Why can't women get along? Because we're afraid. We're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to be soft. We're afraid to be hurt. But most of all, we're afraid of our power. So we become controlling and aggressive and vicious.
Interpretation
Women often struggle to get along due to fears of vulnerability and power.
This quote by Iyanla Vanzant highlights the underlying fears that can impede women's relationships with one another. It suggests that vulnerabilities, such as the fear of being hurt, can lead to controlling and aggressive behaviors among women, a defense mechanism against their own power and emotions. By acknowledging these fears, women may find pathways to deeper connections and support rather than conflict.
In practice
In a women's empowerment workshop, this quote can be used to prompt discussions on overcoming barriers to solidarity.
Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on.
Feminine power is silent, dark, mysterious, healing, nurturing. A woman can walk into a room and control it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth if she knows where her power is.
You know when I was 20 and 30, they were insecurities. Now they're just a new normal. I'm 60 years old, so my expectations of who I am and how I look and how I show up in the world had to shift. Not because I couldn't help it, or not because I did anything wrong, but because I had to get into the natural flow of my being as a woman.
Your greatest adversary is also your greatest teacher. Like it or not, it is the job of certain people to bring out the worst in you. What they trigger is already in you. They are here to reveal the sore, tender wounded places in your heart and mind, and they are providing you with a wonderful and divine opportunity for healing.
You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid 'no' muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it's our choice. Your 'no' muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, 'I don't care if that's what you want. I don't want that. No.'
When we find ourselves in the same situation repeatedly as a result of our conditioned responses, we must stop and do a new thing. The situation may look different. The route we take there may be altogether different. The lesson we must learn does not change. Get honest! Pay attention! Change what you do to create a change for yourself!
If you close your eyes and think about where you feel the most safe, you're probably not going to tell me it's in a room full of police. You feel safe where you're around people that love you, when you have food and shelter, when you're being pushed to be your best self and learn.
It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I don’t think that because I’m not married it’s made my life any less. That old-maid myth is garbage.
Treat a man like dirt-he produces flowers.
Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.
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