The Awakened Woman

by Tererai Trent

  Teamed with her friend and colleague Fay Chung, Hope opened the first university in the region that caters mostly to adult women. Women’s University in Africa (WUA) opened its door in September of 2002 with a staff of ten and a student population of 147.

  Today, WUA has graduated more than three thousand women from all over the region. Hope’s university has seen many women graduates rise to do great things. Some women went on to run big companies in different parts of the world as well as make impressive strides in politics—for example, Joyce Mujuru, who earned two degrees from WUA, became the first female vice president of Zimbabwe, one of the few women in the world to hold such a post. Joyce went on to get her MBA, and then embarked on her PhD studies with the University of Zimbabwe, and now carries the title Dr. Joyce Mujuru! Hilda Suka, the ambassador to Sudan, got her position after graduating from WUA.

  WUA continues to grow and impact many countries. For example, Hope has opened classes in Malawi and Zambia, where the university is attracting women who would otherwise not have such an opportunity.

  Hope Sadza’s crowning achievement came in 2014 when she was one of twenty women inducted into the Women’s Heritage Society World Organization Hall of Fame. The list included prominent women like Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé Knowles, Joyce Meyer, and Elizabeth Glaser. The WHSWO Hall of Fame is the hallmark of the highest symbolic preservation and historical recognition and honor bestowed upon any woman in the world who has lived a life that inspires another life, a life worth celebrating, a life worth emulating, an inspiration to humanity, and a legacy worth preserving for generations present and future. Professor Sadza continues receiving honors for her work—in August 2016, for example, she won a lifetime achievement award from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for Women in the African Education Sector. “I want to see women refusing to be silenced in their quest for equality,” says Dr. Sadza, and she has helped so many women do just that.14

  Resolving Personal Silences, Creating Sustainable Futures

  For more than two decades, Michelle Stronz has set a high bar for leading organizations across business, government, and other sectors. And yet, in her personal life, she suffered silently in an unhappy marriage for twenty-five years. Making a major personal change after attending one of my talks, Michelle also made powerful professional changes, moving from a more traditional CEO track to a position that empowers and creates sustainable development across the globe.

  Michelle reflects:

  The several-year process in which I was closing my twenty-five-year marriage was transformative for me. It is difficult, even now, to understand how my voice was silenced by my husband for so long. I was a bit paralyzed by my “commitment to commitment” and, looking back, I think it was also my own deep questioning about self-worth. One thing is clear, the further I got from speaking my truth, the further I was from my true calling. Without this difficult process of closing my marriage, I would not have come home to me.

  I was in the early stages of “waking up” from my emotional prison when I met you at the United Way Women’s Leadership Council annual event in Hartford, Connecticut.

  After hearing your compelling story, I found the courage to envision a future where my voice would have value and where I could embrace my freedom with a renewed purpose.

  You held up a mirror to my experience as you spoke of your poverty in Africa—not just financial but a sort of poverty of the soul. Your words resonated for me and I responded. After your presentation, I drove home with tears streaming down my face, found a scrap of fabric and an old tin. I wrote down my dreams and buried them underneath my favorite yellow magnolia tree.

  They read: “To be free to tell the important stories, to mentor others whose leadership stories have a healing quality, and to be loved for who I am.”

  Today, I do not see any limits on what I can do to contribute to a better future. With the help of mentors and “mirrors,” I rediscovered my authentic voice. Now, I am pursuing what I love the most—working with purpose-driven leaders to help them reimagine their lives and their organizations as both centers of economic value and engines of impact around the world.15

  Turning Rejection into Opportunity

  Shirin Ebadi grew up in a loving home in Iran, with parents who respected gender equality and treated her the same as her brother. Shirin is Muslim, and she went to a Zoroastrian school, which taught her respect for other religions. “This was a very important factor in forming my mind-set later when I grow up,” says Shirin.16 But her life was far from easy; the sixty-nine-year-old Iranian lawyer has had her share of being silenced. Shirin was very successful in school and eventually made her way through law school.

  Prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution, Dr. Shirin Ebadi became a hero to many when she was selected to be the country’s first female judge. But soon after, her dream was shattered when the government stripped her of the post because the new ruling clerics decided that women are unsuitable for such a responsibility.

  Shirin remembers she had a trial on the day that an employee from the recruitment office gave her a closed envelope. “I opened the envelope after the trial and then I realized that they had removed me from my position. It was even written in the letter that according to the decision of the committee for clearing employees I am dismissed from my job. Other female judges received the same letter. I gathered all my belongings, and before leaving the court I informed the head of the department about the letter I had received. He was not aware of the decision and was very sorry but he could not do anything.”17 Despite her loving and encouraging parents, the excellent education and qualifications that got her to be selected as Iran’s first female judge, Shirin was still a victim of a cultural worldview that does not respect women in leadership positions.

