Being a woman

Lately I have been reading current writings on the topic of sex & gender. In our society this has been a topic of great tension and upheaval over the past decade, and of late I have been nearly obsessed with the topic, wanting to figure out my place within it and how to relate to others about it. In the midst of my reading I felt moved to reflect on my sense of myself as a woman. Below are some raw reflections. I understand that the concepts of sex and gender, of female/girl/woman and male/boy/man, are currently in flux and that in my writing I am not precise about what I mean by these terms. Also, I am certain it is cissexual-centric.

What I have liked about being female

Not having had to worry about being conscripted into military service

Physical flexibility
Loving babies and small children (this love correlates with being female)

Greater access to babies and children; not being treated with suspicion.

Not being seen as a physical threat by others.

For the most part, I have been comfortable with the femaleness of my body. It has not bothered me on any visceral level. It has only bothered me to the extent that it has created secondary problems for me such as being weak, the target of sexual attention, and menstruating. I do not experience aversion regarding my breasts or vulva.

Being less subject to childhood bullying.

The ability to multitask (didn't realize this was sex-linked until recently).

Wearing dresses/skirts sometimes

Feeling free to explore same-sex romance without fear of the violence that gay men are subject to.

The intimacy and relaxation I can feel in the company of other women ... to some extent. But not sure what it would be like to be male & in the company of men, possibly similarly satisfying. And so much of this depends on personality, not just sex/gender.

Not having to live up to high expectations regarding being a provider, being a sexual performer, or being physically capable. But, again, were I actually male, perhaps these expectations would feel like an invigorating challenge.

Fashion, to an extent. But, again, were I actually male, maybe I wouldn't care about fashion.

What I have disliked about being female

Not relating to other little girls, seeing them as silly and stupid, but also not feeling drawn to rough and tumble play with boys

Bleeding from between my legs a lot of of the time for 40 years

Being physically weak and therefore less capable. Needing to use tools designed for the typical man, making me even less effectual.

Feeling vulnerable in response to the attentions of straight boys/men, whether that be catcalls or respectful expressions of romantic interest or anything in between.

Feeling vulnerable and afraid when walking alone at night in the city, or hiking alone on a trail, or the like.

Likely, less intellectual capacity due to my sex

Likely having had less success in my career due to the male domination of my field and male domination in general. Being talked down to by men in my career. Having my thinking less respected by my dad than my brother's thinking.

My difficulties with sexual relating (I believe these are partly attributable to my sex). Experiencing sex as a duty and a chore.

Being exploited by salesmen, repairmen, and auto mechanics.

Constant comments from well meaning people of every age, political persuasion, sex/gender, and walk of life about my appearance: whether I'm pretty, how my hair looks, and (now) how young I look.

Expectations that I will provide hospitality

The need to do my hair and makeup for weddings and other formal occasions

Younger people (including Z & E) projecting the role of mother onto me and therefore seeing me as bossy & controlling and as someone who will do the housework.

I'm of mixed mind about "woman talk". There are things I like about it and things that repulse me about it. I think I've adapted so it's hard to remember what repulsed me.

Ways in which I am not a typical female

Love math, logic, science

Not hyper-vigilant about children's safety

Comfortable spending little time/attention on fashion, hair, nails, makeup

If I were given $1 million to live the rest of my life as male, would I? Definitely! In Whipping Girl, Julie Serano states that when she asks audiences this question, only a few "wise guys" say they would. She believes that cisgender people are attached to living their lives in accordance with their sex. But I'm not. Am I really that unusual?

My long list of things I don't like about being female -- were I of a younger generation, would these things seamlessly slide me into a trans identification of some variety? Do young women who are intentionally identifying as cis females (such as K's friend G) also have this list of things they don't like? Is intentionally identifying as cis simply not being hugely uncomfortable with the things I have listed, or is there something positive about it (such as, "in my core I feel that I am female" or something)?

Continuing exploration of morning dread

I have been continuing the morning inner work that I wrote about in my last post, several weeks ago. I have discovered some new things.

Despair around a seeming stall in progress
During one session, shortly after my previous post, I felt that I just could not concentrate. Despair arose. This seemed like many other times when I'd tried something new, seemingly made delightful progress, then inexplicably lost the new ability and/or lost the delight. For example, when I was partner dancing in the 1990s I repeatedly would find a partner I resonated with, then, after several evenings, would find that the partner really irritated me. When practicing samadhi meditation intensively, at first I seem to go deep and experience joy, but this is hindered by physical tension after a day or two, even though when I first learned this type of meditation ten years ago I practiced intensively for well over a week and went deeply enough to experience jhana. Finally, also around ten years ago I discovered some instructions in The Anatomy of Yoga that allowed me to easily bend over and grasp my toes, straight-legged, when I hadn't been able to for decades. This seemed magical and I showed off to my physical therapist. The instructions worked for several weeks or months, but then they didn't work anymore, and they still don't work. I can just barely touch my toes, but cannot grasp them.

