I’ve begun having shamanic mentoring with Shaman Iris Meyer, and it’s been such a great experience.
Shamanism has answered questions I didn’t know I had, and confirmed things that I always knew at the very same time.
I’ve always said that your imagination is for seeing what’s really there, and it turns out that yet again, it’s true.
Since having my mentoring sessions, I’ve seen more clearly, but also with less fanfare. I used to feel like using my intuition was a party trick that might or might not work on demand. But now?
It’s like I just trust what I see rather than having a voice in the back of my mind that says, “Oh, that’s a wacky flight of fancy, bless you darling for your vivid imagination!”
And that got me thinking about how we see things as kids, but then as we grow up the adults around us somehow influence us to not believe what we’re seeing.
If they’re lucky, they manage to make the kids do their job for them. If you’ve ever been teased by other kids for playing ‘make believe’, then you know exactly what I mean.
And that reminded me of how women enforce patriarchy on other women – we don’t need men to do that job at all.
If you’ve ever felt undermined or put down by a woman who’s done it to make herself look better than you, that’s patriarchy’s finest achievement in action.
Patriarchy is best served when we’re pitted against each other. We’re taught to then dismiss our conflicts, calling them ‘squabbles in the henhouse’. Internet culture currently calls women who perform for patriarchy ‘pick me’s’; women who act in certain ways to gain men’s approval.
As always, we can’t change what we can’t see, so the question we need to ask ourselves is:
How do we see and then unpick this tendency in ourselves?
There are a few things that you can do to figure out if you’ve got this tendency and I’ll go through them, and then the things I recommend you do if you find yourself batting for the patriarchy.
First: noticing. (Why is the first step always bloody noticing?!)
We need to notice what we’re doing and saying to other women.
Is it supportive?
Is it a put-down, subtle or otherwise?
Is it undermining?
Second: decoding your conditioning
You might be doing this reflection after an interaction, in which case you have more time to spend on your thinking. If you’re doing it in the moment, there’s less.
Ask yourself:
Why did you say what you said? What feeling was behind it?
If it was anything like jealousy, insecurity, inferiority or plain old dislike, then you’ve fallen into the patriarchy’s trap. Patriarchy loves scarcity. That means that we’re conditioned to actas though there’s not enough *whatever* to go around, be that material resources like money or clothes, or emotional resources like attention, love or affection. It’s simply not true.
What can you say instead? (Bear in mind that you will have to practise saying things when you don’t necessarily feel them. That’s ok. You’re retraining your brain, and this is how it works.)
Things that you might consider saying instead include:
I like your _______!
That colour is fab on you.
I’m so glad you ____________!
What a great thing to have happen!
I bet you’ll be amazing!
I need to give you a warning: lifting other women up can be addictive. It feels good to make others feel good!
Third: changing your behaviour.
This bit’s the one that brings the first two actions into the present moment. You need to notice your impulse to say something that’s doing the patriarchy’s work for it, then you need to see what your feeling is behind it so you can catch it, and THEN, you need to choose something different to say.
It takes work, and sometimes it takes honesty when you flub your response. I usually say something like, “I’m so sorry, I’d like another go at that if I can. I’m working to dismantle my internalised patriarchy and be a better woman in the world.” Then I try again.
And if people aren’t ok to give you a second chance?
That’s an opportunity for practising the fine art of thinking, “Fuck’em!”
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