Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (134 page)

Dr. Hendricks notes that we never have enough time to do what we really don’t need to be doing in the first place. On the other hand, when we are operating in our Zone of Genius—doing things we love and were born to do—then we are far more efficient and our perception of time changes completely. We get more done in far less time.

We can become masters of time by being fully present in each moment with the understanding that our perception bends time and shapes our experience of it. Dr. Hendricks posits the liberating thought that “I am where time comes from.” After being introduced to this most health-enhancing and liberating concept of time, I wrote the following affirmation:

“Time is on my side. Time is standing lusciously still for me. I am creating timeless time. I have enough time. I’m having the time of my life!!! I am where time comes from—in slow, sexy, sensual rhythms of joy and pleasure that stretch out into eternity. Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

I keep this posted on my bathroom mirror so that I can look at it regularly and feel the truth of it every time I’m tempted to succumb to the health-destroying effects of doing too much or rushing. I suggest that you do the same!

Have you designed your life in a way that fulfills both your innermost needs
and your desire to be of service to others?

It is entirely possible to develop yourself fully, meet your innermost emotional needs, and at the same time work with others for the common good. Our culture has taught women just the opposite: that they must sacrifice themselves and their needs for the good of others. But you cannot quench the thirst of others when your own cup is always empty. Many studies have shown, for example, that women who sacrifice work they love and optimal self-development in order to nurture others are at high risk for breast cancer. It is not the sacrifice that creates the health problem—it is the unexpressed resentment that results from it. When a woman doesn’t believe that she has a right to self-development, she won’t even allow herself to acknowledge her resentment. Her body wisdom must then bring it to her attention so that she can create balance. The most prosperous people I know are also the most generous. They make the world a better place and also enjoy abundance themselves.

Do you regularly appreciate your strengths, gifts, talents, and accomplishments?
Are you a good receiver?

A large part of creating vibrant health—or anything else, including wealth—is giving ourselves credit for where we are now. Learning how to take in praise—to let ourselves really feel success and completion physically—is a skill that can be learned. Amanda Owen, author of a soon-to-be-published eye-opening book on the art of receiving entitled
The Power of Receiving: A
Revolutionary Approach to Giving Yourself the Life You Want and Deserve
(Tarcher/Penguin, 2011), says, “Those who have trouble receiving attract those who have trouble giving.”

A big reason why people get stuck and can’t create better lives is that they don’t give themselves credit for what they
have
created. This usually comes from the subconscious programming we received in childhood, e.g., “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” or “You’ll never amount to anything.” If you chronically skip this step of acknowledging your creations and continue to focus only on what you have
yet
to accomplish, then your subconscious hears only “You are not enough. You haven’t done enough. There is so much more to do. You will never be enough,” instead of “Good job. Look how far you’ve come.”

One of my medical colleagues learned this lesson well when she developed an ovarian cyst while working on the faculty of a major medical center. Florence had originally gone to work in this center because she didn’t believe that she had what it took to start her own practice using her creativity to the fullest. Following her ovarian removal, however, Florence knew intuitively that she needed to leave her workplace, that it was somehow dangerous for her to stay. In this work environment, others did not value her innate feminine creativity, and as a result, she didn’t value it herself when she was there. Florence knew that she was not yet strong enough to hold her own feminine viewpoint without at least some support from others, but the ovarian “sacrifice” really got her attention and mobilized her to make a change. She left the medical center and started her own highly successful practice. Only years later, after learning about ovarian wisdom and releasing her need to blame others, was she able to appreciate how profoundly she had put her creativity at risk in her original work setting.

Many women live with the following beliefs:
There is too much work to
do, I will never get it done, but I can’t rest or have fun until it’s done.
The classic double bind. This belief comes directly out of our cultural ob session with productivity and the belief that our worth depends upon what we can produce for others, whether this be children or goods and services. Operating under this belief system, we create more and more work that doesn’t feel complete or fulfilling. Here’s the truth: You’ll never get it done. There will always be something still to be accomplished in the future, something you could have done better in the past. This is true for all of us. The answer is to build regular pleasure and appreciation into your schedule so you learn to feel good about yourself and your life right now! And do regular “completions.” For example, every year on my birthday and again at the new year, I write down both my goals for the new year and the things I’ve completed and accomplished in the past year. The completion list always amazes me as I look back in wonder at how much I’ve actually accomplished. It’s very satisfying. Regena Thomashauer puts this another way: “Undigested good turns to shit.” This observation is absolutely true, which is why you simply must acknowledge and appreciate yourself and others regularly.

Think of one thing that you’re proud of that you’ve accomplished to day, this week, or this year. Feel your accomplishment fully. Take it in, until it’s more than just intellectual knowledge. Take yourself right into your heart. If we can’t feel good about our skills and accomplishments, no one else can, either. Find a few friends you can brag with. (I have several groups of women, including my daughters, with whom I regularly do this. It’s one of the most uplifting and useful endeavors I’ve ever participated in.) Send each other e-mails regularly, bragging about how wonderful and skillful you are—and what you’re most proud of. Recognizing that you are exhausted and choosing to spend a day resting is something to be proud of, too.

Remember, optimal pelvic health requires that we acknowledge our accomplishments as an outward manifestation of our deepest inner need for self-expression. These need not be measured in dollars or productivity to be a valuable contribution to our health and that of others. One of the accomplishments I was most proud of this year was the ability to spend a weekend alone at home by myself and be really, really happy with my own company!

