#69: Healing the Sister Wound

Welcome back my love to another episode of Embracing Her and today we are going to dive into the sister wound. I already recorded an episode on the mother wound make sure to listen to that. I will link that below because our mother wound is very often the kind of starting point of our sister wound. It is very very common that the first woman that we somehow feel betrayed by ends up being our mom. So make sure to listen to that and then through socialization, through experiences that we might make with other women we develop a sister wound basically on top of that. So if you notice that you struggle to trust other women maybe you struggle to develop deeper relationships with other women maybe you notice you have this experience of competition with other women all the time maybe you even notice yourself saying you know I get along better with men this episode is for you diving into the sister wound and working with it is not only important for you to be able to have fulfilling relationships with other women but it actually also is a big big part of how we relate to our womanhood. The mistrust and the judgment that we experience towards other women is very often also the judgment that we bring towards ourselves and aspects of ourselves. So diving into the sister wound is really really important and is really going to allow you to dive into a completely new understanding of your own womanhood in a way. So we will in this episode dive into the origins of the sister wound symptoms of the sister wound and of course how we can start to heal it as well. This is an amazing topic to talk to other women about. So send this to your friends, send this to women who might be interested in it, talk to them about it, talk to them about their experience of the sister wound that's actually an amazing way to work on that wound to create those vulnerable conversations with other women. Let's go. So before we dive into what the sister wound might look like, what the symptoms are, let's first of all talk about what it is. So when we carry a sister wound, we're talking about the pain, the distrust, the sense of betrayal or competition that we experience with other women. It's based on belief systems that we have formed around ourselves in relationship to other women. And what I want to point out here in case you do relate to women not only on a platonic level, so on a friendship level, but maybe also in a romantic level, the sister wound can still show up for you in a very similar way. Of course, when we are relating to women on a romantic level, we do want to have a big big eye on our mother wound, just like when we're interested in men, we will have to have a big eye on our father wound. Those interactions with the sex that we end up being interested in later on life, that first interaction with our mom, with our dad, those are really important. They tend to really kind of pave the way of how we're going to be relating to our romantic partners in the future. So if you're interested in women on a romantic level, make sure you really have an eye on your mother wound as well, but the sister wound is still something that you might carry. Now, let's talk a little bit about how the sister wound really shows up. So I wouldn't invite you here to kind of, as you're listening to this, to ask yourself, is this something that I experience? Is that something that shows up for me? Because again, remember the first step to healing any kind of thing we have going on is awareness, right? We need to bring awareness to how that wound might be manifesting in us. So first of all, when we look at kind of the mental and emotional patterns that we might have going on if we have a sister wound, first of all, a big one to have an eye on, not feeling comfortable around women, as much as we might feel comfortable around men. So some of us might actually feel like, "Oh, I just get along better with guys. They're just easier to be around. They're just more relaxed. That might be a sign that we're carrying a sister wound. Any form of distrusting women are immediately assuming that they will betray you, that they will judge you, that they will compete with you in some way. They sense that I have to dim my light around other women. I can't really show up with all my greatness in a way because I'm assuming that they will judge me. I'm assuming that they will betray me in some way. Also, the other way around, feeling easily triggered by other women's confidence, beauty, success, expression, whatever it might be. So having this sense that we're constantly comparing ourselves to what other women are doing and how successful they are, how they look like the choices that they make. So constantly somehow feeling yourself as either less than or better than other women. With that also often comes a difficulty in really being able to celebrate other women without immediately going into self-criticism. So if I celebrate her, then I'm going to feel like shit about myself and really seeing another woman succeeding as your own failure. And if she's succeeding, then there's no space for me to succeed anymore. If she makes all of that money and I don't yet, then I'm going to feel like shit about myself. I'm going to tell myself that I'm doing something wrong. That kind of experience of almost scarcity is very, very telling when it comes to this wound. With that also sometimes it comes something that we might not really want to admit ever, which is feeling secretly pleased when other women fail. Or even again, the other way around, feeling jealousy, feeling