What Women’s Circles Have Taught Me About My Worth

Sisterhood

Aug 11

We live in a culture that is very good at pointing out what needs to be fixed.

From a young age, many of us are conditioned to receive feedback through correction. We are taught to improve, refine, adjust, achieve, and become better. In school, in work, in families, and sometimes even in spiritual communities, the focus is often on what could be better or more polished.

There is a place for honest reflection, growth, accountability, and learning to see our blind spots. But I have come to believe many women are hungry for something else.

We want to be witnessed in our essence, and be acknowledged for it.

We are longing for someone to look at us and say, “I see you. Your beauty, your power. I see what you carry. I see the gift you are here to bring.”

There have been moments in my life when I did not have the confidence to believe in myself until another reflected my beauty and power back to me.

I remember the first time I sang with my harmonium in front of a group of women. My hands were shaking, heart beating so fast.

An elder woman took me aside after, looked into my eyes, and told me I had a gift, and that she hoped I would continue sharing it on my path.

I had been so knee deep in insecurities in my early twenties, it was that kind of witnessing and reflection I needed to have the courage to keep going.

Over time, it was these kinds of reflections that helped me believe in myself enough to keep my business going, to keep leading workshops and classes, to publish my book, and eventually to build the business I run today.

(I'm 12 years in to being fully self-sustainable as an entrepreneur, still doing work I deeply care about).

It was as if she could see something I could not yet see. Or perhaps, something I had sensed quietly within myself, but did not yet trust.

When another woman named it, something in me believed her.

The Medicine of Being Witnessed

There is a particular kind of healing that happens when women gather with the intention to truly see one another.

To listen, reflect, honor, and remember.

In women’s circles, I have watched women arrive unsure of their voice, unsure of their worth, unsure if what they have to say matters. Then, little by little, as they are listened to without interruption, as their tears are welcomed, as their truth is met with tenderness, something begins to shift.

A woman who once apologized for every tear or stutter begins to speak more clearly, with confidence.

A woman who hid her gifts begins to name them.

A woman who thought she was too much begins to realize her depth is part of her medicine.

Sometimes we need the loving mirror of another woman to remember who we are, and what we came here to do.

The Reflection of Beauty

I have seen how powerful it is when a woman is reflected in her beauty.

The beauty of her devotion, her courage, her soul.

The beauty of her voice when she finally speaks the truth.

Sometimes a woman has carried her gifts for years without recognizing them. To her, they are simply who she is. She may not realize that her warmth changes the room, that her intuition helps others feel safe, that her creativity brings medicine, or that her presence is a form of leadership.

When another woman reflects this back, it becomes real.

What Happens in The Way of the Priestess

One of the most powerful moments in The Way of the Priestess happens during our closing ceremony.

After a year of walking the path together, each woman reads her vows. I offer guidance in writing the vows, but they are written by her, what the Priestess means to her and how she is going to walk her path of service from that day forward.

They are a sacred declaration of who she has become and what she is devoted to.

And then, after she reads, each woman in the circle reflects her beauty back to her. All they've witnessed over that year - the growth, the transformation, the becoming.

We speak what we see. We name her gifts. We honor the ways she has changed.

And she opens herself to receive.

It's simple, powerful. Sometimes life changing.

Healing the Sisterhood Wound

Many women have never had a room full of women reflect their brilliance without jealousy, criticism, or a subsonscious desire to shrink so as to not make anyone else uncomfortable.

There may be memories of being judged, excluded, misunderstood, betrayed, or compared. There may be old wounds from school years, friendship endings, family dynamics, or past experiences in communities where women turned against one another.

Many women have never been witnessed in their fullness and met with celebration.

So when this happens, something ancient repairs.

The circle gives us a chance to unlearn that conditioning, and choose a different path.

To breathe when beauty is reflected back.

To let the words enter the heart.

To allow the body to receive what the mind may want to push away.

This is part of the healing. Over time, we do not need the reflection in the same way, because it has begun to root inside us.

We begin to believe in ourselves.

Women's circles have taught me my worth is something I remember when I'm witnessed in love.

They have taught me that every woman carries a beauty she may not fully recognize.

They have taught me that we heal through being seen.

Could you use this kind of witnessing in your life?