by Connie Brisson

Chicks… When I hear the word chicks I think of two things.

The first thing I think of is young women who are trendy, impressionable and live for the moment. The second thing I think of is young, fluffy, soft, yellow, itty-bitty, baby chickens… the kind you see at Easter.

I grew up on a farm and what I remember about sweet, little baby chicks is not so nice or cute. I can remember watching a group of new born chicks huddling together in camaraderie until they noticed another baby chick that was weak and struggling in the corner. To my utter horror, they ganged up on it and began to peck it to near death. I’ve never forgotten that. My Mom had to separate it so it could survive.

I’ll be honest. What really scared me was my affinity to that weak chick. I’ve been that weak chick at school and got picked on. I’ve been that weak chick in my family and in the world. So what I decided quite early on was that if I wanted to survive, it was better to hide all my weaknesses and never be noticed as a weak chick.

This belief (that I could not show any weakness, vulnerability or imperfection to anyone except my closest friends and sister) ran my life for years. And I saw many things that reinforced that belief along the way because sometimes people’s primitive response is to attack or ostracize vulnerable people.

A few weekend ago I attended a workshop that focused on building female/male relationships. One of the exercises for the women was to dance for each other, to celebrate each other through dance and movement. Well you might as well have asked me to dance the Cha Cha naked for the Pope. It was that foreign to me. I mean, I can dance in a nightclub after drinking a couple glasses of wine and think I’m Madonna. But to show another woman know how wonderful they are through dance (and to also accept it back) was so uncomfortable for me.

I felt like an idiot. I wanted to run away and I said this at the end of one of the dances when we were asked to share how we were feeling. I said that I felt very uneasy, that this was foreign to me and that I just didn’t know how to do it. Of course, I was the only ‘chick’ that said that out loud! After the words came out of my mouth and I had 50 women staring at me, I instantly felt vulnerable and sorry that I had said it out loud.

Yet when the next dance came on, the most wonderful thing happened. A bunch of amazing women took turns dancing with me, showing me how to dance and enjoy moving freely to the music. When the first woman grabbed my hand, I was pleased by her kindness. But as it continued, a chain of wise women supporting and teaching me, it touched me deeply…to the point of tears.

This was not something I was use to experiencing. I have not had many experiences of being so openly supported after sharing a weakness. And I thought to myself, so quickly in that moment: “I could be safe anywhere in the world if I knew I could be supported like this from people I do not even know.”

I know my sister Shelley or my close friends would do anything for me. But to believe that there are people in the world that would help me, protect me and nurture me, without knowing me for more than a moment – that knowledge healed a part of me that has not believed that the world is a safe place.

I wanted to write this column because I think that as women, as chicks, we need to support one another and not look at each other as competition or a threat. We all have so many wise gifts to share with one another. We are all mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, wives… We are all SO MUCH. Yet there is this primitive part of us that thinks that if we give to another woman, we are taking something away from ourselves.

When you really think about it, how can that possibly be? When we give, we always get back. That is a law of the universe.

Once upon a time a high school friend of mine, Brenda Duchesne, told me: “If I compliment you, it doesn’t take anything away from me. It only adds to you.” It was an ‘aha’ moment for me because I instantly knew she was right!

Let’s consciously make a choice to add to each other. Let’s grow and evolve from being ‘chicks’ to being wise women who support one another. How wonderful would that be for all of us?