Empowered

Empowered

Empowered to rest.

Empowered to take up space.

Empowered to ask for help.

Empowered to speak your truth.

Empowered to embody yourself.

Empowered to believe your innate worth.

Empowered to question the status quo.

Empowered to resist social norms and pressures.

Empowered to be.

To be whole. To be enough. To be human. To be you.

Empowered women will change the world and the world desperately needs empowered women to change it. Women to challenge the status quo. To carry both softness and strength. To carry tenderness and power. To carry connection and community to the forefront of our institutions. To pull each other up as we rise and support each other as we learn to shine. To embrace and exemplify an entirely new way of being and moving in this world, together. 

I frequently hear people make statements like “everyone is only out for themselves” and “wealthy people are all crooks” and “at the end of the day, people will do whatever it takes to help themselves.” These blanket statements make me bristle. I know them to be untrue. Yes, there are people who are only out for themselves, willing to do whatever it takes to make more money, regardless of the human or environmental cost. Yes there is corruption and greed in our institutions and our governments, lots of it. Yes the system is broken. 

BUT! I know that not everyone moves in the world like this. I know this because I know my own heart, and the hearts of many strong, courageous, and successful women who fundamentally oppose disregarding the real costs of their actions in the world. Who strive each day to support others and to do whatever they are capable of to leave the world and those around them better off than they were.

The pessimism in these statements is exhausting to battle against. It is so often easier to nod, smile, make some non-committal sound, and leave it at that. Battle we must, however. I choose to do so by empowering myself and those I work with to rest.

This is no small task. Women have been raised with the ingrained belief that their worth is tied to their willingness to care for and put others needs above their own. They are also now being raised (for the past several decades) in a society that places their worth on their productivity in the workplace while still implicitly expecting them to care for everyone else around them, both at work and at home. 

It is deep work that we do inside my Empowered offerings. It is vulnerable and raw. There is a lot to unpack, sort through, reevaluate, unlearn, and heal. Together, we can do this work. Together, women can be a safety net to each other. We can create spaces of support and connection in which to empower each other and ourselves to be the change we wish to see in the world (in the wise words of Gandhi). It is necessary work that we do. 

It is no small undertaking to find the courage to rest.

#NewYearRestedYou