By Monica M
These are a set of online courses (there may be a physical meet-up, but I have not come across it yet) where you have a number of teaching calls, coaching calls and set assignments. Mostly it is the interaction with the other women on the site and the completion of the assignments that helps you grow and develop.
Again, when I signed up, I told them I was transgender and they had no problem with that. In fact, part way through the course, the course coordinator Keren Clark made a point of having a Skype call with me to make sure that I was ok, that I was not being left out and that people were treating me properly. I was mightily impressed. She told me that I was the first openly transgender person that they had come across on their courses. She could not have been sweeter.
Basically, the course is about getting in touch with your authentic self and determining what it is you want to dedicate your life to doing. It is about finding the false assumptions that rule your life, eliminating them and replacing them with more realistic assumptions.
Through this, I worked out my own Power Statement, that is, the place I need to operate from and the person I need to show up as. My Power Statement: I am a strong radiant, graceful, elegant, feminine woman who is fully grounded in her femininity. This is the person I am becoming and this is the person I expect to show up as.
I have an evolutionary sister, BA, who helps me if I stray from this path. After using this Power Statement for some time, I felt a bit uncomfortable and fragmented when presenting en homme and so I had (with the help Keren) to come up with a Power Statement for my male side that supported my authentic Power Statement. Here is my male Power Statement: my function as a male is to provide a protected and nurturing environment which allows my female side to grow and develop and gives her the ability to feed radiance to her in the service of the whole.
You quickly learn through an in-depth course such as this that all women (even transgender women) have the same problems. They are not happy with their bodies (neither are we, though in a different way!). They do not feel that they are enough (yep, got that one too!). They do not feel that they are being heard/seen (check!). They do not feel that they belong (double check that), etc. It is quite illuminating to see the parallels. One time I was complaining on the site that I often did not feel like a proper woman; one friend replied, ”Welcome to my world”.
AFP and FP really complement each other in my experience. Some of it is the same ground, but the perspective is a bit different. Both are extremely useful in helping one change one's software. The change in software has meant that the last four years (since Esprit 2010) have been the most joyful years of my life. I have been able to get in touch with my authentic self and that brings a great sense of coming home. I am complete!
(Part 19 of One Person’s Journey to Womanhood appeared here.)
Wearing Tahari Arthur S. Levine.
Actors John Stamos and Bob Saget femulating as
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot.
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