Category Archives: Empowerment

Don’t Call Me Superwoman: A Feminist Poem

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Don’t Call Me Superwoman

A Feminist Poem by Priya Florence Shah

Don’t call me Superwoman
I don’t want to be your Mom
I don’t want to be your champion
Someone to fall back on

I want an equal partner
One who steps up to the plate
I want someone who plays his part
A friend, a steadfast mate

I’m not your superwoman
I do not multi-task
I will not cook or clean or care
If you don’t do your part

I need you to stand with me
We’ll walk side by side
And each of us will bear the load
Or don’t come for the ride

I’m not your superwoman
Become your maid, I won’t
I refuse to be responsible
For doing the things you don’t

You can pick up your own socks
Put your shoes on the rack
I refuse to be guilt-tripped
Into picking up your slack

Don’t call me Superwoman
I’m a human being like you
And deserve as much as anyone
Some love and self-care too

Dont Call Me Superwoman Poem

Why A Woman Should Be The First Person On Mars

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After watching The Martian, the movie where, for the third time, the USA spends an obscene amount of money to rescue Matt Damon from an untenable position (the first two being Saving Private Ryan and Interstellar), it got me thinking that maybe a woman should be the first to live on Mars.

According to my limited knowledge, not only do women need fewer calories than men to stay alive, they also deal with isolation better, as pioneering primatologist, Jane Goodall, proved so well on her mission to understand chimps in the jungles of Tanzania.

After a bit of research, I saw that I was not the only one who thought so. A number of researchers have also felt the same way, and there are many arguments for a woman being the first person to live on Mars, in the way that Matt Damon did in The Martian.

Women Can Survive Isolation Better

JerrieCobb_MercuryCapsulePrimary among them are the fact that female astronauts display better communication skills and deal better with isolation than male astronauts, as Chinese space officials have found. Similar results were found during the testing of the Mercury 13.

Surviving long periods of isolation is no mean feat and can be “mentally draining”, as the six man crew of the Mars500 project learned in 2011.

The Mars500 project, which locked six men in steel tubes for 18 months, was undertaken by the European Space Agency at a Moscow institute, and was intended to find out how the human mind and body would cope on a long-duration spaceflight.

All the members of the crew were men, but it would be interesting to see the results of a similar study with women participants.

Some Men Develop Disabling Health Issues

Besides the fact that NASA’s height restrictions (you have to be between 4’ 11” to 6’ 3’’ to qualify for the astronaut program) favour women, several male astronauts have developed problems like permanent vision impairment in space. All of them were in orbit 6 months or less. So far, no women have experienced lasting vision issues.

Other than being more prone to issues that are not mission critical, such as motion sickness (which passes quickly) and UTI (which can be treated), women do have about twice the risk of radiation induced cancer than men do, which is why NASA allows women only half as much lifetime space flight as men.

But radiation is a risk that might have to be solved for everyone, not just for women as the video here notes.

Women Consume Fewer Calories

It also may turn out to be cheaper to send women to other planets. Women have a lower caloric requirement and need less food to do the same activity as men. That means less mass transport, less propellant and less cost.

According to an article in News.com.au, Kate Greene took part in and documented a four month study in which six ‘crew-members’ lived in a simulated Mars expedition camp on the side of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano.

She found that “it was rare for a woman on crew to burn 2,000 calories in a day and common for male crew members to exceed 3,000,” even when everyone was getting the same amount of exercise.

“At mealtime, the women took smaller portions than the men, who often went back for seconds,” she said. In an environment where every kilo counts, and not only do lower caloric needs reduce costs, so does the on-average smaller personal mass of female astronauts.

Neither NASA’s nor Russia’s space program have given women a great deal of importance. I’m not a supporter of an all-women crew, and believe instead that a mixed crew of men and women would be the best way to deal with the issues that space pioneers face. Both men and women have different strengths that complement each other, in this regard.

But, do I think a woman would have been more believable in Matt Damon’s role? Yes, if only for the caloric requirements of the ordeal of spending over 500 Sols on Mars.

the-martian-matt-damon-2015

So what do you think? Are women better geared for the trials and tribulations of colonizing Mars?

As for the question, “Why Matt Damon?”, it’s probably because, were someone to get left behind on Mars accidentally, it might as well be Matt Damon. According to Hollywood, he’s the one person that the USA would spend billions of dollars rescuing, from any place in the Universe.