resentment when another woman receives, for example, the love, the attention of a ignition that you would like to receive. What I've been seeing quite a bit or even what clients of mine share with me that they have that experience when other women get married, right, when other women get engaged, that can easily be something that actually massively taps into our own wounding and our own insecurity. Also feeling unsafe, unworthy in groups of women, so really struggling to in a way find your place in that kind of a setup or easily feeling like we're being excluded when it comes to female social groups, expecting rejection, expecting gossiping, expecting disapproval from other women. The last thing that I want to point out there when it comes to these mental and emotional patterns that we judge feminine qualities like sensuality, vulnerability, softness, as weak, as manipulative, as somehow not the way that it should be. Or we do the opposite, okay, where we judge qualities that are outside of this. And that is where we then often see and this is so incredibly common in the online space, it just blows my mind every day. That women judge each other's choices till the cows go home. My God is common on the internet. When you see a woman posting about whatever choice she's making about her body, about her life, about her relationship, about the makeup that she puts on, about whatever, the comments are full of women going to town on her, telling her she's doing it wrong. Really common that we cannot allow women to make their own choices. So feeling triggered by women's choices that might not be your choices that you would make for yourself. Really common. Feeling quite judgmental around other women's choices in life. very, very common symptom of a system wound. And then because of all of these kind of mental and emotional patterns that we carry there and kind of belief systems that we carry, you will see that you will struggle to open up towards other women. You might struggle with vulnerability. You might see yourself people pleasing a lot and kind of shape shifting into trying to be the woman that you're with or the women that you're with might like, really avoiding deep female friendships altogether to avoid the drama or the betrayal that we might be expecting from other women. You might find yourself kind of over-identifying with independence. Right? I don't need anyone. I can do it all alone as a protective mechanism because we don't actually truly feel safe in the presence of other women. We might also see ourselves if this applies to us really highly overvaluing male validation. We might notice that getting a compliment from a woman doesn't really land as much as getting a compliment from a man. We can also see ourselves sabotaging friendships with women where maybe the intimacy is growing and all of a sudden we notice, okay, this is too much now. I can't trust her. I just have to check out. She's being too much or whatever kind of thing we come up with so that we can kind of check out because it feels scary. In a nutshell, all of those behaviors and those belief systems, they're very much based on that lived experience of I'm not safe in the company of other women. That can feel so, so lonely because there is something in the connection to other women that we don't get from connections with men. There is something we get there, a level of understanding, a level of resonance that we get from people that share very similar experiences that share the same hormonal cycle, that share the same questions about life, the same decisions that we might have to make in life, that share a similar experience of societal conditioning. There is a lot of depth and understanding that we're getting from women that we don't get from men because they just don't have those same experiences and it can feel so lonely to not have that, to not feel safe in that kind of a context. There are a couple of origins of this mistrust in women, of this lack of safety that we experience with other women. The first one that I want to mention here, which is very much societal, is that for centuries, women lived in a context where our safety was dependent on our proximity to men. We needed to make sure that we are chosen by men in order to be safe, in order to literally survive, to be able to sustain ourselves. It was existential. We needed a man to give us the money, to give us the house, to make sure we are taking care of. And that created scarcity and that created this deep sense of competition for literally survival. Only the women that could be chosen by a man could in a certain way survive, wouldn't be a burden to their family. It was a huge thing to be chosen and to be married, to have that kind of status. It was huge. And so for centuries, women learned to see each other on a certain level as competition and not allies. And that left us with this unconscious imprint of if she wins, I lose. There isn't enough safety, love and space for all of us. So I need to be the most desirable one in the room to get the man with the most resources. And we are now, at least in the West, really coming out of that kind of a system. But this is new. My grandma, for example, she still went through that shift from her not being allowed to have her own bank account to being allowed to have her own bank account. That this is like a new development. So that kind of scarcity that lives in us still. And with that also comes internalized misogyny that not only men carry, but also women. Big time. So we carry patriarchal values that kind of to cold. And now we as women, we learn