Today, on International Women’s Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about this Chinese proverb and what it means to me and to women generally. I chose the image above because the range of mountains in the background looks like a woman sleeping on her back.
“When sleeping women wake, mountains will move.”
There seems to be so much that has happened to women over the last 3000 plus years that has put us into a state of fear about what we truly are and what we bring to the world. We have been lulled into a state of sleep for self protection and to protect those we love.
When I think about my own life, and where I have been sleeping, I consider how I have given the power of my own discernment away so many times. Whether it was to my parents, my teachers, my boss - who were all doing their best with their advice or opinion, but I often followed it rather than my own inner guidance. Or to the marketing I fell under the spell of. That face cream that promised so much and smelled so lovely, or the ‘guru’ promising me that if I just followed their 7 secrets to X, I could have riches beyond my expectations and clients beating a path to my door.
I’m sure we have all experienced at time where we succumbed to a promise or to an opinion or to advice because we were asleep to our own instinct or insight or desires, or we felt that other path had more validity than our own inner knowing. In short, we did not trust our knowingness.
For me, that proverb tells me to wake up to all that I am, all that I can be, all that I will be. To claim my own authority, sovereignty, agency. To listen to the inner voice that guides me. Sure be open minded to the opinions and advice of others - but discern what is right for me from the voice or sensation within. The one that is deeply embodied not the chattering mind that is pulled here, there and everywhere.
Every woman hears that inner voice, knows that inner authority, feels that sensation of ‘this is right for me, this is not’. Yet we tune it out for a million reasons. So this is what I would like to bring to you this day of celebrating womanhood. Where are you sleeping? What do you need to awaken to? What mountain could you move if you were fully awake to yourself?
When we stand in our own truth and our own authority, and we trust our inner compass, we send a ripple out into the web of life. If today, you do that and I do that and we encourage every woman we know to do that, then together we might just be able to move a few mountains too.
Wishing you an empowered International Women’s Day.
Ooh, I feel like I've come to the right place! :) I love that the name of your Substack is even "Gathering Our Bones." It's been a process for me coming out of a high-demand patriarchal religion to learn to rely on my inner authority, but I'm getting better at it all the time!
I love this so much!