I am not a goddess. And I don’t have super-powers.
I am ordinary, flawed, and often rather boring. My laundry room is in a perpetual state of disaster, I often take the easy route and feed my kids processed food, I don’t floss regularly, and I haven’t thrown a dinner party in a few years because it takes too much work. Sometimes I even pick my nose.
But you didn’t come here to read a list of my flaws, did you? Especially not the nose-picking thing.
Sometimes the language I read around blogs and self-help books targeted toward women worries me. We’re supposed to claim our superhero alter-ego, step into our power, and become goddesses. Now, if you’ve used that language, please forgive me – I’ve done the same on occasion. I understand the point of it – we want women to feel special and empowered and endowed with the Sacred. There’s nothing wrong with those things.
BUT… the problem is, if I have to have a superpower or be a goddess, then it starts to feel like I’m putting way too much pressure on myself to be invincible. I don’t want to be invincible. I want to be okay with being flawed. I want to be able to forgive myself for sending my daughter to school in dirty pants because I didn’t get the laundry done (again). I want to be ENOUGH.
The other thing is, in those moments when I’m feeling weak and flawed and at the end of my capacity to cope, I want to be able to reach for some kind of source of power that is external to me. I don’t want to BE a goddess, I want to SURRENDER to a Goddess and have Her carry me.
If being a goddess is up to me, then where do I go to be refilled when my tank is empty?
You can call religion a cop-out or a panacea – that’s up to you. But I still need it in my life. I still need there to be a God/dess, I still want to know I’m cared for by a Creator who thinks I’m special and beautiful, I want to be extended grace and forgiveness by a compassionate Being outside myself, and I want to know there is Sacred power that has absolutely nothing to do with my capacity.
It doesn’t matter to me what you call that Higher Power, but for me, I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the concept of Sophia – the feminine nature of God. (A concept, by the way, that originates in the Old Testament.) When I feel weak, I call on Sophia for wisdom and grace. I picture Her as a beautiful, full-bossomed, long-haired wise and fierce grandmother type. I curl up in her arms, and her long flowing hair hangs around me like a curtain, sheltering and protecting me from harm.
This is the image I turn to most these days, but I am also still quite comfortable with God as father-figure – the kind of Father who is the embodiment of the strong and compassionate masculine nature I mentioned in my last post.
Having a God/dess in my life helps me take myself off the hook when I just can’t seem to get things right. S/he thinks I’m good enough.
Note: This is part of a blog round robin called Support Stories – Strength from Within. Click the link to find other stories of finding strength.
I feel the same way. Well said!
i’m not one for religion, but that’s more the organized part of it. i call what you describe my spirituality, and it works for me. for me, it’s the universe. i can call on the universe to hold my hand, to replenish my well, to carry me, to stroke my head after a long, hard day/week/month/year. the thing i have to remind myself of is to sit still long enough to do that. and what’s funny about that is in your first paragraph. maybe the reason i’m picking my nose is just taking a breather and sitting still long enough for a tiny bit of replenishment. or maybe i’m just clearing the airways to breath a little deeper.
i love how you embrace your “flaws”, calling them out to me and to the world and who cares who else! because really, it’s what draws us together … these so called flaws of humanness that make us … human, not goddesses. we are who we are, and we shall not apologize for the messy laundry place, the processed foods, the nose-picking … we shall embrace these things, as they are our lives.
thanks so much for sharing this bit of your strength from within, as it so deftly taps into my own.
I floss regularly and I do not pick my nose (not consciously anyway) and I also rest in the arms of the Goddess. Actually, I’ve done a great deal of healing of my relationship with the Goddess as of late. And this healing has led me to embrace the feminine aspects of myself in a world that is basically male dominant.
Your acceptance of you as you are is a Goddess act.
Oh, how I love the willingness NOT to strive for (as if) being invincible – being perfect!
I “get” the need to embrace our power, nevertheless we are NOT invincible – I so appreciate you saying this, it plays on the tip of my tongue so often when I read articles/posts geared to POWER (differentiated from power) – but I couldn’t have said it so well.
And what you said about God/dess (who I call the Beloved): “S/he thinks I’m good enough.” – OH! So true, so vital!!
Oh. MY.
So much of this resonates so strongly for me!
Not wanting to be invincible, but ENOUGH. Wanting to be okay with being flawed. This, in fact, is why I started my own blog a year and a half ago…it’s (among other things) the story of my own struggles with perfectionism.
I’m aware that I strongly identify with our culture’s masculine value system…and sometimes I feel bad about that. (Yet another way to beat myself up–I “should” value my feminine side more than I do!) But I’m learning that life is messy, we are almost never in control, and we rarely get the sense of closure on things that we’d like.
Part of me HATES all that.
Another part of me is learning not to just live with those things, but to actively embrace them. And that part of me sighs with relief to see you write about wanting to surrender TO a God/dess rather than trying to BE one.
And I think that the Beloved (as Karen has so beautifully named Her/Him/It) is so far beyond gender concerns that we can switch back and forth at will between whichever divine “face” we most want to relate to in the moment. That’s a relief, too.
Thanks for such a thought-provoking post, Heather!
I feel as though I was reading about myself, but even better because someone else feels the way I do! So I’m not some spineless creature who wants someone to carry me instead of trying to find the strength myself. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful this was for me to read…thank you so much for this!