Greetings Women and Girls!
I’d like to add my story here, as a woman leveraging technology, and, like all of us here, actively pushing out the boundaries that remain active in our culture, which only serve to limit, control, or define us.
In 2004, before YouTube was a thing, I followed an impulse and unique opportunity (given resources I had at my disposal) to create the first free video-based learning resource on the internet (so far as I know), a website teaching the skills of knitting, which still thrives today. It’s called www.KnittingHelp.com Making information on how to do something–something that I personally found comfort and peace by doing–available for free to others, was so gratifying!
In 2013, pregnant with my second child, I trained in a spiritually oriented psychology called Psychosynthesis (through www.synthesiscenter.org ). This incredible, woman-friendly training program encouraged me to enroll in the live, in-person training, knowing I was pregnant, and encouraged me to bring the baby along once born. My baby was genuinely included in the group, by the teaching staff and peers, as I completed my training.
In addition to re-defining for me what an educational learning environment can be –woman and child-friendly!!!– this training program taught me skills of psychological & spiritual growth that I now feel are a birthright to all beings on this planet…
In Psychosynthesis, we are taught that the basic principal of “synthesis” (an understanding of the growth process) is to *include all parts.* To actually move forward it can never be “either/or,” it’s always “both/and.” By committing to inclusion, we move through cycles that ultimately result in a higher new understanding. We move from a place of apparently dual opposites, to, not a compromise, but a new plane of understanding in which nothing is dismissed or lost. In nature, for instance, we wouldn’t say, “Hey, let’s combine these two varieties of flowers by cutting each in half, and glueing them together!” There is a natural process that can happen, in which a new reality, a synthesis of the two, can be reached. This process values the integrity of the original two, AND allows something new to emerge that *includes them both.*
As I move into the next professional phase with this new work of opening my Transformational Life Coaching practice this month, I recognize that my earlier experience as a web innovator has left me with a deep desire to share this information with the greater world, through a free, accessible web-based platform. How can I help people to see themselves and fully accept themselves? Just as importantly, how can I help people to see each other in the most accepting way?
Just as ItWasNeverADress is doing, I see my work as one of pushing the edges out, by increasing access to tools for self acceptance within. I can’t yet say what shape that vision will take, but I know that it is part of my calling. Visiting this site makes me realize I’m in good company!
Keep the capes flowin’, women and girls!