Blog | Imagine A Woman International

The Incredible Fitness of Being

September 29, 2011 By Patricia Leave a Comment

I walked through downtown Oakland several times a week to volunteer at my church and the YWCA. At the intersection of 13th and 14th Streets I passed a triangular-shaped park. It is only big enough to hold one bench and a shade-offering hundred year old tree. Sitting on the bench was a man with four or five bulging plastic bags at his feet. Whenever I passed by, he was reading a book.

One day I walked into the park, sat on the bench, and introduced myself: “I’m Patricia. What books do you read day and night?” “Mysteries. Been reading since I was three,” he answered. We shared the names of our favorite mystery writers. He refused to share his name. I asked if I could call him “Professor.” He said yes. The next time I brought mysteries from my shelf. He accepted a couple of them. Several he had already read.

As I walked away from him that day, I planned a rescue-mission: I’ll mobilize the church to support him…surely someone has an extra bedroom, we’ll provide a doctor to tend to his eyes, regular meals, canvas satchels to replace his garbage bags. In the midst of my savior-fantasies, a loud no rose from the depths of me with these words: “Do not seek to possess this child of life. His journey is sacred. Do not judge or tamper with it. Simply receive him as you would a beautiful iris in the garden of life. Relax in his presence and enjoy him.”

I told the Professor about my rescue-fantasies. He said, “Why would I want the life of those who rush by this park every day? Only one in a hundred seems satisfied, quiet inside. I’m content to read. I sleep under the eaves in back of the library. They leave books for me there. I find the food I need each day.” We continued our book exchanges and discussions about life’s meaning.

I went away for two months in the summer and when I returned I walked to the park to find the professor. He wasn’t there. I asked folks in the buildings adjacent to the park about him but no one had seen him for weeks.

Just as the irises in my neighbor’s yard bless my vision for a few months each year, our friendship was for a season. In his company I let go of my “savior-complex” and enjoyed the incredible beauty of the life he had chosen. The Professor taught me to honor the “fitness of things as they are.”

This moment is incredilbly fit as the sum total of all my previous moments, mixed up with my DNA, choices, habits, causes and effects, relationships, stories, desires, and interactions. I may not like this moment, but it is as incredibly fit as the moth struggling within its cocoon.

I may want to “rescue” the moth but to do so would threaten its life. To do so would be to interfere with the moth’s own trustworthy life-process that includes struggle. The moth’s struggle supports its metamorphosis by strengthening its wings and releasing fluids to enhance its coloring.

Like the moth, our life- process is orchestrated by a finely tuned inner timing. In the fullness of time, when a behavior, relationship, circumstance, (or oppressive regime) begins to hamper, press, and squeeze us, we twist and turn until we burst out of the old skin and are freed at a deeper level of our existence.

The trustworthy timing of our inner wisdom leads us to each new evolution, transformation, revolution, opportunity, and understanding of things, when we are individually, or collectively, ready.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the author of five books, and the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’d like to join the IAW Team of Certified Coaches and circle the globe with WomanSpirit visit www.imagineawoman.com. If you’re ready to write your novel, children’s book, anthology, or non-ficton best seller, visit, www.birthAbook.com.

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Life Reflections

The Kiss of Life

September 16, 2011 By Patricia 1 Comment

Mama

I took my mother to the beach today.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

In a container, carefully prepared in New Jersey,

where her life ended,

complications due to Alzheimer’s, they said.

In a container, carefully carried to California, where I began,

thrust from my young mother’s womb, many years ago.

I laughed with my mother at the beach today.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Wondered if I’d be sad.

Supposed to be sad, my mother’s dead.

All that’s left are her ashes, cremains they’re called.

Laughter, however, was her final blessing.

Enough tears had been shed.

The wind danced with my mother at the beach today.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

As I held out each handful of cremains to scatter them,

the wind picked my mother up

and danced playfully with her across the beach.

And then gently laid her down to final rest,

one handful at a time.

A little girl kissed my mother at the beach today.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

A little girl picked up a shell.

“Is this your mother?”

“Yes,” I said.

She kissed the shell and gave it to me: “Kiss her.”

A kiss, my final blessing.

