The first thing I did this morning, November 8, 2016, even before my early morning ritual of warm lemon water, meditation, and creative work was to check the election results on my phone.
I gasped. My stomach sank. My legs wobbled.
“Oh no!” burst from my lips. “No, America, you couldn’t have. No American women, how could you?” Moments later the thought flashes, “Now we’ll enter the dark ages.”
I hadn’t believed it was possible. Not in the slightest. I thought most other Americans saw him the way I did, as a woman, a California resident, a first generation Indian-American immigrant. I thought it was incredible that someone I believed so inexperienced, inappropriate, and ill-fit for a position of such responsibility, dignity, and magnitude could even rise as far as he did. Instead Hillary, I thought, was a shoo-in with women and minorities.
I was wrong. I’ve been living in my ivory tower as a healer, therapist, and life coach. Hoping. Perhaps even magical thinking. Trusting that most of us get that we’re walking a wonderful path towards consciousness and evolution. But living here in the San Francisco Bay Area where everyone I know is politically aligned like me, I realize how insulated I am from mainstream America.
52% of white women chose to vote for him. And 26% of Latino women. The only success was 4% of African-American women.
“Don’t they see his misogyny and sexism? How could they possibly want someone who assaults, belittles, and objectifies women? What does it mean about how they think about themselves?”
For 8 years I relished, felt proud of, and have been inspired by the glorious Michelle Obama.
I grew up in India where women are leaders — Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister for many years.
And like Hillary Clinton supporters, couldn’t wait for the U.S. to elect its first women president.
But the results are out. American women have spoken. The results reveal the majority of American women:
- don’t value and love themselves enough to choose a president who respects, sees, hears, and cherishes them.
- don’t want a leader who looks out for their safety and will protect their desires, needs, and bodies.
- believe that they are to be belittled and denigrated, and need to look a certain way to be and feel valuable to themselves and men. In short, they exist to serve men.
- don’t believe — perhaps even want — a woman to be president
This Horrifies Me.
As someone who works to empower women to love themselves, reach their fullest potential, and be Big, Bold, and Beautiful, Trump’s success is the polar opposite of what I believe.
So the election results are a glass of ice water flung at my face.
It’s a wake up call I feel in my bones, in my body, down to the very soles of my feet.
But. It makes me more determined for I feel the challenge we’re all up against.
It makes me even more committed to stand in my power as a woman.
To speak what I know to be true, essential, and sacred.
To say out loud that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.
I feel an urgency in me, like the remarkable people at Standing Rock, to be a warrior for peace, love, truth, women’s empowerment, evolution, transformation, consciousness, and as steward for our beloved Planet.
The task ahead of us is clear. We, American and women all over the planet, must:
- love ourselves
- respect ourselves
- demand and fight for our physical safety, protection, and respect in relationships
- feel beautiful and powerful on the inside
- step into and speak our feminine truth, power, and authority, and not look to men for that
- believe in and value ourselves, our truth, and our talents
- remove mainstream’s and patriarchal blinders and roar who we are beyond those primitive limitations
- know that each and every one of us is a Sacred Woman capable of extraordinary magic
Are you ready?
I am.
[ You can also read this article is on medium.com]
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