An Ode’ to Sisterhood
In college I joined a sorority and that would put me on a trajectory of duality until I was 40 years old. There were many wonderful areas of growth that came out of joining a sorority, but this is when I started to look at myself in a very different way and I did not handle it well. Just like the education system, I am not singling out the one sorority I joined but would acknowledge the social system of Greek life as a place that can be very beneficial in certain aspects, but also be a system that focuses on conformity and comparison, and for me that really put me on a path of hiding the real Jackie for a very long time.
As soon as I joined, I started to compare myself to many other women. I started to see there was potential to be “popular" and I slowly noticed I wanted to change myself to fit in and also stand out. I don’t know the singular moment that led to this decision but I wanted to get skinny and I wanted to be sexy. I started to not eat every meal and then I wanted to restrict if I did eat full meals so I was developing anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa at the same time. I never got treatment for this, but there was a point where I was 100 pounds and very unhealthy to the point that I could have been hospitalized just for this eating disorder. I am not saying the sorority or my particular sorority per se caused this, but it was the first time I noticed myself as different and I wanted to control something and I wanted to try to be the one that was the most attractive. It became this competition not even with others but with myself. Once I got to a desired weight and look I then noticed I got a lot of attention in good and bad ways. It was feeding my eating disorder. I struggled with that for the rest of college and even after college.
I have not fully accepted my body until recently. It took me doing a lot of inner work and health and wellness regiments to finally get to a point where I just want to feel good in my body. I don’t care what I look like. Aging can make body image worse for some people, but for me it allows me to have grace with myself and just be. Now in my forties, I really have accepted all of me. But that mask I put on in college was something that became part of my identity for almost twenty years and it is not until right now that I am fully admitting that.
What I gained though from my time in a sorority was some real friendships I still have today, and some that faded away. I gained my voice and leadership skills. I did come out of my shell and gained confidence in speaking up about issues that were important to me. In that time I helped to organize a group of college students to a Women’s March in Washington D.C. I was Vice President of Recruitment and I enjoyed helping the sorority grow and move in a new direction. These areas of my growth were truly part of my evolution. There was light and shadow in my college experience. I just carried a lot of shadow for a long time and once the pandemic hit that is when I needed to face that shadow head on.
You can carry so much shadow with you your life since it becomes part of your subconscious and identity. It takes a lot of inner work and doing difficult emotional healing to reveal those shadow aspects and then work on them. I am still on that healing journey. I think we all are on that journey our whole lives if we decide we want to do that work.
I never had biological sisters. I always wanted a connection to a community of females. There is something about the sisterly bond that I desired. I went through many shallow friendships and all I really wanted was a pack of women who were like soul sisters. I did not fully get that from the sorority, but there was an essence of it. I did have a group of women that empowered themselves and taught me to love me and share my voice. I was still behind a mask. I did not fully show myself at that time and for many years to come.
When I turned forty years old and stepped into my authenticity I started to attract real sisters. Today I can say I am starting to build a network of soul sisters. Women of all ages, some younger and some older. Age doesn’t matter; our souls connect. We genuinely support one another and see each other for who we truly are in our own skin that we honor. I now love all of me, all my shadow and light, and these women do too. I am fortunate to be part of many communities where I feel that sense of sisterhood, and one such community is More Joy that Cindi Cohn created based on her More Joy book. We have built a beautiful web of sisterhood together. My heart is full. My cup is overflowing. I am now able to give so much more love and service to others. I still honor the sorority I was in for what it was in college. I took away a lot of beauty from that time and those bonds. The friendships I kept from that time are very much real. I was just not ready at that time to fully accept myself. I had a lot of growing up and self work to do.
Today I could fully embrace being in that sisterhood and accept myself in that network, and not compare myself to others and put myself into a box. For the women out there looking for your sisters…we are here! Let us keep supporting each other and standing up for one another. Women who support each other in community is empowerment! ~Jackie