I kissed my mother at the beach today.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

“Mama” is an excerpt from Patricia Lynn Reilly’s book Words Made Flesh. Patricia is an author, poet, and photographer. She founded Imagine a Woman International to inspire women to use their astounding resources and capacities to reorder the worlds they inhabit, one powerful word, image, and action at a time. She is also a Publishing Coach. Patricia and her BAB Team support writers to transform their ideas into books, one word at a time. Visit www.birthAbook.com to learn about the substantial support available to take the next step with your idea, outline, first draft, or completed manuscript.

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Mother's Day

Celebrating our Daughters, Granddaughters, and Nieces – WOW!

August 25, 2011 By Patricia 1 Comment

Mercedes Sterling is on my mind, again. Her story was emailed to me March 2010. At the time Mercedes was 17 years old. (She is now a year older and just entered her first year of college!)

Before her mother Ann’s death, Mercedes and her mom hosted a gathering of “Aunties,” inviting them to become the special women/mothers in Mercedes’ life, in preparation for Ann’s transition.

After Ann’s death, the Aunties gathered with Mercedes and read the “Imagine a Woman,” poem to her, aloud, so she could hear the words in each of their voices. According to one of the Aunties, “Imagine a Women radiated among us.” Mercedes wrote her own response to the poem, and shared it with me:

“When I read the first line of “Imagine a Woman,” I was immediately captivated by its truth. Every verse seemed to speak directly to me and entwine itself into my very being. As I listened to the women around me say the next few verses I began to feel rooted within myself. I felt that someone had finally discovered who women really were and had painted it articulately and beautifully across the page for everyone to see.

I glanced around the table to see the reactions of the many women in my presence. They were nodding, smiling their approval, very absorbed in the poem. Occasional exclamations of excitement erupted followed by murmurs of agreement. I felt connected to the women by our mutual appreciation of the gorgeous work of art.

As the poem progressed I felt a deep realization move within my mind. It stretched itself for the first time, reaching its claws out to grab my attention. The poem was describing none other than myself! With every passing word I felt that it was describing my very essence and existence; everything that I was and everything that I longed to be.

Inspired by Mercedes, let’s bring our daughters, granddaughters and nieces into the circle with us. Let us imagine our young women growing in knowledge and love of themselves. Young women vowing faithfulness to their own lives and capacities. Young women remaining loyal to themselves—regardless.

Imagine an adolescence in which our daughters, granddaughters, and nieces deepen their relationship to their natural vitality, resilience, and sense of self. Imagine a girl-affirming rite of passage, a ceremony of commitment to themselves, culminating with these words of self-blessing:”This is it. This is my life. Nothing to wait for. Nowhere else to go. No one to make it all different. What a relief to have finally landed here…now. Blessed be my life!”

Now it’s your turn. Inspired by Mercedes, share your “Imagine a Woman” story with us here or on the Imagine a Woman International Facebook Fan Page.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches and circle the globe with WomanSpirit, visit here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/iaw-certification

Filed Under: Blog, Gen-X, IAW News

August 12 Blog – Eve Survives the Fall

August 12, 2011 By Patricia 3 Comments

Morn

She was awakened
by the clanging of words,
like broken bells~
raging, ranting;
the truth of the Lie
smacking her square in the face.

I have heard that Thirty can do that to a girl-
turn her inside out,
and into a writhing, grimacing, screaming
Woman.
This, a tricky tightrope to walk
when your name is Mommy.

But walk it she did;
teetering, tottering, frittering away
the ordinary moments.
Divinity dictating dailiness.
Poems pulsing. Eros shut away
in some yet-unopened cupboard.

Kneeling nuns and gyrating gypsies
paused for tea and conversation
and conservation of energy and expectation,
mastering delayed gratification…
very much…delayed.

While waking from death is a difficult bit,
resurrection from the roused seems a redundant disaster~
happens faster by necessity, and clocks
ticking wildly.

I have heard Forty can do that to a woman;
turn her upside down, undoing
all she worked so hard to keep
tightly bound and silent.

It’s an enthralling fall to earth;
this giving birth to oneself midlife,
half-life, one’s own midwife.
The blood on your hands is a dead giveaway
that you are not indeed dead after all~

having survived the fall,
survived the fall.
Eve survives the fall
and is renamed,
Morn.

