The Way of the Mysterial Woman
This week’s Reading: Chapters One and Two
Cheryl’s post 7/8/2020:
In the first two chapters the authors reviewed the discomfort that many women experience in the current energy clash between male and female styles of leadership in the modern world, and then outline a theory for the evolutionary changes they see happening.
The authors have developed an elegant theory to explain the roller-coaster global events and accompanying emotions of my lifetime. It is refreshing to have someone point out that it has been quite a lot, and not add to the blame game. Mine was the generation that was told we could have it all and have spent our life energy trying to get it all — work, family, and life satisfaction.
Sometimes I feel I was promised more than was possible. I couldn’t do it all and be it all, because one is only given so much life energy to spend. I have felt I was set up to feel disappointed in myself. I have in the past found myself feeling that I didn’t measure up to my forebears who dealt with migrating across the plains or dealing with sending family members off to war. They were the strong ones who did not speak of their pain while I grapple with my own challenges and spew verbally about them. They were the strong silent ones. Or so I had been always led to believe.
I grew up in the Bay Area in the ‘60s. The nightly news carried stories of assassination of our leaders who promoted changes toward greater equality in many areas of national life. There was a walk on the moon, hippies promoting free love, drug use, and dropping out of the rat race; the Vietnam Conflict, burned draft notices, and protests; burning bras and the fight for feminine equality. I learned to fight the patriarchy because it represented corruption and misuse of power, and the subjugation of people not White, not male, and not wealthy.
I appreciate the authors’ normalization of what has been my life experience, and its difficulties. I am from that bridge generation where my mother stayed at home and raised her children. She was college-educated, and artistic and gracious, but she and I grew up in a conservative religion that expected mothers to create a stable home capable of providing a safe refuge for family members who went to work and school. Even as my life instructions were given it was clear that I would also be expected to work outside of the home and help financially support my family in addition to all of my other roles.
For me and many others, there was no intimate role model of how to succeed at everything all at once. The pressure to do it all perfectly has been at times overwhelming. I have known since I was a teen that I felt called to be a psychologist. I love meeting with people and finding ways to be helpful to them. However, I have struggled to enjoy working full-time, and dealing with “hypermasculine” administration in an otherwise helping profession. At times, I have found myself envious of others who could still stay at home and avoid the soul-sucking crush of administrators and behind-the-scenes pressures. Because of this, I have struggled sometimes love what I do for a living.
I am really excited to take this book in as it promises to reduce guilt I still feel about not being perfect and create a way to feel greater happiness in what I choose to do. The authors suggest a new and dynamic explanation of spiritual development both for the individual and our world. They go through world history pointing out changes in the world-mind about leadership and indicating a similar pattern for individual development. Their theory creates an opportunity for reflection about myself and the state of the world I live in. The timing seems opportune.
After reading these first two chapters, I find myself thinking about how the authors statements are reflected in my life experience.
Exercises
I invite you to journal about where you are, where you have been, and where you see yourself in the future. Please feel free to comment. Your comments will be posted within a few days of your submission. You are also invited to share anything that bubbles up from a less cerebral more emotional or spiritual place. We invite you to share poems, writings, music, and artworks to the blog, too. Please indicate if you would like your post to be public. Enjoy the reading!