No one said a single word

I wanna tell you what happened in me……

…. And I wonder if this is unique to me…. Somehow I suspect not.

I woke this morning with these questions ricocheting in my head and heart:

“Oh damn, should I have posted that “I am the patriarchy” piece?”

“Should I have softened what I said?? “

“Are people going to be pissed at me?”

“Did I capture the essence of my understanding?”

“Am I talking/ writing too much?”

“Does what I think and feel matter ?”

“ Was I too direct”?’

“ Am I going to be alienated?”

“What is up with me that I am posting these pieces?”

Grrrrrrowlllll….. this is how the patriarchy lives in me….

In many of us…

This is how we stop ourselves -because the culture has embedded the hierarchy of men over and above women in every cell…. (As I wrote in the previous piece.)

Questioning our place at the table of opinions.

Questioning the validity of our words and perceptions.

Questioning responses as if we are only here to please others.

Questioning if we will be judged and then isolated.

This is the way the insidious persistent dynamic of the patriarchy thwarts our voices and wisdom.

To be clear I am confident in my self…. I am standing in my truth ….. while I experience this litany in my own brain that wants to shut me up.

This feels like a punch in my own gut and a stranglehold on my own voice….

Tears fill my eyes in the frustration of this ancient and inequitable state of the human psyche.

But these were the thoughts in MY head.

No one said a single word.