I choose to challenge!

I was asked to do a talk for International Woman’s Day at work today. This year's theme is: “I choose to challenge!” which felt so fitting for me as a Latin American woman living in Australia.

Here is a snapshot…

Since being a little girl, the gender inequality of my homeland - Ecuador, was something I found challenging. I couldn’t understand why my brothers and male friends were allowed so many more freedoms than myself; I had to be polite and look pretty while they could climb, play and get as dirty as they wanted. As I grew up, it was common to see my arms up in the air asking why and negotiating grants with my parents!! I was stubborn and often fierce.

This passion to challenge norms and find new ways which are beyond what is expected drew me to follow social causes in university; ecology, social welfare; it provoked me to study yoga and other spiritual lineages and then it moved me far away from my homeland, first to the US at 17, then Europe and finally Australia back in 1994!

I wanted to grow, to discover parts of myself and to see how far I could go in my life, challenging myself to be in new environments, learn new languages and types of work.

It was in my early 20’s that I started a corporate career in retail as a Fashion Buyer, and my little challenges as a woman became big challenges! I had to deal not only with big doses of gender inequality in the late 90’s male-dominated Australian corporate world but also for the first time I dealt with racial discrimination, intense competitiveness and high pressure to deliver.

Coming from a comfortable background in Ecuador, this was all very new to me, but again… I choose to challenge myself! and in challenging these conventions and myself, I gained the respect of my colleagues and superiors through hard work, discipline and determination.

In my life, over and over again, I have challenged myself (and those around me); when I choose to leave the corporate world to become a full-time Yoga teacher, for example, to my parents’ dismay; when I would continue to pick up and go on multiple travel adventures or when I choose to have a lotus homebirth, the list goes on and on!

Upon reflection, I see my choices were nurtured by my courageous mother plus the yogic philosophy, which I am so grateful to have learned in my late teens:

That we must question everything and learn always

That life is precious, every day a sacred gift which can be taken away

and

That we must live fiercely as our most authentic selves and share our light with others, for it is only then that we reach true happiness.

This last one is my ‘isht’, my goal in life, to share with others what I have learned from my heart, and this has led me to challenge many conventions of the modern world through the teachings of Yoga over the last 18 years as a Yogini.

We live in a ‘mans world’. Women and girls represent half of the world’s population, and this means we are half of its potential, but this often goes unseen. Inequalities faced by girls can begin at birth and follow them all their lives, especially in those groups which are most in need. Gender inequality persists and stagnates social progress worldwide in so many different ways.

It is our hands, in yours and mine, to be the change we want to see. To challenge discrimination every day, choose to challenge inequality, choose to challenge violence, choose to challenge our own fears and limitations, and challenge that which stops us from being truly content.

Women are naturally radiant; we are wild and creative, courageous and resilient; we are also deep and perfectly imperfect. All we need to do is be our most authentic selves; the world needs our self-acceptance, our grace, power and intuition.

Our capacity to hold, nurture, birth our babies and projects, our capacity to be in a continuous space of self-renewal gives us the inner strength and emotional capacity that will help us challenge dated norms and stand up for ourselves and each other!

Let’s choose to challenge!

Let’s create a world in which all aspects of a woman are welcomed, celebrated and loved.

Let’s gift this to ourselves and each other. May we embody the most authentic and alive expression of ourselves and lead the way for future generations to come.

Love,

Alexandra / Siri Hari