Yesterday I spent the day part of my small family. We were at a restaurant when it occurred to me that I was now the matriarch of the family. Somehow I was given the coveted role, once held by my mother. While the dynamics have shifted most of the characters remain the same. We simply continue to add generations to our families. In our case, the close knit extended family gatherings of my childhood have all but disappeared. Although I was born into a large nuclear unit with four siblings we no longer have much contact with one another so my “kingdom” is significantly smaller than that of my grandmother or mother. Some of this due to distance and some due to a lack of understanding that comes when the black sheep chooses a path that veers away from the accepted conditioning of the generations before. While I miss those close extended relationships, I would not have chosen differently for myself, nor can I force anyone else to accept who I’ve become. They must follow their own paths.
The other day I was asked what motivates me to begin doing the work of spiritual coaching and bringing the divine feminine into leadership. I do it for my mother, who was an incredibly strong woman with her own dreams and ambitions, caught up in societal norms that dictated women could not hold the same rights as men. I was thirteen years old when women were given the right to open their own bank account anywhere and have a credit card in their name. She gave birth to five children, largely because that was what was expected of her at that time. I remember well the deep depressive episodes she went through as she grieved what she might have been able to accomplish had she been a man.
I do it for my daughters, who I raised to believe they could do anything they want, but came to middle age seeing their rights taken away from them in the form of abortion rights, birth control and autonomy over their own bodies.
I do it for myself, having been raised in that shaky middle ground between women gaining autonomy while still being told I needed to go to college with the intention of meeting a man and getting married. I ended up in a marriage to a narcissist and wasn’t even aware I was being gaslighted and psychologically abused until a dear friend pointed it out. It was at that time I gained the courage to leave with the children and struggle to raise them while dealing with a disability and child support that only trickled in occasionally.
I do it because I have the wisdom and skills of strength and leadership abilities that can help us all create a better world that can truly be called inclusive, if only we bring forward those particular strengths given to the feminine and balancing them with the masculine. There are so few of us who can truly say we’ve discovered that balance and it is our responsibility to help others to find their way now.