“Where is the rage that will stop the abuse?” I heard this many years ago and never forgot it. My first experience in Gestalt therapy in my 20s was getting in touch with the rage….and it was LIFE CHANGING. Hidden parts of me began to come out to play. And I stopped tolerating what I had learned to tolerate in my past…. and I knew “never again”!
At some point we also have to grieve for the loss of innocence, and the outer and inner wounds the abuse inflicted. What is your grief like? Wailing out loud? Imploding? Aggressive? Thowing things? Impotent? Cursing? Crying a river? It may take various forms at different times.
Internal, genuine permission to feel and act on your own behalf, and on behalf of those weaker, vulnerable ones. That’s what healing is about around this issue. You may have trivialized or downplayed the abuse in order not to ‘rock the boat’. You can stop that now. We have your back.
Women share a history of dis-empowerment, tolerating abuse, and unexpressed walking-woundedness. The current tragic situation with the abducted Nigerian schoolgirls is triggering in many women…and men…. a deeply felt, feminine-lineage outrage response …as does female genital mutilation, and other de-humanizing practices, many of which are culturally and/or religiously sanctioned and encouraged.
Many of our brothers are with us on this. President Jimmy Carter refers to the abuse and subjugation of women as the “worst and most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on Earth.”
“The personal is political” as I learned from my involvement in the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement. Make your powerful personal changes and healing count for yourself…. and flow their energy out into the world for true transformation. Again, ACT on your own behalf and on behalf of those vulnerable ones who are unable to act.
I love you.
~Janice Masters, The Shaman Mama
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