As a woman I’ve heard we are the stronger sex. This is in regards to childbearing, to suffering broken hearts, to not flinching when our careers, friendships, even our marriages goes awry. Yes, we may endure the storm and stand strong as it blows past us, but the questions is: are we smarter for it? Why do we unfailingly shut down our ability to speak up against hardship or wrongs? And then act as if it is our duty to be stoic as Fort Knox ensuring everyone but us is okay. We find ourselves unloved, unhappy, unmoved yet we stick it out for the marriage, for the kids, for keeping up appearances, for everyone and everything but ourselves. What is the difficulty in standing up for just us?
The fact may be as simple as we are still so unsure of who we are and rely on the glorified views of others to include other women, that we are willing to drown our opinions in the pool of others. Growing older does mark its advantages in that wisdom most often accompanies age. As time passes a voice we’ve longed ignored starts to emerge and we listen faintly to past regrets, past opportunities, past wrongs, and wonder why we turned our backs to something as obvious as happiness. Fear can be attributed to this lack of self-awareness. A deterrent to our own joy. As we consciously seek approval from our parents, significant others, children, friends and peers we lose ourselves in a perpetual abyss of meaningless soul-searching. Our acceptance of other’s esteem for ourselves exposes us to a raw degradation that forms us into being the very person we despise. A voiceless creature in the midst of madness we allow control over us—all in the name of being strong.
Strength by virtue is characterized as mental and moral power, firmness, and courage. Perhaps a visual picture of that is of a lighthouse shining brightly, resiliently, through the dark stormy night providing a quiet beacon of hope to others lost at sea. Women on many cases may take that to mean being a silent figure in the midst of chaos in order to not rock the boat. This contorted take on strength often contributes to unhappiness, a loss of purpose and possibly opens them up to heath concerns. This pattern of silence leads to a life of virtual unsatisfied fury, which exposes us to the loss of joy at home, in relationships, at work. We are so focus-oriented to being nice that opportunities to free ourselves from stress and lack of joy miss us left and right.
Nice doesn’t cut it in life. Being cutthroat is not the encouraged route either; however, defining a graceful diplomacy and assertiveness are key to success and more importantly respect. Often times we find ourselves in awkward positions of being around negative people. Perhaps from attitude, addictions these people may suck our very will to live. Not many are willing to stand up to behavioral problems that affect our physical and mental health. I know a great many of us who would rather gossip behind someone’s back then to actually confront the person who has caused the affliction. We run to a short term fix of validation of our hurt by sharing our problems, and perhaps even enjoying the victim spotlight, but never attempt to resolve the issue. Strength we say is turning the other cheek, enduring one more verbal attack, physical blow, allowing the negative influence as we will “rise” above it. The long-term affect to this approach is a repeat cycle of negativity where the result is that we harbor the pent up frustration causing a drying effect of our joy and physical deterioration. Perhaps it’s time for us to look at the smarter approach. Perhaps it’s time to do the very thing we are so afraid of—to stand up for us.
We also find ourselves living a life, not necessarily a bad one, but not harmonious to our inner calling. We find the security of being taken care of financially in marriage or a career wasn’t the right choice for us. And as years go by, time spent in our career or relationship we find it harder and harder to leave. Yet as each day passes we know we are not honoring ourselves with our choice of doing nothing. Fear of what people would think of us if we dared to live, dared to be us sends us blushing with embarrassment. Strength we say is sticking it out: for better or for worse, it’s for the kids, it’s for my relationship, for my boss. We stick it out until we realize that who we were so long ago just doesn’t exist anymore.
There are many issues women face day to day: Should I end my relationship?, Should I have kids?, am I a career woman or stay at home mom?, Should I change jobs? It’s a daily battle trying to figure out what our inner voice is trying to tell us. Allowing others’ views of us to drive our decisions is the road that will lead to our demise. Though there is a fine line about defining happiness and defining joy and our action to achieve it. Joy is our inner being, our harmonious way of living with purpose, whereas happiness is derived from an emotional response to an event. Yes, we are going to be unhappy in our jobs or in our relationships at various times in our lives, but these are not red flags to determine that what we are doing is wrong. It’s life taking its natural course maneuvering through a path of events out of our control. However, if our choices are not bearing fruit of joy, which we continually are feeling depleted of life without harmoniously honoring ourselves, then we must stop to ask ourselves why we are silently allowing us to disrespect ourselves? Being strong may mean standing up, rocking the boat and taking the plunge. Who knows perhaps we were smart enough to learn how to swim.
