Empowered Womanhood

  • Empowered Womanhood,  Gender,  Mental Health,  Poetry

    Celebrating Myself

    I didn’t know what freedom was

    But I sure loved the feeling

    I didn’t realize it then, but I had found my escape

    Let goodness lure you in, you can trust it

    Listen to your body and you will be free

    Those who can make you feel flawed have the power

    Suddenly you need them

    To fix you and tell you how to be

    Journey alone and your voice gets louder

    The cacophony fades away

    I’m not finding myself, but finding my worth

    I’m not lost, just unseen so frequently – by even my own soul

    They gave me blinders – “wear these to fit in”

    Now I couldn’t see where I ended, and they began

    What would feel real if truth could speak for itself?

    Hundreds of little shards of glass

    Broken bits of me

    Arranging them together as a sparkling mosaic

    Each one reflecting my spirit

    I’m joining the resistance by not hiding

    Sharp and bright – this art is dangerous

    Drawing attention is a threat to the weak

    They protect themselves by rattling the strong

    They cower at authenticity

    Celebrating myself is my chosen act of rebellion

  • Empowered Womanhood,  Mental Health,  Religious Abuse,  Religious Trauma,  Trauma Healing

    Good Christian Girl

    Two decades of stained glass and steeples, pastors and preachers but never a therapist. Surrounded by Bibles and hymnals; prayer requests welcome, but never a “negative” emotion.

    A Good Christian girl counts her blessings and remembers God has a plan. She always practices etiquette and good manners; she only says nice things, she’s never a downer.

    Christian mothers wagged their fingers at my furrowed brow, “You really would look so much prettier if you smiled more”.

    Sunday School classes centered on seeking the joy of the Lord, having a good attitude and never complaining. Questions were allowed if they had “easy” answers; anything else was backsliding. A Good Christian Girl doesn’t rock the boat.

    “You’ll feel better if you look on the bright side.” “You should volunteer, you’ll see others have it much worse than you.” “Follow God and you’ll be blessed.” “Everything happens for a reason” “God works in mysterious ways.”

    Church leaders promised if I trusted God I would be okay. After all, I was a Good Christian Girl and God was on my side. So I trusted and prayed, volunteered and obeyed, but the truth is, their promises turned up empty.

    With a cheery face and a scream trapped in my lungs, I was drowning. For far too long I was silenced with a smile.

    Living in a box too small for me, there comes a breaking point. So much was stolen from me in the name of Goodness, but I’m surviving and finding my strength.

    Now on the other side, I don’t need to find a silver lining. I’ve been learning a few lessons of my own. My innocence, my health, my happiness weren’t obstacles to my virtue. Suffering isn’t always refining.

    There doesn’t have to be a greater purpose to a loved one’s death, or abuse, or a diagnosis. Hardships don’t have to be lessons and trials aren’t signs I need my faith tested.

    Not everything is worked out for my good. I wonder where I would be if trauma hadn’t held me down? Sometimes evil injustice wins, and it’s not because of my hidden sins.

    I don’t have to be okay with it and I don’t have to get over it. I don’t have to believe this was all part of the plan. I can be angry, I can doubt, I can wrestle. And it’s not a crisis of faith.

    Now I let my experiences shape my beliefs and not the other way around. There is no magic wand waving in the sky. I choose to trust myself.

    Gone are the days of silent submission, fake smiles and shallow answers, and to hell with linear religious narratives!

    I’ve found love in all the wrong places,and encountered peace where it wasn’t supposed to be.

    I’ve discovered a sense of purpose in what I was told would be meaningless,experienced joy in situations I was warned would bring pain.

    Healing has come from the very things I was taught would damage me, I even felt the safest from decisions that were supposedly dangerous.

    The truth I was looking for turned out to be unorthodox and the saints I’ve met have all been sinners.

    I’ve encountered God among the ungodly and I have come face to face with goodness in perhaps the most surprising of places – I have found it in myself.

    Now I really have to wonder – what exactly did they try so hard to keep me from?

    I’m learning to find my voice again and the more I unravel the indoctrination, the more sacredness I find.

    Sometimes when I let myself sit in the darkness, I see the Light inside of me and I realize that maybe God is more like me than I was taught…

    Maybe She is angry too.

    ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

    This is a version of a piece I wrote for the deconstruction magazine Hyssop & Laurel. For those of you who have been following for a while, you might recognize it as a reimagination of two of my past works “Silenced with a Smile” and “Finding Love in all the Wrong Places”. It also includes brand new content. This piece I’m sharing now is very similar to my published version, with a few edits.

    This writing was an attempt at describing my mental health journey while living through religion and coming out the other side. There is a lot of darkness, but also so much light and healing to be found.

