It may be the theme of the middle of winter or it could be a continual underground river of conversation that has gone un-listened to. Woman are TIRED. and I am not talking about a little lack of sleep. Women are tired all the way down to the bone. Tired of pushing, of the hustle of external success. Women are tired of making money because it never feels enough. Women are tired of doing both the 9-5 and the stay at home work.
Women are wearing their tiredness like a badge of honour. We laugh about it over tea like it is just a bit of spilt milk or something that is so common that we would all better get used to it. Women are tired of being independent. Women are tired of putting their pleasure off till after the dishes are done and the babies are tucked in. Women are tired of being lied to and lying to themselves. Women are shelving themselves still, even in the practicing baby steps of the third wave of feminism. the Tiredness is rampant like Lantana. It is getting into everything.
This is what I see happening in the women’s entrepreneur world. I don’t think women see it but I want them too see it because it as obvious as wearing your dress on inside out with the seams and tag on the outside.
A little bit of history first. The first wave of the women’s movement was about the vote… we are by far done with that first wave in many countries. Getting the right to vote started out and is still very predominantly voting for men to come into power. So as fantastic as it is to have a political voice, and it is essential that we do, the conversation is still some what in the dark ages.
Then women picketed and bra burnt our way into universities and corporate jobs. Higher education, working outside the home as well as in it and the empowerment of running our own books and getting the higher paying work, though statistics says this is still an ideology in its infancy. Equal pay is still on the wish list.
Now women have seen that the corporate model of money making is tearing us apart. Making us choose between motherhood and the values and quality of that maternal caring that rips at our collective womb, and climbing the linear rungs of the corporate ladder that does not tolerate a maternity leave of 7 years. We are fed shovelled shit that we can have it all and then we think there is something wrong with us that we don’t have it all. Trying to extradite our guilt as we drop our babies off to early day care that will take half our pay cheque anyway. When we get the all that we are supposed to aspire to, we don’t feel anything cause we are too numbed out and exhausted so we listen to our gratitude practice one more time to see if we can find the thank-full part of the equation.
You’ve seen the 50’s housewife adds where she has pearls around her neck, a billowing starched white evening frock and heals on as she smiles sugary in front of a washing machine, oven and vacuum cleaner. We cringe when we see that but she has not gone anywhere. She is still firmly in the psyche of the modern woman. We are supposed to some how enjoy the ride. There is a modern day obsession of finding and worshiping at the alter of work, life balance as though it exists like unicorns and mermaids. The eternal pursuit of a dangled carrot. Thank god for 24 hour gyms we say……………..
So women leave corporations and low paying jobs to take up the feminine model of entrepreneurship. We no longer need to work outside of school hours, we no longer need to be stuck in traffic for hours on end or get out of our yoga pants. The yoga pants that have never seen the yoga mat { side note }. We can name our own price which for many women means we charge less than we would at a job because of our inability to know the value of our work.
We create new industries thanks to the magic of internet. We create programs, products, services specifically aligned with women’s new freedoms and pay checks. All of this I love and celebrate.
But here is the dark side of the entrepreneur world for women. There is a subversive influencer in this new paradigm creation that holds us to ransom. It is this.
We are still complicit in putting out more energy than we generate
We have become the work-a-holics that we never wanted to be. We are attached to the umbilical of our computers 24/7. The world has become about NOW. About instant feedback. People can see when you read their message and wonder why you didn’t get back straight away and we believe that we are supposed to look after everyone else because it is our nature to care for others and we have systematically exploited our caring like a dairy farm cow. We are in deficit.
I see it everywhere. Women still pursuing an outdated psychology of what success looks like. It was all about the six figures a few years ago. now multi six figures is the new go for. Blame it on inflation or call it moving the goal post so there is always the pursuit of something. There is a right way and a wrong way to marketing, sales, website set up, twitter feed, value add to our clients like what we have to offer is not enough. we don’t see the irony of microwave dinners for the children as we work into the night setting up our auto responder.
This is not about you feeling guilty with the assumption that some how you should be able to work better, smarter, faster. That thinking would be feeding the wolf. It is about seeing that the psychology of old has infiltrated the new wave. Corporate mindset / Industrial mindset has gotten its claws into the feminine model of entrepreneurship.
Now we are supposed to be Hallmark entrepreneurs like we used to be Hallmark domestic goddesses. We schedule our yoga and gym like a mutherfucker because we are determined to get in some me time. We do drop off and pick up and maybe classroom reader in-between answering emails on our palm size super computers. We instagram and twitter our way through the day to collect followers like I collect shells on the beach. It is all glorious and it is all infused with the old psychology that we need to output more and more and more in order to be successful.
And so we are tired because we have forgotten that it is up to us to create the container for our life. It is up to us to say what works and does not. It is up to us to say no and to say yes and it is up to us to know when our enough is enough. We are tired because we don’t want to have to hustle all the time. We are tired because we think we are still supposed to do it all and have it all.
What is the solution to this disease ?
We need to get really honest with ourselves about what we want. What we really want. Not what we are told we should be striving for. We need to tell the truth about every aspect of our lives that is and isn’t enriching us, working for us. We need to dismantle that which does not serve us and build a new way of thinking outside the bloody box that some mythological creature put there as an existential joke. We need to think beyond the established ideas of even this new wave that is being commoditised, current trend mind set, psychology hyperbole of upleveling our thinking, upleveling our business and our handbag. We don’t need to up level anything. Much of our thinking is so industrial revolution about production and output that we would be better off taking a wrecking ball to it and bringing that upleveling to the ground.
What would you pick up from the ruins?
What would you take on with you?
Would you just take up where you left off?
Would you start a fresh, a new?
Would you move at a different pace?
Would you listen to yourself more, honour yourself more, tell the truth more often?
Would you walk away?
You see your enoughness is enough. The sustainability of the planet relies on us not over extending or expending our energy, natural resources. The sustainability of our bodies require rest, movement and nutrients. The sustainability of our life is to ability to ride the wave, not get wiped out by it. The sustainability of our soul is in investing some of our energy back into savings as a long term inner wealth creation strategy. Our life force is the most precious resource on the planet.
The Dalai Lama said
” The world will be saved by the western woman ”
and I want to add,
“as long as she doesn’t dig herself into the dirt first.”
Om Shanti
Lotus Indigo Shakti Kruse
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