How To Transform Your Relationship With Yourself

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How To Transform Your Relationship With Yourself

How we see the world and interpret the actions of others depends on our relationship with our self. To change your relationships with others, you’ve got to change your relationship with yourself.

Why do we feel unhappy or unfulfilled in our relationships? Why do we complain, judge others or blame them for our problems? Usually, it’s because we feel that way about our self.

Our relationships and life experiences are a reflection of our inner world. How we see the world and interpret the actions of others depends on our relationship with our self.

To change your relationships with others, you’ve got to change your relationship with yourself.

[bctt tweet=”To change your relationships with others, you’ve got to change your relationship with yourself.”]

Own your feelings

Accept that you alone are responsible for the way you think and feel. No one can make you feel that way. Own responsibility for allowing yourself to feel the way you do.

Be self-aware

Step back and observe yourself from a distance. How do you react to people and situations? Are you reacting unconsciously from the “wounded child” or responding in a calm, compassionate manner? When you’re conscious and aware of your feelings in a situation, you have the power to respond, rather than react.

Be authentic

Be true to yourself. There’s no need to put on a mask or a persona for someone else. You are perfect, whole and complete the way you are.

Love yourself unconditionally

Accept yourself for who you are, the parts you like, the parts you don’t. You’re part of divine creation. When you know and believe that, you will love and accept yourself the way you are.

Never belittle yourself

Never put yourself down or disrespect yourself. Don’t allow anyone else to treat you in a way that you don’t approve of. Never accept less than what you deserve – from yourself or anyone else.

Take care of yourself first

Remember the airline stewardess telling you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping the person next to you? You can’t take care of someone else, your family, or your kids, if you don’t take care of yourself first. Make yourself and your health a priority and do what it takes to get well, in every way.

Get in touch with your Higher Self

Your intuition is your Higher Self, the self that knows without knowing, sees without seeing. It is this self that will guide you towards your higher purpose. Any time you spend in meditation, prayer or solitude, cultivating your relationship with your higher self, will be time well spent.

Learn to connect with yourself at a deeper level, find your purpose, and understand your role in the universe. It will transform your relationship with yourself, and with everyone in your life.

© Priya Florence Shah

Learning To Let Go With Love

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One of the hardest things for any person, man or woman, is letting go of a relationship that’s not meant to be. We are often attached to the illusion that this person is “the One” for us, and that if we don’t have him or her, we’ll never find somebody new.

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Holding on to disappointment, hurt, blame, anger, resentment, and bitterness, we convince ourselves that “all men are jerks” or “all women are bitches.”

If you’ve just got out of a relationship and are harbouring a lot of resentment against your partner or against the opposite sex, now is NOT the time to start dating again. Your anger and bitterness will poison even the most loving relationship.

When we hang on to baggage from past relationships, we end up projecting our pain on to others in our lives – our families, children and, eventually, our new partners.

Our emotional baggage is usually rooted in our relationships with our own parents, or in bad relationships we’ve had in the past. We have to lighten our load and heal our pain before we can love again.

[bctt tweet=”We have to lighten our load and heal our pain before we can love again.”]

Some of the practices you need to cultivate in order to heal yourself are:

Radical Personal Responsibility:

Take responsibility for the role you played in your relationship, either by taking inappropriate action, not acting altogether or expecting too much. Stop blaming your partner. Own your feelings, so you can change them.

Self-Awareness:

Are there patterns that keep repeating in your relationships? Do you have a tendency to get into relationships with abusive people, or become abusive yourself? Become mindful of your reactions to people and situations. Learn to identify your patterns, and the unhealthy beliefs that are causing them.

Acceptance:

Accept yourself and your partner the way you are. Accept the fact that the relationship was not meant to be, that it didn’t work because it was not your highest and best.

Forgiveness:

Learn to forgive yourself for all the damage that your anger and pain may have caused, and forgive others for being human and acting out their own anger and pain.

Gratitude:

Be grateful that you’re out of a bad relationship, so you can be with someone better suited to your needs. Be grateful for all the lessons you’ve learned from your partner.

Compassion:

Learn to look at all people as human beings dealing with their own pain. Spend some time seeing the world through their eyes and you’ll become less judgmental.

Detachment:

Learn to let go of unhealthy attachments to people, things and situations.