  Shirin did not let her dismissal stop her from working—instead it fueled her. She doubled her workload after they dismissed her. She’s written fourteen legal books and many articles. This lawyer and former judge is now a human rights activist who founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. In 2003, Shirin became the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This was in honor of her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women’s, children’s, and refugee rights.

  Listening to the Voice Within

  In her mid-twenties, after majoring in finance as an undergraduate and then continuing on to pursue a law degree, Leah Campbell became deeply depressed. She had a recurring sense that there was a light within her that was dying out. She kept trying to push herself to study, and to apply for internships and jobs, but it was getting harder and harder to get through days that she dreaded, especially when she felt like she had to keep up the appearance of “having it all together.”18

  Leah had always been very spiritual, which was another thing that made law school a challenge, as the culture there seemed to make intelligence and spirituality mutually exclusive. She was also aware, though, that she kept God at arm’s distance when it came to the “Thy will be done” beliefs. Ever since she was a child, she had a strong sense that God did have a special intention for her life, and then, somewhere between the ages of seven and twelve, she says, she had “enough Catholic religious education to be scared to death about what God might have in mind for a girl with great faith.” So she made up her mind that she would take matters into her own hands.

  She’d had a childhood that was idyllic in many ways, growing up on a farm surrounded by a loving family and wide-open spaces that encouraged her imagination to roam free and grow wild. As a child, she was drawn to anything to do with beauty, imagination, storytelling, spirituality, reading, writing, drawing, exploring, and helping others. But other than her beloved grandmother, who became an art teacher later in life, she didn’t know of anyone who made a living doing just these things. She was quite familiar with the phrase “starving artist” and at an early age acquired the belief that artists, writers, poets, healers, and explorers were
a special, almost mythical class of people to which people like her—a white girl from a very small, rural, agricultural community in the Midwest—didn’t belong.

  By age twelve, she came to the conclusion that the only way she could afford to have all of those loves in her life would be if she were successful enough using her brain at something “practical.” It seemed like a smart, responsible plan. Becoming a lawyer got her positive reinforcement from family, teachers, and friends, and it was a career supported by society in general.

  Once, during law school, Leah visited her grandmother for a few days. “Grandma Donna” had been a farmer’s wife but became an art teacher at forty after Leah’s grandfather died of cancer. Grandma Donna, always one of Leah’s greatest fans, encouraging her creative inclinations, could see how unhappy her granddaughter was. She encouraged Leah to drop out of law school and come live with her. She’d teach her everything she knew about art and that would get her started. Donna was sure Leah could be a great artist.

  Leah appreciated the love and vote of confidence, though secretly worried that her grandmother was incredibly overestimating her abilities, especially since she’d hardly done more than some sketching her entire life. She’d always wanted to paint, but was too much of a perfectionist and too scared to begin. Leah thought about her grandmother’s offer, but it seemed like such a big risk and, besides, what would everyone think? Her husband? Her parents? Her classmates and friends? At best, they would think she had gone off her rocker. At worst, they’d think she was a failure, a quitter, and couldn’t hack law school. She would think she was a failure. So she went back.

  Several months later, Leah’s grandmother suddenly became ill. Leah drove hours through a snowstorm to see her in the hospital. The doctor said Donna was in a coma and couldn’t hear her, but Leah sat by her side and talked long into the winter’s night anyway.

  She said she was so sorry she hadn’t made the time to come visit more, but she would, and they could start on those painting lessons her grandma had offered. “We’ll start by learning to paint poppies just like we said we would,” Leah told her grandma. “I’ve been using the pastels you gave me for Christmas last year,” Leah said. “I even tore a picture of a sunflower out of a magazine. It had a caption that read ‘Sunflower your elders.’ One day I’ll give you my drawing of the sunflower, Grandma.”

  As Leah told this to Donna, tears started to flow down the corners of her grandmother’s eyes. Leah held her hand tighter and said “I love you, Grandma. I love you so much, I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over again.

  A few days later, Leah’s grandmother passed away. Leah soon found she inherited her grandmother’s large collection of art supplies. In the boxes Leah also found some of her grandmother’s journals. As Leah read them, her heart was torn in two. Many of the journals would start with lists of ideas, the beginnings of things—ideas for art or for stories or articles—and then the writing would turn into reflections of self-doubt and harsh self-criticism. Then even this would trail off into nothing but blank pages. Blank pages. So many blank pages. Almost every single journal was at least half-empty.

  Leah was devastated to know that her grandmother, the woman whom Leah had once seen in a black-and-white picture at age sixteen standing on the bare back of a running horse—Donna told Leah that when this picture was taken she was secretly plotting to run away and join the circus—had experienced so much agony around her creativity. So much of her beautiful, feisty, spirited, pioneer of a grandmother’s spirit had been trapped inside her, unexpressed.

  As she considered her grandmother’s life and so many family stories she’d grown up with, stories of almost-but-not-quite success and thwarted creativity and greatness, she felt as if a giant wave was crashing over her. The weight of that kind of lineage, that kind of tradition of living good, respectable lives but with so much inner disappointment seemed like it would bury her.

