THE DARKNESS IS NOT OUR DESTINY
Guest Post by Barbara Sinor, PhD
Why do we beat ourselves up so much these days? As I talk with women of all ages, the most positive thing many have to say is, “I guess it’s okay for me to find happiness.” Women today seem to have no guts. I mean there are lots of women today trying to “do it all” by being a wife, mother, and working a forty hour week; but I am talking about the way women always seem to be trying too hard to please someone, but not themselves.
When I was growing up way back in the fifties and sixties, women were suppose to be wives and mothers, no more no less. It was expected to go from high school to marriage to motherhood. It all seemed so simple, your life was all planned by the time you got engaged in senior year! Then came the darkness shrouding the twenties, thirties, maybe even throughout many women of this generation’s whole life. If a woman in her thirties was lucky to “wake-up” and begin to live her own path toward happiness, to find her Light, she was one of the lucky ones to be sure.
Alan Cohen author of Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It wrote an article about dispelling the darkness that keeps so many young women wrapped in depression, non-workable relationships, trapped employment, and feelings of being less-than.
He shares, “…the darkness is not our destiny. No matter how thick your dossier of what has gone wrong, you can start a new dossier now. All it takes is one person who is willing to see your higher possibilities. And if no one out there is doing that, let that one person be you. Quit identifying with your difficulties, finding justifications for them, and arguing for them. Become a force for your own potential. Shift your attention to what is going right and how great it could be.”
I like this plan for life. It is time for women, young and older, to take a stand for themselves as whole human beings, whether in a relationship or not. Seek deep within to find that spark of joy, of inspiration, which will guide you toward all you can be. The first step may seem gigantic but the next ones get smaller until your journey of self-discovery unravels by itself. Looking back on my decades of living, it is easy for me to see how one decision followed the next, one more easily than the last to uncover my life’s direction and happiness.
If each woman had one person, one trusted confidant, in which to share her struggles, pain, happiness, and joy, there would far less silently waiting for that something better, that greener side of the fence to suddenly appear in view. I was very fortunate to have several of these trusted confidants in which to confide… and they have made all the difference in the directions I have walked on my spiritual journey.
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ABOUT DR. SINOR:
*Barbara Sinor, Ph.D. is a semi-retired psychospriitual therapist and the author of five books. Visit her web site for information: http://www.drsinor.com/ Dr. Sinor’s newest books: Addiction: What’s Really Going On? (July 2009) and Tales of Addiction and Inspiration for Recovery (to be released 2010).
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