Archive for the ‘Women’ Category

Generally, a woman is victim of the man who she calls “companion” or “husband”. However, she can be a victim of other people, like employers or parents, friends or neighbors. The “victim” is the person who lives a relationship based on power in which she occupies the weaker position. The unbalance of strengths can be either physical or emotional, financial or sentimental. Usually these aspects go together, although there’s always one that sticks out.

After a certain amount of time, which can go from 1 to 20 years (or more!), she’ll have to get it. She in fact already knew that things weren’t doing fine, and for a quite long time. The question is taking an attitude. She “gets it” when she can’t delude herself anymore saying that “it’s not so bad”, “it’ll change” or “I need to be patient”.

She runs away from awareness because:
1) she foresees that the problem is “enormous”;
2) she believes that’s the only existing reality. Read the rest of this entry »

Confirming, as Jung and Montefoschi say, that there is an evolution of the Self or of the Being that indistinctly goes through anybody, coming from the profound and having nothing to do with the ego, it’s sprouting an interesting psychological movement among women, and I believe (hope so) among men also.

Women not particularly educated and who never have done a therapy or analysis before, women who live in some kind of subdued condition to their husband (physical, economical, mental and/or emotional), that is, women representing the traditional role of mothers and wives, with its insecurity, vulnerability and feeling of Read the rest of this entry »

“The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall”

One of the most difficult things in a relationship is accepting to lose the loved one. It’s not simple for anyone, and it may require years to digest the experience. It’s persistent and varied the range of pretexts that we can make up and that costs us time and energy, while life goes on. Read the rest of this entry »

A friend of mine, after reading “Fighting Against Monsters: Dreams of an Apprentice Warrior”, wrote me sending her dream. Besides being a an useful dream for many women, I want to publicly comment it to make justice to the “monsters”.

“I was at home, at night, getting ready to go to sleep. It happened that there was a black animal after me, half snake and, at certain point of its tail, half lizard, its tongue in and out, and always following me. I was scary to death, I moved through the rooms trying to sleep, but the monster was always after me, walking slowly. My husband told me not to be afraid, that it would do nothing bad. But I couldn’t trust it, until I as so tire that I decided to stop in a particular room and the animal did the same. I was laying down and looking at him. After stopping at my side, it turned into an undefined gray thing. I couldn’t devise its shape, but only distinguish the head from the body. It was as if, at my side, it wanted to camouflage itself, it closed its eyes, its  color was as gray as stone, and it stayed with its eyed very closed. And I, looking at him all the time, was afraid it could attack me. As I couldn’t sleep, I always moved in the house, and it always followed me. When I stopped, it also stopped and laid down, it changed come next to me and changed its form, from snake-lizard to a shapeless figure. Actually, it didn’t attack me, but I only was able to sleep after closing a door and putting a fabric on the floor underneath the door. I thought the animal would be able to find a way to break in, but it didn’t followed me. Finally, I slept in my dream, and I awake from the dream. My feeling was so real, I felt very scared and the animal looked quite real, but I didn’t feel in panic.”

Clearly, the reading of my article stimulated a new awareness about something that was already inside the dreamer. Thus, now, she was able to see what was dragging after her, what was at her side, day and night, night and day. Now she knows, and can’t keep this reality locked in some closet of her internal house.

The dream also brings another information: beside existing and always following her, the black monster doesn’t threaten her integrity. In the dream there is no conflict, only the shocking sight of the monster at her side. Although certainly not pleasant, it’s not dangerous.

It’s when she moves that the animal becomes visible, when she’s still it lives camouflaged, very quiet, closing its eyes. To me, it looks tender…

This is the black animal that follows the good girls (and this one I know is a very good girl, although not fool). The more they stay quiet in life, not making trouble and not moving from “their place”, the more the little monster lives hidden, as a shapeless and invisible shadow. However, when they dare to venture themselves around, when they want more, they demand, they put limits, think more and all these things that generate “confusion” and “discomfort”, our black friend gets out from the shadows, heavy and slow, and acquire a figure.

In my friend’s case, the animal is between the snake that drags itself on the ground, with no legs, and its more evolved cousin, the lizard. By the kind of animals they are, I guess that she has a long way ahead, for they are cold blood animals at the beginning of the evolutionary chain. To get to the human shape there’s quite a distance. This means that the potential that this animal represents is remote from the dreamer’s consciousness. With conscious psychological work (whose time is out of the physical time) this monstrous figure will turn into Prince Charming, who all women expect. He will be the handsome masculine, with an original project in life, vision and courage. Thanks to him, the dreamer’s unconscious contents will be available and handy to make her journey on Earth a creative passage.