  But she refused to let it. She promised this to herself and her grandmother and anyone to come after her. She would set about figuring how to live a fully expressed, flourishing, vibrant creative life. Her sacred dream was to eventually be able to help others set their own creative spirits free as well.

  She started to think about law school and the practice of law in this light. Much attention is given to citation. Whether you’re citing precedent when constructing an argument or citing primary or secondary sources when writing a research paper, you are required to back up your argument and thoughts by referencing an already established, external authority.

  Leah began to realize that she had been living and planning her life this way. She had many references to support the argument for being an attorney as a guaranteed way to help others and make a good living, thereby becoming “successful.” But there was a source within her that clearly persisted in saying, “No, this is wrong! This is so wrong for you!”

  In all the years Leah had been trying to ignore it and stuff it down because it was such an inconvenient, uncooperative wrench in the plans she had been making, that same internal source also insisted on continually handing her an unexplainable desire to paint, an urge that seemed to spring from so deep within her that she didn’t know the source, but it radiated energy out through her limbs and fingertips, like she held paintings inside of her that were just waiting to be danced out!

  Today, Leah’s life is in tune with that inner source. She is a thriving artist who paints and coaches others in their creative lives. She also collaborates with poets and artists. In her own experience and from being a witness and midwife to the experiences of others, Leah has seen proof of something that was a faint whisper inside her so long ago: that the energy of creativity carries with it the divine essence of who we really are. She’s become convinced that this kind of creativity has the power to heal, enliven, and enlighten. Her new goal: one million plus revived and restored souls.

  The one thing all of these leaders and stories have in common is that when they empowered themselves, they improved the world. By developing healthy businesses, pursuing our passions even after a major setback, getting in tune with an inner spirituality that serves your deepest hungers, these women recognized the treacherous stretch of road they had to traverse, and they turned around and worked to lighten the journey for others.

  We all have so many reasons not to pursue our dreams, so many things that keep us from walking those last few miles. Maybe it’s a corrupt government that oppresses and divides—or even attacks—its own people; maybe it is poverty, or racist or sexist cultural norms. Maybe it is a “commitment to commitment” that keeps you stuck in a dead-end marriage; maybe it’s a career that doesn’t satisfy your sacred purpose. Maybe it is age, or isolation. Maybe no one has ever asked you, or maybe you have never been ready to answer.

  I do not know what barriers line your pathway, but I know that you will only traverse them when you open yourself to the wisdom of those who have gone before. Find your giant teddy bear. Find the cracks and fill them. Find the seeds that you can plant. Find your Hope Sadza. There is a space being held open for you by millions of people and their actions across the world; will you let them help walk you to your sacred purpose?

  SACRED RITUAL TO INSPIRE ACTION AND OPPORTUNITY

  Taking guidance from elders’ wisdom and from those who’ve taken the journey before us is vital. Inspiration from those who have already walked your path can save time as you learn from their triumphs and errors. But there is also something greater that happens when you tune in to the energy of the successful, authentic women who inspire you. On a vibrational level, you will be able to attune to the energy of what they have already created, while also adding your own energy and enthusiasm. The harmonious outcome is a mixture of your energy and theirs. In other words, once you tune in to their collective creation, you expand the potential of that creation—to everyone’s benefit.

  In order to tune in to this vibration we need to be able to recognize opportunity when it calls us, and offer opportunity t
o others whenever possible. So often we say no, implicitly or explicitly, when opportunity arises. We are trained to say “fine” or “busy” when someone asks “how are you?” or to stifle the deepest parts of ourselves for the sake of making nice, keeping harmony with friends and family. Too often we get in the habit of ignoring the fact that interactions with others are opportunities—not for material gain or selfish ends, but opportunities for creative thinking, for acting on our dreams, for lifting up the dreams of others. Opportunities for inspiration.

  You need to give rukudzo, honor, to those heroines who have walked the path before you if you are to get into the habit of saying yes to inspiration. These heroines have made the invisible stretch of road more visible to you, more passable. They reach back for you, whether literally or with the force of their example, waiting for you to thrust out your hands toward them. You inspire action in yourself by paying homage to these trailblazers in your thoughts and actions. Knowing their actions make yours more possible.

  Honoring the Torchbearers

  A dear friend told me how tears poured from her eyes upon hearing American civil rights activist Diane Nash speak. Nash told the audience that whatever she and her compatriots in SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the Freedom Riders, and more did for social justice—being arrested, marching, organizing—they did for the next generation; “we loved you before we even knew you,” Ms. Nash said.19

  Many women before you have done the hard work of awakening. Whether they knew it or not, whatever they did not only improved their lives, but was an act of love for your life, too. They loved you, the next generation, before they knew you. They worked hard not to pass down their soul wounds; they worked instead to give you a gift of passion and purpose, a better world.