~Cheryl Anne

Our guest blogger is Cheryl Anne. She is a Poet, Spiritual Director of Sheltering Oak, and a founding member of Shekhinah Grove Women’s Circle. An Imagine A Woman (IAW International) trainee and passionate advocate of Authenticity; she resides in the lovely town of Franklin, Tennessee.

Filed Under: Blog, IAW Coach Stories, IAW News, Uncategorized

July 28 Blog – Sacred Dramas, Distracting Words, and the Futility of Rat Races

July 28, 2011 By Patricia 2 Comments

Jean Hauser, skillful therapist and guide, was my first escort into the rich resources of my inner life. I arrived at her office ready to talk about my past. There was a certain safety in my attempts to understand the complexities of childhood with words. She patiently listened to my stories and then asked if I was willing to try a relaxation exercise.

In the silence, she gently invited me to turn inward and descend into my inner life. At times I couldn’t handle the discomfort of the silence, so I retreated into the safety of words again. Over time I became fascinated with what was emerging from the deep places within me. I’d walk into Jean’s office and announce, “No talking today. Take me down!”

Jean did not seek to influence my experience. She used a simple relaxation technique to support my descent. Then she left me alone while I traveled through a magical forest, discovering paths and clearings, encountering snakes and trees, and befriending the richness of my own inner life. Jean sat in the silence as a compassionate witness to the tears and laughter, screams and moans, movements and stillness that accompanied my transformative journey.

Each session became a sacred drama of sorts performed deep within the forest of my being. Sometimes it seemed important to tell her about my adventures. Most of the time it was enough that I had experienced them. During our two years together, I learned to trust my inner life, to discern its intricate design, and to listen to its healing truth. I discovered that the deepest impulse of my being was to heal into the present. As I descended into my own life, I reconnected to this impulse and tapped a reservoir of transformative resources.

I believe that we as women discover the way home to ourselves in a quiet descent into the richness of our own lives, not in the rat-race for equal pay and position, in the adoption of a traditional or feminist persona, or in the ability to articulate the intricacies of our childhoods. In the descent, we reverse the tendency to look outside of ourselves for salvation. In the “deep places,” we reunite with our essential self and reclaim our natural capacities.

Based on this conviction, I created the “Home Is Always Waiting” meditation in the 1990s. In one form or another this meditation is included in each IAW retreat and coaching session, and many members of the IAW International community listen to the Meditation CD daily. Take this moment to re-connect with your natural resources. Home is always waiting. It is as near as a conscious breath, conscious contact with your woman-body, and a descent into the abundant resources of our inner life. Return home often—you have everything you need there.

Gather the Gifts of Your Breath
Return home to your breath. Turn your attention inward by taking a few deep breaths. Become conscious of the breath and its faithful rhythm. Savor the breath as it flows in, through, and around you. On each inhalation, gather yourself from the far corners of your life. Bring your energy and attention “home.” On each exhalation, release the accumulation of the day. Allow sighs, sounds, and yawns to ride on the back of each exhalation to support you to settle into this moment. Breathing in, gather. Breathing out, let go. Home is always waiting. Affirm:
The Breath, from which all life unfolds…
The Breath, in which past, present, and future meet…
I receive the gifts of my Breath.

Gather the Gifts of Your Body
Return home to your body. As you continue to breathe deeply, make conscious contact with your body: move or stretch it, touch or massage it, or imagine the breath reaching into each part of your body. Meet each body sensation with the breath and your own healing, acknowledging touch. If your attention moves away from home, away from this moment, notice the distraction without judgment, and then practice returning home. There will always be distractions. Our life-practice is to return. Breathe again into this moment. Home is always waiting. Affirm:
The Body, from which all life unfolds.
The Body, in which past, present, and future meet.
I receive the gifts of my Body.

Gather the Gifts of Your Inner Life
Return home to your inner life. Escorted by the breath and body, continue your descent. Imagine yourself as a leaf let go of by an autumn tree, a leaf slowly and gradually descending toward the ground, its descent cushioned by the breath of life, a leaf touching the ground in the forest deep within your being. Make conscious contact with the ground of your being through prayer, an expression of openness, a movement, or in the quietness of the breath. Home is always waiting. Affirm:
The ground, from which all life unfolds.
The ground, in which past, present, and future meet.
I receive the gifts of my Inner Life.

