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 Women and Inner Peace - Peace
Hi Everyone, I am new to this, just found it and read
many of the archives but could not find anything about my
situation. In short I believe my wife has come to a point
where she is questioning, not just her values of
religion, family, kids, me, job situation, etc.. and her
sexuality. I reckon it to experimenting in college. We
have been married 4 years and she's 26. My question is:
Do many women have this struggle within themselves at
different stages? I made my inner peace with who I am and
how I want to live and what I want to do religiously but
I think she has not and now is starting to get scared
since I want to have kids and settle down. If anyone has
any suggestions, or been there done that, I am willing to
hear it all. For now, she has gone to NY to think things
out for a little while (read long while). Thanks for any
input
 From: Damaged
Shields
I'm 35, and still having a bit of an identity crisis.
I owe alot of it to the era that I was raised in. We kind
of had a leave it to beaver type situation. Mom stayed
home, Dad worked, and we were well fed, the house was
clean, etc... So, for me personally, I was raised in a
family where the MEN children were raised to believe they
had to grow up to become excellent providers to be able
to support a wife and kids. The women children were
raised to become excellent homemakers. This was back in
the 60's, and between then and now, alot of revolutions
have happened, and suddenly, women like me realized there
was ALOT of options available out there for us, BEYOND
homemaking. So, we're stuck between two worlds. The basic
foundation of our being was built with bricks of ideas on
how to become the best wife possible. But our outer
awareness has been exposed to endless possibilities and
careers, etc...
Once in awhile, in order to break free from the inner
war we're having, we have to step out of our current
lives, and do an assessment of our values, and ask
ourselves "What do I want to be when I grow
up?" It's hard to break free from the programming.
Yet, opportunity tempts us on a daily basis. Part of me
wants SO BADLY to settle down, have a home, a husband,
children, take care of things, and the other part of me
wants just as badly to find the gifts I was born with and
go for it. As far as I know, at this point, there is no
happy medium. I hope that helped a bit.
From: mzet
Most people continue to grow emotionally and
psychologically, both men and women. Perhaps there are
male-female patterns of growth out of which one can
generalize, but I think it happens to people of both
sexes. You grow when you question your current paradigms,
step out of their boxes and attempt to redefine them.
Unfortunately, most of us, in the process of doing that,
become so self centered that we ignore the damage that we
cause others around us: spouses, children, friends. In
fact, it is that same self-centeredness that ultimately
does not let us break lose from our old ways and prevents
the growth.
I needed tons of humility to recognize that my
self-centeredness was preventing me from moving on, but I
got hit by enough of life's 2X4's to let go of my self
and to look inside of me to find my connection to God, to
others and, finally, to my real self. It was in accepting
my own incapacity to know who I was and my inability to
re-make my self that I eventually learn who I was and
what I wanted to become. It was in dying to self that I
found my self. That is very scary to do because you feel
as if you've worked so hard to try to rebuild your self
that you think you are going to also lose all your
personality and all you have gained. But you don't! The
process of letting go of self is like jumping from a
cliff, not knowing if a net will catch you. The funny
thing is that after you jump, you see there is no net,
you panic, but just before hitting the ground, you
realize you can fly. Anyway, I know this doesn't help.
It's just been my experience.
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