What They Are, Where They Come From, And, What We Can Do About It
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I never really fit in. And, in most places, I still don’t.
Throw me in a room with strangers talking about the weather and I am LITERALLY counting the seconds until I can be freed. I get zero joy from it. But, sit me in a circle with women who aren’t there to swim on the surface and you’ll find me in the deep end with them all night.
I’m ready to bare it all with this kind of woman. The kind that can hold space for herself and me. The ones that don’t turn away or put a silver lining around my pain.
These are the kinds of women that heal women's wounds.
I was bullied as a child - not pretty enough, not dressed well enough, I guess, as it turned out, just not enough at all. This created a permanent scar - a Sister Wound. I have a vivid memory of the “beauty” in my class telling me that she lived in a castle, and that we were poor. Where did that come from??? The funny thing was - I knew she lived in a duplex - not a castle, but the way she said it to me had me believing I was supposed to feel less, so I did.
I also peed my pants a lot, so that didn’t help.
I went through what all girls do, it seems - a rite of passage undoing any trust in other females, the cycle of - you’re in this week and out the next. Being a teen girl really is one of the hardest times of a woman’s life. The masks I would put on to fit in, to be liked, to not be rejected, were the sacrifice I had to make to have friends, to attain the untouchable status of becoming popular. Behind each mask, I lost more and more of myself - my integrity, my values, my worth. Gossiping, drinking, partying, lying, I didn’t really know how to say no.
I wanted so badly to be popular. It seemed like the golden ticket to not feel pain. But, once I got there, I realized it, too, was just another illusion. There was still pain, and there was definitely still rejection.
As I got older, I had one best friend at a time. They would be the only one that I let see all of me. I had amazing best friends. There isn’t one that caused me damage, but I’m not sure I can say the same about myself. I have experienced sister wounds and I have perpetuated them. I let pain and past experiences destroy amazing friendships and I lost out permanently on a friend that ended up taking her own life.
I watched my mom suffer with female relationships. I saw her give her all and be taken advantage of. I watched her fail to stand up for herself and find friends that took, took, took - one that even tried to ruin her marriage.
Women were not to be trusted - that was the message.
What is This and Where Did It Come From?
With the rise of the Patriarchy, women went from depending on each other to turning against one another - from communal beings to competitive beings.
The Sister Wounds are a manifestation of unhealthy coping mechanisms that women use in place of processing their grief and pain from the loss of community and connection. These are the wounds we pass on from generation to generation, further removing ourselves from the truth of who we are at our core.
Women turned against each other - there were those that stood in solidarity to their way of life and those that succumbed to the new world of the Patriarchy. We became divided and lost our power, our way of life. This division cast an energetic wound across time and space for all women. No matter who you are, you have been touched by this wound by being born into a female body.
Here’s what the Sister Wound can look like:
Competition
You don’t trust yourself enough to know your own worth so you work twice as hard to become “better” than other women.
This is a patriarchal response and a wound that cuts deeply into our feminine nature of collaborating and living in communion with other women. They are not your competition, there is enough for everyone, we all have victories, and we all make mistakes.
This shows up in mothering, the boardroom and in our intimate relationships
Judgment
Feeling like you aren’t enough breeds judgment. When your cup is full and your needs are met, the brain relaxes its stronghold on the comparisons and judgments of others. Most of our judgment is coming from a place of not being seen, understood or validated. To cope with those feelings we project them onto others and cast a spell of pain and rejection their way so we know we’re not alone. Is this a conscious choice? No (unless you’re an asshole)
Jealousy
Jealousy comes from the belief that you aren’t already enough and it's directing us towards something that is missing within.
Looking through a lens of lack creates jealousy. What if you believed you were enough? Would you feel jealous of someone else’s gifts? You came to this human body with a soul mission, and jealousy is an indicator that you have moved away from it in some way. Use what you’re jealous of as a motivator to love yourself deeper
Isolation
It can sometimes feel like too much. Like you’ll never get there, so you might as well stop trying. This level of Soul exhaustion comes from doing it alone. Your cells remember when they were supported, when they had a community and people that they trusted. They’re sending you signals that this isn’t right, this isn’t the way we were meant to live.
