12. Community + Giving Back
The Healing Power of Women’s Friendship
"There’s a vast treasure available to all of us that many women overlook at their quest for the great romance. It is the understanding and support we can find in the friendship of other women. These friendships are not a stopgap to fill time between relationships with men. Even if you were staying with your lover or have become involved with a new one, you still need that comforting encouragement that women friends can give you. You may have been so preoccupied with your problems in your relationship that you neglected or pulled away from your friends, claiming you didn’t have time for them.
We reconnect with women we care about, and it’s as though we can almost always find our way to where the conversation ended, pick up the thread, and continue. Are women friends can be a vital part of our memory, reminding us of part of ourselves we’ve forgotten, disasters we’ve survived, impossible dreams we’ve seen into being. They are also the accepting ears who will hear our story as we try to make sense of it, and help us figure out what we want next.
The wise heart knows that being wounded by a lover's deception and betrayal does not mean that you’re permanently impaired or damaged. Your wounds are evidence only that you are human, you have feelings, and you’ve been hurt. In fact, the wounds of betrayal and deception can be a great source of information and wisdom – if you take the courageous and comforting steps of listening to them. The depths and details of all your experiences are there: where you made mistakes, what hurts you, what you can live with, and what’s intolerable. Your wounds know what danger feels like, and they resonate now with a new sensitivity. As you continue to grow in courage and strength, you will learn how to transform the wounds and betrayal and deception into the wisdom that will illuminate your path."
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Excerpt from When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal by Susan Fowler, Ph.D.
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Giving Back
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Many of us were raised in home where there wasn't enough (love, money, affection, joy, etc.) This has a profound effect on how we see ourselves and the world. We enter into scarcity or the belief that there will never be enough for us. It is only through giving without expectation, that we can condition our mind and bodies to leave the survival mode that scarcity brings.
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Helping others can provide a similar chemical reaction in the brain that sex or exercise does. Find ways of giving back that speak to you. If you have a friend that has been betrayed, direct them to this website to help them on their healing journey. Talk to them about your experience so they don't feel alone.
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Small acts of kindness can provide massive amounts of good feelings in total strangers.
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