On the Sacrifice of Wholeness: Healing a Woman’s Hurt
Aug 10
Photo by Luis Sarabia
If you’re at all curious about what makes Jaime Mintun tick, this post is IT for you. What I stand for, why I’m here, and how I hope to contribute.
Over the past months I have immersed myself into a deep and intimate study of the female psyche, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and psychology, male/female dynamics and masculine/feminine energetics. Though this article is particularly addressing what women face, I am not blind to the reality that men face a similar pain.
As we women are faced with contradicting and limiting definitions of femininity men are being overtly masculinized in upbringing while being overly feminized by media. In many ways we both bear the burden of confused identity. However I cannot pretend to know much about what my magnificent male counterparts face so I will talk here about something I do have a bit of experience with…
How to Heal a Woman’s Hurt
Have you ever faced that searing moment where you could choose to be authentic and honest: your true self… or you could choose to be loved?
According to Alice Miller, in her landmark text The Drama of the Gifted Child, she cites this as the moment when most adolescents fracture. She calls it the Sacrifice of Wholeness.
For children and adults alike, we encounter experiences that tell us: If you choose wholeness, choose your true self, they will abandon you. Choose love and approval from others, and you must abandon yourself.
Whether we are aware of it or not, many of us are pressured by our parents, our peers, and by media and society to squeeze ourselves into the limiting model for what “good” and “worthy” is. Call it Beautiful. Call it Skinny. Call it Smart or Appropriate; we are given these models of femininity, of what it means to be women and to be good, and though none of them is necessarily wrong… each is incomplete. None can hold us in our entirety and greatness.
And so we fracture. We become half-whole. And we die to a limited model for what we can be.
As Mary Pipher says in her staggering expose on the psychology and confusion of adolescent girls in Reviving Ophelia
Have you ever felt it? That inky discontent that seeps through the cracks of your carefully crafted life? I know I have. And though in my case it took a shocking trauma to snap me out of it and inspire me to heal, we can all heal and become whole again without suffering any more pain… without drudging through the confusion and contradiction alone and unaided.
In fact I believe that healing a woman’s hurt can very much be playful, fun and liberating – if done right.
Over the coming months I will be discussing this topic in all its nuances and sharing plenty of tips and tools from what I’ve learned in my own healing and research. Right now I’ll leave you with this:
The 1st Step to Healing Women Worldwide is…
We have to start engaging in a higher conversation.
I see passionate men and women angered by the mass media’s attack on women with its unhealthy and disempowering images of women… I listen to outcries against the messages that encourage women to play small and play by the rules… and though I agree and appreciate their voices, it’s time for the conversation to evolve.
Because their voices aren’t getting heard by the mainstream woman. Instead they’re swept under the carpet, crushed beneath the machine, because they are too militant, angry and they make little effort to bridge the gap between what women are used to digesting and what will better nourish them.
What if empowering women meant exactly what we say it means: that the power lies with the individual woman. That would mean our path to changing the media’s treatment of women lies directly with each woman and her own power.
Imagine that we elevate the conversation to celebrating and educating women to step into their own power and to express their life from a whole and vibrant place… imagine the transformation when a woman focuses less on how others are belittling her and more on honoring her own greatness… that all along the power lies with her!
Mainstream media will never change what is profitable. We know this. But what if the mainstream woman stopped responding to the imagery and messaging that belittles her because the fears and doubts that media preys on no longer exist in her psyche?
What if the entire conversation between company and consumer evolved?
Aloha Jaime!
This is just One of a 1001 reasons why you are awesome.
Mahalo for sharing this! =)
Jared
Thanks Jared. I can’t wait to grab coffee with you and share the space of your own brilliance and magnificence! RAWK ON!
Dear Jaime,
Healing a woman does have a lot to do with healing her psyche. Everyone is so use to listening to being told what to do that when we want to go and do what we want to do we need to ask ourselves is what I am doing what I really want to do?
we live in extraordinary times with the recession and some countries trying to brind themselves back from the brink of collapse that we too want to do the same thing. Be cool, be helpful to family, friends, employers, society in general, make our contribution to others. Finding how to do that is hard and is limited by finance, contact, who’s who etc.
We want to be accepted by who we really are and to do that we need to know ourselves, what we want, how to get it and how to keep it if we want to.
It is really important that we are true to ourselves and things will fall into place. We may not get everything we want immediately, some things do take time, but by being true to ourselves we are living our life purpose even if it is just working in a local grocer store like I did or writing the latest self esteem book like others do. If we are true to ourselves we are on our purpose journey. No two journeys are the same even if we live with family, a loved one, a spouse etc, no two journeys are the same.
Sometimes saying nothing is better than being misunderstood when you want to tell others “everything” and you know “this is not the time or the place” and “no, it would not be right too”.
Is really tough issues and I look forward to sharing my opinions, insight etc with you.
All the best
Ariel
You raise some wonderful points Ariel. Thanks for sharing!
Dig it. Giving people the tools to do this and particularly facilitating a culture that supports people in developing into healthy, satisfied, well-formed adults is the central focus of everything i do.
So what’s most interesting to me is – what are some of the ways you propose to evolve the conversation between company and consumer?
That’s actually at the cross-roads of the community I’m building and what we want to do in the world.
Re: men – while the cultural prejudices are definitely worse for women, men are equally pressured to follow the safe and well-trod path.
Being a pathbreaker, staying true to yourself and your own purpose is one of the most difficult yet rewarding jobs for everyone. For me, one of the keys to creating a culture that supports this resides in making it sexy to be true to yourself. Which means having a marketing budget. Which means having companies that are supporting that message. The Red campaign is a good beginning but what I’m talking about is another turn of the spiral deeper into the ‘consumer’s’ psyche.