to police each other according to those values to again survive and gain approval. We internalize certain beliefs around how we have to be, to be accepted, to not be rejected right from the external world and specifically men. So we learn to reject certain parts of ourselves to judge them inside of us and inside of others. So the system isn't just about competition. It's actually also about really this internalization of patriarchal values and expectations that we perpetuate through the judgment that we bring to other women. So for example, again, like I said on the internet, this is insane. Women shaming each other for their choices, for being too sexual, for not being sexual enough, for wanting kids, for not wanting kids, for wanting to get married, for not wanting to get married, for getting Botox, for not getting Botox, for being too thin, for being too fat, for whatever. There's so many things that we judge each other for. And this is where I kind of for a moment want to talk about maybe the difference between judgment and discernment, okay, because this does not mean that you have to agree with everything that women do, right? You don't have to agree with every choice a woman decides to make in her life. The emotional charge that we come with, that is what matters. And we come with judgment. We are actually coming from a place of kind of having that binary understanding of something is good or bad or right or wrong. And there is a sense of you're doing it wrong. I'm triggered because you're doing it wrong and I'm going to tell you about what's wrong with you. Discernment on the other hand, it comes from clarity. It comes from grounded awareness. This behavior doesn't feel lined with my values. I wouldn't make this choice. This is self honoring. This comes with a very neutral energy. There is no blaming, no shaming and no assumption of I know what's best for you. I know who you should be as a woman. And this is this tendency to judge. It's something that we learn early. We were still, most of us were still taught patriarchal values and norms indirectly, most of the time through our mothers, right? When they taught us to maybe always be polite to make sure that you don't step on anyone's toes, that you're small and digestible and you never get angry because as a woman you don't get angry. And that's just how you live your life. Those are patriarchal values that we learn through our mothers, that they have learned from their mothers and so on. Right again, the problem is patriarchy, not the people in it. And in this way, the sister wound is really almost like a cultural inheritance somehow, that we perpetuate through the ways that we continue to relate to each other because we judge each other. We heard other women and we are heard by the women that judge us and we have valid experiences, right? That feed those belief systems that we carry and that actually do make connections with other women often unsafe, right? Another origin of this wound that I also clearly see is the loss of community. Like the spaces where women come together to share their experience. Having rituals where we come together and we have these rights of passage, right? When we have our first bleed from the past, right? example, where we're pregnant, like all of these very so beautifully feminine moments that we all share in our life potentially, that we would come to get out and learn about them, that we would share wisdom having examples of women coming together in a safe space. That's something that most of us don't really experience. And it's also something that again, society for a long, long time, was completely demonized. It's seen as less than we are branded as witches, branded as gossips, but always with that negative connotation. And again, that is where trust is fractured, where that sense of belonging between women is fractured. And that is a loss that we carry in our nervous system. That is a conditioning that we carry in our nervous system that somehow being together with other women might not be truly safe. So that's really like the societal or region that I see in the sister wound. The other thing, like I mentioned in the beginning, is of course, our mother wound for most of us underneath those dynamics with women now in adult life is really, really often a fractured relationship to our mom. For many women, the first betrayal we experienced by another woman is through our mom. It is the earliest template in a way of feminine connection. And if we experienced a primary female caregiver, it might not have been your biological mom, but if that connection was kind of riddled with emotional unavailability, being criticized, being judged, that connection being unpredictable, having pain, insecurities, anxiety projected onto you as a young child, maybe even having competition modeled. The relationship that your mom has with other women, that's also something that is going to really have an impact on you. This is where you learn, okay, this is how mom relates to other women. So that is how I'm going to relate to other women. This is where we very often start to already as a child internalize that feminine connection is unsafe. That women, those are people that I have to watch out around. So this is where that first fracture often happens when it comes to our connection to other women. And all of the other experiences afterwards in life that we make with other women will already then be interpreted through the lens of the belief systems that we picked up in childhood, that we have acquired through the relationship to our mom or even her