Super Women Discovering Our Inner Superpowers

my entire life

i’ve been obsessed with books i loved

reading stories about different kinds of

heroes and knights and warriors that

went on fantastic

adventures to feeding evil villains and

saving the day

they possessed the kind of resilience

that i always wanted to have

their lives had meaning they stood for

something

and i wanted to be just like them

there was only one problem all of my

favorite characters

were men in all the books

that i read as a child women had only

two passive roles to be beautiful

and to be rescued and i remember

dreaming of breaking those gender

stereotypes

so that women could join the ranks of

the musketeers

solve crimes alongside of sherlock

holmes and fight dragons

just like some of the best knights could

and when i brought up this idea to one

of my elderly neighbors

she laughed girls don’t fight she said

and when i heard this i was enraged

i wanted to yell i wanted to yell how i

don’t believe

in these societal random

superimposed gender expectations but

of course as an eight-year-old i didn’t

quite have the vocabulary

to describe the fury and the rebellion

that i was feeling in that moment and it

was then

that my grandfather a holocaust survivor

and a world war ii hero took it upon

himself

to become my first ever feminist role

model

he pulled me aside and he said i have a

book for you

but it’s written in this invisible ink

that you’re not old enough to read quite

yet so i’ll read it to you for now

and when you’re old enough you can read

it by yourself

and you can read it to others

and so he took out a blank piece of

paper

he moved his finger left to right

as if reading this magical invisible ink

and he read me a story about a little

girl

me whose brother and male cousins

were kidnapped by an evil monster

and in this story i was the only one who

was able to find the monster

and stop him before he hurt the members

of my family

without ever making it obvious my

grandfather taught me

that gender was irrelevant when it came

to heroism

and he taught me that girls could go on

adventures too

he taught me that girls could even stand

up to men

when men were behaving badly he taught

me

that our lives are like a blank sheet of

paper

and that it’s up to us to determine the

way that we show up

for our own call to adventure because

too often we might follow somebody

else’s narrative

play a sidekick in someone else’s story

and believe that we must fall in line

that was predetermined for us

when i was 21 years old i worked as a

research assistant

at a hospital in new york one day when i

was rushing

i tripped and fell down the stairs

hitting my head

as soon as i was able to walk i went

straight to the emergency room

where an emergency room doctor told me

that i had a concussion

i was ordered to rest and to refrain

from screens

and from stress so i called my

then partner let’s call him jim although

that’s not his real name

that night jim and i were supposed to

see a movie that we’ve been anxiously

anticipating for several months

when i told him that i had a concussion

and i was currently in the emergency

room

and asked him if he could come and pick

me up he said

that i should just take a taxi home and

that he was still planning to see the

movie that he’s been waiting to see

i was confused and

filled with so many other emotions i was

hurt and heartbroken and angry

i burst into tears and i was pleading

with him

to come be with me just to hold my hand

i told him that it would make it easier

for me

jim was silent for a few moments

then he said look you’re being dramatic

and crazy right now why should i have to

miss out on this film

just because you have a concussion i

mean if i could actually take away your

pain

i would be there but for you to ask me

to miss

this movie just to hold your hand that’s

just plain selfish

those words dramatic

crazy selfish

they cut to the very core of me

i felt like a burden an inconvenience

and i felt shame and what i took away

from that

conversation and from so many other

conversations just like it

was that my needs don’t matter

i took away that in order to be loved

i need to turn off my needs and my

emotions

i started putting on my i am fine mask

putting up with mistreatment abuse

and even sexual assault i was taught

that

my place was to not cause a scene to be

a peacemaker

to not speak up but to shut up to use my

voice only

to elevate the voices of others however

a few years ago i read a research paper

that made me rethink

that situation between gemiini

researchers at university of virginia

and university of wisconsin-madison ran

a study

in which they brought in a group of

female participants

and recorded their neurological activity

and their emotional responses while in

the mri machine

during different parts of the experiment

participants would see a visual signal

that would predict when they would get a

mild electric

shock this is a mildly painful sensation

equivalent to being flicked with a

rubber band

when women in the mri would see the

signal indicating that a shock was

coming

they understandably experienced higher

levels of anxiety and distress

and subsequently experienced levels of

pain when

the shock was administered participants

also exhibited

a higher level of neurological

activities in

the areas of the brain that are

responsible for

pain and distress processing but

when a stranger like a research

assistant or the experimenter

held the participant’s hand their

perceived

and reported levels of pain

and distress significantly reduced

and their pain and distress levels

reduced even further when it was their

partner

holding their hand this study and

countless others

find that receiving the compassion and

support from a person that we care about

can greatly reduce our pain not only on

the emotional level

but also on the physiological one and

the science

shows us that not only are those needs

important

but that having those needs met can

actually reduce our pain and suffering

and so if we’re able to be present with

our struggles

if we’re able to receive kindness and