Intrigued to hear more of your thoughts,
~Devon
Devon, I can’t wait till you and I can catch up again and discuss this at length. I’ll be revealing all my ideas around how we can evolve the consumer-company conversation, as well as other ways we can ensure that women (and men) express and experience their magnificence, delicious brilliance and unique purpose when I launch O! Lila, my new company. Rather than dive into the opinion making and out-calling of every offense toward women, O! Lila will speak to each individual woman, help her step into her own power, share the tools, energetics, resources and wisdoms I’ve learned through this entire journey that I had to dig SO FAR BACK and so deep down to even find… much of it lost to obscurity or academia or relegated to the cracks and corners of science.
We’re going to take what is the birthright and legacy of every woman and place it back into her hands, her heart, and let her decide what EMPOWERED means in her life.
And we’re going to make it FUN.
Jaime, this is so insightful. Thank you for sharing a bit of yourself and for posing such powerful food for thought.
I especially love this part: “Imagine that we elevate the conversation to celebrating and educating women to step into their own power and to express their life from a whole and vibrant place.”
Just brilliant! Can’t wait to hear more from you on this in the coming months!
–Rachel
Jaime, Well done woman! The discussion needs to be had…women need to stop disliking and disapproving of themselves ~ to realize that they are deserving of experiencing and sharing their greatness, to be more than T&A. If this changes the mindset of one person…you’ve changed the world. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. Thank you.
Jaime,
I am truly look forward to O! Lila.
Take care
Ariel
Dear Jaime,
Thank you for this. (I found it linked from Devon Whites Linkedin page.)
Media! Well first kill your television. ha hah!!
I teach yoga, am a birth partner and a leadership teacher to jr.high girls. In all of these arenas I come into contact with the pain that we hold as women.
Our pain is as old as our DNA can remember; witch burning our healer-sisters, stoning our foremother geniuses.
The movie Agora (http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/movies/28agora.html) is a very graphic example of this in which Hypatia, a woman philosopher in 4th c. Egypt, comes face to face with the intolerance of a woman as genius. I met a woman in the movie theater bathroom afterwards whos parents had named her Hypatia, which brought home that we are the direct descendants of this pain.
It is not so long ago in this country where a womans life-path was to serve only, the 1970s being the beginning of the feminist movement (when I was born.) We are still very much at the forefront of this relatively new movement.
And in other countries right now stoning women still occurs.
So yes, we have pain, collective, ancient, personal.
What you and so many others are doing is crucial to our healing!! The dialogue is crucial!
What I do with my students, my mothers giving birth, is ask that we are gentle with ourselves. That we love ourselves as we go into the pain to feel it, and breathe into it, release it. Thich Nhat Hanh’s book True Love goes into this process in detail, http://www.shambhala.com/html/catalog/items/isbn/978-1-59030-404-4.cfm .
Ive even heard that to go into a yoga pose without imagining ourselves in it first, and then placing ourselves in that imagined pose, is a violence to ourselves. I use this technique for women who find that yoga makes them cry (brings up their “pain body” as Ekhardt Tolle calls it.) I call it intention then action yoga. : )
Im holding in my heart a world where my jr. high girls feel safe to be their true selves. Who know who they are are are celebrated for loving themselves and walking their true path.
I would love to connect with you more with the work you do!
Thank you sister,
isabell fearnsby
(mother, artist, art and leadership teacher, yoga teacher, birth partner)
Laura Espinoza from the Azteca in Mexico is a Grandmother in the Grandmothers Gathering that is now happening every year when native grandmothers come together for wisdom and healing, “It is said that all traditions come through the woman, but beyond that is the feminine part of human beings which implies the sensitivity, the love, unity. So it is very important to have the opportunity to find other women who ant to rescue our children…”
Part 1: W.O.M.B. Grandmother’s Gathering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xst4uL9wY7s
Part 2: W.O.M.B. Grandmother’s Gathering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xgytVNqU8U
very inspiring!
<3 Isabell
Isabell, Your sharing is so deeply appreciated. I’ll check out the resources you mentioned. This is exactly what I hope to see facilitated over the coming months as we join together and share with each other.
Our silence has chains stronger than any prison. I’m glad to see us all giving voice.
Jaime, your post had so much impact it hit me squarely in the chest. I felt pain. Here’s to healing women worldwide, and we men too. I look forward to hearing more from you. You are among those leading the way.
Thanks for sharing your response Jason. It means a lot!!
Hi Jamie,
I think you might be here in San Diego … you might enjoy one of the Friday night salons at shaktirising.org
Namaste,
Steve
Beautiful website Steve! Thanks for recommending it. I’ll check it out.
Jaime, You are such a beautiful person. Between your site and the radio show you just did with Vince I’m left numb. Words escape me. To overcome such tragedy and become who you are is amazing to me. To not allow others to steal your life from you and overcome it all is wonderful. Wow I guess is all that comes to mind. Beautiful and inspiring. Thank you for sharing your story, perhaps one day I will be strong enough to share my own. Thank you.
Thank you Sylvia. Your words warm my heart! I will tell you that for the first two years I did allow it to steal my life. I was walking dead through the world though no one knew it… not even me.
It is both infinitely hard and so simple to step one day into the broken parts of ourselves and decide to love, honor and heal them.
If you have a story to tell and the silence has stretched so long… perhaps give yourself a safe space – and share the story with yourself.
That’s how it began for me.
Sending my love and gratitude,
Jaime