Kiana's Way to Women Empowerment

Tag: writing

  • Take. Up. Space.

    Take. Up. Space.

    Take up as much space as you want. Be loud. Express yourself. Express yourself loudly.

    Do not ever feel ashamed for just being yourself. You are unique, there is not another one of you on this planet. So why not let the world know who you are and be unconditionally yourself!!!

    I want you to be loud in the way that you know exactly who you are, and are not ashamed of it. Be unapologetically YOU. Finding and knowing yourself is a self-discovery journey that not everyone gets to experience. If you put in that work, why would you not want to show that off?  

    You have no reason not to. Someone doesn’t like you, oh well, they weren’t worth your effort anyway. 

    Society has taught us women that we need to be small. That we need to conform as what people want us to be; submissive, thoughtless, weak, all adjectives that describe the complete opposite of us. 

    As women our mere presence is so important to society and we know that! So why are we conforming to them? 

    I’m gonna say something that a lot of women in their 20’s are not gonna want to hear. You are not “just” a girl. This trend or phase was really funny at first, describing how our hands are always full to using a paycheck for a maintenance day. But now, its demeaning. We are using it as humor to accept and go along with the way society wants us to be. Now “I’m Just A Girl” translates to “I’m brain-dead.”

    Sorry. My apologies, but someone had to say it. I understand that it started as a joke that turned into this huge trend so every joke should be taken with a grain of salt, but you can’t tell me that there hasn’t been an influx of young girls having aspirations of being a “Tradwife,’ a “WAG,” or an “Influencer” since the growth of this phrase. 

    Which is sad. I get the appeal, it seems like an easy-going life. But it requires you to heavily rely on another person, likely men. If you haven’t noticed their track record, they are not the best people to rely on. There are good one’s, don’t get me wrong, but you can still look for that person while being your own WIFE! 

    Being unapologetically yourself doesn’t make you “Just A Girl,” it makes a unique, exquisite being so stop dumbing yourself down and go show the world who you really are. 

    Read more on how to embrace your womanhood to take up space here: Womanhood + Taking Up Space- Mel Wiggins


    For more advice on embracing your feminine energy read here: Embracing Femininity- Lora Current

  • Journaling

    Journaling

    Before you begin reading, grab some paper and a writing tool. As reading, follow along with the questions and jot down your thoughts for every one. Draw them, write them, whatever helps you contextualize your thoughts. 

    Now sit in front of a mirror. When you look at yourself, who do you want to see? When you walk into a room of strangers what do you want their first impression of you to be like? 

    Think of the adjectives and write them down. Make them authentic. Don’t write something down because you think society would want you that way. What do YOU truly want to be? Without judgement from absolutely everyone in your life. Yes, even your family and loved ones. Pretend their judgement doesn’t exist. What do you want to be doing that makes everyday the best day ever?

    But stay realistic now, this is still life and we still need to work for things. Make the dream reasonable. We can always create so many bigger dreams, but starting out why would we not do ourselves the favor and make it genuinely attainable. Be honest with yourself. Also, keep in the back of your mind that money makes the world go round. I know it can be difficult not to lean into the “I’m just a girl” kind of society we are in right now. But we need to be making some sort of income in this dream life if we want to be responsible for our own course.

    And before you start to overthink about your ‘purpose’ or what you are supposed to provide to the world. Don’t. Providing for yourself is already difficult enough, so your existence of being a good person should be abundant enough to society. But let this also be a chance to recognize what you are good at and coin off those skills. 

    Start small, maybe you have a job in retail. Do you enjoy helping and serving people? Can you converse easily and confidently? Or do you work in food service and work well in a fast paced environment? Or work easily with others? These are all basic skills that we can build on in different ways in order to make a living.

    Time to get critical. What are you doing to not work towards those goals? Be truthful with yourself. For some of our reasoning we might not even realize we are doing it, so really give it thought. But also hold yourself accountable for your actions, or lack thereof. 

    Now hopefully you have written down the things you want to be, some ideas on how to become those things, and have recognized why you haven’t been applying yourself to those ideas. Sit with that. Make a change. You know the problem and you have all of the materials in the world to help you fix it. So will you continue to wait for it to change, or will you take action and control of your life. Things don’t come on their own and if we want something to change we have to be brave to take the steps towards it and believe that we can create change. Believing in yourself is just as important as taking initiative. 

    I hope this has helped you with the tough question of, why are you here? As humans we cannot be so hard on ourselves and our purpose of life. We must realize in order to help take care of our world we must first take care of ourselves. As you’re going over these questions I want you to remember the purpose of life is to feel fulfilled in yourself. Not for what you do or provide to others, what how do you provide to yourself? And what keeps you content?

    In the meantime, if you are new to journaling I encourage you to check out this article with 25 starter/everyday journaling prompts to get you started on your journey. 25 useful journaling prompts for beginners- Marth Brook


    I would also encourage you to read this article on the lifelong mental health benefits of journaling. How Journaling Can Help You in Hard Time – Greater Good Berkeley