relationship to other women. And again, this will not just affect your relationship with other women, but it will affect your relationship with your own womanhood. If we have belief systems that put other women in a box, you will put yourself into a box as well. The judgment that we bring towards other women, this is something that we carry towards ourselves as well. When we carry that kind of negativity, this is not just something that you point out words. Yeah, and that's why it's so important that we actually walk with that wound because it's also something that we will be able to set ourselves free. So how do we heal this wound? First of all, like I said earlier, awareness. Self-awareness is the first step. Remember your system wound is based on belief systems, right? We interpret reality through certain belief systems. If we want to change a belief system, we first of all need to become aware of what the belief system is. How does it show up? So the moment where we go into autopilot and we just assume stuff, that is our belief systems coming online. So we want to take some time to actually observe our thoughts, our emotional experiences in response to other women in your life on social media, when you're out and about. It really starts to have an eye on how do I actually respond to other women? What are the thoughts that come up? What are the emotions that come up? What are the assumptions that I make about other women? So a very juicy question to ask yourself here is what qualities in other women tend to trigger the shit out of me? And we all have things there. What do I tend to judge in other women? So basically, where do I create a box for others? You should fit into this box. And if you're not fitting into this box, that pisses me off, right? What might that reveal about certain qualities that you have disowned? So for example, for the longest time, for me, women that were especially in groups quite outgoing and loud that took up a lot of space, they would trigger the shit out of me. They would be so annoying. I would be like, "Dude, can you read the room?" This is literally how my mind would go. And at some point, I was like, "Okay, we're not started working on this room." And I was thinking about that a little bit and figured out what's going on. So what I have been brought up with was that I had to constantly watch out to not piss people off. I had to be able to read the room before I entered it because of how my parents were. Right? So I learned to be an absolute master in reading the room, reading people, really not saying, "Okay, who do I have to be? Who do I get to be so that I don't piss people off, so that I never ever make anyone uncomfortable?" So when I was seeing women who did not fit into my little box that I had learned about, that was unsafe. That felt unsafe in my body because the part of me that wanted to feel free and like she could take up space and be loud, right, and confident in that way, outgoing in that way, that was a part of me that I had shamed away, that I had completely disowned, completely put into the shadows and covered up with that identity of like, "Oh yeah, well, I know how to read a room." That's a shadow that I got to see because I was curious about the response that I was having there and about the thoughts that were quite charged and by asking myself those questions now, I can really see the beauty in women that can be like that, right? That's actually for me something that is inspiring. Does that mean that I put them on a pedestal and maybe ignore the fact that they do actually maybe have a problem with reading the room? No. Yeah? So that's again where the sermon comes in. I can clearly see that okay, maybe this woman does actually struggle to read the room a little bit and at the same time I can absolutely admire that she doesn't give a shit, right? That's here as a part of me that would love to be able to not give a shit so much all the time. That is shadow work. That is where we want to listen. When you notice you're judging a woman, when you notice on social media, it's a best example because you're exposed to so many women making choices, portraying themselves in a certain way. When you notice there is somebody who pisses you off or it annoys you, it makes you angry. There's a big emotional experience there. Don't let that go. Actually hold on to that and go like okay, why is this so upsetting to me? Is there maybe a part of me that I have disowned? Why don't I allow myself to be in this way? What am I afraid of? Why is this so trailing? And again remember, does not mean you have to agree with everything, but if our response comes with a big emotional experience, that's judgment, that's not discernment. And when you start to observe these judgmental thoughts towards other women, what is really important is that you meet yourself with compassion, not with oh my god, I'm a bad person, why am I like this? But actually okay. Now that we know where our sister will come from. that it's often a societal issue, it's often something that is handed down from mother to daughter. Don't blame yourself for having these thoughts. Instead, be curious. Okay, I noticed I just judged this woman there for making the choice that she's making and that doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. Let's be curious about where that might be coming from. What is the box that I'm creating for her? And that I might also be creating for myself? Let's be curious, not again, judgmental towards yourself. Another thing to have an eye on is comparing yourself to other women. The moment