“Nobody is born a woman. You become one.”
To be a woman, you need to grow up, become mentally mature, awaken and open your eyes. Being a woman needs to be learnt, experienced and touched. Womanhood is a gift which we can appreciate only as we become internally ready for it, because, to put it simple, you need to learn to be a woman – to respect, understand and love yourself.
We aren’t born women. We are indeed born with such a conviction, but with time, our notion of womanhood begins to evolve. We are born into other people’s opinions, judgments, we absorb other people’s ideas about what a woman should do, is expected to do, and what she is supposed to be like. We are born into a climate of obligation, guilt, dependency, lack of understanding and love, feeling hurt and being ungrateful. We grow up, internalising external limitations which, imprinted so deeply, take root in our minds and condition our choices in our adult lives.
However, with time, we begin to wake up, mature, and slowly understand what true womanhood is. We begin to respect it, appreciate it, and even be proud of it. We start our inner journey to what’s our and truly womanly, towards what we feel the strongest. We fight social limitations and others’ lack of understanding of our change process, external expectations, imposed roles and various notions of what we should be like.
Ultimately, the toughest battle is the one we wage within, because high awareness forces us to make critical choices and decisions that don’t come lightly. But it is a battle for your true self, for what you genuinely want to be, as opposed to what we you made to be in the childhood. It is a fight for the kind of womanhood we need and resonate most with. It’s a fight for our good, happiness, gratitude and self love. It’s a battle to liberate yourself from expectations, limitations, and relentless strife for ‘perfection’. It’s a battle for becoming the most important person for yourself – for your fulfilment…
When do we become women? Each of does at a different point in life – one that is most suitable for herself.
It happens the moment a woman gets to know herself, learning to care for and love herself, when she feels free from all sorts of convictions and restrictions, independent from others, when she discards ‘I must’ and ‘I should’ statements. When she learns to enjoy herself on her own, saying goodbye to those who drag her down, when she matures to be ready for true love. When she comes to appreciate herself, the world, and other people, the moment she realises the value of personal integrity, when she forsakes judgment (particularly one directed at herself). When she grants herself the right to let go and sets herself free from the obligation to be impeccable, always perfectly organised and available for everybody. It happens the moment she realises that happiness is the product of the choices she makes, and that you are not a bullet point to tick on someone checklist, so consequently, you have no power to make anyone happy or disappointed. It is when she experiences pain and accepts it, and learns to tame her own fears. When she grants herself the right to be sensitive or tearful. When she learns to take and ask for help. When she experiences the value of helping others. It happens when she puts herself first. The moment she says ‘I don’t want that, I will not do it’. When she draws a clear line. When … For each one of us, the ‘when’ will mean something else.
But it’s the moment when she truly feels she is a woman.