support from the people that we love the

most

perhaps over time we can learn to love

our injuries

maybe we can learn to recognize that the

very part of us

that some people might have tried to

shut out or to shame

may be the very part of us that we most

often feel the need to hide

is perhaps the most powerful

and the most beautiful part of you

a few years ago i was working with a

client whose parents brought her

in for post-traumatic stress disorder

let’s call her lisa lisa had been

sexually assaulted by her partner her

parents could not understand

why their daughter developed ptsd after

all she said

it was her boyfriend they also could not

understand

why lisa had maintained her symptoms for

over six months

they tried to shame her into getting

over it

it didn’t work it only made her shut

down

so during our first few sessions

we tried to talk but lisa could barely

speak

her voice was long buried under the

oppressive messages

that she was made to believe so i

decided to switch gears a little bit

and i asked lisa if she had a favorite

television show

movie or a book and she mentioned that

she was a big fan of the tv show buffy

the vampire slayer

in case you’re not familiar with the

show it is about a teenage girl named

buffy who is a high school student by

day

and a vampire slayer by night

so i asked lisa to share some of her

favorite story lines and episodes with

me

in finding this permission to talk about

her passion

lisa slowly started regaining her voice

she started sharing about buffy’s

experiences of struggling to

manage her responsibilities and that she

related to it

i later asked lisa whether buffy had

ever experienced anything traumatic

and she said that in one of the episodes

buffy sacrificed herself

to save her little sister’s life and

that some time later buffy was brought

back to life

by dark magic only she doesn’t quite

come back the same

she has nightmares and flashbacks

she engages in risky and

self-destructive behaviors

and she doesn’t wish to face her trauma

her suffering lasts for many months and

in other words

buffy meets all the classic symptoms of

post-traumatic stress disorder

so i then asked lisa if there was ever a

time that buffy disclosed

her situation or her symptoms to anyone

else

and she told me that buffy disclosed

what she was going through to her friend

spike

i asked her to pull up that clip on her

phone

and she did and we watched it together

we watched buffy tell spike

everything here is hard she said

everything is bright and violent

everything i feel everything i touch

this is hell just getting through the

next moment and the one

after that and right as we’re watching

this clip lisa points to the screen and

she

says that that

is what i go through each and every day

and it was the first time since her

assault that she was able to talk about

how she felt

and that night she was able to show that

entire episode to her parents

who for the first time were able to

understand what their daughter was going

through

and so you see sometimes seeing heroes

reclaim their lives in fiction

might allow us to reclaim our voices

because for so many of us heroes are

more than fiction

they are our voice when we cannot speak

for ourselves

they are the expression of our emotions

and

most importantly they are our call to

freedom

in changing our own narrative

this very realization happened to my

other client

jamie this is not her real name who came

to see me for social anxiety

and obsessive-compulsive disorder

jamie sat in a small demure posture

she spoke in a soft quiet voice

and she stated that she had a really

hard time advocating for herself

she also mentioned that she was the only

woman in her department

and the only one that hadn’t been

promoted in several years

i then asked jamie if there were any

movies books or television shows that

she enjoyed

jamie said that she liked star wars and

i said great

i love star wars who’s your favorite

character and she said

kylo ren that’s how she said it kylo ren

now in case you’re not familiar with

this character kylo ren is the main

villain

or some might call him an anti-hero in

the star wars trilogy episodes seven

through nine

so i asked jamie what is it that you

like about kylo ren

and she said i like that he gets angry

and i said wow do you ever get angry and

she said oh no

you see jamie was taught that she’s not

allowed to feel and express anger

and that she has to put other people’s

needs above her own

and so over the next few months jamie

and i

worked together on channeling her inner

dark side

on embodying kylo ren but without

killing people of course

and then after a few months she

requested a meeting with her boss

and she asked for a raise and you know

what

she got it and so to celebrate she went

to disneyland

and built herself her very own kylo ren

lightsaber

and now she cosplays which means dresses

up as her favorite characters

at different comic conventions she

dresses up as kylo ren or other

characters

as her way of maintaining her voice

and her self-expression

and so what it comes down to is this

you’re allowed your emotions

you’re allowed your voice and you’re

allowed your journey

you’re not helping anyone by staying

quiet

by fitting yourself into someone else’s

story

you were not meant to be someone else’s

sidekick

you’re meant to be the hero of your own

story and if you’ve ever read fantasy

books

you might have read about a creature

called the phoenix

the phoenix is this magical bird

believed to come from the sun

and like many of us humans the phoenix

sometimes goes through excruciating

changes

from time to time and when that happens

the phoenix bursts into flames

and then falls into ashes but then

the phoenix rises again stronger

than ever before and in fact sometimes

our experiences

like trauma anxiety or heartbreak can

feel like we’re on fire

and this here right now this is your

phoenix moment

this is you rising from the ashes

regaining your voice writing your own

story on your own blank piece of paper

as if to say

i am here i have awakened

thank you