  • Empowered Womanhood,  Religious Abuse

    Cheap Woman

    Just the latest in a long line of labels Christians have given me.

    Cheap Woman? Alrighty then, if that’s the game we’re playing. I would rather be a cheap woman known for my love, than an abusive man touting religious superiority.

    Cheap woman? I didn’t know I was for sale. But I would prefer being a cheap woman instead of a man who costs people their sanity and safety in the name of Christ.

    Cheap woman? That’s a fascinating claim made by a Christian who preaches finding self-worth in God alone – a God who valued me enough to die for me, apparently.

    Cheap woman? Your accusations speak volumes about your character and nothing about mine. Oppressor, abuser, liar, thief – ringing in the air.

    Cheap woman? Your effort spent defaming me says otherwise. You’re willing to pay a high price, your very life – exchanging time and peace of mind for the bitterness slowly poisoning you.

    Cheap woman? Hating me is expensive. You save space for me in so many of your thoughts and ways.

    Cheap woman? At least it doesn’t cost enormous levels of perseverance just to withstand my presence. I’ll take “cheap” any day over “costly to be around”.

    Cheap woman? I’m relieved to hear I don’t have the admiration of a person like you. That would terrify me. I’ll take your disdain over your praise.

    Cheap woman? Long have women been labeled as such so men could avoid reckoning with their own shortcomings.

    If an Evangelical man can’t control a woman, she is “cheap”. If he can’t destroy her, he must dismiss her. If he can’t use her, he will abuse her – all the while believing God is on his side.

    Cheap women are women patriarchal men don’t know what to do with. I’m proud to be counted in those ranks. I must be doing something right.

  • Empowered Womanhood,  Gender,  Gender Trauma

    Breaking the Ice Ceiling

    As we exit Women’s History Month, I wanted to first share an article (linked below) that impacted me greatly when I found it in 2018. At that time I was very hard on myself, pushing myself to be “as good as the guys”, always trying to prove I belonged in male-dominated spaces.

    While I’ve never done anything quite as intense as these ladies’ Antarctic expedition, I resonate with every word from their story. Being a woman in the outdoors is truly a different experience. There is greater weight to your limitations culturally and socially: they can get attributed to your entire gender, reinforcing ideas of being “weaker”. Things are changing now, but as an adolescent climbing the bigger mountains I would count the women we passed, because there were so few of them. I could often count them on just one hand.

    Even still today, when seeing other women on the trail is common, on long-distance backpack trips I usually only see other women for the first four, maybe five days. Anything beyond that and it’s stepping into a man’s world. Male backpackers sometimes comment on how it’s surprising to see me so far from a trailhead. Even today when I backpack solo, people sometimes stop me in disbelief, asking how I’m so brave.

    On one such solo trip, an older man took it upon himself to interrogate me in the parking lot about how much water I was bringing (plenty) and then warned me that I would probably have a difficult time further up the trail in the snow. However, when I got there it was only a small flat patch about 50 feet long, and easy walking. I had been singled out and my competencies grossly underestimated, because of assumptions that were made just by looking at me.

    A stranger hit on me during a life-or-death situation ice climbing a treacherously steep glacier at 10,000 feet altitude. I’ve been taught I should feel flattered by this – because apparently the male gaze determines my worth.

    Sledding down a steep snowy slope with my male best friend, I was having the time of my life – at first. We were chatting and hooting and hollering from a distance with a couple of men who were there adventuring as well. When we walked up closer however, one of the men’s demeanor suddenly changed. After exclaiming “Oh! You’re a girl!” his tone changed to mimic how you might talk to a child and he called me “sweetheart”. Apparently my bulky snow gear and hat had hidden my womanly figure and long hair, allowing normal human interaction between us until my gender was discovered. When my best friend spoke up saying “She’s not your sweetheart”, the man became irate, cursed at us, and marched away over the crest of the hill, friend in tow. The wilderness should be a place where all is natural and in balance as it was intended to be. But for women this is often not the case.

    I’ve heard men I’m close with make hurtful jabs at other women on the trail: “She sure is gutsy to do this alone!” “She’s probably meeting her husband”. “Maybe someday you’ll take up needlepoint instead.” These are actual comments I’ve heard over the years from men who know me well. At a young age it became clear to me the summit could only be reached by breaking through an ice ceiling.

    The way I was received as a woman climber and backpacker taught me to view myself as an anomaly. Women were generally weak and helpless but I was somehow an exception. I was still, of course, a class below the men but allowed to be there nonetheless. It became increasingly difficult to love my womanhood while believing the traits I loved most about myself were manly, and rare happenstance for a woman.

