You Have Entered The WOMAN Hood

One of the biggest lessons I learned after becoming a mother is that in order to “regret-proof” my life (and show my daughters “how it’s done”), I would have to WOMAN UP.

First, I would have to define for myself the true depth of what it means to BE A WOMAN (emphasis on the word “be”). I didn’t want my life to pass me by without having arrived at the experiential state of mind I call The Woman Hood. 

To be a woman means to fully embrace who you are, AND WHO YOU ARE NOT, which means you stop wishing you were someone else; you quit trying to compete with other women whom you imagine have more than you; you stop trying, once and for all, to live up to someone else’s expectations of who you should be.

And… this is important: Being a woman doesn’t mean you forsake the girl in you. Ever. No matter how old you are today.

The girl in us is an integral part of who we are and she doesn’t ever go away. Being a woman means you take care of that girl whenever she shows up, all afraid and worried that she can’t live up to Other People’s expectations.

When you try to take the girl out of the woman, you are left with denial and an unresolved sense of longing for something you can’t quite put a finger on. The girl in you? She’s smarter than you think. AND, she is a constant reminder of the promises you once made to yourself. She holds you accountable to your dreams. 

There’s a zen saying: “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”

Nothing changes when you enter the ‘hood… and yet everything changes.

Our life’s ultimate “purpose” is to figure out how to navigate a girl’s life, and then a woman’s life, and then to reconcile the two. Because how you lived your life as a girl is NOT how you should be living your life as a woman, but that’s often what happens when we don’t stop to examine our own minds.

As young girls we had dreams as big as the sun. And for whatever reason, we are too quick to dismiss those dreams; We believe what Other People say without trusting what we know to be true about ourselves.

Go back and have a chat with the girl in you, but first, woman UP.  Access your “Wise Mind” and use your spiritual and emotional maturity to listen to her fears with compassion. Reassure her about what is true about you. Ask her to remind you what your dreams were when you were younger.

And then, together, conspire to make them all come true.