Transcending the Patriarchal Success Path
Possibility
I invite you to close your eyes and imagine with me. Please don’t be discouraged if at first your mind does not comply and you find yourself carried away by thoughts about what you are imagining. Your mind may even say that such imagining is ridiculous or impossible. I encourage you to allow the thoughts to pass through your mind, just as the clouds pass by and stay in your heart.
Imagine that we and everyone us around are living life with ease. “Hard” is not a concept in this story. Things simply are what they are and they unfold with ease. Ridged rules no longer exist. There are guidelines creating a loose structure. Choice is power and everyone is making choices from their authentic power—their soul power. Kindness and compassion are expressed daily. Judgment no longer has a place. Each person is loved, honored and accepted for their unique gifts. Gender identity and sexual preferences are accepted as they are. No one need conform to belong. All life is sacred and Mother Earth and all her inhabitants are respected and valued for their contribution to the whole of life. There is no separation. Life is an expression of wholeness—oneness.
Bring your awareness to the voices—the thoughts and emotions that are rising within as you imagine a world like this. Perhaps your ego mind has some strong opinions about it. I encourage you to give those thoughts, feelings and emotions space. You are simply observing them.
What if what you imagined was possible? What would it feel like? Perhaps you are feeling joy, peace, contentment, freedom or relief. Perhaps you feel expanded when you think of this possibility.
Where have we come from…
There is an intergenerational story that has been passed down through the generations that has become deeply engrained in the human unconscious. It is a story of male power over, versus power with or to. Females are born into this unconscious story of inequality and as a result are often viewed as a liability and a cost, having to prove their worth and value to be considered equal to the male.
Where are we now…
Patriarchal Success Path
This success path impacts all aspects of a woman’s life: relationships with family and friends; intimate relationships; her relationship with herself, her body, and her sexual expression; being a mother; having a career; her own personal spiritual journey; and her health and wellbeing. This success path can be summarized as follows:
Need to be VALUED
Valued enough to be NEEDED
Needed enough to prove you are of USE
Useful enough to be deemed WORTHY
Worthy enough to be ACCEPTED, and APPROVED of
Accepted and approved of enough to be SUPPORTED
Supported enough to gain PROSPERITY, SUCCESS AND MONEY
Successful enough with enough money to have POWER (power over)
There is a gigantic problem with this success path for females. Besides having to prove value, need, use, worth etc, females have to prove they are equal to males. This patriarchal story that we are living out is not a story of equality. In the story, the female was created from the male and in the process, set up the “power over” relationship versus “power with”. This success path is an ego journey rooted in inequality. It is a pedestal philosophy where one has to fight to have enough power to be on the pedestal. Then one is only on the pedestal until someone with greater perceived power shows up and so it continues.
Many of you have lived this path and perhaps you still are living it. The cost of living this success path is high. It often costs women their health, their relationships and much more. What emotions surface as you sit with the energy of the patriarchal success path versus our imaginative journey at the beginning of this blog? What do they feel like in your body? What story do you want your life to express? What story do you want to give your power to?
I believe we are being called to be part of the unfolding of a new story. In order to do that we need to bring the wounds of this patriarchal story to the light and heal them, so a new story can take its place—a story rooted in the sacred union of the masculine and feminine archetypes that is focused on equality, wholeness and oneness, a story supporting the relationship of “power with” versus “power over”. I believe that truth is the medicine that will support us in healing these patriarchal wounds.
When we align with truth, we will expand our consciousness and transcend the shadow of the ego