I think women’s souls were born to be wild and free.
*editors note: this article is geared towards feminist beliefs. I want to preface this ensuring you understand that as the author, I am well aware of gender roles and that men, too, experience emotional labor from women & relationships. At times even more so than women. That deserves it’s own article, and more data collected from men. This is rooted in my witnessed experiences as a woman, working with women.
It’s how we collect so much magic to disperse to men, children, to fellow women…
It’s how we dominate fields like nursing, massage therapy, acupuncture, psychics and astrologers.
I once heard a podcaster say women hold all the power. For if we all came together and refused to let anyone inside of our bodies, we could stop the Universe.
We could heal you by touch alone, sometimes just by eye contact. But only:
When our cup is full.
We can be the most wretched witches,
earning our title of bitches,
hissing from a corner if we are depleted of our magic and forbidden to run wild & collect more.
I suppose I should clarify what “wild and free” means — access to the natural world, in sync with nature’s natural rhythms, with limited demands placed upon us. The ability to have more control over what goes in, and who comes around, our bodies.
Men want in us, children need all from us. Sometimes fellow women want at us.
Multi-tasking queens, our extremely fast minds built to run a household are the work horses of the super busy all the time doing all the things, era of human history.
As we settle into an age where there’s more equality amongst genders than ever before, and individuality is both encouraged & celebrated by capitalism, I’m seeing a very noticeable pattern…
Intimate romantic relationships are not giving a ROI.
Return on Investment.
Sure we may get children from a partnership.
We may receive financial support.
Some partner’s really do make our lives a lot easier.
But have relationships become less enjoyable and more emotional labor?
Have they always been, we’re just now ready to talk about it?
We all know by now relationships, especially marriage, are hard work.
Dating is hard work. Really hard work, in today’s social media age.
Having the conversation of “what are we?” is hard work.
Meeting the family is hard work.
Maintaining equality in a committed partnership where two different people with differing personalities, goals, and dreams have to consider each other, all while balancing the daily chores of life, raising a family, keeping up with a household… is where the real work shows up.
For some, loyalty and honesty alone is the real hard work.
Even when the inevitable rupture and breach of trust happens to a relationship, we circle right back to the start:
Dating again and igniting the initial spark, is hard work. When all you can see in the person’s eyes are no longer a future together, but the scars from years of being wounded by each other. Never mind the pressure put on by friends and family to stay together for the kids, or why would you leave them? They’re so sweet, you lost a good one.
*eye roll*
And, ah, now I’m meeting your family in a different way; I see clearly the wounds you’ve inherited and are repeating onto me, the person who’s constantly stitching up the cut they didn’t make. This is hard work.
Losing oneself to being a provider, a nurturer, a partner and parent, having no idea what you like to do for fun anymore… This is hard.
Technology is inventing many ways to survive alone, without a partner.
You can have food delivered.
You can do telehealth medicine.
You can probably uber a maid to come grab your laundry.
You can flirt, be social, sexually please yourself through apps.
You can have watch parties, play games, listen to music together, all through your phone.
Just typing that makes me want to nervously pick my eyelashes.
99% of my clients for Birth Chart Consultations are Women.
They’ve shared things no one else has ever known about them.
They vulnerably share their rawest, most authentic thoughts over Zoom with a stranger. I watch as their eyes swell up with tears of relief, a sweet release, as they whisper beneath emotion: “I can’t believe I just said that. I’ve never told anyone that before.”
Stories of being married to someone they haven’t had sex with in years. Stories of waiting decades for the one that got away. Stories of leaving on the day their youngest graduated from high school. Stories of being locked in a bathroom and phone’s hijacked. Men who promised to protect & to hold them, promising the same to another behind their back while they bathed their child and put them to bed.
I will never understand how love can make people do such cruel things to the person they tell themselves they love. I am so sorry, if you’re reading this, and you’ve experienced control, abuse, and/or manipulation. God forbid physical abuse. It’s not fair, and I hate that it exists. Can’t people just say, I dont like you anymore. I am going to leave you alone. Instead of inciting pain?
It bewilders me that hate and love share a bunkbed.
I hold people in this space. I give them compassion, a non judgmental space, that hey, who cares if you regret having your kids because the person you let inside your body decided they wanted to abuse the outside of it. You aren’t a bad person for having that thought when you’re pouring from an empty cup.
Most people use Astrology for two things:
What is my Purpose?
Who is My One?
And it’s no secret, the vast majority of people who use Astrology are women.
Why are those two subjects so paramount for us ladies?
From data I’ve gathered in 5 years of consultations, women today are tired of dating. Especially on the apps. They’re even getting burnt out on friendships; a vital part of survival as a woman.
Men have succumbed to the ease dating apps and social media can bring to finding a mate. They can watch porn whenever they want. They can flirt with girls and zoom in on photos at any time of day when testosterone hits. They don’t need to put in hardly any effort to get what they biologically crave.
It’s robbed them of the confidence they need to develop to walk up to someone and say hello.
To earn sex.
The domino effect of this is more than likely the reason why people are struggling to both date and retain a commitment today.
Studies show men are suffering from mental health decline more in the age of the internet than any other gender. Why do you think that is?
The most common theme I’ve noticed over my career as an Astrologer is women wanting to live alone. In the forest. Beneath fruit trees. By the ocean. Connecting and tending to the earth. Connecting with other women. Creating children or birthing creative ideas.
Even in healthy partnerships I’m hearing this!
