Hello Lovely,
My first and only daughter just went back to school this week. While she’s very excited and a little bit nervous I’m noticing another extra layer of stress she didn’t always carry. She’s at that awkward and tender stage of becoming a young woman and seems to feel perpetually exposed and preoccupied with how she’s measuring up. While I understand this shift can go with the territory I can’t help but grieve. She used to be the vivacious and confident girl who attempted a mutiny in her kindergarten class when she felt it was being run too much like the marine corp.
As her mom it has been especially challenging to watch that powerhouse of a girl morph into a young woman who doubts and questions herself and has begun to say “I’m sorry” chronically.
To say it touched a nerve is an understatement. It reawakened an age old pain of not feeling good enough. I did years of hard time in the prison of unworthiness, insignificance, and insecurity. I spent years chronically apologizing in one way or another for who I was.
So hearing my daughter begin the apologies stoked my fire. It made me angry. I had wanted to insulate her from the legacy of apology and not feeling enough so many of us carry as women.
I am so tired of women I know and women I love and women I’ve never met apologizing for who they are. I walk through the grocery store and a woman passes before me and says, “I’m sorry.” And lately I want to tell her,
“Honey, you don’t have to be sorry. It’s okay to take up space.”
I still have those days and those moments when I feel compelled to apologize, and sometimes do, for what I need or who I am or how I’m put together. And frankly I’m tired of it!
What about you?
We are all so trained by the time we reach womanhood to apologize for who and how we are we don’t even realize how it’s binding us and holding us back. It’s nothing short of an epidemic.
♥ We apologize for being too much.
♥ We apologize for not being enough.
♥ We apologize for not getting it “right.”
♥ We apologize for having limits.
♥ We apologize for being too sensitive.
♥ We apologize for being too bitchy.
♥ We apologize for not having it all together.
♥ We apologize for being too controlling.
♥ We apologize for being too sexy.
♥ We apologize for not being sexy enough.
♥ We apologize for not being perfect wives/girlfriends, mothers, bosses, friends or family.
If you believe the messages from our culture, the media and perhaps your own family there is a wafer thin doorway of worthiness and acceptability we can pass through. But to do so we must first meet the crazy and conflicting demands, ideals and expectations put forth for us. And if you can’t do it all and be it all – you’re left with that hollow feeling inside that says you’re just not enough.
Like the restrictive corsets and foot bindings of old the external and internal expectations, demands and beliefs that drive us keep us pinched, cramped, bound and caged.
I say screw that.
I’m ready to start a No Apology Revolution!
I’m ready to revolt for myself, for my daughter, for women like you, and all of the women and girls in the world.
Enough is enough.
So I’m doing what I do best. I’m beginning by offering a new introductory online course this October called No Apology Necessary! You are Enough! (exactly as you are)
It’s designed to be a self-paced journey in a loving and playful container of support to release old stories of “not good enough” and practice seeing yourself through loving & compassionate eyes.
Then give yourself the gift of this one month immersion in a loving, playful and affirming container where you will be guided and supported in uncovering and releasing your old beliefs and stories of “not good enough.” And the resources, support and encouragement to practice claiming and inhabiting the truth that you are so much more than enough.
Join us and:
♥ Receive weekly guided inquiry, meditations, inspiration, activities and rituals you can move through at your own pace.
♥ Participate in 2 group phone calls and No Apology Necessary FaceBook group and access a sisterhood of women committed to claiming their worth.
♥ Take away proven practices and long term strategies to ensure your ongoing success.
With compassion, kindness and through the eyes of love we will examine the roots of your insecurity, self-doubt and self-betrayal. Then we will honor and untangle those roots and build a new foundation on a deep inner knowing that you are so much more than enough.
You’ll come away with:
♥ a new lens of perception so you can see yourself with more clarity, love and compassion
♥ a shift in your inner dialogue from fear and unworthiness to love and acceptance
♥ access to 3 loving and powerful Divine Feminine Mistresses and your own wise inner self
♥ a deeper understanding of your truth, needs, & desires
♥ a deeper connection with your essential self
I want you to know deep within your bones that you are loved and valued deeply for who you are. Not for what you do for others or how you make them feel. I want you to be so FULL of yourself that you can’t help but light up the world around you with the radiant and gorgeous Light you truly are. I want you to be so filled with confidence and clarity and your own self worth that you no longer need the affirmation or permission of anyone beyond your own wise heart.
Let’s create a world where you, as a woman, can rest in the knowing that you are so much more than enough. A world where you don’t have to apologize for who you are and what you want or need. Or question yourself. Or stay small and unassuming to keep others comfortable. That’s the legacy I want to pass on to my daughter and girls!
Come join me if you’re ready to stand by your needs, your truth and yourself with clarity and confidence.
I would LOVE to be in community with you this October for No Apology Necessary! Let’s discard all the shrouds that keep us small, boldly claim who we are and let our lights shine!
With a deep bow to the gorgeous light in you!
Joni