Home is always waiting…in tender times and turbulent times, in graceful moments and in awkward situations, in flowing times and in seasons of stagnation, in fullness and in emptiness, in fear and in courage, in trouble and in beauty. Return home often. You have everything you need there.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re ready to make peace with your life, body, and relationships, read about our Retreat “The Journey Home” here: http://www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services. If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches, visit here: http://www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services. To purchase the Home is Always Waiting MP3, visit here for immediate download: http://www.imagineawoman.com/home/products

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Meditation

July 13 Blog – The Gaze of Love

July 12, 2011 By Patricia 1 Comment

I realized on the way home from a support group last night that I’d been longing for a refuge, a place where I could experience non-judgmental, unconditionally loving eyes and attention, and that I had found what I was looking for in the support group.

Out in the world, the eyes are judgmental, one way or another. Either the eyes, the gazes find me, us, “attractive” and thus worthy of attention, OR “unattractive” and unworthy of attention. We’re constantly assaulted by body/image-based gazes and critiques.

And the scrutinizing gaze of women has been the most painful to feel in its competitive comparisons. There were times I couldn’t go out into the real world because it felt like a mine field of negative, scrutinizing attention.

Sitting in the group last night, I felt at peace. I felt seen. I know we all wrestle with the same competitive demons, but at least the Support Group holds as its intention the creation of a safe place, a resting place for us, for those hours one evening a week, when we’re looked upon with mercy and respect.

The invitation below was inspired by last night’s experience, and emerged in one of those moments when the Mother of All Living speaks through us out of deep concern for her daughters! The invitation is passing from woman to woman today in that powerful flow of woman connection and power!

We’re rallying IAW’s poem-loving bloggers, posters, and blog-readers, and our coaches and fans, to share “The Gaze of Love” far and wide. We invite you to join IAW’s Body-Loving Inspiration Team by emailing “The Gaze of Love” to your lists, posting it in your blogs, and “share-ing” it via Facebook.

From my heart to yours…

The Gaze of Love: A Body-Loving Invitation to all Women

Today, and everyday, let’s turn toward other women’s bodies, and our own, with mercy and unconditional acceptance, letting go of the competition and scrutiny-based sizing up of each other, letting go of the subtle put-downs and diminishments when we’re threatened by each other, allowing healing attention to flow one to another until the gaze of love heals us.

A gaze of love, calling wise women with their beautiful silver hair and life-lines out of hiding; inviting our smart, gifted daughters to reject the tyranny of thinness and to cease from harming themselves; welcoming the full, rounded bodies of our friends, bodies that refuse to be battered into shape by diets and admonishments.

A gaze of love so powerful, so encompassing, embracing the whole community of women, all sizes, shapes, colors, ages, and languages, with the widest welcome, the deepest affirmation, the highest calling, the loudest YES.

A gaze of love, inspiring us to bite into LIFE and the fullness of its possibility, to express LIFE through us in color and shape, sound and movement, to honor LIFE by turning our body-loving energy toward projects of justice, relationships of comfort, strategies of wellness, and words of affirmation.

Knowing we’re all in this together.
One breath. One body. One life. And so it is.

Body-loving blessings, Patricia

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re ready to make peace with your body or would like a powerful gift to offer your daughter or granddaughter, read about our Retreat “Love Your Body: Five Pathways to Body-Love” here: Retreat Details. If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches, visit here: Certification Details

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Self-Love

July 7 Blog – Quantum Impulses, Chemotherapy, and the Guest House

July 7, 2011 By Patricia 9 Comments

Quantum physics has taught me that Reality (with a capital R) is basically impulses of energy and information. My reality (with a lowercase r) is made up of my own personal stories about those impulses and my interpretations of the information. Our reality is made up of our shared stories and interpretations.

We attach labels to the components of Reality. The basic set of labels about events, persons, and relationships tends to be good, fortunate, blessed or bad, unfortunate, cursed. The impulse to “hold,” we label kind (and good) and the impulse to “hit,” we label mean (and bad); the impulse to gather with others is labeled sociable (and good) and the impulse to isolate, unsociable (and bad).

