I Am Woman. I Am Enough.

(Image by @artik)

A few months ago, I did a screen shot of one of those GIF things that has different quotes scrolling through quickly so that by the Law of Attraction I would ‘hit’ the one that was most appropriate for me in that moment and got this one.

(Image From Facebook)

At the time I thought, yes, I am woman and yes, of course I am enough, right? Seemed self evident! And moved on. In the time between then and now, I have been inspired to create a women’s workshop/retreat called Awakening the Goddess Within.

(Image from Google)

This workshop is to help women heal, re-discover who they are and step into their greater power, including intuition, emotional balance, creativity, and wisdom. One of the main issues getting in the way of women being in touch with themselves is the constant bombardment by media, societal norms and the opinion of others as to what they should do, feel, be, act and look like. It’s not easy hearing your own voice and being in touch with your innermost self when other voices are louder than your own.

An example of these are all the fads that are going on dictating what women should look like, like the thigh gap which has being going on for the longest time but entered the ‘mainstream’ when Cara Delevingne and stepped onto a catwalk to become one of the ‘inspirations’ for this. So what is the ‘thigh gap’ anyway? The Urban Dictionary describes it as “the gap between a women's thighs directly below the vagina, often diamond shaped when the thighs are together.” It’s in Wikipedia and Wikihow even tells you how to get it. People who know me will know that this is one of my pet peeves. It is all over social media and even has its own hashtag and dedicated pages and followers. There are women who naturally have that, and who are by the way very thin (possibly unhealthily so!) and there are lots of women who, no matter how much they starve themselves will not obtain it.

(Image from https://jarofsam.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/the-thigh-gap-epidemic/)

The question is why should women even aspire to it? Or to suffer to electrolysis or waxing to get completely hairless (well apart from the hair on their heads!) or getting 6 packs even?

The pressure by the media, society and peers, no matter what the issue is, can control you to the point that you suffer from terrible low self esteem if you can’t achieve it or conversely an incredibly inflated sense of self if you are naturally that way or have miraculously been able to achieve it. In the end these are all superficial, yes?

I feel that living up to the expectations of others or even ourselves when it is to do with things that do not feed our soul, are unfulfilling or a false fulfilment at best where the achievement of these goals and the fulfilment they bring is only temporary, transient and fleeting. These attempts to live up to these ultimately leave us empty as we look for the next impossible standard to strive to fulfill.

My point is that we need to free ourselves from the artificial and often arbitrary standards of others and come back to who we truly are. We need to look beyond these artificial ‘controls’ (yes, they are controls!) that take us away from being more focused on living deeply fulfilling, healthy lives with loving, functional relationships whilst being creative, abundant and producing members of society.

We, everyone of us, have issues and aren’t perfect. It isn’t about perfection. We are WIPs, works in progress. If we are going to strive for anything, let it be to be better, more loving, compassionate and kinder versions of ourselves. Then, flowing from there being authentic, true to our essence and living with integrity.
But no matter where we are on the scale, it is really ok. Just remember, “I Am Woman. I Am Enough.”

(Image From Pixabay)