All right, Beautiful. Today’s letter comes from yours truly - me!
With our official self-love day (aka Valentine’s Day) coming up right around the corner, I'm feeling really excited.
I’m so excited about the seismic shifts going on in our culture right now, and how much we’re waking up. Some of us are waking up slowly, and some of us are waking up really, really fast.
Some of us just to want to crawl right back into bed.
Well, if you’re here, I know you're at least starting to wake up. And I’m also pretty sure you’re a feeler. In the most beautiful sense of the word.
You feel everything - and no, that’s not a fault or a flaw - it’s an asset. A beautiful one, and one that will always have your back.
The conversations we’re starting to have in every part of our society – and especially in the corridors that were previously off limits - absolutely have to happen before anything changes.
And there’s a lot (a whole lot) that needs to change. And change is what’s starting to happen!
If you’ve been here awhile, you know that in addition to everything else I talk about on here, I talk a lot about the culture.
Our culture.
And the role it plays in affecting just about everything we do. The lens we look through is a cultural lens as well as an experiential one.
Our blindspots - our programming - they’re from our culture, too.
When we talk about our family, when we talk about how we unwittingly choose someone who represents our father or our mother without even realizing that’s what we’re doing - that’s not just family, it’s because of our culture’s affect on them that we keep on finding ourselves repeating the same patterns over and over again.
Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not about power. And more importantly, about owning your own power. Or about recognizing you even have a right to your own power.
That’s always what this has been about.
We’ve been deferring to someone else - namely to a man - for as long as we can remember. And yet, the opposite of this only leads us into more confusion.
The question really, is who are we, as a collective, as women in our culture? If the culture is such a big piece of where we get our roles from, then where do we get our roles from to begin with?
I know a woman who had a really controlling dad who didn’t have any connection to her, except to let her know that she wasn’t living up to his expectations for her. He was always coming down on her for how she was choosing to live her life.
Instead of trying to understand where she was coming from, he kept trying to get her to change who she was and then everything would be okay.
But it didn’t happen like that because she was her own person and refused to be what someone wanted her to be, even if it was her own dad and she wanted desperately to be loved by him.
You know what she did? She went and married a guy fourteen years older than her who was all about control and power underneath all the other things she thought he was before she knew him well enough to really know.
But by then, it was too late.
Because she’d married a man she thought she needed at the time, and he fit perfectly even though she had no idea why.
No, she never thought twice back then about the role her dad played. And how she thought she had the last word, until she didn’t have any words anymore.
She stayed with him until she finally couldn’t take it anymore, because not only had he turned against her, he’d also turned her kids against her.
See, by then she had children with him who were affected by the whole dynamic and would grow up to have their own problems because of that choice. So when she finally divorced him, the whole thing was a mess with so many people to blame and so many people who were ultimately only doing the best they could with what they knew at the time.
It’s a sad story that breaks my heart to even write about it now, and while we can’t change the way her dad was – he was reacting to his own combination of programming, culture and personality - if she could have seen what she was attracted to and attracting because of that, she would have had a shot at a life with a guy who could have given her what she really needed.
Her story went on to have a happy ending. She eventually woke up enough to recognize what had happened and remarried someone who loved her and treated her the way she always deserved to be treated.
See, we think we need someone to take care of us like that, someone who makes us feel like they love us by how well they take care of us, but the reality is there’s always a certain amount of control that goes along with that kind of caretaking. And one-sided living. And calling the shots. And usually we feel pretty small.
Like the term "little woman".
Yeah, those might be jokes, but they can be pretty real, and very telling if we take a closer look at the relationships we’ve gotten ourselves into.
And then there’s the whole other ugly nightmare of harassment and abuse.
See, sometimes a guy like that is looking for us because he doesn’t feel in control of anything except us.
And that’s a whole other thing. And something we’d better get out of if we recognize any of those signs before we start defending those behaviors, too. I could go on and on about this one, especially when we think about the fact that we’re usually more concerned about how our calling them out is going to affect them, and how awkward we’re going to feel because of it.
Awkward.
As if even the most subtle harassment and portrayals of power are somehow better than the experience of feeling awkward around someone because we’ve been so programmed to believe this is somehow “normal” behavior.
I’ll tell you what normal is. And it’s nothing to run from.
