I am a thinker. I don’t run on emotion. I don’t like compliments. I only cry when really angry, disrespected or hit by a moving vehicle. My husband, on the other hand, cries at heart-tugging commercials, movie endings and other things I rarely understand (more on that later).
They say opposites attract. If you are familiar with Myers-Briggs Personality Tests, I am an INTJ (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinker, Judger), my husband is ESFP (Extrovert, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving) = Opposites. We’ve also taken the Enneagram, the DISC profile and a host of other personality clarifiers over the course of our relationship. Though admittedly, on the last DISC profile, I came out as “Undefinable”. I didn’t cry about that.
This week’s words are written to the women who read them. However, for you men, read on. They are also written to help give you a glimpse into the mind of a women. A woman’s mind is a very complex organism, and yet not complicated to explain. A woman thinks about everything, all the time. That’s it.
We think about love and hate; our significant others and children; other family, near and far, dead and alive; politics; the weather; food; insurance; money; gardening; art; crafts; attitudes about everything; books; religion; our neighbors and us as neighbors; health; furniture; clothing; our weight and our looks; dogs, cats, and other animals; abundance and scarcity; God and the universe; the future, the present and the past; our negative and positive traits, and most of all, our “to do” list. We are constantly rearranging that dang thing.
A woman’s mind is like having four thousand six hundred and twenty-four different windows open on your computer at the same time. Being a woman is hard; you always want to buy something, slap someone, lose weight, and eat something sweet.
On top of that in today’s society, women are supposed to be strong, self-reliant and independent, but if you’re a Christian submissive. In my mother’s time, women were expected to rely on “their man.” But that all changed in the 1960-70’s, when women were supposed to be equal to men, just as strong, smart, capable, independent, hard-working, etc. etc.
Women utilize nine areas of the brain that control emotion. Women also secrete more serotonin and oxytocin than men do. Serotonin is a calming hormone, and oxytocin is a bonding hormone. Oxytocin links the brain’s verbal centers and helps people under stress kick into a nurturing mode, rather than a fight or flight mode.
While boys have one narrative drilled into them (more later), girls have drummed into their heads to be polite, sharing, caring, and cooperative, not to mention cute, thin, coordinated, if possible, blond with a 22-inch waist. Girls learn — through actions if not words — that their opinions don’t carry the same weight as the opinions of males. Even in today’s modern classrooms, in a profession dominated by women, teachers call on boys three times as frequently. It spills over into all walks of life. With all the progress and all the change (think of the #MeToo movement), have things really changed THAT much?
And, we still excuse disruptive male behavior (young and old) with a “boys will be boys” attitude.
I want to say that through all the growing pains of the last 4 or 5 decades, that much-needed change is coming for both genders, but I’m not certain. In some cases, yes. In some, not so much.
Because women are stereotyped as more emotional, we expect more emotional reactions from them and are less likely to react to their displays of emotion. “She just gets that way.” Many, people tend to validate men’s emotional reactions — and see them as more legitimate — because they are stereotypically more rare.
Yet, here is a weird contradiction: women are told to be strong.
Yet, God wired women to seek love.
Women constantly fight this internal, even subconscious battle. If I am too strong, too self-reliant, too independent, will I find love? And, if I do, can I sustain love?
Have you been there?
“Strong” is not some measure of our physical strength or being “tough.” True strength and courage comes from allowing ourselves to be open and vulnerable, reaching out for help or joining forces with others. We fail, fall down, get back up, go again. Best with the support of another. No one goes into battle by themselves. That’s suicide.
When we look at where we are in today’s world, we all could use courage, hope, and resilience to deal with whatever we are facing in our lives, plus the inspiration to work together and support each other as we do the urgent and necessary work toward creating a better world.
Maya Angelou, Poet, Writer, Civil Rights Activist is quoted as saying, “I would encourage us to try our best to develop courage. It’s the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can be anything erratically—kind, fair, true, generous, all that. But to be that thing time after time, you need courage.”
