To really move forward, we need to address issues that we know exist.
I’m Olivia S. Benson, author of a new book titled For the Love of My Father, A Spiritual Guide for Women Healing from the Absence of a Father in the Age of Spiritual Evolution. And by the way, the book is available on Amazon. And also, it is not my first book, it’s my second book. My first book is called Answers from Within, and that also is available on Amazon.
At this moment though, we’re discussing For the Love of My Father, which is essentially a book about healing issues created by the absence of a father in our lives, particularly with regards to girls, because I am a girl, I am a woman, and while this issue is pervasive and it affects boys just the same, I can speak to it as a girl and as a woman. And the whole basis of the book is that we can heal this issue by gaining a greater spiritual understanding of life on the planet.
Also, please check out my website, OliviaSBenson.com, my Facebook page, author Olivia S. Benson, and my Instagram and Twitter, which are Olivia S. Benson.
So this conversation is still a part of a continuation of the discussion I had last week about the relationships that women have, or the way that women, generally speaking, treat each other. And this series of videos is really a part of the celebration of Women’s History Month. Because while we are celebrating women and their accomplishments, it’s important to note that there are some issues that need to be addressed.
Of course, the book is about healing daddy issues. But the whole purpose is, we’re going to heal the issues that were created by the absence of our father. And we’re going to be prepared to be all that we can be. We’re going to be in all the right places. But at the same time, it would be disingenuous not to talk about the fact that many women have issues with each other. And so that’s why it’s part of the celebration, because to really move forward, we need to address issues that we know exist.
Two women fighting over him
So last week, I spoke about a few of the issues, how women can be unkind with each other and what have you. But this week, I want to talk about something. And I’m sure everybody — I can’t imagine that you haven’t seen situations where, for example, a man is unfaithful to his wife. Let’s put it in that context. A man is unfaithful to his wife. And this is not to say that all men aren’t faithful or any of those kinds of things. I’m not doing that. I’m talking about a very specific example.
A man is unfaithful to his wife, and the other woman and the wife get involved in an argument. And they will fight to the death. And they will do that in the presence of the husband. And the husband will observe two women fighting over him and perhaps not even intervene. The woman, the wife, often will skip over completely, just jump over the husband’s behavior and attack the other woman. This is something that makes no sense. And it is one of those things that shows you how women tend to be with each other.
I personally have had friends whose husbands have been unfaithful. And I had a particular friend, and I would say to her, listen, do not talk to me anymore about the woman. Do not say derogatory things about the woman, because the only person that’s responsible here, that had a responsibility to you, is your husband. And the fact that you can skip over all his bad behavior and talk about, in quotations, “the other woman” means that there’s something wrong with you.
Check your programming
The vile, the vitriol, the negativity towards the woman, and in many cases, the willingness to take the husband back and just claim that is the fault of the other woman, indicates some kind of subconscious belief. And I think one of the things I say in the book is, you know, sometimes there’s this ancient belief underneath that men are subject to the guiles of these manipulative, seductive women, and they have no control over themselves. And this other woman probably just tricked him and trapped him into this situation, and therefore, he’s not really responsible.
And in fact, you as the wife, for example — not in all circumstances, but you as a wife — have a responsibility for making sure that you really protect him from this evil woman. That is a subconscious underlying belief that’s been around for a very, very long time. And as women, we need to realize that. First of all, I like to say, check your programming.
Okay, check your programming. Are you running on these subconscious beliefs about who women are? And what society in general has programmed you to believe about women as manipulators? I mean, it begins from the Garden of Eden. I think there was a story in the Bible about Lilith, a person who was sort of an evil woman who seduced men and did all kinds of different things to men.
And so it brings us back to really checking our programming to see what it is we believe. If you’re in a situation, if you’re a woman, and for example, you have a spouse who’s been unfaithful, there’s only one person that you should be having a conversation with. Of course, the other woman, if she knew that your husband was married, has some responsibility for the action, but she has no responsibility to you. Your husband has a responsibility to you. And the fact that you would jump over him and attack her speaks to how or what you believe about women.
