Women are beleaguered right now with unrealistic cultural expectations and demands. And for most of us, these demands have been internalized into an unrelenting inner pressure to overfunction.
No terrain is closed off to women any longer, but now we are expected to spread ourselves way too thin across way too many terrains.
We are expected to perfectly juggle jobs, relationships, family, household chores, fitness, our spiritual lives, and in our spare time, save the planet. This is not a recipe for health and is not an approach echoed in nature.
A Flower knows what it is and what it isn’t. It doesn’t expect itself to be all things to all creation or to inhabit every kind of terrain on earth. This isn’t about limitation, but a reflection of self identity. Nature does not move from this principle of self definition. Nothing except the out of control geneticists have told a strawberry that it must be a fish.
Yet that is what women are being told. They are expected to be strawberry and a fish and a whole bag of other groceries. And now a generation that was told, “Isn’t this exciting you can be a fish as well as a strawberry?” is followed by a generation that is born thinking that is must be a fish, a strawberry, and the rest of the groceries all at the same time.
As I look at the Flower Essence mixes I have been drawn to make and the Flowers that I am attracted to, such as the new wonder Calabash, its hard to miss that I am working to support my own journey to a self definition where less is more and that I am also interested in supporting other women to drop the yoke of too many expectations.
All Ego Contracts Null & Void
Carry Less
She Changes
The Sacred Feminine
Flow Free
These are Flower Essence mixes supporting us to let go of bindings that hold us to exhausting lives of unreasonable demands.
Yesterday, as I reread my definition for Calabash, I thought it sounded maybe a tad judgmental, like I was blaming women for doing too much and not tossing the old placenta out fast enough. I don’t mean to sound that way. I love how much women care. I don’t blame us for being in over our heads, but I do think we are the only ones that can fix our own situations. We are the only ones that can choose to live with more discrimination about all the demands being made of us.
In the quiet of our hearts, we do know what we are being called to do and what is simply not our work on earth.
The work is different for each of us, yet the culture would like all of us to do everything. It is better for the economy if we don’t listen to our hearts and if we don’t discriminating between what we are genuinely called to do and what others want us to do.
We are much more kindred spirits of the Flowers that know who they are than one with this crazy culturally imposed definition of “all things to all people”.
Just as each Flower has a terrain that works for its self expression, so each of us has a habitat for our true Flowering. It is time for us to get serious about knowing our terrain and knowing who we really are. It is time to get serious about backing ourselves up as we try to live from this self knowledge.
Only we can decide what to listen to, our heart’s voice or the clamoring of a culture that wants to use us up and spit us out.
Flowers not only know who they are and what their terrain is, they know how to maintain themselves in their territory. They create good boundaries for themselves and don’t get confused about their right to be exactly what they are. If a Flower cannot maintain the sanctity of its growing space, it doesn’t survive. It doesn’t wobble from its I AM.
So too, we must own our heart’s calling and then stand behind what we know to be our truth. We must give ourselves true sanctuary. We must declare to ourselves, “this is why I am here and that is not. This is my purpose and the rest I let go of.” and then live by what we know, one choice at a time.
It is making none of us happy to do the endless bidding of a culture gone crazy. It is time for right relationship with ourselves. It is time to live our truth, not our culture’s.
May the incredible wisdom and clarity of all the Flowers in your life serve each of you to blossom as the uniquely beautiful being that you are.