We have all kinds of fixed interpretations running through our heads, filtering Reality into nice neat undertstandings, labeled and manageable. They seem “set in stone” because they’ve become so habitual and automatic. Yet we do have a choice about the stories and interpretations we employ to make some sense of our lives, challenges, and relationships.

I like Ecclesiastes and its “seasonal” interpretation: there is a time to hate and a time to love, a time to build up and a time to break down, a time to accept and a time to flail against what is. Isn’t it true that the universe is both violent and creative, both destructive and cooperative? That dissolution is as essential in the dance of life as creation and conception? Isn’t it true that birth, death, and rebirth are partners in that same dance?

A friend and I memorized Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” to prepare for her surgery. The words supported her through a hysterectomy when surgeons “swept her empty,” and subsequent chemo-treatments. Rumi’s words remind me to neither elevate nor despise any of life’s twists and turns. Today I receive them as seasonal, not harsh, as energetic shifts, not evil or good occurrences. Today I choose to look at my life through the lens of Rumi’s poem:

This being human is a guest house.

Every day is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He or she may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door, laughing,

and invite them it.

Be grateful for whoever comes

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

What filter do you use to make sense of your life? Was it inherited or chosen by you? Is it expansive enough, gracious enough to hold both and all aspects of the micro and macro universe: dissolution and creativity, dominance and partnership, life and death? This being human is a guest house. Every day is a new arrival.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re ready to author your own self-understanding, read about our self-guided Retreat “Author Your Own Life” here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/womanspirit-community. If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches, visit here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/iaw-certification

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Uncategorized

June 29 Blog – Formula Females, Confused Males, and Being Human Together

June 28, 2011 By Patricia 2 Comments

Tory was born a boy and never felt comfortable being a boy. Finally he made the decision to transform into the woman he felt he always was. He asked for my blessing after a Miami-area book event. Standing there before me was a traditional female complete with make-up, nail polish, high heels, and tight skirt.

I felt compelled to ask Tory, what sort of female was he becoming. What was his template—was it the quintessential female, groomed to be ornamental, wearing uncomfortable clothes and shaping one’s life according to the dictates of the male-dominated culture?

I told him about Sara who was chronically critical of her female body. When she looked in the mirror she heard the words, “Flawed. Inferior. Ugly.” Desperate to like herself, she had facelift and nose alteration. When the bandages were removed and she looked in the mirror, she was horrified to hear the same words and self-disgust greeting her from the mirror.

I shared with Tory the journey many women were undertaking, dismantling their socialization and reclaiming the child they once were, the “tomboy” discarded in adolescence on the way to becoming a “formula female.”

I asked if he was willing to reclaim the human being he was in the very beginning with his tears and vulnerability, his unscripted curiosities and interests, his unbiased choice of both boys and girls as friends.

It became clear that Tory was actually rejecting his male socialization (and the male body because of his tremendous shame about the “sins” committed by it), in order to embrace, at great cost, a “formula female” version of being female, just as Sara had done.

In actuality, males and females are more alike than we are different. We are schooled to highlight the differences, but our differences represent less than 1/10th of 1% of the whole of us. It is our socialization that separates us.

Once we peel away the layers of our socialization, the layers of taboos and expectations piled on top of our precious evolving, we discover the essential human being. And once we are at peace with that level of our being, it doesn’t matter as much what body we inhabit—old, young, male, female, skinny, full, or differently-abled.

At home and at peace in our own bodies and lives, we are then free to choose whatever friends and lovers we want, whatever colors we want to wear, whatever viewpoints we want to express, and whatever direction we want our lives to take, from the inside out.

On a biological note, I’m aware that our biologies are complex and that levels of estrogen and testosterone vary greatly from person to person. Some men and women feel a biological imperative to bring their bodies into alignment with their biology, but that step alone does not sum up the process.

Until we do the courageous work of dismantling the culture’s socialization of both females and males, and experience the deep freedom that comes from living from the inside out, we will be as unsatisfied as we are now, in whatever body we choose to alter, cover, or disguise.

