March 03, 2022
Are you glad to be a woman?
Hi everyone, Catherine here. This month we celebrate Women's History Month and I have a question for you:
Are you glad to be a woman?
I was raised in a culture where women were taught to be subservient, self-sacrifice, and defer to the male head of the family so it has required a lot of healing work to find my voice and take a stand for issues such as women’s rights and feminism.
What’s become really clear to me is how much pain, trauma, and heartbreak women have carried through the generations, never to be resolved in a lifetime.
We are at a tipping point where so many of us are doing the healing work that our foremothers never had the understanding or the opportunity to undertake.
I never got to meet any of my grandmothers growing up and honestly, seldom gave much thought to this. It was only when I had children that I became witness to the beauty of unconditional grandparental love - and realized what I’d missed.
Lately I have been feeling a lot of sadness around the fact that my oldest son is going to leave for university in September. I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. But what’s even more striking to me is that my son is the same age as my father was when he fled North Korea at the age of 17 and left his whole family behind - never to see them again.
I always knew that this was a huge heartbreak for my father while I was growing up but it only recently occurred to me what my grandmother’s anguish must have been, having died without knowing what came of her firstborn son.
And as I prepare to let my son go off into the world find his own way and seek his own purpose, it strikes me how privileged I am to have had the opportunity to get ready, something that my grandmother never got a chance to do.
Through the years of meditation and healing work that I have done, what is emerging is the understanding that as I resolve the trauma of the past and make peace within myself, I create a ripple effect of healing that carries into the past, present, and future.
I personally consider it my duty to do this work, and the only real way that I can free my daughter from the burdens of the past.
This is hard work and requires courage, surrender, and faith. Sometimes it feels too hard. But I have learned that when we women lean on each other and lean into ourselves, the strength we can draw from is fierce and limitless, just like us.
While there is still so far to go, it's an exciting time to be a woman, and I stand in solidarity for our empowerment.
Are you glad to be a woman?
I was raised in a culture where women were taught to be subservient, self-sacrifice, and defer to the male head of the family so it has required a lot of healing work to find my voice and take a stand for issues such as women’s rights and feminism.
What’s become really clear to me is how much pain, trauma, and heartbreak women have carried through the generations, never to be resolved in a lifetime.
We are at a tipping point where so many of us are doing the healing work that our foremothers never had the understanding or the opportunity to undertake.
I never got to meet any of my grandmothers growing up and honestly, seldom gave much thought to this. It was only when I had children that I became witness to the beauty of unconditional grandparental love - and realized what I’d missed.
Lately I have been feeling a lot of sadness around the fact that my oldest son is going to leave for university in September. I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. But what’s even more striking to me is that my son is the same age as my father was when he fled North Korea at the age of 17 and left his whole family behind - never to see them again.
I always knew that this was a huge heartbreak for my father while I was growing up but it only recently occurred to me what my grandmother’s anguish must have been, having died without knowing what came of her firstborn son.
And as I prepare to let my son go off into the world find his own way and seek his own purpose, it strikes me how privileged I am to have had the opportunity to get ready, something that my grandmother never got a chance to do.
Through the years of meditation and healing work that I have done, what is emerging is the understanding that as I resolve the trauma of the past and make peace within myself, I create a ripple effect of healing that carries into the past, present, and future.
I personally consider it my duty to do this work, and the only real way that I can free my daughter from the burdens of the past.
This is hard work and requires courage, surrender, and faith. Sometimes it feels too hard. But I have learned that when we women lean on each other and lean into ourselves, the strength we can draw from is fierce and limitless, just like us.
While there is still so far to go, it's an exciting time to be a woman, and I stand in solidarity for our empowerment.
1 comment
Hi Catherine,
I received today my lunch poche and I love it. Thank you so much for this beautiful product. Thank you also for the testimony that you shared. I am 54 and I am on my own journey of healing and self-acceptance. Like you, I am learning to unlearn the beliefs of lack and unworthiness. Your example gives me hope. I still don’t know what I can bring to the world but I know I want to become the very best version of myself. Thank you again, Sabine.
Sabine Arame
June 09, 2023