Meanwhile, let’s see what the snake, which still looks like stone and in movement is a snake-lizard, means. The serpent zigzags on the ground as the gods’ lightening zigzag in the sky. Both are synonyms of energy, that potent one that shakes and brings news. Because of its changing of the skin, the snake is the symbol of transformation, therefore it represent the evolutionary energy that agitates inside, moving, and leading to dare.

What’s concretely in the dreamer’s life does it mean? She, herself, explains it, without knowing it, when she writes:

“In theses days when I was playing chess, I could realize why I was losing the game. I really can think straight when playing, but I never attack the opponent. I keep defending and defending myself, until I get to the point that I have nothing else to play and I receive a checkmate. I think I need to learn to attack, face the threatening situations that show up in my life.”

This is it, my friend. The potential is at your side. It hasn’t a handsome form because you have used it very little. With a proper training, which will be achieved acting in the small things of the every day life, it will turn into a beautiful Animus at your service. Give your welcome to the black animal.

Women like these, unfortunately, are common due to the low quality performances of so many fathers. In the past, women were used to it, and that was it. Devaluing girls, in a world where they had “by nature” an unquestioned secondary role produced negative effects but less conflicts than today. In present time, not only have they more social power, being able to study and reach superior life style, but their consciousness as people can’t anymore take the disregard as something “normal”, not to talk about the possible comparisons with friends, siblings, TV shows, media and movies.

Women with a negative father complex can approximately be divided in two groups: the suffering and the arguing. This division is related to the characteristic that most sticks out, but they are clearly two sides of the same story.

Depending on the sensitivity of the young girl, the treatment she receives will be amplified in the way she perceives it. The model of the father these women had varies from the violent man, the aggressor by default or the occasional one, to the genitor who always downgrades, doesn’t believe, doesn’t recognize or supports, the one who doesn’t give space. As one can see, it’s a vast range of possibilities that in one way or the other, many women may find something to identify with. The fact that fathers belong to a major system underlay on patriarchy, turns not realist to imagine that an individual could be totally out of its rules. Even the best of the men reproduces the learned pattern, although certainly not the more grosses aspects of it. Only a meticulous work of awareness allows to overcome stereotypes and biases, but, in order to do that one needs to be available to questioning himself and, as all relationship with a daughter is linked to the relationship with a woman, the man who wants to modify his approach to his daughter will have the review the one with his spouse. And it’s here that the situation gets complicated, because one thing is to “better treat one’s daughter, a child”, another is to question oneself about one’s relationship with the spouse.

The woman grown along with a masculine who discriminated against her will get used to this treatment, therefore will not be surprised when she encounters it again once she’s adult. She’ll be that kind of woman with an “infinite patience” before her boyfriends and husbands’ “mischief”. She justifies, omits, and pretends. She settles the situation in order to have him comfortable, serves him and is satisfied with little. She makes room to him, his desires and moods. She dresses as he likes (or demands?) her to do, and addresses herself according to his directions. She gives him power and then submits to him.

Reading theses lines it seems easy to identify the “absurd” mistakes women commit. That’s because one is not in their place and didn’t grow up like they did. I have a patient who suffered domestic violence (either psychological or not); she couldn’t separate from her husband because of impassable circumstances (as it happens many times). She loved him very much when she got married and still today she says, in tears, “I have so much love to give!”. Women love and too quickly experts and outside people decide that that love is “sick” and that’s it, and keeping it is a consequence of their unbalance. Once, conversing about this subject, I asked to a known psychiatrist who deals with domestic violence: where does the disease start and where love ends? For one must acknowledge what’s healthy to understand what’s sick. He couldn’t answer.

Women and men live in a condition of psychological and social misfit and unbalance for centuries. The gender relational model is clearly twisted, both are charged by society, families and social environment to posture a determined role and generally they have no help to show them alternative paths. That said, “women who love too much” may have nobody to appeal for understanding their relation, and in time they sink in it.

In the attempt to protect themselves from the masculine model of the aggressor or to ward off it in the future, many women develop a tendency to arguing and thinking and talking too much. They lost their faith in men – for absolutely real reasons – and it’s natural that they extend the acquired distrust to any men they meet. As we know, one or two exceptions just confirm the rule, and at this point of the story it’s necessary to show to be “good” to get out from the generalized quarantine.