So despair set in regarding my morning exploration. After some time it occurred to me to be with the despair. This was really hard to do! It seemed 10x as difficult to be with the despair than it had been to be with the initial thoughts and sensations. After a day or two, however, the despair dissipated, and I was once again able to hold my attention on the initial thoughts and sensations.

It only occurs to me now that this is a tremendous success! I only barely noticed it at the time, I think because I have a deeply rooted habit of dismissing success. When the despair arrived, I was quite sure that the ability to explore thoughts and sensations had been lost, if not forever, then at least for some years.

Somewhat of a tangent, but closely related: this morning my initial guide from Liberation Unleashed, Christiane Michelberger, posted a video wherein she gave advice for people who feel they are stalled in the process of awakening (me!) and who have a mental habit of not recognizing personal success (me!). She advised developing a new habit of recognizing success, including small successes such as getting out of bed in the morning. I've been doing this today.

Sadness, anger
I have found that often, beneath the initial layer of thought ("this is a waste of time" "I don't know what I'm doing") there is sadness and/or anger. These typically arise for only a second or two. The sadness manifests as sensation in the throat and chest. The anger manifests as tingling in the right arm and side of the torso, as though I am preparing to fight someone. Both emotions are seen as unacceptable. Thoughts arise that I must not allow others, including my partners E and Z (who are typically in bed beside me), to know that I am experiencing these emotions, and that I must keep my attention on others to be sure they are not reacting badly.

Fear of having been wrong
Over the past several days I have sometimes reached a place where I discover a great fear of adopting a new point of view, because I am afraid of knowing that my old point of view was wrong. When I explore this, I see that the fear is great, seemingly almost untouchable. The idea that my current point of view could be wrong seems just awful. To admit having been wrong seems like death.

Further work with the morning dread

I've mentioned, I think, in several previous posts, the dread I feel upon waking up in the morning, pretty much every single day. When I wake up, the mind tends strongly toward seeking things to be afraid of and problems to be addressed. I've discovered that behind these thoughts are a set of sensations.

Lately I've tried keeping attention on the sensations. I'd tried that many times before, and observed that it was hard to keep attention on the sensations, that the mind was still active. I'd previously thought that this was because the posture of lying down made it difficult to focus attention. I've been trying harder lately, though, and looking more closely at what's going on. And this is what I've been seeing lately: that when attention is on these sensations, there is a sense of being lost, of not knowing who I am or why I am doing this practice. And every 1/2 second or so, one of the following thoughts arises: I don't know what I'm doing. This is dangerous. There is nothing here. I should be doing something or thinking about something. These are familiar thoughts from other contexts, but they arise much more strongly and convincingly when I am lying in bed right after waking up.

The sense of being lost, in a void, when attention is on sensation, is extremely compelling. It's as though the mind turns to thought as an anchor. While in the thought world, I coach myself: "go back to sensation. Staying in the thought world is a dead end. Strengthen the neural pathways that allow you to be with sensation. It is safe to be there; there is nothing else you need to do right now. True, no authority is guiding you to do this practice, but remember, part of your particular path is to rely on your own authority. And your own authority is guiding you to do this. Remember what Maitri said: that for Enneatype 6, the utmost courage is required to live an authentic life and to meet one's true self. This is what courage looks like: to return again and again, every 1/2 second, to sensation." A subset of these self-coaching thoughts occurs over the time span of a fraction of a second, then attention is returned to sensation.

The sensations are not unpleasant! They are not painful. They are the sensations I've written about frequently in this blog: tingling and aliveness in the right side of the body; the releasing of tension in the right jaw; tingling in the right arm accompanied by images of pushing or punching with that arm; quiverings in the throat accompanied by the word, "Mommy"; slight nausea. Sometimes I coach myself by saying, "You are an explorer in a terrifying, unfamiliar world. Keep looking. You don't yet have a framework for this world and so you feel uneasy. Keep trying."

Beyond reproach

Today I had a mind clearing session. We examined my strategy of trying to live life in a way that is beyond reproach. The clearer asked me, "what are you trying to communicate to others by living in this way?"

