This isn’t only about you. This is about all of us. Do you ever get the nagging feeling that things just aren’t right? Do you wonder why suicide rates are increasing and the rates of anxiety and depression are now becoming an epidemic? Do you wonder why you don’t feel better, even if all your basic needs are met?
The reason is that things aren’t right. The world we live in is designed to keep us small, scared, and maintaining a status quo that cares nothing for our well-being. It does this by dividing us and pitting us against each other, it does this by telling us we aren’t good enough and never will be if we don’t spend money on the next new thing. It tells us that we shouldn’t rock the boat, that we will be punished for our power, that we are nothing and nobodies.
The system needs to change. We all know this. The reason we stand by helplessly doing nothing is because we don’t know where to start. We don’t believe we have the power to change it.
It is this attitude that keeps us complicit in a system that hurts people. A system that oppresses and traumatizes, a system that allows children to die for corporate profits, a system that outright denies the harm we are causing the earth and the consequences of that harm. A system that places power and greed over human life. No wonder we are depressed. Our system is destroying us and we are letting it.
Start with you. Deprogram yourself out of this destructive system. Break down all those unloving belief systems within you that keep you small, scared, and isolated. Learn to connect to yourself, to spirit, to the rest of humanity and to the earth. Understand that when we are transformed through this work, only then is it possible to change the world around us. And we must do this. We must do this because we have the privilege and the responsibility to do this.
There are people in this country who still worry about where their next meal is coming from, if their children are safe with law enforcement, if their vote is going to count. There are people in the world whose homes have been devastated by war for decades, children who have never known what peace feels like. We need to use our voices to change the system so that EVERYBODY has the right and freedom to move towards self-actualization and true joy, however that looks for them.
As women, we are natural nurturers. This has been warped into a way of operating that says we must put others first before ourselves, and it calls us selfish when we do take care of ourselves. This is how we stay disempowered, believing there’s nothing we can do. We don’t have time or energy! We’re too busy taking care of everyone else!
But when we start to take care of ourselves first, truly and deeply, when we love ourselves with every fiber of our being, we can see the disconnect of what is and what is possible. When we love ourselves fully, our cup begins to overflow. We have MORE to give others, not less. We realize how empowered we truly are, and we begin to use our voices to lovingly yet fiercely challenge this unloving system. As women of privilege, people do listen to us. We can make our voices heard, and create space for all the other voices that are not heard, the voices of the marginalized, the oppressed, the people who have been systemically silenced and beaten down for the last several centuries in this western, colonial, patriarchal paradigm.
I’m not saying women need to rise and men need to go. I’m saying that when our voices are heard equally, when our contributions are honored, when we are powerful together, only then can the system be in balance. This is not a zero-sum game. This is not about winners and losers. This is about collaboration, cooperation, imagination, and using our extremely capable brains and hearts to discover how to create a world where everyone gets their needs met, all people are safe, and our daily existence is loving, joyful, and free.
It starts with us. Shall we begin?
