After watching the Golden Globes the other night, I just had to check out the film BOYHOOD. I especially loved Patricia Arquette’s acceptance speech, where she said:
“You placed in my hands the part of Olivia, an under-appreciated single mother. Thank you for shining a light on this woman, and the millions of women like her, and allowing me to honor my own mother with this beautiful character.”
‘An unappreciated single mother’ rang my gong.
I am one of those gals who brings home the bacon, fries it up in a pan, helps with homework, volunteers at school, works out, and squeezes in a social life.
I see it all around me.
Women, doing a shit ton.
Going above and beyond.
Continually.
At work – staying late, being brilliant, giving their all and then some.
Maybe married with husband, but still carrying the weight of the child-rearing and the home-making.
You all know women, or you are women, who over-deliver. It is a storyline of our time. A woman takes it all on . . . at the expense of what? At the expense of herself.
One woman, who is new to my work and joining an upcoming course, wrote in:
“I have changed so much since becoming a mother of 2 sweet and busy boys. I used to be a spunky outgoing girl fearless of anything. Now I worry about lots of life’s challenges and feel as if I am not spunky at all. I look at old pictures and I need that girl back.”
Big sigh.
I really liked that Boyhood brought this cultural thread forward.
Because it’s true in every socioeconomic demographic – women have pressed the accelerator, they are not letting up, and a toll is being taken.
Women are giving at a new velocity.
Whether it’s single moms, for their kids.
Or successful business women, for their career.
Or daughters, looking after their aging parents.
This is an observation – not a criticism.
I would never have learned the depth and breadth of my talents, if I had not taken all the responsibility.
And I learned something very important, that I want all women to know.
When your growth is accelerating, your nourishment has to be accelerated. (Click to tweet)
Most women simply don’t know how to do that part of it.
They know how to sacrifice.
But they don’t know what nutrients need to be put in place to support the kind of accelerated growth that all women are going through, right now.
Accelerated growth can mean so many things – it can mean motherhood, or increased responsibility in work, or going to school while holding down a job, or choosing to write a book, or starting a business in your already-scarce spare time.
Most of us have learned that our job is to take care of everyone else, settling for scraps and leftovers after everyone else on our to-do list gets their needs met.
How’s that working for us?
Not so much.
We have to learn to feed our womanhood, our soul, our body, our passionate hearts, with hi-test, ultra, supreme nourishment.
If all these aspects do not get fed concurrently, none of us can fly. Instead, we end up repeating the same historical problem of second-class citizenship that we have inherited from our patriarchal culture.
It’s time to stand for the care and feeding of a woman as she lives into the new feminine.
Waiting, postponing, short-changing, is no longer enough.
So the question becomes –
How can you have a five star full course sit down white linen candle-lit meal of this one fleetingly precious life? Instead of just hard won leftovers?
After my divorce, I was pissed. Pissed and shocked. I had never planned on being the one who does everything. I was breathing hard from all the running around, and self-care seemed like one more thing to add to the list of every single thing I was already doing, that I didn’t have time for. Which made me even angrier.
But I had created something – in establishing the School of Womanly Arts – that changed everything for me, and for all the women in my orbit. I had created an extraordinary community, along with all of the Tools and Arts.
As it turns out, being in a supportive community of practice, that which might have killed us, doesn’t just make us stronger, it makes us a superstar – and fills us with all the friendship, intimacy, fun, sisterhood and support that can enable us to flourish and be the source of other women, flourishing.
My storyline became the inspiration for others, and vice versa.
Getting and giving happened simultaneously in this new paradigm.
I want this for you.
When you walk through the doors of this school and this community, you can expect a huge dose of that kind of power. You will catch the tailwinds of what is possible for you, and live into a reality where you can give and receive, in a big way. Where you can be deeply nourished, deeply seen, and deeply supported — even while busting your tush to do everything you do.
A breathtaking new orbit is afoot – the potential for women to be deeply and passionately engaged and deeply and passionately cared for.
In the comments, I’d love to hear from you —
Where are you feeling the burn of all the new opportunities in your life?
How are you giving your all, and then some?
What will it take for you to get as good as you give?
It was extremely scary for me to do the Mastery program. But what I’ve gotten out of it? I went from feeling like a second-class man — like a person who could never be equal to a man, a person who was always not quite good enough — to feeling like a first-class woman. I’m so much more in touch with my desires and my pleasure. I’ve found my voice, and I’ve found my power. And I’m finally letting the world see who I am. ~ Susan Batson, Age 52
(Read more student stories and reviews here.)
