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“What a struggle it has been for us to repress our knowing for all these years…for all these centuries. Our addiction to doing too much enables us to ignore our own wisdom, so that we fit more easily into an addictive society.

How often have we kept our mouths shut at board meetings and staff meetings because sharing our knowledge would arouse a great hue and cry, or be completely ignored?

We have tried so hard to fit into a society that we did not create and to become acceptable to that society that we have become the amazing shrinking women. Yet, we know and we know we know.”  – Anne Wilson Schaef

Several years ago, having lunch with my husband and one of our friends, my hubby shocked me by saying, “Oh, Kamala just knows knows things.”

I had to ask him about it later: what did he mean by that? What was it that he thought I knew? I began to recall that at least from my early twenties, people had been coming to me, asking me things. They,  seemingly, trusted that what I told them was true. Like I just knew things!

The line in Schaef’s quote, “We have tried so hard to fit into a society we did not create and to become acceptable to that society…” struck me hard. As a child, I likely “knew” too much, saw too much and made my family way too uncomfortable. So I shut down much of what I knew to fit into their society.

For many of us, it’s time to remember that we know what we know – and to share what we know with those who also need to remember what THEY know.