Destination Unknown

by Lauren Postans

There once was a little girl starting a new school. She was told by her parents that her mother was going back to work in order for her and her sister to attend an exclusive school for ladies where she would have to wear gloves.

The first day she arrived and met her new teacher who quickly grabbed her hand and took off the little girl's new watch and signet ring that her parents gave her to let her know that she was all grown up. So now she had nothing or her own, she was exactly the same as every other girl there. She let go of her mother's hand and suddenly felt alone and scared.

Later that day, the little girl found a friend, one that would be her friend for the rest of her life, through tough times, fun times, through marriage, childbirth and life.

This little girl, let's call her Rabbit, settled into life at school and she quickly found that she was a little different - she loved to run fast. She found that when she was running, she could escape, escape everyone and everything else. She entered her own private world when she was running.

Both her parents worked, her mother had to, remember, so Rabbit did the housework, the ironing, cooked and at the age of nine, her father asked her to look after her mother and big sister while he was away at work.

So Rabbit felt that this was the way to get her father's love. She put on a mask, a masculine mask and 'looked after' the women in the family.

Rabbit found that she was good at this role but she had ambition and wanted to create some money for herself so she started a business when she was 12 years old making toffies and selling them at school. The school principal was a nun - Sister Rachel, she said that Rabbit could continue her business as long as the profit went to the school. Well, this did not fit into the plan but fortunately her father was a business person and he showed her how to 'fix the books'.

Rabbit had found her entrepreneurial streak which would stay with her for the rest of her life.

She continued to excel at sport and found that this was also the way to get her father's attention. Her mother never really showed much affection either, she was always at work and Rabbit was often reminded that her mother worked to put her and her sister through school.

Rabbit found that she didn't really fit in with most of the girls at school. They giggled, shaved their legs and sunbaked at lunch time. Rabbit was too busy playing sport, running a household and taking care of her mother.

Rabbit's main needs at the time were to be loved and have connection and certainty. She cried out for her parents love and felt so uncertain that she would do anything to reassure herself that things would be ok so she layered another mask of masculinity to create some certainty in her life.

Rabbit started hanging out with boys before the other girls. She didn't know it at the time but she was just trying to get love and connection. She realized that she could use her sexuality to attract and manipulate. This was another mask of strength and domination. She even started cutting herself for love, connection and certainty.

Rabbit did quite well at school, enough to get by. She was given allowances, "you don't need to attend first lesson, you just continue to strap up your ankles after all, you are our prize runner" her teachers would say. One day in a French exam, her teacher said, "You don't need to know French when you can run like a rabbit"

She spent so much time playing sport that when it came time to go to university, to study exercise science, she couldn't make the grade. So she did nursing with some of the other girls... This was definitely not to her father's liking because, "wasn't Florence Nightingale a prostitute?"

Rabbit found that she could be feminine sometimes in this nurturing role of the nurse. A feminine mask was put on with some relief. Rabbit married the second doctor that asked her. She wanted to get engaged, but her father suggested that they just jump in and get married. So six weeks later at the age of 21 she was married. You see, her father no longer felt the burden of responsibility when she got married.

Rabbit found her husband to be in love with her, he would do what she asked but it was her that looked after the money, the house, his career, her career, she layered another masculine mask and after ten years and two children, she knew something had to change so she decided they needed to be apart and even though she was pregnant with her third son, she found it was the only way to move on.

Rabbit cared for, provided for her three sons, she was everything and everyone to them and needed to be strong for them, she felt she couldn't let them see her cry and show her weakness. How wrong she was, you see, her sons needed to see her feminine side so they could grow up to be strong masculine men.

She ran several businesses, finished two science degrees, wrote two books, built a successful health and wellness centre - oh yes, she did get back to do her sports science degree, nine years and three children later. She helped her sons succeed through school, their sport, all state level sportsmen. She became an international speaker, playing the tough business woman, running the chamber of commerce and several other committees. She had something to prove, her needs were now that of significance and certainty and the only way she new how to do it was by being tough, take no prisoners, don't show any weakness because you will get hurt and all the time believing she was not good enough.

Then one day, she was sitting on top of a mountain in the Himalayas at 3500metres looking out over the rest of the world and she felt at peace. You see she had spent some time in the Dali Lama's monastery, talked with his sister who said, "Feel your heart, what is it telling you? Stop fighting, you must love yourself as you are now and then you can love the world". Rabbit felt a flood of tears of all the years of trying to be what others thought she should be, of trying to gain the love of others without loving herself. So at 3500 metres she felt like every particle of her flowing out and mixing with every particle of every other living thing and she loved herself as her true core feminine self. She shed every mask, slowly as the tears fell, one by one, the masks she had accumulated over her life lifted and drifted away.

Rabbit realized on the mountain that we need to be responsible, love and care for everything in the world because we are all part of each other. She realized that the destination is unknown, and that's exciting because it is the journey that is important and it is who you become along the way that is the most important thing of all.

Mothers and fathers love your daughters, teach them to love themselves and let them know you will always be there for them. Girls, you can do anything you want to, be grateful for what you have every day and the universe will give you more. Above all, stay true to your authentic feminine self and you can be a leader, a business person, an entrepreneur, a mother and a partner without any masks.



By Lauren Postans

www.freedomtochoose.me



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