I met a friend today in the bathroom at a dance event. We were talking in line, as women do, and she told me what she was struggling with her aloneness. She was not complaining, but it seemed she was grappling with being alone.
I responded by saying that I am alone and struggle with this tool, but it feels like I need to be -- that I just need to accept this aloneness because I am being forced to... and maybe, just maybe, it has a greater purpose.
It felt like all she needed was a bit of context and it gave her permission, which I feel like I have started giving myself -- permission to be alone.
It is not that either of us do not have choices for partnership (she is quite beautiful, talented and intelligent). It is just that over and over again, life has shown me what is what -- by having no partnerships work out for a million different reasons. My life is this, because it is this... and no amount of trying will change it, cause I have tried. I feel that I have to accept my aloneness and stop looking outside myself for anything from another human being.
I have known this for a while, but still I tried not to be alone. There is a shame in aloneness in this culture, I think especially for women. For centuries, women have been valued for "who" they have attracted into their life. Is he handsome, is he successful, is he powerful, is he rich? (This situation also has its negative effect on men, but that is another discussion). But there is a great difference between understanding something and being able to live it.
From decades of awareness practice I know this "other" that I keep looking for outside myself is the Universal Consciousness, God, Goddess, Divine Intelligence or LOVE, whatever one calls it. I know that when I am in alignment with this. I don't need anything else.
I was in a group one time with a great teacher who said "my job is to help you hit the highest note" and for me that means that I have to gather up all the parts and pieces that I have been rejecting or projecting on "other" and take full responsibility for all of me. Especially my power.
From my experience, this aloneness is very active. It is work. It is watching the longing for something outside and pulling it back inside or upward or into the heart. It is working with and discharging the old stories about our value as women.
I feel that by claiming this aloneness or aspects of Self is the only way we can live a certain human quality that has not been present in our culture for a long time. A quality that combines our masculine (which we really know) with our feminine, to bring compassion and ferocity together for the greater good. Using the heart with the sword so we can take our place in history and say "no" to what has been happening in the world. If women can do this -- hit this note, from this place, then maybe something can shift.
I also feel like this is a time in history where women cannot be selfish (yes I know we have been giving for centuries, but maybe the kind of giving we were doing was from need, weakness, low self-esteem, or from trying to get -- a form of manipulation?) We cannot put our wants and desires before the earth, before the children, the animals, the future and human beings who have no voice or power. We are the protectors of life -- the great mother bears. It is our responsibility.
But be prepared. If you do this, if you accept your aloneness and gather up all your pieces, you will be powerful. You will need nothing from outside (not approval or permission) and you will be threatening because you cannot be swayed, fooled,bullied pushed or manipulated.
I am certain you will also be projected upon and rejected because you are not "nice" or you do not fit into well-defined roles for women, but it won't matter because you will be aligned with your inner knowledge and wisdom. And with this deep self-respect comes a capacity to stay true. This will be your company.
I believe many women are going through this process and maybe just have not named it. I feel like the evolutionary impulse/the great teacher/life is calling us to claim our power, not defined by anything outside ourselves.
We are not flawed. We are infinitely capable and powerful. I wrote this for myself (as permission) and for all my sisters. It is time to focus on the real work.
And maybe women, we can be alone together.