I think I have been gynophobic at some level for years. According to the Oxford dictionary, Gynophobia is: a dislike or fear of women . Does that mean I didn’t like myself at some level (after all I am a woman)? Quite possibly, but rather it was a fear of being around groups of women I didn’t know. For years I felt much more comfortable being in a room full of men rather than a room full of women. In fact, when I first changed my career from manufacturing industries to health and wellbeing in 2016 I felt distinctly awkward and out of place when faced with having to network in groups that were predominately woman. I had to force myself with racing heart and shrinking fear to attend and talk to people. I had a belief that the conversation would be limited to handbags and shoes and they would not like or accept me for who I am.
Recently I realised all of that had changed when on a gorgeous spring day a few months ago, I was happily heading off with four lovely ladies to a local event to have fun!
This might seem normal for some women, yet it hasn’t always been my experience. At the time it was an epiphany of how much I had personally grown in the past few years.
Girls are so and so’sI think I was about nine and hanging out with some girlfriends in the school playground playing a singing game. We were taking turns at singing our favourite song and when it came to my turn I was excited and trusting and I opened up my voice to my friends.
It came as a real shock to me that they turned and laughed and told me that I couldn’t sing!
I felt hurt and ashamed and blushed vividly. The more this happened the more I was taunted for my bright face and the more ashamed I felt. The girls thought it was hilarious and it was in that moment I concluded that girls sure could be so and so’s.
That was the first time I had felt this way and it rocked me to my core.
The whole thing baffled me. Up until then I had no reason to doubt myself, I knew inside that I was confident and liked myself as I had very encouraging and supportive parents. Later that year, I came to school one day to sit at my desk and found that all my things had been moved and hidden. I didn’t know where to look and no one would tell me where to find them. I felt alone and left out.
Why did that happen? As a nine year old I couldn’t figure it out. Especially when in my last year of primary school I was elected school captain by my peers. It was puzzling to me, yet all I could remember was how hurt, ashamed and no good I felt.
Anyway, it was then that I took on my belief that all girls definitely were so and so’s. I unconsciously vowed not to get caught up in their petty “girly” stuff especially conversations about fashion, other girls and other such unimportant things. It was my protection. There was no way that I was going to let myself be hurt in that way again.
In high school, I made friends with the boys and hated being told by the girls when I could and couldn’t like someone. This continued when at 14 I was told that I couldn’t do an Outward Bound course with my brothers because I was a girl!
Bam! That sent me on path where I decided to work in a male dominated career.
Slowly and surely I made doing things from a female perspective wrong, and worse still, wrong for me. I extended my perception that girls were so and so’s and to be a girl made you not good enough, to believe that I had to prove I was good enough as a woman or just as good as the men. I created a life with a part of me turned off at the source. I had dimmed down a side of me that allowed me to be me fully and unashamedly female and as a result was under utilising my creative potential.
The catalyst for change
Fast forward to 2012, a long career in manufacturing with many friends and supportive colleagues and only a small handful of trusted female friends and next to no female colleagues. My only female friends were ones that had been around for a long time and accepted me for just being me.
On some level I had switched off access to a part of me in that playground and denied myself the opportunity to tap into a greater field of being. It was like I was not using all of my available resources. Like anything we suppress it was starting to turn up in my life as a feeling of hollowness, being unfulfilled and I had sense of being left wanting for something.
You know … that feeling you have when you have everything on the outside and it’s still not quite enough?
To the outside world I was successful and happy, yet on the inside I was screaming out for something else. Since then I have made some significant changes, I spent some time on myself using Breathwork to heal the wounds and change the belief system about women. My life now is filled with wonderful supportive women and men from all walks of life and backgrounds.
It’s not about boys vs girls
The point of this story is not about girls vs boys, women vs men, female vs male; it’s about how you can perceive the world at a point in time, draw a conclusion from it and then head off into the rest of your life with an underlying belief based on a single event.
This happens because our thoughts and emotions have a powerful effect on how we think and feel and visa versa. It’s based on the fact that thought is creative. We have a thought which motivates an action which produces an outcome that impacts our mind, body, and emotional state. From this we draw a conclusion which informs our belief system. What we unconsciously believe has a direct impact on our thoughts, and so the cycle goes on and on.
The biggest lesson I have learned over the past seven years
it that those old beliefs and thought patterns that have slowly self-sabotaged my life can be changed. We don’t need
to stay stuck in the mechanisms we developed at a young age to survive. As an adult, the environment is different and we can make different choices around what you take on to be true for ourselves. We don’t need to dim ourselves down and develop “phobias” that limit us. This is what I did to help me change my thinking and self beliefs.
1.Wake up to the possibility that what you are getting in life now may be a result of how you decided life was for you at an early age. Remember my nine year old self in the playground, red faced and hurt and deciding that all girls are so and so’s.
2.Do a timeline of your life. Draw a line across
the page and mark along the timeline any dominant experiences and the age you
were that may have resulted in you developing an opinion or belief about the
world or about yourself. Examples might be: I felt hurt and ashamed when my teacher repeatedly told me I was stupid and wouldn't amount to anything - I am stupid; I have to struggle to survive; I am worthless.
3.Review and look for a pattern. Does there seem to be times when similar things have repeated themselves or you felt the same way as a result of them?
4.Decide if you want something different and seek
out someone that resonates with you to help you look at life differently. This may be through a coach, kinesiologist, or some other form of support. My vehicle for transformation was Breathwork.
Oh and the other lesson I learned: Girls are pretty great after all!
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Jennylee Taylor is Conscious Living Coach and Breathwork
Practitioner supporting and empowering you to be
great managers of your world through reducing stress and overwhelm, and
balancing life so you can enjoy loving relationships, contentment now and
financial security in your future.
Jennylee supports people to break through personal emotional and mindset
barriers so you can be the best you in the world and achieve your goals.
Would you like more info? Feel free to contact me for a chat