The Dark Side of The Fight Against Patriarchy & What To Do About It

The growth mindset has dug me out of a few crises, especially recently.

You see, over the last year, I went down a big rabbit hole into systemic oppression, patriarchy….that kind of thing.

I did some major deconstruction of my biases, as a therapist, that's REALLY important. 

The idea about 'smashing the patriarchy' found me through the work I do in the menopause space. Before that, I was 100% growth mindset and believed that no matter what the circumstances, ANYONE could make positive changes in their own lives. 

At first I found the whole patriarchy thing incredibly validating but after a while it started to depress me.  I could only take so much. It’s heavy shit and changes absolutely EVERYTHING you thought you ever knew.

You really need to take a breath and take a moment.  

It was completely necessary though and I learnt so much about my privilege, decolonisation, social determinants of health, cultural narcissism, extractive economics, ethical branding and as a menopausal women (and someone who’d been burned a bit by capitalism) I found it incredibly validating.

But here’s the thing…as a wise man once told me

EVERY FRONT HAS A BACK

Which basically means every action has an equal and opposite reaction, which means (again), whilst this is good work to do (and we should all do it), if you focus on it for too long, it can destroy your sense of agency.

Which is exactly what happened to me.

Last month [the wet UK August of 2023] I experienced the very dark side of hopelessness, helpless and powerlessness.

It was an existential crisis.

It told me ‘if the problem is so big, and it’s outside of ourselves, is there really any point in trying… like what is the f**king point girl??!!.’

For a minute there…. I gave up.

Maybe I needed to for a bit, maybe I need to feel what some of my clients feel, but then I found myself standing on the edge of the precipice with a choice and instead of jumping, I decided to grow some wings and fly.

I asked myself, how have I made myself feel better in the past?

And it always comes back to growth mindset, perspective shifts, empowerment, values based action and autonomy. The message came flooding back and I started to feel better.

I dug deep and found my grit again.

It gave me back a feeling of being in control, like I was the maestro of my own life.

I do think it’s INCREDIBLY important to understand how systemic oppression can affects our ability to make the changes we want in our lives (so that we’re not always blaming ourselves when it doesn't work out), but equally, it’s important to recognise that many of the changes we want are actually an inside job.

If you look back through history there are so many examples of people who have changed the course of their lives (and actively participated in changing systemic oppression), under the most horrific circumstances, through changing their MINDSETS and taking their power back.

Victor Frankel

Nelson Mandela

Tarana Burke

Leslie Morgan

Rachel Thompson

Its like every hero’s journey you’ve ever seen, growth mindset has been utilised. 

But what you don’t usually see is the amount of work it takes to get to that point. It’s a life long uncovering.

It’s a daily decision to show up differently, to take your power back from the people who stole it from you.

My passion is and always will be enabling you to reclaim your power against forces that are trying to steal it from you (your past, your perpetrators, your parents).

To help you bring your energy back to YOU through subconscious reprogramming, mindset shifts, behavioural change…. all that stuff that is within the control that you DO have.

We’ve let others be our puppet masters for too long.

And in taking our power back we start to unpick the forces of oppression that stealthily seek to control our lives.

If you've felt disempowered, helpless and hopeless about the state of the world (or anything to do with your past)  come and have a Rapid Transformational Therapy session with me.   This 2-3 hour process done under hypnosis which dismantles internalised powerlessness and enables you to reclaim your sense of empowerment and control. 

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RTT with me is accessible from Brighton, Shoreham, Hove, East Sussex AND online. 

RTT helps with anxiety, weight loss, depression, low confidence, social anxiety, exercise motivation, stuckness & blocks, public speaking, fears, phobias, auto immune issues, relationship disharmony, frequent urination, migraines, low libido, hot flushes, insomnia, brain fog, scattered focus, vaso vagal syncope, fears around ageing and anything that requires a change of perception or behaviour.