Women Wounding Women... and Women Healing Women: My Forty- Fifth Letter.
Hello, My Beautiful and Smart Readers,
Growing up, I always believed women would naturally understand one another.
Maybe it was because we shared similar expectations. Maybe it was because I believed that women, having experienced their own struggles, would instinctively know how to make life a little gentler for the next woman.
Life taught me something more complicated.
Some of my deepest disappointments came through relationships with women.
Family. Relatives. Teachers. Friendships.
Not because women are against women. Not because women are unkind by nature.
Simply because we are all capable of passing on what we have known.
In many cultures, including my own, certain stories seem to recur.
A daughter becomes a daughter-in-law. A daughter-in-law becomes a mother-in-law.
The young woman who once longed to be understood eventually finds herself in a position where she can offer that same understanding to someone else.
Sometimes she does. Sometimes she doesn't.
I don't believe this happens because women are cruel.
I believe many women were never allowed to heal from what they experienced themselves.
Expectations become traditions. Traditions become habits.
Habits become generational patterns.
And before anyone realizes it, pain is passed down instead of compassion.
My experiences come from my own cultural background, but I know these stories are not unique to one community. Every culture has expectations. Every family has patterns. Every generation decides what will continue and what will end.
But here's what life also taught me.
Women are capable of incredible healing.
A teacher who believes in a child. A counselor who listens without judgment.
A doctor who takes your concerns seriously. A sister who simply sits beside you.
A friend who reminds you that you're not alone.
Sometimes healing doesn't arrive through grand gestures.
Sometimes it arrives through one simple sentence:
Acknowledgement has a way of softening wounds that advice never could.
I have been wounded by women. I have also been healed by women.
The difference has taught me the kind of woman I want to become.
I don't want to pass down a comparison.
I don't want to pass down criticism disguised as tradition.
I don't want to pass down silence when someone is asking to be understood.
Every generation has a choice. We can repeat what we inherited.
Or we can pause and ask ourselves:
"What if the next woman doesn't have to carry what I carried?"
I cannot change every woman I meet.
But I can choose the kind of woman I become because of them.
And perhaps...that is where healing truly begins.
With Love and Always Learning,
Source: Women Wounding Women... and Women Healing Women: My Forty- Fifth Letter.
