How can women be in conversation with men rather than conflict?

I was asked by a Senior Editor for Linkedin News Australia to provide an inspirational video for International Women’s Day. It got me thinking more about a topic that has interested me for a long time about how we, as women, can be in conversation with men rather than conflict. And how we can move forward from a place of empowerment without blame. Like many women, I have been on the receiving end of men at their cruelest, caught up in conflict and unable to see anything other than my own suffering. But what I have come to realise as a result, is that I only have control over two things: how I feel, and how I operate in the world. And this realisation has transformed my outlook on all of my life experiences, including my relationship with men.

For example, I could get all caught up in the fact that I have been a victim of abuse, that men are responsible for all my suffering as a woman due to centuries of suppression and patriarchal conformities. I could take these feelings and direct them externally towards all my male interactions as if every man I have ever met is accountable and will never understand what I’ve been through or what my needs are as a woman. I could then attempt to manipulate every encounter with a man so that I feel better about myself and justified in any behaviour that arises as a result of my past.

OR…

I could learn from my past experiences, recognise that how I am acting now, as a result, is not causing me anything but more pain and anxiety, and get really curious about why that is. What are these feelings that I’m having about it all? Where are they coming from?

Because how I feel, now that is something I can control.

And so my attention is diverted inside myself, to the one place that only I reside. Now I’m in a place of empowerment because it’s from here that I sit in the director’s chair of my own life experience. And how do I want that to look? What do I choose for myself?

Well I don’t choose to completely extricate myself from all future relationships with men! Where’s the fun in that? But I do choose to alter my experiences with them, which I realise has to begin with me and my feelings around what that looks like. So I take a really good look at those feelings, I spend time asking where in the body those sensations are located and how I can alter my responses to them that have been dictating the way I operate in the world.

And soon I began to realise that if I’m feeling amazing in myself, I smile and radiate that good feeling towards everyone I meet, and am usually met with the same. If I’m feeling down and awful and am scowling at people, then likely I will be gifted a similar response. I may as well have how I feel tattooed on my forehead, because the way I feel, and therefore operate out in the world as a result, is palpable to everyone, whether they realise it or not. That is the power of each of us. So how do I harness it so that I always present out into my environment in a way I hope others will reflect back to me? By becoming very familiar with my feelings and how they effect my behaviour. By realising that it starts with me, that in order for there to be harmony in my life there must be harmony within me.

This is not to say that everything I have experienced so far has been my fault, it just means that it’s time to take ownership for the part I played and to be thankful for the difficult times that have led me to realise so much about who I am and where my true power lies – within me; in the feelings that I have and the way I perform in the world as a result.

I then started to get really curious about myself, who I am, what I want, how I can choose my life experience from a place of empowerment rather than pain. And then I got really comfortable with that person first, released any residual anger and bitterness, and moved into a place of being the person that I hoped would be reflected back in the same image. And it’s happening, slowly, with each defensive layer I peel away from myself to reveal the truly authentic and vulnerable person beneath who just wants to love and be loved. And that is all.

And because I’m not showing up in my world armed and ready to defend myself, so I find I’m not attracting those who would do battle with me. And perhaps that’s the way to find a common ground with men and where we might start a new conversation from; weapons down, breaking bread together from a place of curiosity about where we can go from here and how the future might look different.