Cultivating independency and healing yourself

I don’t want to talk about yoga today or maybe yes. Let’s see.

Yoga in the end means “action” and therefore activism.

I am feeling really overwhelmed and disgusted by the latest news coming from Italy, my home country.

The facts are the following — a teacher has been victim of revenge porn by her ex boyfriend who shared an intimate sex tape of her. The video reached a mother of the teacher’s student and the story ends with the dismissal of the teacher and media chaos.

An other girl has been raped for hours by a well known entrepreneur.

The facts make me feel sick in my stomach and disgust me; and as me, I know many people who feel the issue.

Women and men, many friends of mine and people I follow on social media, yoga teachers, activists are keeping on sharing news, posts, stories, educational information about all the issues related to violences to women and gender inequality. Many women are sharing their own stories of violence too.

I think this is great, awaking awareness on women violence is necessary.

I see a lot of information sharing and education on vocabulary as “slut shaming”, “revenge porn” etc and I believe it is a priority (giving a name to a concept is the first step to identify the concept and the issue). I am thankful to whom is sharing and I really appreciate this educational work.

Today the topic is hot.

Most of the people with a minimum degree of human decency would agree that we can not tollerate this violence in our society anymore and that media partnering for the carnefice (perpetuator) are just disgusting. I want to say something about this: stop sharing articles of newspapers that don’t condemn the violences openly. The media are just seeking for attention and click / sharing. Just do not do it. It will help to choke this kind of unethical and disgusting “journalism”.

Moreover, if you are an activist, I am not saying that surfing the wave of the hot topic is wrong, but we all should be aware that when we are sharing a content we are creating free advertisement to the account who posted first.

Sharing the issue is fundamental, talking about the topic is a responsability.

I would like to take a different approach here. What are the root causes of the problem ? How can we address the solutions ?

We all agree the person perpetuating the violence is am asshole and a criminal, but how can I , as woman, take responsibility and action ?

I am talking here to all women:

I think the independence here is key, everyone speaks about financial independence; it is the basic starting point to leave a house that turned to be unsafe.

But this is not enough. This is the just the basic and it doesn’t solve the issue.

The following point are my guiding lights and principles as a woman and I want to share them today, because I think they are key to fight these issues.

Take them as mantra to repeat every day from a woman to all women.

Cultivating emotional independence. This is so fucking important.

I am enough, with or without a man.

I strive to create my own life, based on my idea of success.

I create space for my empowerment.

My family/relationship life is just one of the thousands parts of my identity.

I love myself unconditionally and I am sure of that at every moment.

My happiness and my joy are not dependent from having a relationship or not.

My happiness and joy do not rely on my partner.

I explore who I am, I learn what I want, I have a mission.

Cultivating financial independence. This is the basic.

I should strive every day to be economically independent.

Whatever is my economical status, I have to guarantee my survival needs and being able to leave any place I want to leave.

As human being, I know that the idea — to compromise my needs/ to accept unacceptable behaviors / to accept mis-respecting of my boundaries — in order to keep advantage, peace and equilibrium gained from my relationship/marriage, could pop up in my life. Therefore I should maintain my standard of living independently from the person who is living with me or I am married to (I have family with). I know living with a partner is convenient, probably I could not afford the same house/holidays etc, if I were alone. If I accept to share economical advantage I am also willing to give it away in case my freedom/values are compromised.

Sexual independence

I am beautiful and my body is perfect, either I have a partner or not.

My sexual attractiveness is not influenced by the fact I have a partner or not.

My sexual fulfillment is not influenced by the fact I have a partner or not.

I coltivate a spirit of sex positivity for me and for everyone.

I want to further dive deep into sex positivity because this philosophical movement will help us finding some light. Sex-positivity is “an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, encouraging sexual pleasure and experimentation.” The sex-positive movement also advocates for comprehensive sex education and safe sex as part of its campaign. The value of an individual and the related sexual life of this individual have nothing in common. (Source Wikipedia).

Revenge porn and slat shaming imply the underlying and common cultural belief that the value of an individual is related to his/her sexual life.

In the specific case the belief is the following: the value for women decrease with the expansion of sexual life versus the value of men increase with the expansion of sexual life.

This underlying belief has to be destroyed, simply because every human being, in order to live an healthy life has to have a sexual life. The sexual consensual behaviours can not be related in any way to the value of a person. It would be like founding our belief on the fact that the value of a woman is grater according to how much water she drinks. This doesn’t make sense, right ?

This is my call to action. What are you doing to destroy this belief ?As a man or woman or whatever gender, what are you doing to heal yourself and overcome this false thinking pattern ?

I am taking my responsibilities as a woman here.

Now it comes the tricky part.

Which action are you taking as a man in order to take responsibility to stop violence against women and create equality ?

I suppose that you, as a man, might feel helpless and powerless about these topics.

Your thinking patterns, might look like

“I would never act with violence against a woman.”

“ I am not a criminal”

“I would never rape a woman”

“I love women”.

“I totally respect women”.

“The guy who practiced revenge porn is just an asshole, I would never do that.”

“Who acts with violence is a criminal and I am not”.

And then you just go over the topic, thinking about the next football match.

I know you :)

Violence is not just physical and sexual violence, perpetuated by criminals.

Violence is not defined and limited by acts persecuted by law.

Talking about a woman as a slut is violence.

Thinking about a woman as a slut is violence.

Judging a woman for her sexual life is violence.

Mental schemes full of stereotypes are violence.

Looking at women’s bodies as objects for pleasure is violence.

Saying to a woman — be silent — is violence.

Assuming that a woman should leave her job and life to follow you, man, is violence.

Assuming a women should modify her life to allow you pursuing your career is violence.

Not taking the responsibility to support your partner in pursuing her career, purpose is violence.

Expecting the woman should compromise her career instead of you, man, is violence.

What are you doing to heal yourself and avoid causing harm ? What are you doing to discard your underlying belief patterns that create inequality ? Ask yourself, how can I become aware of my habitual thinking patterns ? And once you are aware of them how can I overcome them ?

Peace,

Silvia