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I Promise Myself: Making a Commitment to Yourself and Your Dreams
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Description
For over two decades, Patricia Lynn Reilly has invited women to journey from self-loathing to self-love, from self-criticism to self-celebration. Along the way it was necessary to dismantle the disempowering questions “what’s wrong with me?” and “who will save me?” As these questions are ousted from our lives, we return home to ourselves, reclaiming our natural resources and capacities; we author our own lives, participating fully in life’s gifts and challenges; and we remain loyal to ourselves even in the face of challenge and opposition. The journey transforms our inner landscape and reframes our relationship to the world around us.
To deepen these fundamental shifts in self-understanding within women’s hearts, minds, and bodies, Patricia re-fashioned the wedding vow and wedding ceremony into transformational resources for making a life-long commitment to ourselves. Each woman’s journey culminates in the composition of a “vow of faithfulness” to herself which is then witnessed at a commitment ceremony. Once a woman recognizes that a healthy and vibrant relationship with herself is the pre-requisite to healthy and vibrant relationships to others, she transfers her knowledge about wedding vows—whether her own or someone else’s—to the process of composing a vow to herself. Just as most couples consider it essential to express their love and devotion in a formal vow witnessed at a public ceremony, so too women are expressing their self-love and self-commitment in “vows of faithfulness” and inviting friends and chosen family to witness them. The results are life-altering:
- High school aged women are vowing faithfulness to their own lives. As a result, they are focusing their astounding life-energy on the exploration of their interests and curiosities and the development of their gifts and talents. Kathy wrote her vow during her senior year in high school. It became her guiding light during the disorienting and sometimes overwhelming first year of college. Her vow supported her to participate fully in the challenges of college life, using them as an opportunity to sharpen her skills for conscious living and to deepen her partnership with herself.
- Twenty-something women are vowing faithfulness to their own lives. As a result, their relationship obsession is dissolving. The organizing focus of twenty year old Susan’s life is no longer the pursuit of lovers; it is maintaining her vow of faithfulness to herself. Susan refuses to measure her success or failure as a woman by her ability to “snag” a husband; she now defines success as the fulfillment of her own incredible potential.
- Engaged women are vowing faithfulness to their own lives. As a result, they are truly prepared to enter marriage. Sandy, 28, felt stuck. While trying to write her vows to Nathan, no words would come. Instead, she wrote a vow of faithfulness to herself. When completed, her vow to Nathan flowed without effort. When faced with a challenge in her marriage, She reviews and renews her personal vow.
- Women in transition due to divorce or the death of a partner are vowing faithfulness to their own lives. As a result, they are remembering their personal dreams and goals. Sixty year old Helen was married at eighteen. She spent the next forty years supporting her husband’s career. He died unexpectedly. While writing her “vow of faithfulness,” Helen remembered her own dream of becoming a pediatric nurse and vowed to fulfill it.
Women of all ages, from all walks of life are vowing faithfulness to their own lives. As a result, they are refusing to ask the questions “what’s wrong with me” and “who will save me.” Instead, they make powerful statements with every thought they share, every feeling they express, and every action they take on their own behalf. They use their personal and communal resources to give birth to woman-affirming rites of passage and ceremonies of transformation for their daughters, granddaughters, and nieces, and for themselves. They are women—full of themselves!