Dear Women...

Dear Women,

 Women like you pave the way for women like me.  It is women like you and your stories that help amplify all our stories as women.

It is important. It is valued and it helps women keep writing their own stories.

Story telling is one of women’s SUPERPOWERS. It has always been a source of connection, our voice of rebellion, a way to share our beauty and to give wisdom.

When you write your own story, you are penning your own history, you are making sure your life doesn’t go unwritten.

Sharing our stories, showing our vulnerability and honesty is to shed light on what makes us brave. To voice the troubles, fear and darkness we feel, is strength and a powerful gift, not just for ourselves but others.

While we might not always understand other stories, it is vital that we hold a space for the opportunity to learn more about all women living in our community. It is about breaking down the stereotypes and barriers that stop us from not just encouragers but allies for all HUMANS.

I believe that with our privileges comes a responsibility to help women in need, to give time to other women in our neighbourhood, we all have the capacity, at some moment in time to empower women- it is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other.

Each year during March we start to have the conversations around women’s rights, gender equality, the pay gap, domestic and sexual violence, homelessness and poverty, limited access to education and healthcare.

I have always believed that IWD is not a cause.

I believe when it comes to IWD one day is ceremonial, 365 days is revolutionary.

And what I mean by this is we need to be having conversations about women, men and children every day about how we can embrace equity.

We definitely have advocates and allies in our communities who are having and making those conversations daily, but we still have a long way to go.

We need to encourage each other to embrace what makes us different and unique and start using our stories more to build equity into our daily lives. The first part of that is from respect and kindness, finding our moral compass and using it to guide us.

Each woman has a powerful story to tell, now is the era to celebrate women and their stories. By doing this it paves the way for more diversity, from there a movement builds and we start to close the gaps- it brings about equity, but it also brings about a stronger understanding of women.

The more we learn about women and provide a space to amplify their voices, means women don’t have to remain silent.

For centuries women have gathered in different ways. Our early history was sharing stories, verbal memoirs of the past, a time before pen and paper, it is connection and collaboration that give women a sense of self but purpose. Connection is the spark that gives women the courage to find their own light.

I recently read words from American poet Adrienne Rich: “The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and most potentially transforming force on the planet.”

The root of all discrimination is fear.  Change starts with us. Change starts when we are supported.

Women are the change makers, the creators, the builders. the negotiators, the chameleons. Women have forever continued to transform, shedding their skins constantly.

And with each skin that we shed, there is a different version of ourselves as women.

There is the woman who is seen laughing, is vibrant, the life of the party – sharing her light with others.

The woman who feels overwhelmed at times, has moments of loneliness, retreats to a space where she can breakdown and rebuild.

And the woman who is the change. A woman who can make a difference- a woman who has strength to achieve what it is she truly desires.

The truth of it is, we can be we are all these women at any moment in time and each layer is important to the magic we have, the spells we weave and the words we share.

Because without the shade of the night and the light of the day, we cannot rise.

Big Love Fallon