In my work as a midwife I have the awesome privilege to be with women when they can resource deeply their true magnificence.
Being pregnant and giving birth is a time in a woman’s life when she has a relationship with her body that is very real and full. A time when she can get to know herself and her true strength and qualities, as her body does some of the most amazing and miraculous things ever.
Over and over again I am blown away by the sheer power and beauty of women.
And then the men… and their awesome tenderness, care and sensitivity; their willingness to be in the wonder of what they are witnessing. When I see a man honour the woman he is with; to let himself be in awe of her, I can see how relationships are transformed to a whole new level.
The cool thing too is that it is not to say that we can only do this when we are pregnant or give birth. Working alongside colleagues who have chosen not to have children, or not yet had children, I recognise the same magnificence.
What is interesting is that for many of us the acceptance and living of this magnificence is not our norm. There seem to be many patterns of behaviour and belief systems that do not honour and confirm women in their strength and beauty, and we are so familiar with these that we do not question them.
So back to the privilege of working as a midwife, when what I observe at work shows me beyond any doubt how magnificent women are; how sensitive and deeply caring men are; how exquisite our relationships can be when we let ourselves be touched and awed by others, and how deeply we can resource our true strength and qualities when we choose.
By MB, UK
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Men and women, women and men, we have so much to reflect to each other, so much to learn, so much to offer. To be reminded of this brings back the beauty and magic to relationships, and is a great reminder for us when we feel ‘stuck in a rutt’ – that we have forgotten the appreciation of ourselves and of others too.
The body and especially as a woman’s body with the capacity to bring so much is indeed a blessing and such an honour. We get conditioned in society to see this more as a weakness and a liability or even a curse, but this is when we do not allow ourselves to see and feel the enormity of the beauty that we actually bring.
This is so true – we are amazing and yet we so often play ourselves down or forget all that we bring simply with who we are. Thank you for the gentle reminder to not forget but to bring it all…
No one can be more magnificent than another, we are all a magnificent part of the whole, the Oneness of the Universe. Easy to way with knowledge, more challenging to accept it, feel it and live it. Thank you MB for reminding us of the magnificence that we all are.
Even saying ‘women are magnificent’ caps us.
There is something beautiful that happens in this very special environment that supports people to open and allow their tenderness and fragility to show. Everyone has this amazingness in them as mentioned but it can remain hidden and protected until they find that space, relationship or opportunity that invites it to shine.
Unfortunately we are not encouraged to remain connect to our tenderness and fragility as society has a way of pulling us back into the swamp that we call life and not only do we comply to this way of life we pull our children we give birth to into the swamp as well and so the beautiful feeling of sensitivity and fragility become short lived memories.
The magnificence we are, is always ready to be lived
For many years there has been this belief that women churn out babies and then go back to work and yes, in days gone by that must have been the case but what seems to be surfacing now with both the men and the women is that there is a preciousness with the whole process of being pregnant and there is more involvement of the male partner during and after the pregnancy.
We may not claim it or acknowledge being magnificent but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t or it cannot be tapped into.
Could it be that by women unfolding their innate magnificence this then allows men to be the sweet, sensitive souls they naturally are…..what a pure marker this moments offers.
There is so much truth is what you have shared LucindaB your words are very touching and exquisite.
To be honest I struggle with the word magnificence for exactly the reason you share – that it’s not really the way we view ourselves. Seeing ourselves and others as magnificent is not common place so for me I find it challenging to even define that at times, even though I know and feel many beautiful qualities within myself and others. I get a sense it’s when we allow our beliefs, our mind and our everyday patterns to fall away to simply allow the essence within us to emerge which is untainted by the world.
Being pregnant brings a deep sense of knowing of how precious life is and how blessed we are as parents to be entrusted with the life of another.
‘Being pregnant brings a deep sense of knowing of how precious life is and how blessed we are as parents to be entrusted with the life of another’ for some yes but for others it brings unease, fear, resentment, anger, annoyance, panic, sadness, self loathing and so much more. Our experience and understanding of life is governed by the life and lives that we’ve lived leading up to that point, no two people see life in exactly the same way.
Being pregnant, for both the woman and the man, is an awareness that life is not about ‘self’ and that we have a deeper responsibility to care for and deepen our love for all.
Mary whilst I agree that being pregnant has the potential to bring an ‘awareness that life is not about ‘self’ and that we have a deeper responsibility to care for and deepen our love for all’, I would say that there is a far larger percentage of people who see it purely about ‘self’. Most of us see our kids as ‘our own’, members of our immediate families, people that share our own ethnicity and heritage and ‘blank slates’ that we can imprint our beliefs, ideas and footy teams onto. The ‘concept’ of ‘love for all’ is not only totally abstract for most people but not even on their radar.
Magnificence is a word I have never used but I understand what you are saying here or rather my body understands what you are saying here.
Even in our ‘highest points’ as human beings most of us haven’t even glimpsed what living magnificently means. Sure we can live a wealthy life, a famous life, an exciting life, a very comfortable life, we can have houses and boats, gifted kids and prestigious jobs but does any of that or even all of that equal magnificence, no, not even close. True magnificence can only come from living soulfully, there is no other way to reach it.
MB I love the title of your blog ‘women are magnificent’. Magnificent isn’t a word that we use very often at all but in our truth both men and woman are indeed truly magnificent. We are the collective magnificence of God and that’s a fact.
MB there seems to me to be something so incredibly raw and honest about us when we’re giving birth, everything gets stripped back and both the women and the men get to be revealed in a much more truthful light.
Well said Alexis – there is a fragility and at the same time a strength that a women can feel when she allows the body to take over.
I fully agree with what is written here, women are magnificent. Recently I have been fortunate to have a new little granddaughter and I can feel a tenderness and a gentleness not previously witnessed in my son, and a power and beauty within my magnificent daughter-in-law.
How glorious Gill, we are here to be more and more magnificent versions of ourselves. World without end.
The delicateness and beauty of a newborn has the power to transform people and relationships – not to change them into something they are not, but rather to help transform them by allowing them to return to who they are and the beauty of that in itself.