Normal is about being treated as an equal. With an equal distribution of power. And an equal say in what goes on in the relationship.
It’s the opposite of gaslighting, it’s the opposite of control, it’s the opposite of being told you don’t feel what you actually feel or you don’t know what you most certainly do know.
The problem is, going the other extreme doesn’t get us what we want either. Then we’re just women competing for equality in a man’s world and that isn’t our birthright either.
Instead, it’s about using our femininity and our gifts as a woman to work with men, not against them.
If they can’t see us, if they won’t see us for anything different than what their own cultural belief system allows them to see, that’s not our problem. But it does affect us.
That’s a conversation for a different day. But right now, I’m talking about standing in your power as a woman. As a beautiful, strong, feminine, desirable woman who doesn’t have to sell herself to any man.
When you understand that, the cultural piece can’t touch you.
When you know who you are – and what you deserve - and what you’re not ever going to settle for, you have a whole different aura to you.
Your energy. Your tone. The way you carry yourself. The way you move. And everything else about you.
When you’re not competing (albeit subconsicouly) with other women who are clambering for what they believe to be a limited amount of eligible men , or with the men who we have to prove our worth in order to hook them in, you have a whole lot of passionate energy to spend on someone who more than deserves that - you!
Stop proving yourself, Beautiful. Stop making yourself everyone’s cup of tea. Stop trying so hard to make sure you’re seen.
Be seen just by being you.
You don’t have to dress up super sexy. In fact, a more demure, subtle kind of sexy is always more desirable to a man. Stop trying to get in front so he’ll even have a chance to see you.
Start trusting in you.
Start trusting in a Universe that loves you and always has your back, in a God that’s tickled pink over you, in a Goddess who supports your very being.
Don’t wait so hard. Don’t try even harder. Go create the life you want starting with bringing out the real you.
It’s never too late for the new happily after, Girl. Check all those culturally programmed lies at the door of your beautiful heart and soul.
No matter who you are, no matter where you’ve been, no matter what you’ve been though, I’ve seen it happen enough times over to know for sure that it’s never, ever too late for you! Don't buy into any part of our culture that tries to tell you otherwise. You know better than them; you know your truth!
Where are you? I don’t want you to get lost in the crowd here. Where are you waking up and what is this feeling of waking up like to you? Share where you are from your beautiful corner of the world in the comments below.
Thank you so much, Jane, for this beautiful article and all the articles you write. You help me immensely. I have spoken to you before about my loveless, emotionally and verbally abusive almost 30 year marriage. You helped me so much, Jane, letting me know that these men have so many layers of pain, etc, that they have never dealt with. They don’t love themselves so they can’t love anyone else. I have been divorced for 5 years this June. My dad was also verbally and mentally abusive. I had become friends with a guy a few months before my separation and fell in love with him. I made the mistake of not taking the time to get to know him. I chased him, something I’d never done in my life before. I’m still shocked and ashamed that I did that. I ran from my dad, to marry my ex. I ran from my ex to my relationship of 5 years, on again, off again. I remember reading one of your articles that explained I was the only one in the relationship. That was so true and hit me like a ton of bricks. Thank you so much, Jane, for allowing me to hear this truth. This relationship got to the point where I asked him, this past Fall, if things were going anywhere for us or just platonic friends. He said platonic friends. I wrote to him and told him I couldn’t be just friends because I was still in love with him. I texted him the end of Dec. He read my texts but then got to the point he was not reading my texts at all with no response. A guy in my apt bldg I’ve known for awhile has told me he likes me and I spent some time with him (nothing sexual). I have seen the same qualities in him I’ve seen in the other men. At least I learned earlier this time to let the relationship go because it’s not what I want. I am so heartbroken and sad. I so want to love and be loved, but at this point in my life, I feel like how you did, when you said, “Enough”. I, too, want to run and run and get healthy although walking is better for me. I really just don’t know where to turn. I feel so lost. I know I need to take at least the next 6 months, maybe a year to be by myself and heal. Can you please help me as to what steps I can take next? Thank you so much, Jane. You’re the best!
