when they fly the nest, as a mother, as a women, you continue to grow and flourish. I imagine it all comes down to the maternal instincts that are ignited, and how they expand and shift with the milestones of the child you mother. 

My Maternal instincts ignited during my first pregnancy, and ramped up during birth and then they were crushed.  The fire that had been stoked was broken apart and what was left were hot burning embers strewn all over the floor. 

When I fell pregnant with N it was like someone was slowly and carefully collecting up all the embers that were still red hot and putting them all together again so that they could be stoked again and that fire could be ignited once again. 

And as soon as N was born that fire roared. I felt empowered, I had not failed as a mother this time. 

I feel I should highlight at this point that the maternal instincts and desire to have children and a family have always been there. it is the stoking of this fire, the emotional growth as a women that having a child does, Fanning the flame inside , the growth it creates, that is what I am speaking of. 

Even being a single mother at a very early stage didn’t effect that flame, I had an empowered sense of self that was growing and an independence that there was nothing I couldn’t do on my own for my child. 

I felt that after the grief and failings as a mother for Arthur that this journey with Niamh would heal and nurture my growth as a mother and a women. Which It did. 

When it started to become apparent that there was a uniqueness within N and that from a health point of view it was setting off alarm bells, I was split in two. Some of the flames that had been growing where kicked and strewn over the floor of my soul again, leaving the charcoaled embers that had once been, returned. A few of the other flames stayed put though, fiercely burning , that part of me as a mother that would do anything and everything to try and fix what I had failed to do when I grew her in my belly.

But an energy waved over me, I had failed as woman, as a mother. Again.

I’m writing this now as if I knew this when it was happening. I didn’t. Obviously I felt emotions, heartbreak, grief, anger, sadness, confusion, you name it I felt it. And as I’ve started to process over these years, layers have been pealed back, an understanding happens in me of why I feel the emotions I feel and why I navigate life as I do. As I’ve done this, more feelings appear, and some are a lot harder than the top layer that one first deals with.  As you start to peel it all back it gets deep. 

This isn’t to say it’s a hugely depressing process, it actually isn’t, when you start to allow yourself to feel feelings and speak the truth about why you feel them they actually start to move, they don’t just sit and fester in your core, as they do when we push them down and don’t deal with them. Instead they flow, they crash over you and through you like waves, and then , they ease, and in a lot of cases they leave, and all that is left is a lightness, like the calm after the storm. 

It’s actually become the most positive experience. Emotions are supposed to move through you, not fester and become stagnant. 

As I’ve been peeling back the layers in the healing process, this apparent uncomfortableness in my skin, my unease as a women has become more pronounced, more obvious to me. My thoughts and beliefs that I had failed as a mother had stunted my growth as a women. It had stalled it. And I felt un-empowered.

This of course triggers other feelings and the one for me that has been the most hindering is the thought inside of me that I wasn’t a good enough mother for Niamh, she deserved better and I fell short. 

It’s all quite intense isn’t it. 

However, as I’ve been unpicking the complexities of my journey as a women and realising why I’m so goddam uncomfortable in my female skin, something gave. 

I’m regaining the power I lost, those flames that got kicked around….they are growing. 

The understanding I have developed for myself has flicked a switch, I am empowering myself in the uniqueness of my journey as a mother. 

Each journey as a women is completely unique to each woman, every female has a different journey to take and neither is less womanly than another in its undertaking. 

The Devine feminine speaks of compassion, heart-centred, accepting, reflective and wise as qualities of the Devine Feminine energy, all beautiful qualities that have nothing to do with experience or circumstance.

As I write this I fear I make it sound all rather simple and straight forward, of course it’s not, It is, as all things, a practice. A process of healing and feeling and letting go. 

But to start to understand oneself, on a level one hasn’t reached before? 

It has shifted my energy. 

 I’ve set sail again… as a mother…as a women…as an equal.