For as long as I can remember, I've been able to feel an unshakeable knowing within myself. Recently, someone asked me to name one of my strengths, and this is what came to mind. This “knowing” tells me what I'm okay with, which direction I need to go, and when it's time to make a commitment or to unmake one. I feel it physically, in my body, in my core. Sometimes it's subtle and faint; other times it's as obvious as a volcano erupting. I experience it as a gift, really.
The Jungian psychoanalyst Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls this La Que Sabe, the One Who Knows, an instinct that lives in every woman. No one is excluded from this timeless knowing.
Let me be clear: the unshakeable knowing doesn't spare me from confusion, uncertainty, doubt, or indecision. When I can, I remind myself that clarity will come. It's like the sun behind a single cloud or days of fog and rain: the light is always there; something is just in between us.
When a person expresses certainty, a wise certainty, not the rigid, stubborn, “I'm unwilling to hear you” kind, people are drawn to it. They often assume she has something they don't. In more than ten years as a psychotherapist, and before that in academic advising, teaching, yoga, and reiki, I've learned one thing for certain: we all want access to this knowing.
I work with women, specifically undermothered adult daughters and ambitious women whose leadership is weighed down by people-pleasing, and it's clearer to me than ever that women want to be in touch with their unshakeable knowing. Many women see it as a superpower. When they're around a woman who is grounded in her own knowing, they tend to do one of two things. They look at her as if she has all the answers, and keep turning away from their own inner wisdom. Or they think, “If she can do that, so can I.” That second response is what I love supporting: helping women reach their own unshakeable knowing.
When the knowing gets lost
If you grew up undermothered, you may have learned to defer to others for answers. Missing out on wise maternal guidance in childhood and adolescence tends to show up in one of three patterns.
Others know best. Here you re-enact the missing wisdom, unaware it exists within you. The childlike trust that “the grown-ups know best” leads you to seek approval from authority figures and from other women, deferring to them as wiser, smarter, better, more capable, never realizing that the wisdom you're seeking is already within you.
Chronic over-functioning. Or perhaps you learned as a child or teen that you could only rely on yourself. You developed a remarkable capacity to direct, take charge, and anticipate everyone's needs, and now you live in a state of chronic over-functioning. This often masquerades as an unshakeable knowing, but it's really a clever, powerful adaptation: a way to create the safety, security, and maternal confidence that was missing when you were growing up. Stopping feels like everything would fall apart.
Tolerating toxicity. When no one modeled what you deserve, it's hard to trust your own sense of it. So you put up with way too much. You step into your knowing, then retract. You tolerate toxic relationships, jobs, and friendships, riding a roller coaster between believing you deserve better and plummeting into fear that you can't have it. You may fight to be heard, but never fully take the action that shows up for yourself once and for all. You get caught in cycles of defending yourself, then trying to change the other person, or yourself, without realizing you can walk away, no matter how difficult it may feel.
Knowing versus bracing
How do you tell the real thing from its imitations? The unshakeable knowing feels settled. It may be quiet or it may be loud, but it rests in the body rather than gripping it. Over-functioning feels urgent, braced, even anxious or overly excited, as if everything depends on you holding it together. When we defer to someone else’s unshakeable knowing it feels like waiting for permission. Real knowing doesn't need permission, and it doesn't need to clench.
The mirror
Sitting with women who have clear access to their unshakeable knowing is like being hooked up to an oxygen tank. It gives other women a spark, a hope, permission to believe they can do it too.
The next time you're in the presence of a woman with unshakeable knowing, notice that you're standing in front of a mirror. She's reflecting back something within you, something you may feel is lost, or gone, or was never there to begin with. She doesn't know better than you. She knows with you. She knows you have the capacity to reach your own inner wisdom, and she wants that for you.
Trust that the clouds will move, and you'll see that your light was there all along.
By Emily Bitner, LCPC.For more articles or information about Undermothered or People Pleasing and Leadership, visit https://www.emilybitnertherapy.com/