I had never asked myself that before. I had looked at the source of the strategy, the early hurts. And I had looked at the benefits I receive from the strategy. But I had never looked at what I am trying to communicate.

I'm going to try to answer this question freshly now in this blog.

I am trying to communicate, "Please don't hurt me. I can't take any more hurt. Please just leave me alone."

And behind that is, Honestly I don't give a fuck about anybody or anything. All this social justice crap, it's just a facade. I have the utmost contempt for people who are benefiting from my so-called social justice work. I'm just trying to avoid criticism from the stupid, ignorant, crazy so-called progressive people I happen to live among. C'mon, give me a break. I really don't care and I really despise all those people! But I just cannot have people criticize me for not taking action. I just can't! I. JUST. CAN'T. And I'll do anything to avoid it. Please people, just leave me alone. You have no idea the pain I suffer when I'm criticized. I just can't stand it and I'm not going to have it anymore. I used to be carefree and naive and innocent. I didn't care about anybody but I also didn't try to hurt anybody either. I was just being myself, I was just living, I was just being, I was just enjoying this life. And then I was SMASHED. Right out of the blue. Holy cow, I'm never going to just innocently go about my business again. The world is fucking horrible, if that can happen. But you know, I know you won't give a fuck about me, because why should you? Your life is so much harder than mine right now and I won't deny that. Nobody ever believed that it hurt so much to be smashed, and if they did believe me, who cares, what good would it do? Here I am, I have two houses, I have excellent health, I have two amazing partners who are younger than me and one of them is rich, and my father is going to leave me a lot of real estate. I live in a safe city in a safe country and I'm treated like a white person. I'm super smart and I can get a job whenever I want and I know how to navigate the system. I'm hella privileged. So nobody is going to give me any sympathy. But even if I weren't privileged nobody would give me sympathy because there's no real sympathy to be had in this world. So please just leave me alone. Nobody believed me back then, nobody helped me, and nobody is going to believe me or help me now. Who has the capacity? This world is so deficient and I can't wait to leave it and finally rest. I'm one of the richest people in the world and I hardly have any capacity to help others myself. Yes, I was smashed. Boom, out of the sky. Taken away from my innocent play and isolated in my room. Nobody believed me when I said, I didn't know! I didn't know! I had no idea! I didn't know I was doing anything wrong! Nobody will believe me, nobody will even listen to me!

Dialogs with Mom as an antidote to shame

Three weeks ago I was feeling strong shame about ... something. Somebody said something to me ... oh yes. It was feedback that C had given me in my volunteer job at Aegis. I had used the telephone together with an agitated resident, and C emailed that maybe the telephone had worsened the agitation and the head nurse asked that I never use the telephone again. I felt terrible and was about to reply with a compliant apology, but I stopped myself to try to work through my shame first.

I had tried reparenting myself in situations like this before. Allowing the inner child to speak, listening, responding. I ultimately reach back to a preverbal memory of being utterly abandoned in response to innocent behavior. The child says, "I know I am bad. Otherwise, why would they have abandoned me? How could they have done that to me unless I'm bad?" The child cannot fathom that those who loved her best and were responsible for her well being could possibly abandon her unless something was terribly wrong with her. Or rather, being so abandoned seems to the child the very definition of being bad.

And when I do this kind of inner work, the so-called adult Terry cannot find anything to say that reassures the child. "You are OK" ... "that was back then when you couldn't take care of yourself but now together we can handle things" ... none of these invocations provides substantial reassurance.

But after the email from C, I tried something different. I had just been learning, through experience, the power of deep apology. I had seen deep apology work in my relationship with Z, when Z feels shame and anger about some small slight. Though I knew the slight was small, I apologized profusely and expressed deep regret for my failing. And this meant something to Z. And then I reflected on times when others had done that for me. When Gil Fronsdal apologized for not getting me when I had hesitatingly and vaguely reached out to him for spiritual support while I was experiencing the fourth nana after my 2011 retreat (he apologized when I told him about it during a 2012 retreat). When V apologized to me in the late 1990's for having lashed out at me in a letter or email some months previous.