Oh Tia, embrace the feeling of lost. Accept it. Embrace it. Don't fight it. For I know of no better place where miracles are born and magic appears than in that place of lost most of us have only learned how to fear. I've been there so many times myself for different reasons, and I've never been disappointed yet. It's the surrender that happens there that opens up a world of life and love and movement into being of things we can't see when we're not vulnerable enough to recognize we might just need some help from something bigger than ourselves that knows us, and loves us, and is there for us to bring it to pass. Don't be afraid of it. Ask for what you need. Question all your assumptions. Dig deeper if the answers don't seem to come. You're loved more than you know!
Hi Jane
I wrote to you sometime ago about my 6 years relationship with a guy who doesn't want to commit with me. You've given me a very strong words that I finally have the courage to get out of that hopeless & toxic relationship. After I parted ways with him, I focused only on ways to improve myself and I dated no one, nor I met someone I'm interested in. I'm so focused to the point of avoiding any distractions that come on my way.. Six months of being alone, I met this guy. We go to the same gym. He introduced himself & tried to make a casual talk with me. Honestly, he doesn't initially appeal to me. I told myself that I will not push it, if he's really interested in getting to know me, he will make a move and do everything. It works. Four weeks of just hi/hello with him at the gym whenever we see each other, he finally ask my number. From then, we became so close. And in a short span of time, to the point of being intimate.
The problem is that, he's only here for four months. He works in a military. And the worst of all, I'm 9 years older than him. We talked about it from the very beginning. Things like; we have different religion, different culture, I'm older than him (being with a woman older than him is a not acceptable to him and his family) & of course he will leave the country 1st week of March. But in spite of all that, we can't resist seeing each other. And for me, as much as I know that this lead to nowhere again, I stayed. Even i knew already from the very start there's no future. Once he leave the country, that's the end of us.
Jane, I knew deep inside me that he doesn't only want sex. He sleep over to my place lots of time and we just spend the night chatting, laughing and just cuddling. He always tell me that he doesn't want me to hate him when he leaves and that, he would love to keep this memories with me forever.
Jane, after a 6 years toxic relationship I feel a woman again with this guy. All that I've been longing for with my last relationship, he filled it.. I feel confident, sexy, beautiful and loved again. But sadly, I knew the ending already. Sometimes I wished he was born at the same time as me. So it won't be a major factor now and that I'll finally have my happy ending. But yeah, it's the reality. A reality that I have to accept whether I like it or not. Why I always met the same type of guy, I don't really know. I'm not a player type of person. I'm just longing for a stable committed relationship ever since. And God knows I exert a lot of time, effort, love and understanding as much as I can.
Now, only 3 weeks left and he's leaving. I'm in this situation wherein do I have to end it now because I knew it will eventually end? Or wait until he leaves and just try to make memories with him until the last minute. I don't know if I can make it not seeing him. As for him, he makes it clear to me that as long as he's here, not seeing me won't work on him.
I know I won't have a happy ending and as much as I wanted to prepare myself for that day, I still can't think clearly of what lies ahead. I thought I'm strong. I wanted to be strong in everything I do. Face bravely all the challenges that life would give me. But I feel like I'm back to zero again. So helpless, so alone, so empty. Same scenario. I was left behind again.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.. you have a wonderful site that gives inspiration to other women like me.. good luck and thank you again for your sweet kind words to everyone. More power to you and good luck.
aw, thank you, Sheryl. And for you, I say enjoy it til it ends. You're already in too deep. You've already reached that point of no return with your feelings and your heart and your everything. But take your power back by owning every part of your decision here, Sheryl. Own it with pride! You chose. Read that again. You chose. When you wrote "And for me, as much as I know that this lead to nowhere again, I stayed. Even i knew already from the very start there's no future." Those are choosing words. Choosing thoughts. A deliberate act of choosing to be with this man in spite of all the information you had and that's nothing to be ashamed of. You chose this time with him. Whether it was right or wrong or whatever anyone else might judge you on or what you might judge yourself, own it and you'll hold your head up high knowing you did the best you could with what you knew at the time and in that, you made a choice. We underestimate how far we've come to simply acknowledge that part instead of beating ourselves up all over again. Next time, you might choose different after this experience. Next time, you might use the information to choose differently. But you're absolutely NOT back to zero! You weren't left behind again. This wasn't his decision. It was yours. And you chose love, you chose the experience of love, you chose the possibilty of things being different this time even in the face of it not being be and for that, you chose YOU!