Some thoughts about the transformative power of awareness

Growing up in the countryside in an affluent, well developed industrial area in West Germany never made me doubt the things I can do or achieve during a lifetime. Whatever desired it was within reach. The women before me had done tremendous work to pave the way for the women in my generation and the ones that followed to soar to their highest heights.

The stories shared by my grandmothers, born in the first quarter of the 20th century, provided insights into a life where women did not have that many opportunities to fly free and explore their talents. Even though I understood the words, the meaning of them was beyond my reach. It was just not part of my reality.

Growing up I started to take it for granted that I could walk and work among men, share my opinions, make decisions, and execute them. Based on my deep interest in politics and economics, I was aware that there were regions on our planet where things worked differently, but reading about it or watching a documentary never really captured the essence of the differences in the unique ways we go about life.

It was only when I started to venture outside of urban affluent areas that I was able to start grasping the enormity of what the women before me in Germany had accomplished and which enormous amount of personal freedom they provided succeeding generations through their sacrifices and actions.

At times I was struggling to grasp the immensity of the different realities that met each other in a remote place. There was the local reality and there was the foreigner, who at times was searching urgently for a signal to start her working day behind the laptop in the middle of the bush/jungle/etc. I felt out of place practicing my intangible work life among the tangible local life and the leisure life of other visitors.  

Venturing out into the remote areas of our planet has taught me a great deal about things unfolding in their own unique fullness of time. And that in-between bridges can sometimes be build and sometimes not. It opened my eyes to the unbelievable riches and freedom that had been shaped for me by the women before me. Arriving in a foreign remote place without the traditional structures that accompany a female, paying for my own bills, and being independent is a strong contrast to the ways of old. Questions of right or wrong naturally arise, leaving me to work through strong and conflicting emotions. At the end I concluded that things happen at their own unique fullness of time on a local level, depending on its own pace. Even though we might get the impression that the way of our own culture is the right one, it is truly not so. And to discover this and many other fascinating insights, spending some time in non-urban remote places is a great way to open oneself up for a beautiful, yet challenging and demanding journey of creating awareness.