Are You Bound By Guilt?

Women experience a lot of guilt. Many have heard me say that guilt is poison. It’s a poison that we must stop taking and giving to those around us. Guilt makes us do things we don’t want to do. Our children get away with more when we feel guilty. We say yes, to people, not just our children, when we want to say no in order to avoid guilt.

Guilt has been used for millennia to control people, especially women. Organized religion is a, if not THE, major perpetrator of guilt affliction. This has caused women a great deal of suffering. A portion of the population cannot suffer without causing the whole to suffer. When women suffer, men suffer, as do our children.

As thinking individuals we must demote the many stories of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, from the literal word of God to allegories at best and to stories concocted to support the agendas of the politics of the time, at worst.

Certainly as a result of our evolution we know logically that man and woman did not fall from grace by eating fruit from a tree. It was simply a story created to explain our perceived separation from God. Nor can we believe that woman was created from Adams rib. That was a story created to explain woman’s subjection to man. Honestly, these stories (and more) go far beyond asking for my faith, they insult my intelligence.

Stating that many of the Biblical stories were probably more influenced by politics and the selfish, power hungry agendas of the writers of the day does not preclude the existence of a Divine Intelligence that some may call God. But it does preclude the existence of a punishing, judgmental, human-like god that would curse humankind with guilt and shame.

It’s unjust that such stories of woman’s subjection and guilt have become so embodied within her as to manifest as painful childbirth, painful menstruation, difficult menopause and even as breast cancer and cancers of other female parts. The rejection of the Feminine is also manifested for women as a fear of her intuition and her instincts. Women have become indecisive, fearing that her decisions will somehow harm those she cares about. As depicted in the Biblical eating of the apple story portrays.

We all have stories that define who we are. The biblical and other religious stories are Universal and create a culture of rape and violence against women. These stories and many others that I have not mentioned give men a sense of entitlement over our bodies and our energy. Often we give them this entitlement to earn the love we lost when Eve followed her instincts and ate of the tree of knowledge, only to disappoint God and to curse all of humanity.

The Divine Feminine is walking the Earth. For us to fully embody her we must heal the wounds of patriarchy. We must rewrite the stories of creation for ourselves and redefine our relationships with men. Releasing the shame and guilt that have been forced upon us is paramount to our healing along with the healing of the rapes of our bodies and our spirits. We must heal the abuses of our gifts of intuitive wisdom, healing by nature, and nurture. We must re-write the stories that have defined us and made us guilty and shameful.

I believed it when the Dalai Lama said that it would be the western woman that would save the world. But it is our healing that will precede our saving the world.

Blessings,
Michelle Lee, CH