Independence:

Stop expecting other people to give you the love and acceptance you should be giving yourself. Learn to meet your own needs, let go of expectations, and enter a healthy, inter-dependent relationship.

Optimism:

Optimism is not essential, but it makes life so much easier. An optimistic outlook, positive attitude and belief that everything happens for the best, can help you bounce back from your loss. Have faith that the best is yet to come.

It takes a lot of tears, hard work, and introspection to break the chains of the past. But it’s worth every moment! The feeling of freedom and contentment that you experience is just awesome.

Getting rid of your anger and hurt will help you stop blaming others for your pain, and allowed you to see your former partner as they really are – a wonderful, sensitive human being with the capacity to love, to care, and to hurt just as deeply as you.

It will allow you to love life again, to see the beauty in every experience, to be non-judgmental and open to new relationships.

No time spent in a relationship is ever wasted. Every experience is a lesson and only when you learn the lesson will you progress to the next level. So stop beating yourself up over all the years you “wasted” with that “loser.”

[bctt tweet=”Every experience is a lesson and only when you learn the lesson will you progress to the next level. “]

If it didn’t work, it was probably not meant to be. You can’t force someone to love you, just as you can’t force commitment or marriage. These are stages that should happen naturally, when it feels right for both people.

Contrary to popular opinion (and sad love songs) love is not meant to hurt. If you’re in pain, what you’re experiencing is not love, but attachment or codependence. Too often we fall in love, not with our partner, but with the IDEA of being in love.

[bctt tweet=”Too often we fall in love, not with our partner, but with the IDEA of being in love.”]

It’s best to let go of a relationship that’s causing too much pain. Instead of wallowing in the past and writing your own sad love song, do your inner work, get rid of the anger and disappointment and get on with your life.

Let go of your partner with love, so you can move past your hurt and learn to love again.

© Priya Florence Shah

Addiction – The Hole In Your Soul

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During the course of my spiritual growth, I realized that most people are addicts, in one way or another. And that addiction is not a physical or a psychological disease, but a disconnection from Source Energy and from our Higher Selves.

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When we’re disconnected from our higher selves (the source of love and higher emotions), we must look for something outside of ourselves to fill that hole in our soul. This attachment or craving (not desire, as is popularly believed) is noted, in Buddhism, as the cause of suffering.

And so we turn to people, relationships, sex, food, alcohol, drugs, meditation, prayer, caffeine, cigarettes, television, music, work, exercise, shopping, gambling, internet usage, pornography and other ways to bliss out, just so that we don’t have to face the fact that we’ve disconnected from our life path and from the purpose that we came here to fulfil.

That’s why all programs for recovery from addiction, like the 12-step program, mandate a reconnection with a Higher Power as essential for recovery.

But, you might say, almost all of the things I’ve listed above (barring TV, internet, pornography and stimulants) are necessary for existence. So how do you know when something becomes an addiction?

The easiest way to know this is to CHECK YOUR INTENTIONS. Be honest with yourself about why you believe you need it. If TV is merely a distraction, if you use food only to nourish your body, if you turn to people and relationships solely to stay connected, you are most likely not addicted to these things.

Another way to test if you’re addicted to something is to GO WITHOUT IT. If you can easily do without it for a while, especially under stressful circumstances, you are most likely not addicted.

But if you compulsively do any of the following – overeat, get drunk, smoke, gamble, take drugs, cling to relationships and people, exercise too much, watch too much porn or do anything to bliss out – you may be using it to fill that hole in your soul, to mask your disconnection from the true nature of your being.

If that’s so, then you need to rediscover your life purpose and reconnect with Source, by doing the psychological and spiritual work you need to become whole again. Some of the attitudes that helped me heal my own codependence are:

Self-awareness: Becoming an observer of my emotions and reactions.

Self-love: Knowing that I am worthy of love, that it has to come from within me. Learning how to develop high self-esteem and stronger boundaries.

Self-acceptance: Learning to accept my flaws and forgive myself for my mistakes.

Detachment: Detaching from a situation so I can respond appropriately.

Overcoming my fears: Learning to act from Love (Higher Self) rather than Fear (Ego).

© Priya Florence Shah

10 Ways To Step Into Your Feminine Power

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10813734_sIt’s not easy for a woman in India to be powerful in what is still, in many ways, a man’s world. Every day we encounter negativity from those who are threatened by the strides that women have made.

