The Awakened Woman

By Melinda Tavera-Boyer

Aren’t we all awakened? I asked myself one morning as I was watering my grass, don’t most women have the ability to tap within themselves and create anything they want? I believe we all have this gift. If we as women could have a child and endure the pain of birth, we can accomplish anything we desire. But I asked myself this question, is inner soil awakened all the time by our intuition and senses of feeling everything around us?

As a child I was able to sense things and because of that I would either shut myself out and stay away from everyone or get myself into trouble. As I got older I was able to understand that it truly is a gift and how we use it, is really up to us. In the last couple of years I have finally decided it was time to come forward and really understand who I truly am.

The I AM factor, life and what that really is.

You see if we can’t truly define who we are then, how good are we for everyone else, such as, our husband our children and even our grandchildren? Believe me this was not easy for me as being an only child and being there for everyone but myself. I really had to go deep within and ask, is this really good for me or just for everyone else? My upbringing dictated that if you wanted something you had to take action in order to have it. Yes, this is true but, that does not mean you have to make do until you exhaust yourself because then you are no good for anyone. So, I asked myself where did this come from and why did I think I had to do for everyone and not myself? For generations women were the housekeepers, the mom taking children to and from school, then taking them from school to baseball, drill teams and then still had to go home and make dinner. Most had to also go to work in between all that going on. Did we really have any time to define ourselves? I have said this for many years. Most woman come to the point of their life not knowing their purpose or who they truly are.

So what is your purpose really and when will you become the awakened woman?

I had come to the point of self reflection where I really began to answer the question, what does “awaken” mean? Well, in the dictionary it says: awaken; a·wak·en; verb: rouse from sleep; cause to stop sleeping. So, in order to become awaken, you must first begin by being asleep. Meaning we do things from an automated state. Like the subconscious mind and being in an automatic state of doing means doing so without thinking.

I can’t tell you how many times my kids will say, “Mom we will be over later to visit.” Automatically the mom and grandma kicks in and I start to think of what I should make for everyone and my mind goes crazy thinking about dinner and snacks for the kids, making sure everything is in order. That is when Don (my husband) looks at me and says they are grown kids let them help you or we can just order pizza for everyone. But because of how I was raised that just does not seem to be enough. How many of you feel like this? It’s just insane! I am not saying

that things should not be like this, but sometime we just need to stop and ask, am I doing this because I enjoy it or because I feel I have to do it?

This is where I think the awakening happened for me.

I had to stop and say do I really enjoy this or do I want to spend time with the kids and not have to do all this work? Because in reality they can do for themselves right? As I started to awaken to everything in life I realized how many other women feel the same way about defining who we really are as a person. I know as I was with my mom in her last days on this earth I wondered did my mom really live her life to the fullest or was she really living her life through me. Without even realizing it, my mom got everything she ever wanted, no matter what. That is just how she lived. She really pushed me as a child to be the best at everything I did. If she thought it wasn’t good enough then I’d do it again, until it was perfect. Looking back I wonder which one of us I was doing it for. I will say one thing I learned from her was that if I wanted something bad enough, then to never give up! You see, my mom never had a job. She was always home, took me everywhere I needed to go and never left my side. Even when I had my children she was there for them as well. I wonder now if this was what she enjoyed or was it just automatic because this is all she knew. Maybe this is why I did the same thing for many of years even though I was absolutely miserable. I was asleep just doing what I only knew how to do until the day I came to realize, I wasn’t really happy and began wondering what was wrong with me. When I started asking what it was that I truly desired; that was when my true awakening happened! When is it your time to become truly awakened?