These are my recommendations for women and men wrestling with gender issues within themselves:

There are many men choosing to dismantle their socialization, who do not alter their gender or bodies. The Mankind Project is one example of such a community of men. Spend time at www.mankindproject.org. Attend one of their weekends to be among men who have dismantled their socialization and now author their own definitions of being male.
There are many women choosing to dismantle their socialization, who do not alter their gender or bodies. Read A God Who Looks Like Me, Be Full of Yourself, Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself, and I Promise Myself (available at www.imagineAwoman.com) to reflect on the ways we’re deconstructing our misogynistic socialization and authoring our own self-understanding.
Listen to the Home is Always Waiting Meditation (available at www.imagineAwoman.com). If you’re a man, change “woman-body” to “body” in the meditation. Notice what comes up for you as you turn a merciful eye toward your male or female body, releasing shame and judgment.
If you’re a woman, go to the roots of your self-loathing and body-shame by experiencing IAW International’s six fundamental retreats (available at www.imagineAwoman.com). They’ll escort you home to yourself. Allow your body-altering, gender-reshaping decisions to be made from the inside out, inspired by your self-love and body-respect.
If you’re a man, go to the roots of your self-loathing and body-shame by rethinking all you’ve been taught about yourself through organizations such as The Mankind Project. Allow your body-altering, gender-reshaping decisions to be made from the inside out, inspired by your self-love and body-respect.

Today I received an email from another man wrestling with his body and gender. He asked, “Would your book Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself speak to someone like me? Although I’m still technically and biologically, a male, I’m experiencing a huge life-changing transformation as I allow my feminine psyche to emerge.” I closed my response with these words:

“It is my hope and prayer, that your exploration leads you home to yourself as a precious human being, whole, perfect, and complete as you are. There’s no blemish in you. Love yourself unconditionally, and from that place, make your decisions and live your awesome life!”

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re ready to author your own self-understanding, read about IAW’s Retreat “Author Your Own Life: Five Choices of Authentic Living.” If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches, visit here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/iaw-certification. If you’re ready to author a book about your life or expertise, visit www.birthAbook.com to set up a Strategy Session.

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Self-Love

June 16 Blog – Humpty Dumpty, Repetitions, and the Abyss

June 16, 2011 By Patricia 17 Comments

Sometimes our lives fall apart.

In 2004-2005 my life was falling apart. I’d tried really hard to keep it all together. I was living in the Bay Area, loved my walks around the Lake Merritt, and had just completed by 5th book Words Made Flesh. I was also spinning from a menopausal depression that shook my world.

In addition, the break-up of an obsessive relationship led to my first long term stay-in-bed, unable-to-get back-into-life depression, accompanied by food and 3 soul-full books that eventually brought me out of it.

One day, while walking around the Lake, I imagined the current obsession leaving and saw a chasm open up before me, a void, a dark hole, an abyss. I was petrified to let go of him because the abyss would swallow me. I finally understood, viscerally, how I felt as a child being literally pulled away from my father because I couldn’t bear to say good-bye.

When obsessive relationships ended, I always experienced a dark night of physical and emotional grieving. I finally made the connection between my choice of men, the ending of relationships, and my father. Each time the daddy-shaped lover left, as my father did when I was 5, the post break-up period was unbearable and totally inappropriate in intensity to the quality and depth of the current relationship.

In the brilliant way our psyches work, I repeated this process with a line of obsessive relationships. These “daddy-shaped lovers” evoked that early injury which had remained undigested within me. Life wanted me to be well. Life wanted me to finally grieve the loss of my father. We repeat experiences until we circulate the original emotions.

Navigating ordinary life, when the past interjects itself into one’s present, is almost impossible. Although I am extremely resilient, the depression overwhelmed me, and I realized that my current life had been constructed out of the grief, fear, isolation, and repetitions shaped in childhood.

My life and business contracted, as they always did when the past intruded. I was usually able to “recover,” but this time I couldn’t hold it together. My finances weren’t bouncing back. My business needed more attention than I could muster. I was exhausted.

While speaking to a friend about the torment of trying to hold away the dissolution of my life, I had a revelation. The words “surrender to the dissolution” rose from the depths of my being. I obeyed that voice immediately, and let go. I fell into the dissolution, and fully participated in the closure, the disbanding, the termination, the ending, and the conclusion of it all.