    There is more equal representation in the backcountry now than ever before, thanks to ground-breaking women who have mountaineered before us. But the fact that I’ve witnessed the shift even just in my own lifetime speaks to how a woman’s experience in the outdoors community is unique from that of a man’s. Eliminating the discrimination we face still has a long ways to go. I’m thrilled by the history-making women in this article and by all women everywhere who are unapologetically blazing trails in whatever form that takes for them. Every day we ascend new heights!

    https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/north-face-2018/in-her-element/1999/

  • Empowered Womanhood,  Gender Trauma,  Religious Trauma,  Spirituality

    Sacred Feminine

    I notice I celebrate my womanhood a little more each year than the year before. I’m becoming more comfortable in my femininity. I’m cherishing the ways I’m “traditionally feminine” but also the ways I just don’t fit in. I’m growing to love my body and accept it. I’m learning sacredness. I’m apologizing less, disagreeing more, and rarely ending my statements in question marks these days. I’m bolder, more opinionated; discovering I was never as nonchalant and indecisive as I was led to believe – rather I was oppressed, suppressed, and cornered into submission. Infrequently now do I spend the energy defending my choices and beliefs. I don’t really give a shit about who I’m “supposed to be” anymore. I am who I am and other people’s reactions have nothing to do with me. It was damn hard getting here, but now that I am, the possibilities seem endless. I feel powerful. I’m grateful for the brave womxn who have gone before me, laboring to carve out the path that I more easily climb up now. I’m proud of women everywhere and I’m proud of myself.”

    I wrote the above paragraph about a year into exploring empowered womanhood after escaping patriarchal evangelicalism. It’s exciting to see the subtle differences in how I talk about my femininity in 2020 versus in 2019 (posted a few days ago – see “Caricatured and Erased”). The tone is direct and fierce. I have less questions and uncertainties. I focus less on the sorrow of oppression and more on the beauty of design. I’m unapologetic about my journey.

    However, in 2020 I still had a long way to go. Much further than I would have expected at the time of writing.

    I had no idea that six months later when my partner expressed an interest in having children it would trigger in me overwhelming panic, and anger toward the church mothers who raised me to believe women were valued only for our ability to serve men and give them children. I didn’t realize how trapped I still felt by institutions that preached self-neglect to women under the guise of “selflessness”. I hadn’t fully grasped how scared I still felt of my own biology – constantly waiting for the day my female body or female mind would turn on me, transforming my into an anxious, subservient puppet – a hollow vessel, a fragile vase.

    I had no way of knowing I would struggle in 2021 with the most intense trauma-induced gender dysphoria I had ever experienced, leading to an official medical diagnosis, or that the dysphoria would make mensuration so triggering that the sight of blood each month would tempt me to end my life.

    I couldn’t have planned for the confusion that would come knowing I didn’t want to be a man, but hated being a woman – so much so, I would feel urges to escape myself even if that might bring me dangerously close to self-harm. I didn’t know how many more days there were ahead of me where I would feel dirty, broken, weak, corrupt, defective… Everything the church wanted me to feel.

    In 2020 I had overcome so much and I’m proud of that version of me. But I wasn’t aware how much self-loathing still lurked deep inside me and how much farther I felt from God’s favor than men were. That is, not until my progressive church at the time explored God’s gender and pronouns. During a visualization exercise, I broke down into tears seeing God as a woman. She looked like me. I was truly made in her image. Woman are powerful and mighty and sacred. Sophia – the biblical name for the Holy Spirit – was here and she was majestic. It was still hard to connect to God as Mother because of all the trauma I had with human mothers. But it was a start.

    After being diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2021 I embarked on an EMDR therapy journey in early 2022 specifically focused on gender trauma and the mother wound.

    I can’t recommend it highly enough.

    Even my name feels new. I could never connect with the meaning of Sarah as “mother of many nations”. But now I feel empowered as a life bringer whether physically, spiritually or emotionally. I am a portal between the spiritual and physical realms – both spiritually, and physically.

    I still have fears and insecurities around my gender and sometimes I’m unsure of what I want for my life and my future. But things are different – I feel good. Not good in spite of my womanhood, but good because of it.

    I am the sacred feminine. I am the image of God. I posses the gift of divine motherhood in all its forms.

    When I wrote the first paragraph in 2020 I truly felt every word. But now in 2022 there is new depth to the concept of celebrating my femininity that makes my insights then feel shallow in comparison. At that time I couldn’t imagine healing beyond what I had already achieved. I certainly never thought I could get here. In fact, I didn’t know it was even possible to feel this way.

    Will I look back again sometime in the future and see how far I still had to go today, in 2022? Absolutely. But I’m celebrating and honoring each element of the goddess within as I uncover her and lift her up. I am her and she is me – the sacred feminine.