Female Empowerment – Amy

Hello. I hope that you are all well. I thought it was about time that I wrote another blog and this time it relates to the female empowerment package that I currently have on offer.

I decided to create a package specifically for women as I found that more and more of my female clients are feeling frustrated with their lives and are unsure of what their next steps should be. None of them really have “bad” lives but the majority are people pleasers and would do anything for anyone else. What’s wrong with that? Well, everything if it means they aren’t looking after themselves and living the life they want. If boundaries become blurred and they are saying “yes” when they mean “no”, then frustration and resentment become their friend.

Amy is an example of the type of frustration that women are often faced with.

Amy was a successful business woman before she became a wife and mother. She knew exactly where she was heading career wise. She valued her independence and her own source of income. Amy got married in her late 20s and, slowly, her husband’s career seemed to become bigger and more important than hers. He earned more money and a lot of travel was involved. She felt like she was expected to support him and his career as the extended family seemed to suggest that was her role. The husband became the breadwinner and was the one working ‘harder’ even though she was doing everything else domestically and for the extended family, as well as working.

Amy slowly started to lose her sense of value or worth. She herself wasn’t being supported. Then children came along. Amy wanted them and thought she could redefine her life through them as a Mum. She was happy at first with the enormous love she felt for them and certainly didn’t mind being the main carer. Amy decided to devote all her time to the children, and gave up work. She tried to please her parents and her in laws in the way she was bringing the children up as she didn’t want to be seen as a failure. Her husband was happy with this as he could become the provider and liked to remind Amy who earned the money. Although her husband gave her access to his money (as she saw it) she felt guilty about spending it on herself. She started to feel very dependent on her husband and couldn’t see the value she brought in bringing up the children, looking after her husband and the ageing parents. She was ‘just’ a Mum. Where had she gone? She felt as if someone else was looking back at her in the mirror.

She turned to comfort eating and drinking to squash her feelings of unhappiness. She tried to find a part time job but had lost all confidence in her own abilities. She lost clarity, and a sense of purpose. She felt resentful and frustrated as she had become the ‘over-giver’. She felt overwhelmed and lost. She felt unloved as intimacy had also diminished. Her boundaries were blurred. She needed to redefine herself and find out what she truly wanted, and to feel her true self… whatever that might be. She needed to rise and reinvent herself. She needed to feel empowered.

Essentially, Amy was lost. Who was she? What could she do to change?

By enrolling in my course, Amy learned why she was in this position and how she got there. Somewhere along the way she had given up on her dreams and hopes like a lot of women do. She had given her power away. Instead of expressing how she felt, she just did more to please everyone else. She believed that her role was simply to be a carer and she felt like she didn’t have any worth.

Within the course, we worked on her boundaries and how to change them with love. It wouldn’t be fair to simply change them without informing others as they would be shocked. By changing her mindset and increasing her self belief, she was able to explain to her loved ones how she felt and that she now wished to make changes. Amy could suddenly communicate her needs better without feeling like she shouldn’t. Stepping into her truth was scary but very freeing for her – as it is for all of us.

Amy also learned to appreciate that she had been doing an amazing job as a mother, wife and carer. She saw that she was worthy of a huge pat on the back for everything she had done within these roles, it was just that it was now time to reclaim herself and be the new Amy she wished to be.

So by changing her mindset, by really looking at her core boundaries and her limiting beliefs and then by working to change them, she found herself again and is now much happier as a person. This has had a positive effect on all her relationships too. Her husband didn’t realise how she had been feeling because she hadn’t told him. She thought he should know how she felt. By opening communication with him, by being honest with him, he was able to understand and support her. It’s not like it’s a quick fix, but it is the start of a new way of being.

What’s holding you back? Why don’t you see if you can make a few adjustments and be happy too?