Why you don’t have to be alone to be an independent woman

This article was written in April 2018 and originally published by Elephant Journal.

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When I was a child, I wasn’t aware of what it meant to grow up.

I was a typical girl, with my hand-me-down yellow roller skates and my disgustingly pink bedroom.

My big sister and I made our own magazine, and taped a radio show on an old Casio cassette tape. We lived like most kids in the 90s—before the boom of technology offered an alternative to climbing trees and building imaginary rafts for fun. Our brothers fought each other with wooden swords while we made dinner in our wooden house on a plastic stove.

I believe I became a woman at the age of 21.

There is no set definition as to what it means to “become a woman.” For me, it was simply the realisation that I was in control of myself. No one else, no man or woman, could define me better than I could.

I did not grow up when I got my period, when I first kissed a boy, or when I left home; for me growing up was when I took control of my own choices and began to own the strength I held as a young woman. I etched out a watertight path, twisting and turning occasionally, but always clear of one thing: I did not need anybody else.

Like the moment in many great novellas before inspiration hits, my plan crumbled pretty quickly. Success was something I believed I could only do alone.

I thought that being in a relationship would be claustrophobic, though me and my friends simultaneously discussed our future partners on the regular. What came out of our mouths and what we felt in our hearts were disconnected in some way.

It was as if admitting that we might actually want to be in partnership with a man destroyed any notion that we were independent women who did not need anybody’s help to achieve our dreams.

And again, when it came to female relationships, I saw this fear materialise among women as if every other woman was an opponent, a force standing in the way of success. As young women in our 20s, many of us had been fed the message that we could only climb to great heights solo.

But the thing about only wanting to do things alone is that you can only go so far. While we can achieve whatever we set our minds to and complete that task on our own, letting others support and nourish us on our journey is not a weakness.

Being in a healthy relationship with another person should not stop us from being able to do all of those things and achieve all of our dreams. In my experience, it can actually enable us to achieve more.

If you’re in a relationship that blocks you from achieving the dreams you have for yourself, you’re probably in the wrong relationship—whether that be with a partner or a friend. Sharing your journey with others, however, can lift you to new heights and does not mean you have to offer up all of your independence.

As women, we are in a time of amazing transition in society. Yet alongside these messages of positivity and empowerment, we can find ourselves feeling guilty or confused when we make decisions that collide with who we are told to be.

The truth is as simple as this: do whatever feels right to you and do not let anybody tell you what strength looks like.

I have friends who stand strong in their dreams of being a mother, friends who see strength as being a CEO, and others who are content with traveling far and wide and figuring it out along the way.

Being independent does not mean we have to travel this road alone.

We have long been tied to old paradigms defining women in every way; now is a time to define our own strength and freedom, to stand alongside those we love and etch out our paths together, while we cheer each other on.

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Words: Rebecca Tyers
Originally published here.

The Important Lesson we can Learn from 5-Year-Olds

This article was written in March 2017 and originally published by Elephant Journal.

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I first skied when I was five. 

My Oma and Opa had a cabin in Switzerland, and every year we would hole ourselves away from the world for two weeks in the mountains. My memories embody the worn nostalgic flashbacks of a rolling hand-held film camera, the negatives stacked away for many years, not entirely traceable. The scent of burning wood. The feeling of wooden floorboards, ceilings, and walls. Running, running, running up stairs and hills, struggling against the mountainous elements.

Five-year-olds are pretty amazing creatures. I don’t recall ever being afraid.

I hadn’t skied since I was eight years old, until a few days ago. I hesitated upon my return to the piste. Although my body still recalled the actions, it flinched as my acrophobia met the chair lift, and my innate fear of falling hindered my ability to entirely flow with the rhythm of my skis.

As an adult, my brain overthought an action that my body somehow already knew. As I grappled with green runs and took time over my snow-plough turns, little kids would zoom past me with little hindrance. When they fell, they got back up. When they couldn’t figure out the button lift, they tried again. When they were told to do something, they simply did it to the best of their ability.

What was it that stopped me from being able to do the same? It would be easy to blame fear, the most obvious culprit. I recognize the reality of the dangers that surround me, especially in the mountains.

As adults, we spend much of our time in the vicinity of our minds. We think, overthink, and analyse to the point of no return. We often believe that this is normal, but equally blame ourselves for overthinking. Our time is often defined by limits, rules, and regulations. The days of eating mud and climbing trees are over. We now have to adult.

Yet, a lesson that a couple of five-year-old kids on skis taught me is that we adults don’t have to neglect our inner child. That isn’t to say we should spend our days eating mud and rolling down hills, but simply that these wild actions can bring us closer to exercising our fearlessness.

When we were children, the time we spent exploring and learning outdoors enabled our minds to breathe a little. With further responsibility, we are in need of such breathing space, and yet, we limit ourselves with the idea that as adults we must be denied such simple pleasures.

The reason why five-year-olds are so capable of fearlessness is because they practice it regularly. As they grapple with the monkey bars in the playground, take a leap through the air into the river off a tire swing, or sledge through snow with little care of how or when they might stop. They are letting go of the overthinking aspect and taking hold of the sheer experience of pure adventure—a practice that we are often taught to grow out of as we progress into adulthood.

As adults, our minds wrap themselves around deadlines, appropriate behaviour and serious discussion. While these are not inherently bad things, without the balance of our inner child, we have only overstepped the mark. There is so much to learn, see, and do in our adult lives, so much that we gain as we grow and opportunities flourish before us.

Yet, what those five-year-olds ploughing down the mountain taught me is that we cannot neglect the reality that, from time to time, our inner child needs to be set free. That we may only fully flourish in a balanced state of mind and truly care for ourselves when we give time over to our inner desire for freedom and adventure, whatever that may look like.

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Words: Rebecca Tyers
Originally published here.