I finally honored life’s wisdom—that dissolution is as essential in the dance of life as creation and conception. And for the first time in months things began to move in my life, and I felt at peace. I gave notice on my beloved apartment, which freed up the next month’s rent to purchase food and necessities. I traded in my older car for a new larger one that would allow me to travel wherever life led me. No money was required for the transaction. Friends rallied to support me to pack up my life in preparation for whatever was next.

I embraced three words, which became my mantra: “Community. Connection. Collaboration.” If the first 50 years of my life had been shaped by isolation, fear of connection, and periodic withdrawal, the next 50 would be shaped by daily choices for community, connection, and collaboration.

I made every decision guided by my new mantra. As I scanned my wider life, the Denver area lit up. My adopted family lived there, and so did my sister who was going through a very different kind of life-challenge. In June 2005, I said good-bye to the Bay Area and traveled to Colorado to partner with my sister in our healing journeys.

By the end of 2005, I was in a relationship with the kind of man I could never allow myself to love. A consistent, unconditionally loving, loyal man who makes me laugh every day and whose visceral acceptance of me has deepened the healing of my daddy wound.

By the end of 2006 my sister had thrown away her walker, let go of unnecessary medications, rejected the invalid label, and resumed her awesome life as painter, writer, and hiker. She now lives among friends who delight in her multi-faceted brilliance!

Sometimes our lives fall apart. Sometimes we fall into the abyss. Life is an ever-evolving creative process, inviting us to surrender to its flow. Honor all that has been despised. Receive all that has been cast aside. Creation and dissolution are essential movements in the flow of life, in the flow of your life, and mine.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re ready to heal into the present, read about our Retreat “Heal into the Present: Four Steps into the Present” here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/womanspirit-community. If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches, visit here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/iaw-certification

Filed Under: Blog, Heal into the Present, IAW News

June 1 Blog – Learning the Vocabulary of Reverence: For the Well-Being of our Daughters

June 1, 2011 By Patricia 2 Comments

Our daughters, granddaughters, and nieces remind us that in the very beginning the girl- child is shameless. She comes into the world with feelings of omnipotence, not inferiority. She says a big YES to Life as it pulsates through her body.

With excitement, she explores her body. She is unafraid of channeling strong feelings through her. She feels her joy, her sadness, her anger, and her fear. She is pregnant with her own life. She is content to be alone. She touches the depths of her uniqueness. She loves her mind. She expresses her feelings. She likes herself when she looks in the mirror.

She does not expend one ounce of her precious life energy trying to figure out what’s wrong with her body, feelings, and thoughts. She just lives. She makes a statement with every thought she shares, every feeling she expresses, and every action she takes on her own behalf. What happens to this amazing child of life on her way to adolescence?

Reversal of Value

A conformity-based childhood reverses the price tags. The natural and essential self, a priceless treasure, is criticized and set aside, and the artificial, constructed self grows in value. Image is more valuable than essence; conformity, more priceless than originality; coloring inside the lines more acceptable than spontaneity.

At a certain age we were expected to move beyond “childish” ways, and to settle into the “boredom and the disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.” (Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonder)

The girl-child grows up asking, “What’s wrong with me?” This question shadows her life as she searches for someone to give her an answer, a magical insight, treatment, or cure. She learns a criticism-based way of perceiving herself. As a result, her automatic tendency is to feel inadequate, that she’s never quite good enough no matter what she does.

By middle school, her natural body-energy is directed away from body-activity toward body-grooming, away from spontaneity toward control. Groomed to be “ornamental,” she will spend inordinate amounts of time and resources twisting her body into the acceptable shapes of the culture. Over time she loses touch with her body and life-giving potential.

Some may counter: “We’re beyond all that—it’s 2011.” No, we’re not. The question what’s wrong with me has become even more virulent (as in “marked by a rapid, severe, and destructive course”) and dangerous (as in “able to inflict injury or harm”). The illusion we maintain is that we’ve ousted the question once and for all. After all Hilary almost became president and Title IX allows us to thrive as athletes and glass ceilings are occasionally dismantled.

On the other hand, illusion aside, infertility plagues us and there’s hardly a woman in the world who doesn’t wake up feeling the need, or the demand, to cover, starve, alter, mask, or harm her body in some way. Why? Because our bodies are never quite good enough, pretty enough, small enough, young enough, non-distracting enough, no matter what we do.

