The Resurrection Of A Woman's Spirit

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.”

GEORGE ELIOT

It’s Easter Sunday.

All the bunnies and chocolate eggs and events are lovely. The commercial opportunity of another holiday.

I haven’t been to church in a long time. It’s complicated.

I grew up Presbyterian, attended Catholic boarding school, explored New Age teachings for a season, and now, I don’t know. Being far away from home has somehow caused me to lose my center as a Christian, however, I cling to, and feel closer to God than I ever have in my life.

I am no here to have a conversation about religion. I have no interest in having that conversation.

What I am interested in is a reflection on it all and how I feel about it as a woman.

One of my dear friends invited me to think about this season as our own resurrection. I like this angle. This is the conversation I would like to have.

The resurrection of a woman’s spirit.

What could this be? What could this look like?

Without having answers to the above, what I know for sure is that it is the most sacred act, just as sacred as the resurrection of Christ.

Let’s get a little controversial now.

I think about my favorite women in history. The Courtesans. They inspire and fascinate me because most of these women came from nothing. Yet, they used their creativity and imagination and created themselves as their greatest works of art!

I ask myself.

What has died in my life?

What do I long to breathe new life into?

What needs to be resurrected?

I’m thinking of a certain joie de vivre…a feeling of lightness and lightheartedness that motherhood and life have robbed me of. I would like for this to return.

I’m thinking of more time for myself. Quieter. More solitude. Even more slowness.

My spirit longs to dance! To move my body, sway my hips. Oh, how she longs for this.

She longs to be carefree! Yes, there are responsibilities and life calling, but to carve out moments in the day to be carefree! To not have a care in the world….an illusion, a fantasy, but still real, even for 15 minutes a day! Oh, that would be something!

To stop calculating calories and remove the weight of guilt at mealtime, and savor all the sweets and decadent delights, even for a day! Oh my…

To get out into the world, beautifully adorned, and wink and smile and flirt with strangers…..now that would be revolutionary!

I think of the words of Sarah Ban Breathnach, my constant companion since my late twenties. I don’t know how I would have endured womanhood without her.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that no one could be considered a success until they had survived the betrayal of someone they loved and trusted.

I disagree. I think authentic success is something much, much more: surviving the betrayal of someone you loathed and tormented. Yourself.

And how do you do that? By stopping it, that’s how, just stopping it. Today. By praying right this moment for the courage to learn how to transform the self-loathing into self-loving every day through your passionate choices.

By now you realize that Something More is not money, or fame, a home featured in Architectural Digest, or a love affair with a movie star.

Something More is repose of the soul.

Something More is self-worth. Something More is self-knowledge. The knowledge that your passion is holy and that the only way you’ll be able to live authentically is to be true to your passions.

But the only way you or I can be true to our passions is to swear never, ever to betray ourselves again.

Because Something More is the certainty that no one in the world can betray me except me. Other people, those I love and trust, can and will disappoint me, fail me, and hurt me, because they are human. I will disappoint, fail, and hurt those I love because I am human. Human beings disappoint, fail, and hurt each other, even those we love with all our hearts.

But no one else in the world can betray me.

Thank Heaven. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Neither should you.

Our hopes begin to resemble regrets, and our regrets begin to resemble our hopes when we betray ourselves. When we stay put even though we know we should push past. When we stumble but don’t get up. When we deny what and who we love. When we let others choose for us.

Living Something More will require courageous choices every day, and our ability to make choices is inextricably linked to our self-worth. Do I deserve to be happy? Damn right I do. Am I ever going to be unhappy again? Not if I can help it.

If you can say that about yourself, then the re-embodiment process is well underway. No longer do you have to accept the world as it exists because now you can reshape, reclaim, and re-create the world in your own image.

But in order to do that you have to realize that you have found your life’s work–excavating your buried dreams. That’s because only the archaeologist of your Self can crack the soul’s code: your authentic needs and wants. You have to know what you need and want out of life before you can make the choices necessary to honor them.

Your authentic needs and wants are encoded in those dreams, in the trace memory of your deepest longings. Keep shoveling away the dung of the world’s disbelief as you uncover the shards of purpose, peace, and pleasure that bring you joy.

The heart of Something More is knowing that your choices–and from now on, only yours–must be the ones that come first. And if that makes you the most self-centered woman in the world, then you can stop your restless searching for Something More because you already possess it. Something More is caring, communion, companionship, connection, commitment.

Something More is the giving and receiving of unconditional love. For at the end of the day, or at the end of a life, all we truly have is ourselves and love. And if we love our selves–truly, madly, and deeply–all we have is all we’ll ever need.

For the sake of all that is holy, believe that you deserve nothing less than Something More.”

May your spirit, along with mine, the spirit of a woman, be resurrected this Easter Sunday.

Love,

Aphrodite