I think just a few years ago I would have agreed with a lot of matthijsalexander had to say. Here's what I did in between and where I differ now: I had children and became invested in humanity, in the earth, in joyfulness, in choice, and so on. I went from unconsciously unskilled to consciously unskilled and decided to get some skills.
I studied oppression. Learned about the overarching systems of the world and how they affect people. My major research paper was a call for anti-oppressive movements to start from a base of sustainability using permaculture practice. This was all theoretical, however. I still wasn't acting from my most authentic place.
My family decided to move to a land co-op to practice what we preach. We learned so much about primitive skills and how to live sustainably (e.g., I can skin a road kill deer and process it into pemmican with my two hands; making rattles of the hooves and using the brain to tan the hide). I found there that the permaculture community, just as the feminist community, and every other community I had been in, was as lacking in life skills as I was. That is, it was hard to find people with skills of self-awareness, self-responsibility, who were skilled at doing and teaching mediation/collateral coaching/restorative justice cirlces and just general cooperation, boundary setting and so on.
I went back to school again for Life Skills Coaching. Now I'm learning to be more aware of the negative stories I tell myself. I'm learning balanced, self-determined behaviour. I'm learning how to follow my universal path and along the way things just keep appearing. Now I see my choices and am capable of seeking what I don't immediately see.
5 years ago I also would have been bitterly complaining that I cannot do what these women did. But I can and I am. I have a family of 4 and as a family we have made less than 20,000/year for the last 3 years. We have had the privilege of education and from there we have chosen to be responsible for ourselves. When we don't know if there's a home-fix for an ethernet cable or a way to build our own cob ovens, or a way to clean water with mushrooms, we do the work. And life gets easier and we make better choices and we look a lot more like the happy people in that movie, who figured out what THEIR roles were (they're not telling you what your role is, btw) and who decided to help people (yes, all people) by sharing their knowledge. All of the experts in the film have accessible teachings available free online. And in my experience, I've found many tantric healers who are willing to consider trade or work trade with me. I told myself stories for a long time about what I could and couldn't do; how the world was or wasn't; what I had to or didn't have to do. No more. Now I'm listening to that voice inside I've been shutting down for far too long. Sacred sexuality can help us get there because we are practically incapable of speaking our truth if we do not have a good relationship with our vaginas (the book Vagina: A new biography was very helpful with some of the biological aspects if you're into empirical science).
Gabrielle Anwar's obstacles were real for her. Grief is grief; it can't be measured against itself.
When we learn deep hurts as very small children we develop tools for coping. For example, if your caregivers leave you to cry you will learn to cope, to be independent, to take care of yourself entirely. This happened to me. What it did is that without even realizing, I became everything for myself and was incapable of letting anyone in. I was only incapable, though, because I wasn't aware of it and didn't have the skills or a safe environment to change my behaviour.
What Gabrielle did was go out and seek: awareness of what was going on for her (and part of this is learning to give weight and hold space for an individual's unique reality regardless of what yours is); the tools to make change; and safe environments with people who could hold space for her to get the trauma out of her body. So that she could become a whole, self-loving human. We don't know what kind of trauma she underwent. We don't know what kind of generational trauma each of us carries with us.
The things is, individual lives change for the better when we realize it was us all along and that affects other people. It's not just realizing that only you can change yourself and that your self is the only one you can change; but actually going out and being vulnerable and finding that pain and letting it out. That's why this movie inspired me. We live in a society that puts us down for having feelings or doesn't let us have feelings because "someone else has it worse". It's not helping us.
Brene Brown's work on vulnerability and shame and how to be courageous is hugely helpful in this area. Everybody's gotta find their own style. Gabrielle finding hers in no way suggests that your path should be the same as hers.
The thing is, that work is scary and it's hard and most of us reach rock bottom over and over again before we change. It's the hero's journey.
I found this movie hugely helpful for figuring out the actual tangible next steps for working through my own shame and fear and pain. I believe it would help most men and women I know and I believe that our sexual awakening is one of the most important world changing events that is happening right now.