In our search for answers to the pervasive question, now focused almost exclusively on our bodies, we consent to outrageous measures to guarantee our fertility or attractability, convinced that the presence of a child or a lover on our arms will dissolve the question. We sign up for diet clubs and plans and spas, convinced that our bodies are at the core of the problem. We spend hundreds of dollars on dyes, cosmetics, and new outfits to hide the question, and on new body parts to eradicate the question. Yet no matter what we do, it’s never enough, the question persists.

Telling the Truth

Let’s tell the truth at least among ourselves, for the sake of our daughters. There’s been an intensification of body-violence within the community of women. Women of all ages are injuring their natural body-intelligence and body-shape. We’re choosing to have our breasts cut open and augmented, our noses broken and reshaped, our wrinkles injected with collagen and botox, our faces manipulated and peeled, and our bodies exercised and starved to death. We’re frantically covering all signs of aging, beginning earlier and earlier in life, as if aging were a plague, a virus, an enemy to be conquered. We are at war, that’s what it is, at war with our own bodies.

We’re outraged by the ancient customs of foot binding, “comfort” women, and genital mutilation, and the current atrocity of rampant sexual trafficking of women. These customs and atrocities are done to women. Yet we in the West, in the co-called first world, are in record numbers choosing to do violence to our own bodies.

And even more horrifying is the fact that we pass on the necessity of ornamentalism, the tyranny of the scale, the fear of food, and the dread of aging to our daughters, and we export our destructive attitudes around the world. Let’s declare a permanent truce with our bodies.

A Healing Breath

Take a deep breath and remember. Your healing task is not to become a new, improved, or changed person. Rather, it is to reclaim your original relationship with your body in all its fullness. In the very beginning, you were shameless. You loved your body. “There was a time,” Monique Wittig reminds us, “when you walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember! You say there are not words to describe it; you say it does not exist. But remember! Make an effort to remember! Or failing that, invent.”

Retrieve your body from lifetimes of restrictive definitions and expectations. Look at your body with your own eyes. Develop your own relationship with your body. Create rituals to support and celebrate your body through each season of life. Learn the vocabulary of reverence to replace the shame-based and criticism-laced messages that have assaulted our minds, bodies, and spirits on a daily basis.

This retrieval process is supported by fasting from old thoughts, critical words, and image-based habits, and feasting on new thoughts, reverent words, and essence-based habits. Affirmations support the “re-education” of our minds. Newness cannot exist in our experience until it’s imagined within our minds and hearts. Once imagined, the new experience becomes ours and we reclaim our original body-love from the inside out.

A Daily Practice

Body-love is a choice expressed daily in reverent words and respectful action. Use the following words to create a pause, an opportunity to pivot, before choosing an old body-scrutinizing, body- criticizing habit of thought, word, or behavior:

“I return to the Breath of LIFE and I am soothed into acceptance of this moment, just as it is. I am comforted by the truth that I whole, perfect, and complete in body, mind, and spirit. I rest in acceptance, and all is well.

There is no blemish in me. I am the daughter of LIFE and my body is lovely just as it is, in its perfect shape and size. I am at peace—the war is over. There is only comfort, soothing, and acceptance.

I am at home in my body. I am at ease with my body’s sensations. I am at play with my body’s sensuality. I am at peace with my body’s natural cycles. I speak about my body with reverence. And so it is.”

Support Along the Way

May this week’s reflections and affirmations awakened within you a desire to reclaim your original body-love and to inspire your daughters, granddaughters, and nieces to love their bodies, regardless. If you want to engage these insights more substantially, consider purchasing the retreat “Love Your Body: Five Pathways to Body-Love” here: Retreat Details. The first 10 women to order the retreat will also receive the “Love Your Body, Regardless” Daily Reader.

Read through the material as you would a transformational book or follow the retreat format with its meditations, circles of women, and journaling exercises to deepen the healing within your body and life. IAW’s retreat “Love Your Body” will remind you of the body-loving instincts of the child you once were, and of how to awaken them in every season of your life.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re ready to make peace with your body, read about our Retreat “Love Your Body: Five Pathways to Body-Love” here: Retreat Details. If you’d like to join our Team of Certified Coaches, visit here: Certification Details

Filed Under: Blog, IAW News, Self-Love, Uncategorized

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