Yesterday morning I was lingering in my daughter’s room. I was there under the guise of tidying but really, I’ve been missing her and wanted to breathe her in a bit. Across the hall from her bedroom is a wall filled with photos and front and center is one of my beloved grandmother, my daughter’s namesake. These two women have had some of the greatest influence on my life and have helped to define what it means to be a woman filled with wisdom, ferocity and beauty. Powerful.
Today, I sit in the kitchen of my best friend’s home – another woman who over the last 35 years of our friendship has modeled for me true love, support, championship, courage and so much joy.
Powerful.
This week also marks the end of my most recent cohort of Rest, Restore & Rise (my online community) and I am overcome by how these women have shown up over the last 12 weeks – brave and curious, vulnerable and honest, hilarious and contemplative.
Powerful.
Lastly, this week, I closed my time with another group of women with whom I connected through the divine work of my friend and her business program (https://www.lisakurolap.com/). Of the many, many takeaways I received from this community, I was most struck by how they all unabashedly and fiercely stepped up to support and encourage one another.
Powerful.
What I have now come to understand is that what I am witnessing in these brilliant women is POWER in its finest and truest form.
Power is a challenging word, especially for women, because it can imply power OVER another. Often, it connotes domination, aggression, harm and control. It tends to summon a masculine strength thereby limiting its access to others. By this definition, we can also see where it’s sourced externally and that it’s often rooted in fear.
As I gazed across the hall to my grandmother’s face, I became keenly aware of a different and more generative definition of power; one rooted in love, truth, and the simple knowing of one’s own value . . . and therefore, the value of others. True Power is internally sourced and quieter, yet far more prolific. Prolific because when operating from here, there is no need or desire for control,judgment, competition or harm. Rather it understands equality, compassion and abundance.
There are countless examples of the old usage of Power playing out in our current day and I think we can all sense on some level, its exhaustion.
Yet, there are many, if not more, examples of True Power in the quiet everyday. When a woman speaks her heart. When she follows a dream. When she says no. When she honors her values. When she defends another. When she dances with abandon she is free and that, my darling friend, is Power in its most beautiful form.
I realize now that it is my mission and my hope that all women come to know their innate and true power, for I now know that when we embrace this alternative form, we will not just heal our world but we will thrive as individuals and as a collective.
May the force be with you.