I just read The Virgin’s Promise: Writing Stories of feminine Creative, Spiritual, and Sexual Awakening by Kim Hudson, wherein the author explains a woman’s lifetime journey to achieve her goals, dreams, and reach full maturation. Framing her book in the structure of writing a screenplay, she uses characters from film and literature to demonstrate the steps in this universal experience. She also explains the male or hero counterparts to this. It really opened my eyes.
Page after page, I found myself saying, ” Oh! That’s where I am on my journey, and these are my challenges and rewards. ” I starting thinking about friends and family members on their paths and noting where we got stuck. While I believe in divine timing, I wish I had understood this a lot sooner. It may have helped me avoid pain.
The first forty years of my life I was stuck. My primary obstacles were learned helplessness and codependency. At age eighteen, I failed to break away when life urged me to do so. Hudson calls this the ” dependent world that kept the Virgin from re-ordering, which is connected to such obstacles as family, inheritance, social values, religion, and conditional love (70). Once I escaped this, as late in life as it was, I heard my soul laugh. While this was a move forward, it was only a beginning. I would make gains, regress, rise again, and get stuck; however, not quite as long.
Prior to last year, I found myself saying,” I’m tired of wandering in the wilderness again. I sort of knew what was going on but still had resistances to trusting the process of my inner knowing. I knew I hated the stress of the job I had, but I told myself that I had to stay for the financial security and the students I loved. I had learned no prince charming would rescue me. Finally, I left the job, but this time I did not experience euphoria because I had given up a life time career. I did not know what or how to replace that dominant part of my identity. Even when I began to write more and coach, I felt lost. After much soul searching, I realized that I was being asked to step up and lead women. Resolved to this, I began learning the remaining necessary skills to do so.
I thank Kim Hudson for being one of my many guides reading me. If you wan to learn more about where you and where you should be going, I encourage you to read The Virgin’s Promise. I also urge you to share your personal stories of your life’s quest to encourage others.