the goal isn’t to conquer each other

As men and women, we are the same but different.

We are different but equal.

Let’s celebrate difference, between the genders and among the genders. Let’s meet difference with curiosity, not judgment. With tolerance, openness, and a sense of (fair) play.

The goal isn’t to conquer each other, but to find wholeness.

And joy.

Healing – and we all need it – comes through sharing our true stories in our true voices. It comes through bearing witness.

We need to learn our stories, know our stories, and tell them.

We also need to listen — truly listen — to each other. To set our defenses aside and search for the truth in what the other is saying. What we search for is what we tend to find.

We co-create each other.

We need to embrace both the masculine and feminine principles in ourselves. As a culture we are taught to scapegoat the feminine and cast it low: boys and men because it is weak, girls and women because it is bad. Jung associates soul with the feminine (and spirit with the masculine). Restore the feminine to a healthy place in the culture, and you bring back soul.

Soul is embodied in flesh and blood, in body. To meet with the truth of your soul is to accept and love your body, from the top of your imperfect head to the bottom of your imperfect feet.

To lean into the voice of your soul is to listen to the wisdom of your body. We used to dismiss this kind of knowing as women’s intuition. Now we know that neural intelligence exists in the heart and gut as well as the brain.

Hunches, gut feelings, images, symbols, dreams: this is the language of your nonverbal intelligence. This is the music of your soul.

Life doesn’t move in a straight line. It has a way of circling back, so you can pick up what you missed before. It is organic and makes itself up as it goes along. It is inherently creative. We are inherently creative.

When you lean into your soulvoice, you learn the expression that your soul needs to take. It compels you. Nurture it, honor it, and it will also compel others.

We are constantly creating ourselves: through every choice and decision, every small or large action, we carve out a life.

We stamp the planet with our collective soulprint.

The planet will go on, in some altered form, no matter what we do to it. We, however, might not.

Love or die: these are the options.

Love is better.

photo credit: ginnerobot via photopin cc