you notice you do that, take a deep breath and remind yourself that there is enough space for both of you. Remind yourself that another woman having the thing that you want, yes, you can see that as competition or you can decide to see that as this is evidence that it's possible. If she has something that you want, this is evidence that you can have it too. That's a decision, okay. It's a decision, not a feeling. Remember that when we're working with belief systems, we start with a choice. We start by going like, I don't want to believe in this thing anymore. I don't want to interpret reality in that way. I want to do it differently. So I will practice rewriting my thought pattern there. Working with belief systems, rewriting belief systems is a question of repetition. You did not learn to judge other women or to compete with other women because of one experience. It's very likely that you actually had many, many, many micro moments where that was most of the time indirectly communicated to you. So now we're gonna have to go by repetition again and catching ourselves whenever you notice. I'm comparing myself, okay. That's a goody breath. I have nothing to prove. I'm good enough, she's good enough. And if she has something that I want, that's amazing because that proves to me that what I want is possible. The other thing you wanna really bring awareness to and then work with it is when have you been betrayed by other women? Because I'm very conscious of the fact that this is not just belief systems handed down. Most of us have been betrayed by other women. And make a list, make a list of all those situations, all those women that you felt betrayed by or hurt by and work with that. Really sit down, journal about it. How did this affect me? What did I make that mean about me? How is this now affecting my relationships with women in the present? Dive into the emotions that you carry around those connections, around those experiences, right letters that you never send. Allow yourself to cry those tears. Being hurt by other women is really, really painful. It's like a grief and like a sense of betrayal that is just getting you really to your core. Sit with those situations, grieve those situations. So often we kind of, especially for a dating man, our focus is so often on the pain that we experience with guys and we just kind of brush over the stuff that we experience with women and when the friendship ends, we're just, okay, well, whatever, let's move on. It's deep pain if you experience betrayal through another woman. For me, for example, when my partner betrayed me in the beginning of my relationship, he betrayed me with a woman that was in the same woman's group or woman circle that I was in. It was so, so painful to have a woman literally sit in front of me and talk about sisterhood and we're all in this together and behind my back, she's sleeping with my partner. It was horrible. It was really horrible. That was an experience that I had to do so much work around, especially because from my upbringing, I already had that kind of association with other women because my dad cheated on my mom multiple times. And through the way that my mom was dealing with that, I also got the message that the one who's at fault in that is the woman. And this is by the way a really common thing where when a guy cheats, we blame the woman, right? She's the home wrecker and he just gets off easy, right? It's like she tempted him, the poor guy couldn't, couldn't do any different, right? That right there, big, big, misogynistic conditioning, to make it into the woman's fault alone. Narratives like she took my man and whereas he in that occasion, almost his decision there, really important point to have an eye on, but again, I had to do so much work around that betrayal, that was so fucking deep for me to work with and don't underestimate those wounds that you carry from those interactions with other women or those failed connections with other women. This is real. So write it down, write down every single woman that you have had negative experiences with where you really felt betrayed, where you felt like that was an outch that affected your perception of women and has somehow tainted now your perception of women in the presence. This is an important thing to work on if you wanna work on your system wound. Then the next thing that I would invite you to dive into is asking yourself what you want more of in your connections with women and your relationships with women and start to give a little bit more of those things. So very often when we don't have very fulfilling relationships with women or we actually also do that, our romantic relationships, we kinda go like, oh yeah, I want more of this and they are just not giving it to me. We wanna start giving the thing that we want. Are we showing up with that? So if you want to receive more support from other women, offer support more. If you want to be in friendships where you celebrate each other, celebrate them, right? Celebrate other women, give them compliments when you're out and about. Comment on their posts or something and tell them that they're amazing. Those are like really kind of low stakes moments where we can start to integrate more of that energy, more of that kind of quality into the connections that we have with women. And remember here, this is how we create new belief systems through repetition. Small repetitions consistently, okay? Celebrate other women more. If you want more vulnerability, more depth in your connections with other women, open up more. Let them see how you're