Running on the program of boys will be boys
Another example of things that women do to each other is that, for example, you could be a woman who suffered with a husband who was difficult, a husband who was unfaithful, any number of issues related to a relationship between a man and a woman. And then you have a son. And when you have your son, rather than training your son to be something better than his father, you in fact train your son to be the same, so that other women will experience what you experienced. And in the book, I call it running on the program of boys will be boys.
And so rather than having a generational change where you had a negative experience with your spouse or the father of your children or what have you, you basically say, you know what, I suffered in this particular way, so I don’t care if the women down the line have the same experience. But at this time, as we live, and we hopefully are evolving, the thing would be, in my view anyway, to say, you know what, this happened to me. And it wasn’t a good thing. And I’m gonna train my son to be a different kind of son, a different kind of man really, so that his wife doesn’t suffer the way that I suffer.
I mean, this is something that humans do in general. If they suffer, they want the other people to suffer. But as we evolve, and we go forward, it would be hopeful that we as women could say, I want other women to be in a better position than I was.
Jealous of their own daughters
The other example that I wanted to give you is how women sometimes — I don’t want to say interact, but how women sometimes can be very jealous of their own daughters. Now, this might be sort of a generational thing in the time that we find ourselves in in history. Maybe down the line, this wouldn’t be an issue. But there are many women today who are still alive, who were born at a time when they didn’t have many opportunities. And frequently, those women resent the fact that their daughters are born into circumstances that are better than theirs.
And, you know, most mothers love their children, love their daughters, want the best for them. But there is a — and I’ve seen it many, many times — there is a jealousy factor that sometimes comes into play. And it’s something that we really need to work on.
Here’s the baton, now you go forward and you do better
We can consider, you know, my view on the matter would be that we want to do better for the next generation. We want to hand off the baton, and hand it off so that, you know, that next group does better. I mean, to me, it would be sort of like, this is as far as I could get. This is as far as I could advance. And now here’s the baton. I did as much as I can. Now you go forward and you do better.
Not that I want you to suffer as much as I suffered. That if my maid or my husband or what have you was a terror, I’m going to raise my son so that you can suffer just like I did. And if I was restricted as a woman in terms of what I could do with my career and where I could go or how my relationships were — I mean, I’ve heard people say, for example, my husband never washed a dish. Look at, you know, that now guys wash dishes, they cook, they do all kinds of different things. And there are some people in the world that feel like, you know, I was shafted. I got a bad deal.
Well, it’s not a bad deal. It’s the circumstances of the time. And the whole, for me anyway, the whole purpose of life is for us to keep moving forward and seeing the next generation. And you can make that difference. You can see that the next generation does better than you did. I mean, I think we should consider working on ourselves to eliminate resentment, jealousy, bitterness. I mean, those things are all energies that separate us from God, energy, force, spirit. And we should consider the possibility of seeing the next generation advance beyond where we were able to go.
Now, it’s not an easy thing, because, you know, you’re alive and now you see, you know, things that you wished for your life. There’s no question. It can be sad to look and say, you know, I had dreams, I had ambitions, but at that time I could only be a housewife or I could only have babies. All true. There’s some people who have lived that life. However, now you’re still alive.
You can make the best of what you got, and you can certainly make sure that your daughters do better. The next generation of women — if you don’t have a daughter, there’s so many women who need help. There’s so many women who need guidance. You can contribute with your wisdom, with your experiences, to helping the next generation of women do better.
I believe that if we become alert, aware, and come to understand the underpinnings, how life really works, we can not only heal ourselves from the bitterness and anger we may sometimes experience, but we can also offer women down the line something better than what we got. I am Olivia S. Benson, and the name of my new book is For the Love of My Father, A Spiritual Guide for Women Healing from the Absence of a Father in the Age of Spiritual Evolution.