It’s reached the point where we feel that we either have to be a bimbo or a bitch to succeed. But we don’t have to be either. We just need to be human beings with the ability to express our unique gifts and talents.

Here I list 10 ways that have helped me live a bigger life and make choices that can have brought me the self-awareness, freedom and contentment I now enjoy.

1. Cultivate Self-Love and Self-Esteem

One of the most important things a woman must cultivate is her self-esteem and the ability to love herself. If your self-love and self-esteem are strong, you can bounce back from almost anything.

Having a healthy self-esteem gives you a positive outlook in life and this is reflected in your performance on the job, in your relationships and in the way you live your life.

2. Know that you ALWAYS have a choice

Most Indian women have this sense of hopelessness because we feel we have to make everyone happy, but ourselves. But remember that you ALWAYS have a choice – even if it is one that the people in your life do not agree with or believe is selfish.

As one of my teachers, Abraham- Hicks, says, “If you’re not selfish enough to connect to Source Energy (your Divine nature), you don’t have anything to give anybody anyway.”

Which brings me to the next point…

3. Nurture your Divine connection

As women we are definitely more intuitive and have the ability to easily connect to our Divine source of wisdom and well-being. The ones who gave the most, like Mother Theresa, were also the ones who were most connected to their Divine wisdom.

You have the same potential to share your unique gifts with the world – all you need to do is to start cultivating your spiritual life and listen to your inner guidance.

4. Cultivate empowering beliefs

Your life is a reflection of the beliefs you hold. Even if you say that you want to succeed, if your subconscious beliefs don’t match your desires, it will not happen. You need to become conscious of which beliefs are holding you back and clear them from your system.

As geek-speak goes, “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. What you put into your mind, you get out. If you fill your mind with endless negativity from soap operas, commercials and the mass media, your life will become a replica of what you see there.

[bctt tweet=”If you want to have empowering beliefs, only expose yourself to empowering thoughts. “]

Read empowering books, subscribe to empowering newsletters, stop watching TV (yes, it can be done) or watch less of it.

5. Be mindful of the company you keep

I read somewhere that you are the average of the 5 people closest to you in every area of your life. If you want to be more successful, hang out with people you admire and want to emulate, not with those who are in the same boat.

Success can be scary and the journey to the top can be lonely. Find a mentor and ask them to coach you. Spend your time with people who elevate you, not those who pull you down.

A very good quote I read recently is that [bctt tweet=”Your companions are like the buttons on an elevator. They will either take you up or they will take you down.”]

6. Never apologise for your success

Your family and friends might not support your goals and plans. Learn to draw strong boundaries with those who you cannot avoid.

Explain to those who offer “well-meaning” advice that, while you appreciate their input, you would like the freedom to make your own mistakes.

[bctt tweet=”Never put yourself down or underplay your achievements just to make the other person feel better. “]

As Marianne Williamson said, “when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

7. Take care of your body

Many Indian women stop caring for themselves after they have kids and reach middle-age. But the way you look tells the world a lot about your self-esteem.

You don’t have to go overboard and spend thousands on beauty treatments, because looking good is an inside job. If you feel good about yourself, you will naturally take pride in your appearance.

8. Invest in yourself

Invest time and money in learning and growing. Take courses, learn new skills. It will make a huge difference to your success, whether you have a business or career.

If you run a business, you will attract better quality clients who are also willing to invest in their own businesses. The logic is that “why would anyone invest in someone who is not willing to invest in themselves.”

9. Have fun

If you asked me the purpose of life, I would quote my teachers, Abraham-Hicks, who say that, “The Basis of your life is Freedom; the Purpose of your life is Joy.”

If what you are doing does not bring you joy, ask why that is and what you can do to change it. Perhaps you want to do work that is more meaningful (many women do), even if you earn less money in the process.

Do whatever nurtures your spirit, whether that involves travel, hobbies or just spending time with friends and family who you can have a good laugh with. Don’t take life too seriously.

10. Seek help when you need it

If you have faced serious problems in your life and need professional help, go to a qualified psychologist or an energy healer. Better yet, learn to heal yourself. We all have the ability to do it and it’s just one more way to take care of yourself.

This is an excerpt from the book, Step Into Your Feminine Power And Rule Your World: 24 Empowering Ideas for the Modern Indian Woman, available on Amazon Kindle and Flipkart.com

© Priya Florence Shah