Author: Janet

 An 18-year-old African American high school senior became a heroine of mine in July, 1996. Her name is Keshia Thomas. Keshia was part of a crowd of 300 people assembled to protest a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A man who looked like a white supremacist was spotted in the protesters midst and there was suddenly an angry mob surrounding him. The crowd started beating him, knocking him to the pavement, and Keshia, who had been one of the people who was going to verbally confront him, threw herself on top of the man to protect him Continue reading “I am a woman FIGHTING FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IN”

How many times and for how many years I have looked into the eyes of another – friends, lovers, even strangers – asking “will you love me?” Yet no one can give me what I have not given myself. I cannot replace self-love with the love of others because unless I love myself, I can’t take in the gift. That’s the paradox. I want to be loved to feel lovable, but to actually take in the love of others, Continue reading “I am a woman LOVING MYSELF”

My body, at last, I claim you! I live here! I am not some disincarnate spirit using just any vehicle to get around. I live in the full, round, soft, juicy, wet, strong, agile, capable, Spirit-filled, nurturing, graceful, flowing, comforting, lovely, smooth, dancing, singing, playing, working, praying body of a woman!

For so many years I rejected my body; judged it because it isn’t perfect according to the standards of my culture. I have been unfaithful to it, letting other’s opinions turn me against it; Continue reading “I am a woman RECLAIMING MY BODY”

Touch is sometimes abused. Some people use touch inappropriately to molest children, and this terrifies us all. Some teachers have molested young students. Some priests molest grade-school parishioners. It must stop. Of this there can be no doubt. But how?

Some communities are passing new laws designed to protect the children. Attorneys are meeting with school teachers to educate them in the new standard of acceptable behavior. It turns out that the proposed solution to the problem that some people abuse touch is to focus not the offenders, but on touch itself. The approach to the problem doesn’t ask “how can we get a better handle on these disturbed people?” or “how can we raise people who know how to use touch appropriately?” No. The solution to the problem of people who abuse touching is to stop all people from touching.

So now school teachers are told that if they are caught touching a child, they could lose their jobs. And what message is given to the child who runs to his teacher crying and is repelled? How does this boy learn about good, safe, nourishing touch; about getting support when he feels hurt or sad? Where does he get enough “good” touch so as not to grow up and seek touch in abusive ways?

Psychotherapists are afraid to offer a hug to a crying client, or even to put an arm around a shoulder when they are leaving. It has become a strictly no-touch practice. Yet, the withholding of appropriate human touch is at least as immoral as the crimes we are trying to prevent. Suffering human beings are denied the benefit of what is one of the most powerful healing tools we have – our caring and compassionate touch. If this is not immoral, what is?

The most ludicrous example of just how crazy this is getting comes from a recent conversation I had with a young psychiatrist. He has just completed studies in energy medicine and massage therapy. I asked him why he did that. Did he intend to leave medicine to do massage? “No,” he said. “But I want to be able to touch people, and to do healing work with them. Now I have a license that allows me to do that.” A physician training in energy medicine and massage so he can actually practice healing and legally touch patients – how far will this madness go? What are we thinking?

If anything should be clear it is that we are a society in need of more, not less touching; more, not less nurturing; more, not less caring. We need to be touched. Touch conveys something essential to the entire body-mind-spirit. It tells us that we matter. It tells us that we exist; that we belong; that we are not isolated strangers floating alone through time and space. Touch grounds us in the here and now; bonds us to incarnation; tells us that embodiment is gift, pleasurable, safe. Touch tells us that we are good, welcomed, deserving of time and attention. Touch lets us know that we are still alive, still here; that we haven’t slipped into some dimension between life and death. Touch comforts us, soothes us, nourishes us – literally, the skin releases a rush of chemicals when we are touched that are good for both the toucher and the touched.

Touch is the first language of woman, because it is the language of connection and relatedness. It is the language of the body; the instinctual self. Even animals do not need to be told to pick up their babies, to hold them and soothe them and rock them. As women, we must, we absolutely must, speak for touch in every forum we can. To allow our society to slip any further into this isolating, touchless, fear-based mentality can only be disastrous in the long run. Please, become a woman who is a champion of touch.

Other people can be my greatest source of freedom or the chains which I allow to ensnare me. When their ideas stimulate me to search for my own knowing; to stretch for a new comprehension of an old problem or to venture forward in my own creativity, they are a pathway to freedom. But when I allow other people’s ideas and beliefs to determine what I will allow myself to think, feel, do, be or say, then I am participating in my own imprisonment. To be and continue to become my own true self, I must tell my own truth, at least to myself, even when it isn’t politically correct or acceptable to the other people in my life. Because I want to know who I really am and what I really think and how I really feel, I am a woman telling myself the truth.

Saying Yes!

YES! YES! YES, the word of affirmation, of opening, of movement and flow; the word which means it is so. YES, giving permission, allowing unfolding, non-ambivalence and sureness – YES! Now, finally, I am saying YES! YES to all of me, all of the parts. YES to the light and loving and free parts. YES to the dark and angry and scared parts. YES to all of my feelings, the ones I like and the ones I don’t like. YES to my tenderness and loving and nurturing. Yes to my wisdom and strength and courage. YES to my fears, longings and confusions. YES to my sexuality, my passion and my responsiveness. YES to my longing to hold another; to join, to merge, to know ecstatic union. YES to my need for solitude, spiritual practice and communion with God in nature. YES to walking as woman in this world; no hiding, no shame, no apologies. I stand tall and centered on the earth, reaching my arms upward and I become YES and I say YES to the unfolding mystery of my life. I am a woman saying YES!

Saying NO! NO! Such freedom in saying NO! A tiny word, prohibited for so long, forbidden to leave the lips of a good little girl, or a sweet young woman. NO, carefully avoided as a professional on the career ladder who mustn’t be accused of not being a team player. NO withheld in intimate relationships because NO is so selfish and so, well, negative. I do not know if it is age alone which has transformed my relationship to NO, but Continue reading “I am a woman SAYING NO!”

USING MY VOICE TO CREATE CHANGE

Raising my voice, if that is what it takes to be heard, is not being a hysterical female. Declaring my anger without apology is not being a bitchy female. Allowing myself to feel my rage when I am confronted with abuses of power which reduce human beings to things, I am not being a bleeding heart. Well, actually I am being a bleeding heart, and Continue reading “I am a woman USING MY VOICE TO CREATE CHANGE”

FINDING MY VOICE

Did I first lose my voice when I learned not to cry too loud or make too much noise so I didn’t wake up daddy? Or was it when I learned that talking in church was a sin (unless it was to a priest). Was it the first time I didn’t say what was inside of me because I didn’t want to make someone mad, or was it the first time that I said what wasn’t true because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings? No matter now. Now, Continue reading “I Am A Woman Finding My Voice”

I Am a Woman Finding My Voice. I wrote this book nearly two decades ago. I’m glad it’s still in print (amazing!) because, perhaps, it has never been more relevant. Of course, I have changed and evolved since then and might choose some additions and deletions to the thoughts expressed and words written as a younger woman. Nevertheless, it is my hope that what is offered might support and affirm any and all women, but especially new generations of younger women, wherever they find themselves in the process of finding their own voices, their own truth, their own goodness and beauty, strength and wisdom.

In participation with the 2018 Women’s March and what some are calling The Year of the Woman, I will post one affirmation or reflection from the book weekly for the first quarter of year, beginning on January 20. Enjoy!