Empowering One Another: Pink Pangea’s ‘A Woman’s Worth Workshop

As I am on this intense but fulfilling journey of self-discovery, finding my soul’s purpose in life has led me to travel writing, as I am a life-long travel enthusiast. Fortunately, this journey has also led me to Pink Pangea. When I saw the information for the workshop titled “A Woman’s Worth”, I instantly knew I had to register.

As this was my first Pink Pangea workshop, it was helpful to understand how their technique was not your typical educational system style, but meant to be more interactive, encouraging the participants to share their writing and provide comments or feedback to one another.

Held in a web meeting where everyone was automatically muted, we engaged in three different activities. Jaclyn, the workshop presenter and co-founder of Pink Pangea, would first provide direction for each, then ask the participants to share, either in the meeting’s chat window or by raising her hand (digitally) and being taken off of mute for a verbal response.

After being encouraged to participate and share our pieces in the Woman’s Worth Workshop, I recognize there is still fear and uncertainty persisting within.

The first activity of A woman’s worth workshop was fill-in-the-blank style, where questions related to a woman’s worth were raised. We were encouraged to note whatever first came to mind. I found this activity easy yet thought-provoking, especially the last two questions, which were exactly the same: If I wasn’t afraid, I would (fill in the blank). For me, the initial response to that question was easy, but when forced to think about this again, it was not so simple. Is it because I am fearless? Or the opposite? I

like to think that I’ve released many blockages, including fear and doubt, that we accumulate throughout life. But as with anything, I recognize it’s a work in progress.

The next activity was two-minute free writing, which sounds like enough time but it was challenging to not only formulate the idea but to sufficiently express it in a timed environment. The first two topics were for the full two minutes: “A woman’s worth” and “As a woman, I’m expected to …”. As these are concepts I’ve been contemplating a lot lately, I did not find it terribly difficult to convey my message.

The third topic, the time for which was shortened to 60 seconds, again seemed to stump me a bit, maybe due to the time constraint or possibly because I am not fully aware of my feelings regarding “self-worth”. Regardless of my struggles, these were excellent subjects meant to stimulate reactions.

I must continue to take leaps, put myself out there and connect with others.

Despite everything I’ve uncovered thus far, I still felt totally confident in my response to these activities and had no issue participating or sharing with the group until the third activity. Again, Jaclyn provided us with the topic and we had eight minutes to draft an article: fiction, poem or personal account. This topic, “Despite her difficult path she thrives”, is one that I am most familiar with considering the last few years of my life, but I hesitated to share my writing.

Not so much because it was a personal account, but because I doubted the quality of the writing. I had my cursor hovering over the button to raise my hand to read my passage to the group, but couldn’t bring myself to click. After hearing what the two women who volunteered had to share, this was only amplified because their writing was extremely impressive.

The last activity, and one that I will share, is what I gained from this workshop. After being encouraged to participate and share our pieces, I recognize there is still fear and uncertainty persisting within, feelings that my writing is not good enough to share. I need to continue to acknowledge this and remind myself that as with everything, I have a lot to learn but I know this is what I’m supposed to do. I must continue to take leaps, put myself out there and connect with others.

Empowering One Another: Pink Pangea’s ‘A Woman’s Worth Workshop

The workshop as a whole was very insightful. As Jaclyn mentioned, we’ll most likely continue to ponder a woman’s worth, as well as our own worth, for the days or weeks to follow. This I can attest to and am grateful for the opportunity to participate in this and many more workshops.

I also greatly appreciate the forum Pink Pangea provides for like-minded women, allowing us to focus our energies on not only empowering ourselves but also one another.

 

 

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