Not always though, this kind of woman is able to keep herself reasonably down-to-earth and with a handy common sense. They tend to be problematic, censurer, controller and downgrading. Stiffened up in a defensive posture, they can’t loosen up and receive. In Jungian psychology, this is called being dominated by the animus, condition that never really gratifies a woman.

It’s easy to recognize a woman with a positive father complex: she is the one who better gets along with the system. She fits without troubles in the job market and is successful with boyfriends and husbands. She’s trained to be compatible with a world oriented by masculine values.

Since she was a child, her admiration for her father marked her personality in development. Perhaps, he treated her as his favorite, or he might have been the home star around which the mother also revolved. In such a scenario, generally, the maternal figure is the father’s sidekick, either because she doesn’t value herself or isn’t appreciated by him, or because she is problematic, or even winy and unsatisfied with her life, and yet she doesn’t dare to make any change.

The girl grows having the father as her guide star, from him she gains her self esteem and self confidence. From now on it will be from men that her psychological structure will rely on. Their approval is fatal for her to feel good. The ethic she’ll carry on in life will be the reproduction of the one her father adopted. Smart and crooked dads will have opportunist daughters; strict fathers, neat daughters; hard worker dads, hard worker daughters.

The advantage of having a positive father complex is that, as we live in a patriarchal society, this kind of woman already knows how to deal with it and she’ll take profit from what this world has to offer: work and money, consequently social power and status. She’ll be poorly aware about social issues, for she’s conservative by nature, or even superficial, and won’t pay attention. Subjects related to beauty and aesthetics appeal her most, also because these are items that belong to the feminine repertory according to the patriarchal ideology. To women suit thinking less and gussying up more, where thinking here means questioning and critical reflection.

The relationship with her mother will be complicated, based on filial tolerance after years of possible friction and misunderstanding. The maternal figure will remain a model to avoid. The woman with a positive father complex will not quite comprehend her mother, her viewpoint will appear idiosyncratic, and the lower her mother self-esteem is the less consideration her daughter grants her. Her mother will be to her as an unknown person, and the daughter won’t be able to access her soul, which will reinforce her bond with the masculine world.

It happens, however, that although well adapted to the patriarchal society, this kind of woman will still be a woman, she’s different. No matter how much she’s equipped to deal with masculine values, she’s not a man and, also, in time, she’ll perceive what it’s like to be a woman in a world of men, and the pink cloud originated in the relationship with her father will dissolve itself under the burning sun. It’s possible that, one day, she gets her mother better. But it takes time. The big disadvantage about having a positive father complex is that the psychological routes to the inner world are precluded. This kind of woman will necessarily be more rational and extroverted, not considering the interior of her psyche.

The price to keep her position in the world of the father is to give up her irreconcilable difference. She gets adapted, takes the identity that the masculine world offers her and puts aside what is inside, the most profound and mysterious part of her, from where questions and doubts may come. The woman with a positive father complex is a domesticated woman. That’s way she’s successful. Therefore, her interior “womanliness”, the one that “runs with the wolves” is more than ever muzzled. Many times, one cannot find even a mark of its existence.

Another big disadvantage is that this kind of woman owes her self-esteem to the masculine approval, in doing so she puts herself in their hands and in what they want her to be. If she’s lucky to find a great husband who positively encourages her to grow, good for her (but she’ll always be dependent on him), however she can easily end up with a man who does with her whatever he likes, as often happens when somebody receives more power that the one he’s able to manage.

If a woman with a positive father complex does not have more psychological resources to rely on, she’ll be at the mercy of the masculine demands, either the job market‘s, or the affective ones. In fact, her measure of success depends on how much she’s able to forgo her untamed feminine nature, her intuitions, feelings and inner perspectives about life. Frequently, these aspects will remain alive turning into subterfuges and manipulations. And it is when her domestication will show its reverse side, harming both: woman and society.

At Mother’s Day  all kinds of loving messages run throughout the Web related to those heroines called mothers. These women withstand everything, go through any trouble, take care and get worried until their last breathe. But who does help the mothers while they are still young and active, caring about house, children and food? Who does rescue the mothers in their daily routine?

Nobody. Being a mother is wonderful but also tiring. And they are alone.

