From I Am A Woman Finding My Voice by Janet F. Quinn, PhD, RN
My most fundamental truth is that I am a woman. From the moment I was conceived I have been female; daughter of Creation; girlchild becoming woman; living, being, dying, woman. Working, playing, singing, loving, woman. It is the only thing that will never change. It is one thing that I know about myself finally and certainly. Why has this obvious truth escaped me for so long? Why have I spent so many years fighting to be thought of and treated as "a person" rather than valued and esteemed as a woman? Such a betrayal of my essence, this neutered equality. I am equal to, but not the same as, men - and I thank the Divine that it is so! I claim and celebrate my being, be-ing, in this world as WOMAN - with womanvalues and womanviews and womanrhythms and womanblood and womanheart and womansoul. I am a woman.
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, I am finding my voice! I am laughing, screaming, crying and cooing! I am making delighted sounds and angry sounds. I growl and moan, and I sing and chant! I offer soft and sweet words of comfort or passion and I speak loud, clear words of outrage and opposition. I am making holy noise and I am keeping holy, holy silence. Finding my voice means that I claim my freedom to express myself. It means that I speak only what is true for me, and that I will never be silenced again. I am a woman finding my voice!
The word heal comes from the Anglo-Saxon haelan which means to be or to become whole. To be a woman healing myself is to be a woman becoming whole; giving myself the time and the space I need for the journey. No one grows up without wounds - emotional wounds; spiritual wounds; psychological wounds. I may want to forget how I have been hurt; bury it and just move on, but sometimes my wounds keep me from becoming all that I want to be, and so I need to pay attention to them, giving myself what I need to heal them.
I am the first-born of five children. I was twenty-two months old when my brother was born. Then came a sister two years after that, then a brother, then another brother. With each addition, I became further removed from the nurturing lap of my mother and more of my mother’s helper. This is so normal and usual that it would hardly seem important to think about, let alone to present a need for healing. Yet this was when I learned that it wasn’t a good idea to expect people to love me, because eventually, they would need to give that love to someone else. Other people needed love more than I did. Better to let God love me, and try to be a good little helper. And a good little helper I have been, still living alone.
Healing is discovering all the secret places inside of me, especially the ones I feel ashamed of or frightened by, and befriending them. Healing is the process I am engaged in, and not a specific outcome. I fill my life with people and things which nourish and feed me and I try to avoid anything which is not healing for me; anyone who does violence to my unfolding. I do not know what the outcome of this process will be, what my healing will look like, or feel like, even to myself, because healing is always creative. Yet I have come to trust that, no matter what it looks like, feels like, or sounds like; no matter how long it is taking or how foreign the territory, I am a woman healing myself.
Copyright ©1999, Janet F. Quinn, all rights reserved