The you behind the dirt.
Why hanging out with wise women cleanses the soul
I had warned them.
The first time I’d had a Moroccan Hammam I was shocked by the no holds barred approach to my body, with not a nod whatsoever towards soft Swedish oil and filtered pipe music. She had rubbed my body, scrubbed my skin and sloshed hot water around my person with not a smidgen of serenity. And it was transformative.
So when I had booked a Hammam experience for my Soul & Spice (un)retreat in Marrakech this week, I had warned my guests!
They’ll slosh water down your paper pants, and scrub under your boobs and show you rolls of your dirt in theatrical disgust!
But still. They came out shrieking with the boldness of it, and glowing from the glory of it.
As an adult, there is something utterly comforting about the experience of being washed by another human. Of being handled and held, scrubbed and smoothed over with oil. Of staggering out not quite sure what just happened, but ablaze with fresh skin and new possibility.
Women in midlife carry a particular layer of dirt. The residue of relentless giving. The emotional grime of invisible (and unrewarded) labour. The slow layering of messaging telling us we’re still not quite enough despite being exhausted from always doing too much, like layers of skin slowing covering up who we are really.
So there comes a time in many women’s midlives, when that dirt needs to be removed.
Sometimes it’s a creeping awareness that this shit doesn’t serve you anymore.
Sometimes it’s a seismic shift when things fall apart or open or explode.
Or sometimes it’s simply a moment when you realise you’re done reacting to life in a way that drains you, and start actively choosing.
And so some of those wonderful but weary and wondering women joined me this week in Marrakech on an adventure to discover that their wise woman within is no longer whispering politely, ”sorry, sorry, can I just maybe say something, sorry, so sorry, excuse me, sorry.” but is instead taking it’s place and taking up space and speaking with a voice of invincibility.
As we had our old (dirty) skin scrubbed away, we also began the process of shedding old stories about the lives we can lead.
Stories about what we’re allowed to want.
How much space we’re allowed to take.
Who we have to be to be valued.
One evening I brought them to a family dinner in a local Riad, because I wanted them to experience the concept of a family dinner without having to feel responsible for everyone’s happiness. For many women, that idea is really radical. We laughed like hyenas and howled like the banshees who were free.
Because we carry so much.
Not just the endless bags and logistics - the food for dinner, the prescriptions for parents, the new school shirt hastily bought on the way home.
We carry the emotional responsibility for so much and so many, conditioned to believe that our value lies in how others feel, regardless of how we, ourselves, feel.
I tried to create the Soul & Spice agenda to heal the lives we women lead - providing a space where they had few, if any, decisions to make. For a midlife woman, I know, how much of a treat that is to not have to organise, plan and lead. To be literally washed and fed by another. To have space to commune and speak spaciously.
It was immediate. Women who had never met, forming a circle of care around each other. They shared. They cared. And they dared to start speaking up for what they want from this life that they have given so much to.
Marrakech did the rest.It jolts the senses and stirs the soul. Our Riad was peace amid the pandemonium, and the Jardins Marjorelle and desert beauty amid the bustle.
Back in the Hammam, there was a familiar joyous declaration of the dirt being scrubbed off my body as she stopped to show me the accumulation of skin lined up like little rows of grey ribbons.
“Look how dirty you are!” she exclaimed. (We later discovered the locals, who did this weekly are told this too!).
We had our skin scrubbed and were touched by the care of being washed.
We scrubbed our stories and were touched by how simple it can be to slightly change the direction and a whole new vista emerges. And as we communed around our last breakfast table, new stories emerged to match our new skins.
One new story is not taking the blame for everything.
Another is not being responsible for everyone.
Another, not needing a perfect house to feel of value.
Not feeling guilty for choosing fun over frantic organising all the time.
Being ok saying what you want.
Demanding more equality in their partnership.
New stories that no longer ask for permission.
New stories that take up more space.
New stories choosing ease over chaos.
And amid the tears, the deep conversations, the laughter and the moments of solidarity, what became clear was we are all so different.
And yet achingly, beautifully, the same.
We are the same and we are all so unique.
And it’s the sameness which allows our uniqueness to feel safe.
We hear so much about the male loneliness epidemic, yet we realised despite all our connections, women can be lonely too.
Lonely for touch. For space. For love. For conversation. To be seen and heard without needing to perform.
Some of us were divorced. Who know the sound of the front door closing on your marriage for the last time. How that sound echoes for months, perhaps years later, taking your hopes, security and the spare glasses with it. Even if you ended the marriage, that sound marks the beginning of the hardship of single parenting and the fear of financial insecurity.
Some of us were married with loving partners but still fighting for themselves in partnerships that take more than give - even when it gives generously.
No woman - married, divorced, in the no-woman’s land in between - comes away intact. Untouched.
Our sense of self is slowly eroded - not intentionally but viscerally - by the roles and responsibilities we take on in a society that does not value the work and care that is expected of us.
This isn’t about blame. Although there certainly might be. But the erosion is systematic not just personal. Myself and every women on this (un)retreat in our own way, is doing the same work:
Un-eroding.
Reclaiming.
Becoming, again.
We are the generations who are scrubbing clean the old stories that stopped women living in their own skin.
Now, I’m still in Marrakech, the (un)retreat over, these fabulous warrior women gone home to their lives. But the glow remains.
And I have learned that we are a species built on stories, but also ruined by them. Shaped by the stories we were told about ourselves, and created for ourselves. And often limited by them too.
And only when we start to rewrite them in our own voice, in our own style, in our own plot, do we become the soft-skinned wise women just waiting to be unleashed by a good scrub down.
If you would like a chance to rewrite some stories and press refresh on your life a little, please join me for my annual Spring Clean Your Midlife session on 1st April at 7pm (recording available because life gets lifey!), and as always a downloadable exercise to make this as bespoke to your life as possible. You can register here for just €49 and as always, my paid subscribers get a 25% discount - just email me at alana@alanakirk.com and I’ll give you the code.
And if you fancy a deeper delve, you can join me for my next 10 week group course My Midlife, redefined - a practical reset starting 13th April (and you get the Spring Clean session for free!). You can register here (and discount for paid subscribers, of course!).
Let’s rewrite the story of women at midlife and live from the wise women within.