Loung Ung, Author, Activist, Public Speaker, Screenplay Writer said, “I think right now it takes courage to live a life of hope.”
I think a lot, maybe not all, but a lot of women run on an internal fear. Women are born with this need to seek love. It takes a long time to realize that the mortal men in our lives won’t fulfill that love.
Women require: Security, Affection, Significance, Conversation.
We’ve been conditioned to think that the man in our life brings all those things. Knight in Shining Armor and all that. By now, we all know that’s not so true.
Growing up without a father, my “images” of my future husband were definitely hero-like. It was a hard awakening when I realized he had failings and fallacies. It was even a harder awakening to acknowledge that he would never complete me, fill that hole in my heart or make me feel secure in this complex world.
Easy enough (she says sarcastically), discard him, and wait for another.
It wasn’t until I met and fell in love with (that is still a hard concept) God, that I realized my heart was full and I felt secure in His grasp.
And that is when I met my husband. (more on a later blog)
We can be positive in life,
Or we can be bitter.
I’ve done both.
Bitter is exhausting. Anger might have kept my body going, but without love, the soul would have just slowly crumbled and burned.
Here’s one thing that I worry about: women are not willing to make mistakes. We’re very nervous about making a wrong move and we worry that if we make the wrong move, then the consequences will mean that we may never recover from them. We may even lose love. It’s okay—in fact, it’s better than okay—to make mistakes, really big mistakes. So, I would want to say to young women, ‘We need just a little bit of courage to make mistakes, because that strikes me as where all the good stuff happens.’
I always go back to my mother’s advice to me when I’d fall and hurt myself. She said to me, ‘At least falling on your face is forward movement.’ And that came back to me many times as I failed to get the job or failed to do things perfectly or crashed and burned in yet one more love relationship. You have to be willing to be brave enough to risk falling on your face, to risk failing. Everything we do is about taking risks, so fail forward.
Katharine Hepburn once said, ‘I’ve learned more from my failures.’ Somebody else said, ‘God doesn’t look for awards and accolades. God looks for wounds and scars.’
Most of us are wounded. I would wager that every single person carries wounds. And it’s through those wounds that we can blossom.
One life truth I have learned that I most often share with young women is: women need women. Find your tribe.
Men are not women. They will never understand our ability to overtalk each other, get excited about yarn, shop yet again, talk for hours about nothing and so much more …
“Sisters: talk to each other, be connected and informed, form women’s circles, share your stories, work together, and take risks. Together we are invincible.” Isabel Allende, Novelist, Feminist, Founder of the Isabel Allende Foundation
Creating community with other women, where we can share our stories and people can recognize that they’re not alone, is absolutely essential in life. You can cultivate courage on your own, but a lot of courage happens through connection and relationship with others. For me, it’s been incredibly inspiring to bear witness to women who, sometimes against all odds, rise above their life situation. At the end of the day, all of us need other people to inspire us and give us strength.
It’s all about the magical and beautiful friendships with fierce women who would do anything for you! It’s a celebration of the joy and laughter that only best girlfriends can bring into your life!
Sarah Michelle Gellar said it best: “The best friendships, are fierce lady friendships, where you aggressively believe in each other, defend each other, and think the other deserves the world”
“There’s a saying that says, ‘To thine own self be true.’ I really think there’s so much more to that than meets the ear or meets the eye. I just think you really have to know who you are—come to terms with that, accept that and love that, and understand your talents, what your gifts may be, and how to develop them. If you’re comfortable with yourself and know yourself, you’re going to shine and radiate and other people are going to be drawn to you.” Dolly Parton – Singer-songwriter, Founder of the Dollywood Foundation and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
And, remember, God sees you. He knows where we are and the burdens we carry. He sees us, and if we open our eyes and our hearts we will see Him, even in the most ordinary places and in the most ordinary things.
He lives. And he’s using a time such as this to speak to women around the world.
Don’t worry men. You’re next!
Deb Bostwick
Singles Blogger