By 1990, I knew that I could not just keep on, keeping on. In the middle of a conversation… in the middle of a sentence… I realized: my life has turned into bullshit. Everything inside me froze… and yet, I could still hear my voice completing the sentence and going about the business of serving dessert. How did I learn to do that?
Fast forward to today – June 4, 2025 – and it is a day focused on ‘drawing a line in the sand’ and embracing all that comes with it. As luck would have it, this blog post from March 2008 was brought into my awareness. As I read it, I could feel the tears… that gut-wrenching twist that could not be denied: despite it all… regardless of decades of blah blah blah… not much has changed. And for that reason, I share this moment with you. Below, is an excerpt to consider. Read that, and you’ll know if you want to click on the link for more. (And – truth be told – men are not spared….)
Today really is the first day of the rest of your life.
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I watch women come and go in program experiences, in coaching and small group gatherings. I watch women begin to awaken; begin to find their voice, to recognize the vibration of power in their own sound. I watch women begin to stir – carefully, at first – and reach for the life they want. In the safety of each other, they become willing to allow their voices to carry the truth of who they are.
There is a dynamic tension in their experience in the presence of each other. There is a strength in the intensity with which they engage. There is an ‘aliveness’ that is palpable; a sense of play, an awakening to the irreverent and the outrageous, and a willingness to laugh out loud, dive in and take their lives by both hands! It is as if they finally show up to take a stand – for themselves, for their own lives, and for a way of moving through the world that carries no apology for who they have become.
And then, they return to their lives. They hide the journey of how they came to stand where they stand. They allow themselves to fall asleep – and sometimes, to feign sleep rather than deal with the consequences of being awake. “I don’t want to upset the apple cart”, or “They wouldn’t understand”, or “They don’t need to know” and in those moments, the opportunities for them to create and share their bigger, more compelling and rewarding lives with others… is lost to their own fear. And yet, their world could have changed profoundly!
I have yet to meet a single human being who does not have the desire to be more alive, more present and more engaged with themselves and the people they care about! I don’t know a single soul who is not starved for the intimacy that comes with profoundly connecting to Self and the people they care about. Far too many people are discouraged and exhausted by their seemingly endless and often hopeless search for authentic change. And all that was required was that a truth be shared.
I watch far too many go back into their lives and pretend they are not who they have become. I watch them pull back, pull in and tone down. I watch as the roar of who they have been returns to the squeek with which they have long made friends, over their life. And I watch them disappear.
In this moment, I feel saddened and fatigued by the relentless nature of how we keep losing ourselves; allowing our lives to slip away and not noticing until long after the trail has grown cold. I feel overwhelmed by the density that comes with the passage of time and depth of repetition that results in the unquestioned ‘grooming’ of women to become beasts of burden. To me, it feels like watching a magnificent mustang turn into a donkey; a creature designed for freedom transformed into a beast of burden. And if that were not bad enough, we have trained our own voices to repeat what we’ve been told and heap praise upon ourselves for having accomplished this transformation. But inside, we’re screaming to get out and choking on our own despair.
Maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll not be so unsure of ourselves, so afraid to be seen, so willing to hide who we are behind the expectations of others. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll find not only comfort but a sense of personal power in relaxing into the intensity of how deeply we desire, how much we care and how profoundly it really does matter that we have the life we choose for ourselves… now! Maybe tomorrow, we’ll give up waiting and hoping and wishing and we’ll simply make it so.
Breathing is good…
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