Welcome along to a series all about femininity. It's pretty impossible it seems to wrap up all my thoughts into just one blog, so I figured I'd do a part 2 following up from my previous blog about femininity.
As I've evolved and changed so have many of my thoughts around femininity. I also realize that all my opinions are not exactly like others. I'm finally in a place after much resistance to walk into my own opinions here. I am a human being with autonomy and with that autonomy I have the ability to question and discern what to share from my heart.
In my last blog post, I mentioned that I'm pretty tired of talks about femininity being boiled down to a women's desire for dating/marriage. It feels like that's a pretty watered down message to the wholeness of femininity. I've just heard so many talks focused primarily around "emotional chastity" that it's sort of hard for me not to have a different opinion. I mentioned these topics are necessary and yes, I do agree that they are. But we're just missing a lot about the key dynamics around the human experience. Women do not just struggle with timelines or when they want to get married. & I'm going to go out on a whim and say that I don't agree with being so centrally focused on our vocations/or how or who is going to be that potential spouse.
I spent years in college praying and discerning marriage because I believed I was called to this vocation and in many ways I do believe that still. Prayer is foundational, but I can look back and see the ways in which I was so obsessed with vocation, it's like all my prayer time was spent so focused on finding a spouse and I really did not personally take enough time to look within at my dreams and live fully alive.
Which I believe generally we need to be focusing on teaching young women about healing and how to live fully alive.
Looking back I can understand now why I had so many intimacy blocks in dating and why I was particularly emotionally unavailable. I was chasing the identity of timelines and this idea around my vocation so much, I was pretty much just stuck on the surface of my own heart.
I could've invested more time into my hobbies, working out, listening to my intuition or learning more about finances.. (haha yikes) Better yet, actually learning how to like myself.
I do want to say this. I do know many wonderful people that are married with children and I think that's amazing. We're built for relationship and that's a core desire we have whether we are male or female, but where it becomes an issue is when we're making this into some sort of romanticizing story and boiling down our entire life's purpose into our roles/vocation. THAT IS SO MUCH PRESSURE and we have other things to discuss in femininity chats with women. It also completely can shift our identity into this chasing type of energy where "we want so badly", so we're continuously disappointed when dating does not happen in the timing we thought it would. It's almost like ignoring the heart you have because you're so focused chasing another heart. Healing becomes secondary and dreams get put on a back burner and
The truth is there are women who will not get married. There are women that will get married. There are women who will not have children. There are women who will have children. There are women who will not enter into religious life. There are women that will walk into religious life. There are women all around the earth with different experiences, cultures, etc. Yet, one thing we do have in common is the limiting belief that my life will look better when I fully enter into my role.
Personally, I think there are some conversations about femininity that need to be directed only for women. Not for a woman's future self, not for a woman's family, not for a women's relationship status, but just for the woman, that specific soul. This identity wrapped around the idea we'll be happier when we enter into our vocation may actually be hurting women in the present moment. It may be creating more "waiting seasons" and contributing to a lack of openness.
A huge lesson I'm learning is that life is not happening in the clinging, chasing or romanticizing of my future self in marriage. These moments right here and now are so good and worthy of celebrating. I want to be living these moments well & my greatest dream is that young women/teenage girls can choose to lean into who they are now and their healing journeys now. You can pray for your future spouse. You can desire marriage, but you can also enjoy your present. It's incredibly possible. For many years I didn't believe that could be so, but however I happened to get here I'm very joyful and grateful to be able to see that.