So after C's email, I imagined my mother apologizing profusely for her early abandonment. And I think in this it is easier that she is now dead. I imagined my 33 year old mother, young and beautiful and magically now fully wise and all-seeing, sitting by my side and saying, "Terry, dear Terry ... you did absolutely nothing wrong. My lashing out to you, my leaving you, had nothing to do with what you did or who you are. As I told you that time when you were in your 20's and asked me if I thought there was something wrong with you: there is nothing wrong with you. How could there be something wrong with you? You are my beautiful Theresa, my first-born! So perfect! I am so, so very sorry for what I did. If I could do anything to erase the hurt that I caused, I would. I did not intend to hurt you. I was hurting myself and I didn't know anything better to do. Please believe me. You are good. You are perfect. Your self-expression, your exuberance, your curiosity, your playfulness, your big loud beautiful voice ... your intelligence ... your love and compassion ... if only you knew how much I admired all of these things! If only I could have provided gentle steering, gentle guidance, instead of shaming you! Terry, please believe me. You are 100% OK. Going forward, we will face life together. I will be your ally. I will remind you of your goodness. We will put our heads together and you will gradually believe in your own goodness. And your belief in your own goodness is the best gift you can give to the world."

And this dialog eased my shame a great deal.

A day or two later, I again felt shame regarding something somebody said to me. I used this again, and again it worked. This second time, I also had to struggle with a familiar internal voice that said, "it may have worked last time, but it is not going to work again!" I've had long experience with this voice and I tried to forge ahead anyway, and I did, and I was glad.

Finally, just this evening, I conversed with Mom again in this way, in response to deep feelings of shame around a difficult problem I am currently facing. It was really difficult to persevere against the voice saying "it's not going to work again, it's stupid and possibly even harmful to keep trying!" I had to muster the utmost faith and courage to keep going, especially since at first the whole exercise seems so artificial and dry. But I did keep going, and again it brought me solace.

Very, very sweet that Mom can now help me in this way. I am more and more believing that she loved me deeply.

Insight at the bathroom scale

This morning I stepped on the scale, as I've done every morning for the past 18 months. See, 18 months ago I began working with a wellness coach with the goal of losing 10.5 pounds and getting back to the weight I had considered good enough in my mid-40s. Over the course of five months I did lose the weight, plus an additional 4 pounds, and I've been weighing myself daily ever since as part of an effort to keep the weight off. My weight has been pretty stable, although I did gain back 1.5 pounds this past winter.

I stepped on the scale and saw that the number was on the lighter side compared to the past week, and felt happy. I then looked in the mirror and saw that the shape of my body was pleasing: flattish belly, square shoulders, smooth contours. I then noticed a subtle mental movement, which, if I put words to it, would say, "OK, I can't pin my sense of dissatisfaction with myself on the shape of my body this morning. I have to find something else to pin it on." The mind then became restless, searching for some other flaw or problem to worry over.

I'd noticed this kind of thing before, but today it struck me: our anger at society for making demands that our bodies look a certain way is a bit misplaced. Yes, society does make these demands, and as a result, most women (and many men) suffer from chronic dissatisfaction with our bodies and relentless preoccupation with making our bodies look a certain way. But the root cause of all of this is a generic self-dissatisfaction that will never be uprooted by societal changes. It can only be uprooted by inner transformation.

"I'm wrong" at the core of my current identity

A thought that plagues me every moment that I'm not either asleep or fully engaged in something is, "I'm doing the wrong thing". I've been countering that with the affirmation, "Everything I do and choose is motivated by self-love and inspired by inner wisdom." Today, though, I want to take a closer look at the notion that I may be doing the wrong thing. As I write this, a bit of resistance arises.

What is the rationale behind, "I'm doing the wrong thing"?

Well, the thought arises when I'm experiencing a contraction in the right side of my face, neck, and torso. This contraction is interpreted as, "I'm wrong, I need to be fixed."

If I am wrong and need to be fixed, then clearly, whatever I'm doing in the moment hasn't fixed me (yet).

What should I be doing? There is a fantasy that I could and should be doing every good thing. I should be healing the world, learning all the knowledge, creating all the beautiful things. As long as there is any suffering in the world, any imperfection, then I am at fault for not having fixed it. I need to fix those things and feel happy while doing so. If I'm trying to fix things, trying to do good in the world, and feeling unhappy (as has at times been the case for me) then that is also a problem that needs to be fixed.

So basically, unless I am a super super human, way way way beyond the abilities of any human who has ever lived on the planet -- I need to be fixed. Ha Ha Ha!

OK, so there are various ways I can approach this. I could see the contraction in the right face/neck/torso as just interesting sensation ... it can even be seen as pleasurable. But when I do so, a deeper fear arises ... I think it is the fear of aloneness, of not knowing who I am.

So "I'm wrong" and "I'm doing the wrong thing" are core pieces of my identity, and they will arise until I become more identified with, more at ease with, what's underneath.