Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Aunties, Grandmother, Elders, the price we paid to belong

On the eve of the International Women’s day celebrations, walking through 10 years of activism, walking through ownership of my voice as a woman, I pause to reflect on the price that I paid to claim my belonging to this world.

I am one of the millions women, who has paid a heavy price to belong , through her words, her engagements, her acquired education, her body, her blood, her intellect, her emotions, her energy, her spirituality and so much more.

I had to prove that I was worthy of work, of getting paid, of being a daughter, a wife, a lover , a teacher and so much more.

I worked harder. I tried harder. I took on more that what my plate could hold. I aimed beyond my desires.

I kept on while I needed rest. I stood rooted when inside I was ungrounded.

I broadened my shoulders and took on more.

All these were acts to belong, to prove worthy to belong in this world as a woman.

 

I pause to reflect on what I became in order to have a place in a world that is bent on crafting standards and structures that go against the flow of nature, the flow of who I am , who we are as women.

 

Can you relate?

Are you aware of the price you paid and you are still paying to belong?

Do you feel a sense of belonging despite all your efforts?

Do you belong?

 

 

I pause to reflect on the shedding and laying to rest that has happened through me as I claimed my voice.

I pause to reflect on how life has graced me and still does, ushering me to be the woman who dwells within instead of what I think of right and wrong.

 

I was taught and told that healing and belonging meant that I carry the weight and burden of those women before me and as I do so, I shall free them.  I believed so for years.

I know you are many who relate to these words.

 

I was taught and told that in this world, I will have to earn my belonging.

I was taught and told that I am savior for all mothers who came before me and my unborn daughters.

I was taught and told to become way bigger than my natural size. From the nest of my innocence, I expanded my being to hold and contain stories, wounds, pains, trauma, drama, secrets, mysteries that are not mine.

For years, I wheeled a weight that was and is humanly impossible.

 

Through my attempts to belong, I never fully received life that was gifted to me and I never fully took “that which” I had received.

In our attempts to belong, to prove, to claim, we miss out on receiving fully and taking in fully.

 

Can you relate?

 

On the eve of International Women’s Day, instead of asking women to claim their intelligence, their beings, their lives, their doings, their engagements as tickets of worthiness to belong to this world, my message is:

 

You belong whether you believe in it or not.

You belong whether you are activists or not

You belong whether you honor set rules or dishonor the rules.

You belong whether you believe you are the generational healer or not

You belong whether you have attestations for your education or whether you have never been schooled

You belong with your trauma and drama

You belong with your clarity and confusions

You belong with your comfort and discomfort

You Belong and You are Welcome

 

May it be an intentional act from now onwards, to return the past burden to it’s original source.

The owners of the past burden desire so and I say this from a space of intent.

It was never in the grander scheme that we, daughters fix the destiny of our mothers.

The path is that we acknowledge whatever is systemically part of our lineage and we leave what belong to others to them, be it our mothers and /or our parents.

And as we return “that which” belong to others to them, we start stripping off from this world’s expectations of “how, who, what, why, when, where”, we, women should and ought to be in order to belong.

We then shall begin the walk home

We walk home by beginning to receiving fully the life that we received and by taking in fully that which is gifted to us.

Home to our voice

Home to what dwells within us

 

May the next coming ten years be instrumental in leading, guiding, teaching, whispering and instilling in you to remember and to re-member that life was passed down to you at a price and through this life the gift of belonging was bestowed. Through this act of belonging, all of you is welcome and may you be reminded to not get caught in the webs of a world that ongoingly asks of you to be more in order to be worthy of belonging.

Remember in the eyes of the Greater Conscience, we belong.

May we find belonging within and without

 

I embrace your hearts today, this path asks of deep vulnerability , as I feel mine and I dwell within mine, I can imagine how it feels for you.

 

Love from my heart to yours