Truth is that it still exists an enormous amount of couples who live unfair gender relations. Spouses of any generation and economical status unanimously present the same pattern. There are exceptions, but the general rule persists, and it says more or less this: the man when he is a father has to play with the children (or scold them), if he can and wants. The woman is mother in any other moment and situation.

Despite the social and cultural advances, it seems that men are still missing the notion of what it means taking care of house, food and children. Meanwhile, many women besides their tough daily work the also want to be conscious educators. But they are alone. Their lives twirl around house and children’s emergencies, while their companions maintain the stable rhythm of their distant world, little susceptible to accept changes.

A kind of overwhelming lethargy dominate the man. Even the ones with good intentions seem to be almost groggy by their traditional passive domestic role and keep going. They drag themselves at home, between the street door and the couch in front of the TV, doing the less possible and only when strictly necessary. Why?

Addiction, habit, comfort, childish behavior. A little of everything. We need to get a psychological point here that usually does not depend on the good will when consciousness is missing. Body and ego are happy to be comfortably resting. Nobody, unless he or she is a enlightened mind, leaves a comfort niche for work and effort.

All movement implies energy. To start moving, an object requires a bigger amount of energy than the one that is already moving. That’s physics. The same goes for psychology. A long masculine tradition ensures to the man his passivity once he get into the house, and that’s the first obstacle. Men may not be aware of that, and he surely will find tremendously hard to change this because there’s a long history and much culture that support and justify his passivity.

Transforming this behavior therefore depends less on the man and more on the woman. Who suffers the most is the one who’ll throw her load on the floor and ask for help. She can start with a “please”, it doesn’t cost trying. But how long? Soon the woman realizes that her “please” is quickly forgotten, averted and erased. The request for help must overcome several obstacles before being attended.

A woman gets tired. She dreams with better days. The ancient feminine patience unites with the love she feels for her companion, “one day he’ll change”. Maybe, and maybe no. Meanwhile, mothers need to take care of themselves, paying attention at they tired eyes, heavy heads, and body’s demand for rest. And last but not least, they need to listen to their heart that feels alone.

The couple’s relationship seems to be supported by this womanly patience to the point that she look like a mother to her spouse, the wonderful mother who bears everything. Mistreatment, disregard, lack of understanding and valuing about her job is tolerated in the name of an indefinite different future.

As mothers know, motherhood means being down to earth. It implies responsibility, realism and courage. Thus, let’s review Newton’s Laws because women need them.

First Law or the Principle of Inertia: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, or if it is in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by a sum of physical forces.”

That means that who is still tends to continue still and who is in constant moving tends to keep it. Thus follows that women will likely keep moving non stop and men will maintain their passivity. Consequently, the first ones will probably evolve in the next twenty years and their men will be still wondering “what’s going on”, as anybody can check in their own lives or neighbors, relatives and friends’.

Second Law or Principle of the Proportional Movement: “A body will accelerate with acceleration proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass.”

That is, to modify and inertial state it’s necessary an equal or superior force to the objects mass we want to move.

In human psychology it sounds like this: the one who is still will modify his state (getting into movement) only if an external force acts upon him and only in the case this external force is strong enough to overcome the resistance of his inertial mass (the bigger the mass the more difficult it is to move the “object”, and we include in the “mass”: convictions, ego, history, friends and etc.). On the other hand, who is in continuous movement will stop only when she’ll receive a blow strong enough to make her brake. Generally this relates to women and it means that they have reached exhaustion or a severe illness with psychological aspects. Then women stop. And talking about men, they will change status only by the external force coming from the only person interested in seeing their movement: their spouses.

Third Law or the Principle of Action and Reaction: “Every action has a reaction equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.”

That means that nobody changes alone. Her changing of state corresponds to his changing of state.

Conscious and free beings wouldn’t need to undergo the Three Laws of Motions created by Isaac Newton three hundreds of years ago. But history shows that consciousness, in the enormous majority of cases, arises solely after much blood and suffering. Let’s hurry up, then, to that shining goal without fearing being realistic and practical. For the time to change is now.

One of the first things the feminist movement questioned was women’s chaining to the four domestic walls. They wanted to work outside, acquire a profession, make money and be autonomous. Some say that the movement for women’s liberation was the major event in the XX century.

Gender roles moved to the accused side of society and were, finally, disputed: everyone wanted the main role, the man’s. Equality of rights is an unquestionable value, an unstoppable achievement in the history of human consciousness. We all agree that women cannot and shall not be chained to the house. But the revolution is not finish.