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As a woman I’ve heard we are the stronger sex. This is in regards to childbearing, to suffering broken hearts, to not flinching when our careers, friendships, even our marriages goes awry. Yes, we may endure the storm and stand strong as it blows past us, but the questions is: are we smarter for it? Why do we unfailingly shut down our ability to speak up against hardship or wrongs? And then act as if it is our duty to be stoic as Fort Knox ensuring everyone but us is okay. We find ourselves unloved, unhappy, unmoved yet we stick it out for the marriage, for the kids, for keeping up appearances, for everyone and everything but ourselves. What is the difficulty in standing up for just us?
The fact may be as simple as we are still so unsure of who we are and rely on the glorified views of others to include other women, that we are willing to drown our opinions in the pool of others. Growing older does mark its advantages in that wisdom most often accompanies age. As time passes a voice we’ve longed ignored starts to emerge and we listen faintly to past regrets, past opportunities, past wrongs, and wonder why we turned our backs to something as obvious as happiness. Fear can be attributed to this lack of self-awareness. A deterrent to our own joy. As we consciously seek approval from our parents, significant others, children, friends and peers we lose ourselves in a perpetual abyss of meaningless soul-searching. Our acceptance of other’s esteem for ourselves exposes us to a raw degradation that forms us into being the very person we despise. A voiceless creature in the midst of madness we allow control over us—all in the name of being strong.
Strength by virtue is characterized as mental and moral power, firmness, and courage. Perhaps a visual picture of that is of a lighthouse shining brightly, resiliently, through the dark stormy night providing a quiet beacon of hope to others lost at sea. Women on many cases may take that to mean being a silent figure in the midst of chaos in order to not rock the boat. This contorted take on strength often contributes to unhappiness, a loss of purpose and possibly opens them up to heath concerns. This pattern of silence leads to a life of virtual unsatisfied fury, which exposes us to the loss of joy at home, in relationships, at work. We are so focus-oriented to being nice that opportunities to free ourselves from stress and lack of joy miss us left and right.
Nice doesn’t cut it in life. Being cutthroat is not the encouraged route either; however, defining a graceful diplomacy and assertiveness are key to success and more importantly respect. Often times we find ourselves in awkward positions of being around negative people. Perhaps from attitude, addictions these people may suck our very will to live. Not many are willing to stand up to behavioral problems that affect our physical and mental health. I know a great many of us who would rather gossip behind someone’s back then to actually confront the person who has caused the affliction. We run to a short term fix of validation of our hurt by sharing our problems, and perhaps even enjoying the victim spotlight, but never attempt to resolve the issue. Strength we say is turning the other cheek, enduring one more verbal attack, physical blow, allowing the negative influence as we will “rise” above it. The long-term affect to this approach is a repeat cycle of negativity where the result is that we harbor the pent up frustration causing a drying effect of our joy and physical deterioration. Perhaps it’s time for us to look at the smarter approach. Perhaps it’s time to do the very thing we are so afraid of—to stand up for us.
We also find ourselves living a life, not necessarily a bad one, but not harmonious to our inner calling. We find the security of being taken care of financially in marriage or a career wasn’t the right choice for us. And as years go by, time spent in our career or relationship we find it harder and harder to leave. Yet as each day passes we know we are not honoring ourselves with our choice of doing nothing. Fear of what people would think of us if we dared to live, dared to be us sends us blushing with embarrassment. Strength we say is sticking it out: for better or for worse, it’s for the kids, it’s for my relationship, for my boss. We stick it out until we realize that who we were so long ago just doesn’t exist anymore.
There are many issues women face day to day: Should I end my relationship?, Should I have kids?, am I a career woman or stay at home mom?, Should I change jobs? It’s a daily battle trying to figure out what our inner voice is trying to tell us. Allowing others’ views of us to drive our decisions is the road that will lead to our demise. Though there is a fine line about defining happiness and defining joy and our action to achieve it. Joy is our inner being, our harmonious way of living with purpose, whereas happiness is derived from an emotional response to an event. Yes, we are going to be unhappy in our jobs or in our relationships at various times in our lives, but these are not red flags to determine that what we are doing is wrong. It’s life taking its natural course maneuvering through a path of events out of our control. However, if our choices are not bearing fruit of joy, which we continually are feeling depleted of life without harmoniously honoring ourselves, then we must stop to ask ourselves why we are silently allowing us to disrespect ourselves? Being strong may mean standing up, rocking the boat and taking the plunge. Who knows perhaps we were smart enough to learn how to swim.
POST A COMMENT
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