Women want their own house on a property with their family, or at minimum — their own bedroom to sleep in.
Why do you suppose this is?
I often wonder what the state of relationships will be like in the future.
Having fallen victim to keeping up with jones’: married at 24 divorced at 29, now in a relationship I cherish and hold tightly, I can confidently say I will never bound myself to someone again through legal means, and most certainly never change my last name. I feel thankful but also, worked really hard to attract a partner who is on the same page as me and respects my desire for closeness, yet autonomy.
I like the idea of having my own getaway house, too. Not just to get away from a partner (hehe) but to get away from dogs. cats. kids. family. things that need me. Demands placed upon me.
I want to have me time, and a lot of it, so I don’t half ass my connection to anyone. So that my empty cup isn’t thrown across the room leaving a bump on someone’s head. This may sound selfish out loud, but when I do this I’m able to boldly step into my relationships and give full attention and presence. That’s the stuff of healing.
Adding to this theory: I believe it’s safe to say everyone has experienced infidelity whether they cheated or someone cheated on them. Yeah? If neither, they know someone close who has experienced one of the two.
So why is monogamy pushed so hard?
Before you go there — I’m not saying polyamory is the way to go. It’s definitely not something I could personally do, and from what I hear it has a lot of challenges of it’s own.
I don’t know what the solution is:
Contractual relationships that have an expiration date??
Women having more community where they can help each other with the demands placed on them, and have time with people who want to enjoy time with them, but don’t need anything from them?
Hm.
I’m heavily focused on the romantic dynamic between men and women here, but every gender seems to report difficulty in friendships today, too. Have we lost the ability to not take everything offensively? Have we lost interest in putting in work to keep friendships alive long after the demands of partnership and parenthood take us away from it?
Repairing after a rupture like infidelity is a serious full time job.
What’s more emotional labor? Not having someone to make you soup when you’re sick or scratch the itch on your back? Or healing from betrayal with someone you shared a life with. Learning to trust again both other people and most importantly, yourself, after someone completely blindsides you.
I believe in love between two people. I’m optimistic about love. But it doesn’t mean I’m not investigating it, a bystander on the sidelines of relationship alchemy the Age of Aquarius is ushering in. There’s no doubt we need a complete reform of what’s “normal” in committed unions between two people.
The way it’s been going is not working. And it’s, in my opinion, unnecessarily breaking a lot of hearts.
My personal belief? Relationship struggles are not fully about trauma from mom and dad and inherited from generations. Big piece of the pie? Absolutely.
But I think we all have a seed of narcissism in us. The age of social media and technology has fertilized, watered, and grown it out of proportion for those who had no self awareness to recognize what was going on every time you saw those likes.
I think we’re trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.
There’s something not working with the patriarchal based system of:
date, marriage, house, kids, dog, fence, retire, caregive, death.
Men get bored and women get lonely. Men die without it, women thrive when they’re free from it. I know, sometimes it’s the other way around.
I’m astonished that love can create life. A real human life.
I hate that I can’t unsee, how hate cannot grow in any other soil besides love.
It makes no sense, yet makes perfect sense — and has to be the biggest clue to get out of this Valentines themed escape room.
Intimate relationships are so complicated, so high stake, that I think people are settling into self love and the enjoyment of friendships rather than one on one, intimate relationships. And this is really working for them!
I used to envy other relationships that looked good from the outside. But through my career on social media, I got to know the people on the other side of the photo grid and the truth was equally disturbing as it was disheartening; everyone has relationship struggles. Big ones.
It’s weird to go from wishing you had or could create something someone had, to getting a glimpse beyond the veil and running the other way as fast as you can.
If they can’t even make it work, I give up on love!
I Ask The Morning what she thinks:
Relationships have caused all sorts of miracles, and all sorts of trauma. They more than likely always will. You will always be in charge of your reality — how much you can take, and when you’ve had enough.
Nothing lasts forever. We all come home to the same sunrise.
So now what?
People are collectively progressing at rapid speed when it comes to learning about the psychology of feelings, emotions & love. So much that the human body almost can’t keep up with the brain.
We’ve done much emotional labor learning about trauma, ourselves, the other, that it’s actually making relationships more difficult to ensure you say the right thing, get to know absolutely everything about someone’s traumatic past, that you inevitably fail and step on toes.
When we place the unfair responsibility of never hurting our feelings into the hands of the other, we always lose.
We need to talk about our feelings a bit less, and feel them a bit more.
If something doesn’t feel good, right, or fair to you, sometimes a conversation isn’t needed; its just not right for you. Period.
If something feels very right to you, but logically cannot be explained, do not worry what others think or even what your own mind says — it’s right for you in that moment.
If something is broke with someone, but deep down you know you can fix it — it’s a job you signed up for. Clock in, and get to work.
If something is broke with someone and you find your physical body failing, sending you aches and pains as last ditch efforts — it’s time to clock out.
We have a strong 6th sense of gut feelings, of intuition, at our disposal at all times. Yet, so many advancements are robbing us of this innate sense. If it were always turned on and accessible, if we knew how to use it as subconsciously as we use taste, touch, sight and smell…
The world may have no emotional problems to solve.
Take a break from urgency culture, from always being turned on and accessible, to see what whispers come into your heart…
You don’t need to ask anyone for the answer.
In fact, no one knows what they’re doing when it comes to love.
The greatest force on earth that can’t be measured.
We all have to do Emotional Labor.
The only thing you get to choose is who your co-workers are.