Women have a hard time saying no because it feels so good to be chosen, especially by the king. We enjoy pleasing daddy, our boss, our coworker, our lover. We don't want to disappoint others, so much of our self-image is invested in making other people happy. Our internal little girl doesn't want to be left out or left behind. It's too painful to choose not to join the fun. And we need the income.
In moving out of a state of spiritual daughterhood in which we serve male role models, there is rarely a Big Daddy saying, "You've done a good job...It's just what I wanted...Go ahead and make your own way." Instead the usual response is, "You're throwing away your career by not taking this position...How could you let us down?...You just don't know how to keep commitments...You're just not up to the challenge."
These rebukes are difficult for anyone to hear but particularly trying for women who do not like to disappoint others or who have relied so much on males for approval and validation.
It is these moments of being truly vulnerable, however, that we can really grow. Jean Shinoda Bolen says, "When we are doing something because it is expected of us or to please somebody else or because we are afraid of somebody else, we become further alienated from a sense of living authentically. If we just keep living out a role that we know well, the cost of that is to become increasingly cut off from that which is the collective unconscious; that which not only nourishes us, but also provides the raw material that allows us to mess up. Very often in transition periods, that's exactly what is called for, a change by going through chaos, of losing the way, of being lost in the forest for some time before we get through and find our path again." - The Heroine's Journey, Maureen Murdock.
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