Taking Ourselves Seriously: Women, Selflessness, and Living Fully
I’ve been thinking about the ways women learn to disappear, a theme that comes up often in the therapy room. This isn’t always a nefarious process, though sometimes it is. We’re encouraged (both explicitly and implicitly) to be generous, to accommodate, to nurture and care for others, and to put ourselves last. There’s beauty in care and generosity, of course, but the extreme leaves us self-less. When selflessness is a requirement rather than a choice, how do we care for our selves? How do we take seriously own voice?
These questions sit underneath my latest field note, a prose poem titled seasons for our selves that began with a line from Marilyn Chin's poem Two Goats: “solipsistic girl poets.” This phrase, in contrast to another, “wounded warriors,” left me wondering about the differences and the similarities between these categories, including who fits into which one, and who is taken seriously. I got interested in the possibility that each of us can contain all of these selves, and that each self (or combination of selves) might fit within a season of life, and that each self is worthy of inhabiting. I believe the work of being more fully alive entails becoming free enough to recognize what any particular season asks of us, which includes learning to notice what may have been pushed aside along the way: desire, anger, grief, creativity, longing, intuition, even the simple recognition that I matter.
Feminist, contemplative, somatic, and Gestalt approaches have formed the clinical lens through which I think about attention, relationship, embodiment, and the development of a more integrated self. But sometimes alongside the clinical work, it’s nice to make space for poetic wondering, which I did in this week’s field note.
If such wondering is of interest to you, you can read the full field note, seasons for our selves, on Substack.
If you’re curious about counseling, I’d be honored to connect with you. I work with women who feel overwhelmed and off-balance, offering a compassionate, steady presence and joining as a collaborator to help you stay with what’s emerging in the moment and get curious about the deeper layers of your experience. Together, we experiment with small, meaningful changes that lead to different ways of being and moving through the world. My specialties include anxiety therapy, midlife growth and empowerment, and young adults and college/graduate students. You can contact me here.