actually doing. Let them see what problem you might be dealing with at the moment or a thing that you're thinking about or whatever it might be, right? It doesn't have to be the deepest wound that you've ever had in your life, right? It can be any form of little vulnerability. Lead with that. Instead of just kind of sitting there and hoping that at some point, a woman is gonna come into your life that's just gonna be completely open and give you all the things that you ever dreamed of in a friendship. Lead with the things that you want more of. And then remember that this does not mean that we're always gonna get exactly what we want. This does not in any way mean that every connection you're gonna have with a woman now is gonna be perfect. Sometimes it doesn't work out and that is again, where we want to have an eye on the meaning that we create around that. Do we allow in those moments our brain to basically use that as food for the old belief system? Oh my God, I knew all women are bitches, all women are gonna betray me, all women are kind of kettie and it's a problem. Or are we just gonna go like, okay? I guess this woman is having a bad day and it's obviously not the kind of woman that maybe I want to surround myself with. Let's move on. Okay, have an eye on the default. that your brain likes to use because it has been using it for decades and consciously make a different choice. And in the beginning, this is a conscious effort. It's not just gonna fall from the sky. Okay, this woman might not be safe, but that does not mean that no woman is. It's the same thing with our relationships with men potentially, right? Where you will, when you're dating, for example, you will have shitty experiences with some guys. Does that mean every single guy on the planet is a dickhead? No. Have an eye on how your mind is digesting and deriving meaning from the experiences that you are making. It is not about only being ever surrounded by women that are safe. It is about how do I recover? When I meet a woman that isn't safe, when I have an interaction that actually doesn't feel good, when I get a mean comment on the internet. Or when I see women being mean on the internet, when I see a lot of that because I'm online a lot. And that is really where every time I practice compassion, because my mind immediately goes into like, oh my god, why is everybody judging? And now I'm judging them for judging other people and then it just goes down the drain. This is where I'm like, okay, that's take a deep breath. I know how hard this is. I know how hard it is to be a woman that grows up with all of that conditioning that pits women against each other and these women that are being that judgmental and that mean even on the internet towards other women. I would probably having a hard time also in other areas of their life. And that's actually something to feel for, right, to have compassion for. And that's a practice. I practice that every time when I see that and there's a part of me that goes like, oh my god, why are we doing this? This is what I practice. Okay? So none of this is about kind of deluding yourself into thinking that all women on the planet are safe. We're not. That's why we carry this wound, right? Now then another thing that we can dive into to work on this wound is to actively search for places where you can meet other women where you have the the potential to make new experiences. To prove to your brain that it's not always shitty and that it's not always unsafe and that really depends on who you are and what your interests are. This could be running clubs. It can be volunteering. It can be regional groups, regional Facebook groups even when I moved to Australia. I discovered that Australia is still very much about Facebook. So I go back on Facebook and there was so many regional groups where I could actually meet people and meet other women and you can even start your own women circle. Remember circles like that don't always have to be about kind of like educating or doing like a specific form of practice. It can literally be let's get women together once a month, maybe to just have a coffee to hang out to maybe share hobbies with the other women really like open up your horizon when it comes to the ways in which you can make friends. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you have to start. If we don't put in the effort, we're not going to find anyone. Kind of friendship groups don't fall from the sky. It is something that we actually have to invest in. For me, that was a big challenge. That was a big learning opportunity when I moved here because before and all the places that I had lived, it was somehow like the community was already there. I was living in spiritual communities or in areas where there was a big spiritual community already. So there were a lot of offerings that I could like events that I could go to and then find people there. It was very easy now living in Tasmania. It's a really small place. It's hard. I actually had to start to create spaces to meet people because there was no way, especially me working from home, to find people that easily. I had to create those spaces and it was an edge that was something that I hadn't really done before to create those groups. It was absolutely worth it. It was amazing to actually notice that I can do that. For me, that was a big moment of learning to trust myself and also again, learning to trust other women that it's safe to try out those spaces, to create those spaces to trust it. There will be people and absolutely not every woman that I've met here was