Isolation is a perpetrator of the sister wound. How can you heal your wounds if you are still turning away from the opportunity to connect. We cast people out, thinking that this will save us. Keep us safe from feeling the pain of betrayal, rejection or not being understood, but what we’re really giving ourselves permission to do, is to sit in that exact pain continually without ever experiencing the joy that true connection brings.
Insecurity
The fear of your voice, of being seen exactly as you are, that’s not just you, that’s all of us.
From the burning times, we’ve lived in fear of showing up in our true and total power. Our voices were quieted, our powers extinguished, and our intuition villainized, but we are the true wisdom keepers.
Trust yourself to know now when you are safe, talk yourself through your wounding - what if they don’t like me? What if they leave? What if it fails, or I fail? Let yourself explore the full range of what ifs and then do the DAMN THING
Hustling
You don’t have to burn yourself out to make yourself valid. You are already enough. In fact, you are more than enough. The programming that has been installed that we have to be producing at all times is a lie. You are a woman with a 30 day cycle. Some of those days, your bleeding days, are rest days. These are meant for you to be nurtured, to slow down and to LISTEN. If you haven’t been paying attention to your cycle, or the cycle of the moon, do yourself a favor and start patterning the nature of who you ARE. Your cycle has power weeks, it has reflective/creative weeks, and it has weeks where everything needs to slow right down. Forget about the Tampon commercials telling you to push through and wear white anyways. Slow down and turn towards your shadow, there is an immense amount of healing that can be done here.
How To Heal The Sister Wound:
Become conscious of why you do what you do. Take a look at your conditioning and beliefs, are they even yours? Were they passed down unconsciously from generation to generation, with no one ever questioning why we are doing what we do
Deny the desire to snuff out someone else’s flame so that yours can burn brighter. We all know what this feels like, but do you know what it feels like to lift a sister up? Share your friend's new business, listen to her without needing to heal or fix her, make room for her at your table, refuse to talk about her when she’s gone, bless her, and be kind to her. If you find yourself judging her, ask yourself where she is touching your wounds
(example: seeing her openly cry, you may think - I would never do that, it’s just for attention, or that she’s being too dramatic. Ask yourself where you are denying or being denied your own expression of pain)
Connect with the cycles of nature - the moon, the seasons, and yourself! You have your own cycle, one that is meant to support you at all times. During your own 30 day cycle you will receive the wisdom that you were born with, as long as you are conscious enough to notice. Start a chart that tracks when you’re feeling most energetic, creative, forgetful, tired, reflective, and intuitive. This will help you plan your schedule and keep your energy in alignment. If you are an entrepreneur and a woman, this is SO important.
Talk about it. Tell your friends how you feel and how you want your relationship with them to be. Talk about the sister sounds and how they affect you, how they affect all of us. Educate the women around you and create the kind of relationship with women that you desire. If you desire to have a supportive, honest, loyal friendship - be that.
Join a Sisterhood - find a women’s circle, where women model the kind of safety, trust and support that you seek from a healthy relationship with the feminine. This is where I healed and where I flourished, I will forever be grateful for the modeling of the true feminine that was reflected back to me in those safe spaces as I healed my sister wounds. When we allow ourselves to become vulnerable with other women, is when the true healing happens. When you experience this, it is a magical remembering.
Where This Leaves Us
Your knowledge of this wound is just the beginning. The real work begins when we consciously choose to reshape our relationship with the feminine. When we no longer look to be validated at the sake of ourselves or another, but when we stand in our true power of being the wisdom keepers that we are. Healing our desire to gossip and share another's story becomes our desire to share our own.
You are a change maker and from you comes the potential for a new reality. Being born into the feminine gives you the power to birth the life that you desire.
And, remember:
You are always welcome here.
LEARN MORE: THE PRIESTESS PATH
If reading this has resonated with you, I invite you to book a free 30 minute call to explore if The Priestess Path is the right fit for you
In this call, we move through meditative inquiry, introspection and truth. This is the first of the many welcomes you'll receive if you become a part of the Sisterhood
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