Who does take care of the house then?

The space we live in has a greater meaning than just being a roof over our heads, the comfort of a couch in front of the TV, a dinner table and a soft bed. Home is the physical ambiance in which we build our identity. It’s at home that a person in her beginning of life finds the conditions to flourish (or not). Home is the backdrop over which we create the people we are and want to be. A home’s atmosphere reflects the personality of the people who inhabit it, as well as the work they do, the relations they have, and the choice they make.

Nowadays, many times homes look abandoned. They are occupied but heartless. Expensive or cheap furniture doesn’t make any difference, neither being small or big houses. Televisions and refrigerators, square yards and art pieces may decorate it and supply it with foods and diversions. But no soul.

A home’s soul gains life through the hands that take care of it. It comes from the love blown in through dedication and physical work. A magic happens when we put our productive energy in what we do, things acquire a kind of light and looking at them we breathe snuggling and gratitude feelings. They become inviting, they nurture. The heart acknowledge these things by instinct.

The shelter a home offers nourish our dreams and bodies. The home quietness feed our soul and renew our energies, allowing to slow down the tension, getting ready for a new day. The house cleaning supports the dignity of living, promotes self-esteem and self-value. The house order organizes our thoughts, helping to select and distinguish, stimulating mental clarity. Finally, the house silence restore tired bodies and minds, caressing ears and hearts.

This is so true that who feels bad about himself can’t appreciate his own company and is not able to take care of his own home. Who, whose ghosts cry out loud in his own inner ear, can’t stand the home’s silence, using TV, guests and agitation to muffle the captive heart.

When we have children in the house these issues are screaming. Children need a home for sure. But a safe place is still not a home, if so, we would call home a vault. Home must also be relaxing, welcoming and organized, so that children can open up their eyes over the world and themselves following their own rhythms, having the chance to see and discover, to understand and grow. Noise and diversion at any cost are born from the agony of confused and restless adults, unable to deal with quietness and silence, acceptable only by who is master of himself. Many activities, parties and uproars are in fact easy ways to avert the attention, hiding and distracting one’s mind in order not to think and feel.

Being run over and without understanding, children grow up thinking that this is the normal way of living, and loose the track of their own inner path. They may look they are having fun and even ask for more mess, but only because are became addicted to it. To know if they are really well, it’s enough to take a look at how many times they get sick, how they are in school, if they are “spoiled” and  cantankerous, if they can’t entertain themselves and need a ready activity coming from the outside. Exactly as a baby plant becomes stronger in a protected and quiet place of our garden, human babies develop when they have the external environmental conditions that allow their flourishing as well as their pruning.

Women, righteously, want to be more than housewives (or even the masters of the house). Therefore, it’s needed to define what to do with the house. If a man got tired of being the only provider and decided to simply abandon his job and to go to study Geophysics or Space Technology, he would be considered an irresponsible. Because of “feminist prudery” women are not charged with the pending question of the house. This leads to neglecting and pretense. Nonetheless, as well as the man would have to discuss his new projects with his wife and/or put limits to his expenses, the woman will have first to solve her responsibility inside the home when she decides that she wants to work, study or pioneering a new professional path.

It’s up to them to educate their family to a fundamental issue: that mugs don’t levitate to the kitchen sink, that a plate after being used need to be washed, that beds don’t make themselves up, that the floor must be kept clean, and that many times a homemade food is better than a frozen or restaurant’s one. It’s up to them to start to “unspoil” the children who believe the world is like a infinite Disney World with no responsibility, limits and commitments. Instead of the pattern: electronic games, TV and sports, what about some domestic responsibility and teaching them what is to be part of a collectivity (the family)? It’s up to women to shake the consciousnesses and show that winning the resistance against domestic chores is rewarding, because no home is more appealing than the one loving and diligent hands took care of. And even when there is a cleaning lady who clean it for us, this doesn’t mean we don’t take care of our own things.

Women, couple and families’ malaise is revealed by the scrum and disarray of the houses and their rhythms, by loud voices and cries, by the shadows under the hyper and evasive children’s eyes, by the TV dominance, and the absence of real relationships. This picture denounces an upside-down home, and the uncompleted revolution. Would it be women’s fault? Not only. However, it’s up to them to light up the spark for the change of the family paradigm, and then it will benignly spread over the entire family.