Why do we need empowerment?
In our last conversation on Hangouts - posted in a previous post - we were asking the question: How can we empower ourselves and others?
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| Traditional women's area: take care for everything and everybody and be silent |
First of all, why would we NEED Empowerment? What does it mean? Does it mean that we take on - or over - power? That's what some people think, as the comment in our show, a man, expressing his dislike of "power". Does he think about a person having power over others by forcing them to do things they don't like to do? Well, that seems to be the "normal" thought which comes up when we hear the word "power". It includes that POWER is equal to NEGATIVE in a moral perspective - which seems to be adopted when we reject "power" all together.
In English "power" means also "electricity". Is it good or bad? Obviously this is not a criteria here, because the power lies in enabling things to happen. My hairdryer wouldn't work without power and my hair keeps wet for a long time without it. But I can use the power - in this case the external power of electricity - to dry it quickly.
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| The POWER of men-leaders which we don't want any more |
When we talk about empowerment we mean to unleash the force inside of us which is able to quickly move us towards our goals, like electricity dries my hair quicker than just waiting for it to dry. That means that we have - or adopt - the power for doing certain things. It is not about suppressing others.
Actually, for far too long we have suppressed the free flow of our personal power singing in unison with the demands and commands of society which didn't want us women to be powerful beings. The creative power of women was a threat to men who used their physical power to keep us quiet. When physical power - the "power over" was the means of structuring society, women had to develop subtle power to meet men. And this power, seduction, manipulation, false stories etc. were the female counterpart of "power over", which means the power to suppress and dominate others.
Speaking of "empowerment" we are talking about a completely different thing. We want to be powerful women for our ability to cause things which are good, true and beautiful. We want to regain our creativity and intuition as powerful means of knowing and making decisions, including our intellectual abilities, of course, but not prioritizing them, as we were asked to do while growing up.
Empowerment begins right in the moment when we begin to realize that we are not victims, neither of men, nor of life, nor of our genes, our education or whatsoever.
"I CAN" is the magic formula. Even if I don't know HOW, I can LEARN what I need to do what I want to do and to be how I want to be.
Today we have all information we need to go towards our goals, much of it even for free. That was much different in the past, but today this cannot hinder us to go ahead. So why don't we step into our power, fully and with confidence? Why don't we show up and bring our message out when we feel the urge to do it? What is still stopping us?
The answer is: our inner conditioning which is still operating, at least partly, and doesn't allow us to participate fully in the world. ( read also: http://wakeupshowup.blogspot.it/)
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| Women empowerment retreat at Paradiso Integrale |
To overcome these conditionings we need courage to learn to see clearly who we are - instead of maintaining our illusion of being xyz. Without shame or blame we need to recognize where we are on the path which leads us to ever the same responses, and we need to step up, take a stand and go all the way to learn the things needed to fulfill our mission.
And for this we need EMPOWERMENT, by our own insights and thoughts, but also by others. We need a support group, friends or strangers, united by the desire to help each other. And who is fortunate has also a spouse who empowers her instead of dimming down. (watch what Gertraud shared in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GatXp460v0w)
