A Personal Challenge for the New Year
Happy New Year! We have all made it through the holidays with their inevitable highs and lows. Let’s give ourselves credit for surviving and surfacing into the challenges and rewards of non-holiday life. January greets us with questions and quizzical expressions in the mirror. ‘Well, what you will accomplish THIS year?’ ‘What new leaf are you going to turn?’ ‘What goals will you take on?’ It’s a little like graduating high school again, with that inner parent cross-examining your intentions for life, except now I put myself under the microscope and ask the intimidating questions. There are certainly lots of things I could do better this year, and I know that I’ll only stick to promises that come from my heart, from my true affections and my honest desires to make life better, and not just my life better. When I looked within during the first week of this year, I saw something festering. I started some things last year, some were just ideas, but both of them came from a hope to make the world better in some way with regards to the life of women on planet Earth.
The Creative Process
There are certain inequities of the human condition that gather a black moss as they come rolling at us with lethal velocity. When they hit, there’s no more turning away, no more staying quiet. We are, paradoxically, both dazed and more awake because of their impact. The thing that hit me in the latter part of 2013 was the increasing news reports regarding violence and discrimination toward girls and women around the world. Sadly, rampant denigration and violence against the female of our species is an integral part of human history, but in this world of modern technology and medical breakthroughs, we find such brutality hard to comprehend. I believe in evolution, but the unflagging and blatant misogyny in the world belittles our whole species, and teaches abusive behavior to boys and men in an age when we’d like to think it would otherwise die off. It’s no wonder the world praises the courage of a young woman to stand up to the Taliban, and therefore, all forces that target women. Malala Yousafzai has the determination and dignity of a warrior queen, and has therefore become a symbol and an international female voice.
One evening, while thinking about my New Year goals and the ideas I’d started to consider in 2013, I saw Malala on a world news broadcast. Suddenly she wasn’t just on the television, and she wasn’t just a girl representing her own country. I saw Malala as a force in my world, asking me what impact her story has on me. My outrage isn’t just for what happened to her, it is an outrage for what all women face: the threat of violence and rape, the possibility of domestic violence, the hatred and derision cast through votes in every government that denies a woman the right to share in the autonomy assured to men. As a teacher and a coach I’ve always worked to broaden the health, knowledge, and creative freedom of every student and client. So, I asked myself, what more can I do, especially for women, in 2014?
First, I decided not to work so much in the one-on-one format of life coaching in 2014.Instead I will focus on expanding the strength and breadth of women’s lives and voices through two formats: women’s coaching circles, and women’s writing classes. This doesn’t mean I won’t work with men if they come to me. I enjoy working with men, especially those seeking to expand their spiritual depths and a fulfilling life. Nevertheless, in 2014 I want to cultivate and strengthen the women. Our issues are often more subtle than the news-getting dramas, but life demands courage, and we are stronger in numbers. Our written voice, especially, can echo around the world.
Watch the next post for details!
About the drawing with today's post: I call it "The Creative Process". If you wander from one part of the drawing to another, you will see possibilities, influences, heart, thought, intuition, and the moment before something takes shape. It might be written, musical, graphic, it is all becoming.