a great match for me. And again, that is where we want to work with our mind, where we want to go like, "Okay, how do I now digest this experience that I made here?" What's the meaning that I'm going to derive from that experience so that it actually makes me feel more empowered on the other side of it? So really having new connections with women, deepening the connections that you already have with women, bringing in the thing that you want to receive more of in your connections with women, not in a gigantic way, not laying yourself completely bare if that's scary, but in small ways, this is really important. We heal the sister wound by at the end of the day making more safe experiences with women. And in many ways, digesting the pain that we carry from the not-so-great experiences that we made with women. And in that way, you will not understand over time, it becomes easier to be vulnerable with women, to allow other women to really see you, you will not understand your mind will become less competitive in a way, less judgmental towards other women. This is a practice. This is a long-term process like it is with all of those wounds. It's not that we do one practice and then kaboom, everything is amazing. This is a practice. It is about repetition, it is about teaching our mind a new way of looking at reality and teaching our nervous system, a new reality that it is safe. And if there is a relationship or a connection or an interaction with a woman that isn't safe, we're going to take care of that. So that we can come out on the other side, still with an open heart instead of feeling massively guarded and jaded in a way. And then again, remember that the more you work on your system, the more safe you become for other women. So that is how each and every one of us that heals the system, creates this ripple effect. The more safe women are out there, the easier it is for other women to make safe experiences with women too. So really see the work that you're doing with yourself as kind of the work that allows other women to also start to heal that wound. Women that dare to kind of own the things that society has taught us, we should be ashamed of or that we shouldn't have or that we should somehow reject in our emotions, our desires, the way we want to live our life. The more you break out of that container, the more you dare to own those things, the more of a permission slip you actually become for other women to do the same. Working on your system wound has a ripple effect. It's not just for you, it's for other women as well. And it's so easy when we make bad experiences with women in heart for experiences with women that we carry that pain forward, right? And we end up projecting that pain outwards and then hurting other women because we got hurt. It's so easy to do that. That's exactly what society tells us to do. And that right there is the thing we want to set ourselves free off. When you're judging other women, when you're being mean towards other women, when you feel like there's competition all the time, you are also hurting yourself, you're putting yourself into a box. And just like that example that I gave where I was kind of forcing in my mind those outspoken, confident, expressive women into their little box, that was a box that I was already living in. I was living in that teeny tiny space where I was not allowed to be big and to have a voice my entire life. And I wanted to get that woman into that box too. Seeing that is what helped me to set myself free of that box. to give myself more space as well. So I hope this episode gave you an inside into how the sister wound might show up for you and gave you somehow an impulse to question, to reflect on our thoughts, on our emotions, on those triggers to see if there are spaces where you can set yourself and therefore also other women free. Also I hope that the episode showed you other points of contact with our sister wound where we might want to process some of those painful experiences that we did make with other women, maybe diving into our mother wound more deeply and I hope this also really gave you the impulse to put yourself out there. If you want to heal the sister wound we need to make healthier, safer experiences with other women and for that we need to put ourselves out there. We need to lean into okay how can I create a relationship or a friendship with a woman that does actually feel good for me and what can I bring to the table for that to happen. What are the efforts that I can make? Again remembering that still not every interaction will be safe and then it is on us to make sure we are digesting that properly. We're not abandoning ourselves in that moment and just brush over it but we recognize that as a painful experience and something that I have to consciously process because otherwise your subconscious will do that for you and that will then look like just taking this experience as food for the sister wound, for those belief systems that kind of underlie that wound in the first place. If you want support with this process, if you want support around processing the pain that you might be carrying because of these hurtful interactions that you might have had with women reach out. I am opening up a couple of one-on-one spots for the rest of the year. I will link the application form below and I can't wait to hear from you there and with that we are done for today. As always leave a comment, make sure to rate the show, it's so so helpful and with that I will be back next week with another episode of Embracing Heart. So much love to you. [Music]