That said, it’s also time that we properly recognize and celebrate the full value of the financial contribution women make to their family’s income. According to
The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything
(Center for American Progress, 2009), women are more likely than ever to head their homes. More than 39 percent of women are their family’s primary breadwinners, and another 24 percent make at least a quarter of the family income. We are nearly half the workforce today (as opposed to a third forty years ago), which means that our voices and skills are impacting all areas of society—in industry, education, medicine, and other professions. That’s quite impressive! But
The Shriver Report
also points out that women still seek permission from external authority figures far more often than do men. We still don’t trust ourselves. We can change this situation by learning to listen deeply to the wisdom within ourselves and within each other so that we develop strong, self-assured voices that are grounded in innately feminine values.

(Women frequently shoot themselves in the feet by complaining too much. It’s a bad habit that contributes to a great deal of unnecessary suffering not only for themselves but also for everyone around them. Focusing on what’s positive and fanning the flames of yours and other women’s desires and dreams is far more fun and useful. Find friends who have the courage to do this with you.)

STEP THREE: RESPECT AND RELEASE YOUR EMOTIONS

Pain is the result of resistance to our natural state of well-being and
the more we pay attention to it, the more of it we attract.

—Abraham, via Esther Hicks

Emotions are a vital part of our inner guidance. As I’ve stressed before, our emotions are part of our aliveness. They let us know whether we’re traveling in the direction of our dreams or in the opposite direction. And they always point to unmet needs that we didn’t know we had. We must learn to feel our emotions, release our judgments about them, and be grateful for their guidance. They never lie. Chronic anger or sadness, by the law of attraction, tends to attract to us situations that are filled with anger or sadness. For example, you find yourself stuck in anger, and then fall on the ice—or get pulled over for speeding. Daily doses of joy and appreciation of ourselves and others, on the other hand, tend to at tract joy and appreciation into our lives.

Children automatically know how to feel their emotions and then let go. When they’re hurt, they stop and cry. After just a short time, they’re back playing again. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross points out that a child’s natural anger and emotional outbursts last about fifteen seconds. Shaming or blaming the child for that anger, however, often blocks its natural release. The child’s natural emotion may get stuck and become a form of self-pity that remains with the person for years. Kübler-Ross points out that peo ple who weren’t allowed a natural expression of anger in childhood are often “marinated in self-pity” as adults and are difficult to be around.

Emotional suppression is a pattern that gets passed down from generation to generation. Many women have rage that’s been held in check for decades. They hold in oceans of tears that are yet to be shed. One very overweight woman in my practice told me that her mother and grandmother had taught her how to gorge on chocolate whenever their husbands were out of town and they were feeling lonely. The fat on her hips, she told me, represented three generations of stagnated emotional energy held down with chocolate.

Emotional release, or what I’ve already called emotional incision and drainage, is an organic healing process that is completely natural and safe.
⁶
When I first went to an intensive workshop and sat with people who were doing deep process work, I felt as if I was on the labor and delivery floor at the hospital—standing by, allowing people to give birth to themselves. All of us have this ability within us. Dorothy’s ruby slip pers could get her home to Kansas all by herself—she just didn’t know it. She thought she needed the wizard. Likewise, we all have the power to choose thoughts of appreciation and gratitude—and release old resentment and tears.

Making sounds is an important part of emotional release. Women naturally make deep primal sounds in labor. They help open the cervix and get the baby through the birth canal. Primal sounds are also part of lovemaking, which is the basis for the multiple orgasm work of Jack Johnston (
www.multiples.com
). Myron McClellan, a musician specializing in the healing power of sound, says that “singing is part of the emotional body’s digestive system.” Singing is one form of healing sound. Wailing or deep sobbing is another. These sounds are like grappling hooks that go through the body, cleaning out toxins and old debris. A woman recently wrote me, “I have taken several months of training in the martial arts simply to help release some of the tensions and muscular inabilities that I have felt in my body. An interesting by-product is that I have found my voice. In the process of learning tae kwon do, I had to be able to give a huge yell with the punches and the kicks that are part of the practice. I had never before in my life been able to make a noise with that much authority. As a child, I learned that if one didn’t make noise, then one could possibly avoid aggravating or irritating one’s abusers and, possibly, avoid abuse. I have carried that legacy with me for many years, even silencing my grief when my husband was killed. In other cultures women are traditionally taught to keen loudly to express grief, sorrow, and rage at death. I had never made that kind of sound, though I certainly have wanted and needed to do so. Not until now, six years after my husband’s death, have I been able to make those sounds. They came, not only because of the karate, but as a result of the deep healings to my respiratory tract that I have been able to accomplish through macrobiotics and oriental medicine.”

In many ways, the year or two
after
a traumatic experience are more difficult than the experience itself—possibly because we have sup port for crises in this culture but are then expected, both from within ourselves and from outside, to get on with it when it’s over. A young woman who had recovered from Hodgkin’s disease with the help of a bone marrow transplant a year before came to see me once. The chemotherapy had caused an early menopause, and we were working with estrogen replacement therapy to help her hot flashes. She was having problems with fatigue and weakness, but there was no sign that the cancer had returned. In going back over her history, she burst into tears in my office and told me that she never cried once during the year in which her diagnosis was made or during her entire chemother apy experience. She had not allowed herself to experience her fear. She had simply gone through it as best she could. A year later, there was no crisis in this woman’s life. Her body was well, but she still didn’t feel better. She didn’t have the energy to exer cise, and she didn’t want to cook nourishing meals for herself. After sit ting with this for a while, she realized that she needed time to process her recent experience emotionally.