‘Who Could I Be?’: Growing into Your Power as a Multi-Dimensional Woman

By Rashina Gajjar

In my life, I have been many women. An ex-boyfriend once told me that based on my friendships it seemed like I had multiple personalities. He was only scratching the surface.

From spending my early years in Canadian, American, British, and French schools to living in India, France, England, Luxembourg, Spain, and Ireland by my mid-twenties, being many different people is an art I have been perfecting since birth.

Ask yourself this: what is a mood or a personality? Isn’t a personality just an extended version of a mood? And why is it okay to have many moods but not many facets to your personality? Why do we forever feel pressured to conform to normality, to palatability?

Raised to serve, not to flower

Many of us are raised to be useful. We learn to sand off our rough edges, say yes when we mean no, and dim the fiery and controversial facets of ourselves, the parts that make us divisive, brilliant, unencumbered, flamboyant. We get stuck in the roles we play, swallow down our potential.

But there comes a point in every woman’s journey where she must ask herself: what is the cost of me not putting everything I’ve got into backing, believing in and empowering myself? Which corners of my being are dissolving into nothingness because of my negligence, and my eagerness to ‘fit in’? What would happen if I began to explore, to unravel my multiple dimensions? How could I shape the world? Who could I be?

Uncovering the many dimensions of you

As a young woman raised around the planet, I have had no choice but to explore my dimensions. I was part moody French teenager, part adventurer, with the soul of a musician who couldn’t read or write music. I became a woman in Italy, and a transient stepmom in San Sebastian. I could read and write Hindi but not speak it; my mother tongue Gujarati was so dubious my own grandma couldn’t understand me. I became a United Nations consultant at twenty-five, and ran my own company without knowing where I lived.

None of these things ‘made sense’. They didn’t go together. They were pieced together by circumstance and adventure. On this journey of woman and world, I realised that there are many ways to be a woman – not just the ones we’ve been sold.

Women gladiate, by nature

Many women are unofficial gladiators. We moonlight. We code switch. We dance between states, and we are beautiful at it. And yet, every screen pointing in our direction is telling us how imperfect and undateable we are. We are taught self-deprecation, socialised into silence, and so we begin to hide the parts of us that are the most remarkable. Know that you can learn to unravel. Watch how the world adapts around your expansion.

Being yourself serves your life more than any temporary acceptance self-minimising can afford you

Firstly, it’s important that you know that being a multi-dimensional woman is your birthright. Taking up more space is your prerogative. The world exists in service of your many dimensions and facets. In being multi-dimensional, you become friendly with universal forces.

Hold the world differently within your gaze

Learn to fill up your reality with hope, to live expectantly and surrender to ‘better is coming’ when things don’t go your way. Everything changes as you begin to see differently. There is sweetness in places you feared and criticised. There are entirely new parts of yourself that might surprise and delight you if you were only able to create the space for them. You are more than you think, and the world can give you a much better reception than you might imagine.

Get comfortable with being unsafe and ‘unhinged’

It isn’t gross to be human, to not know things, to have imperfections, to look silly, to be dramatic, indecisive, moody, chaotic. Sculpt your life – free yourself to flow and evolve, not to please and perfect. Do it for pleasure, for adventure, for sumptuousness. To discover yourself. Try to remove, as much as possible, the eyes of others from any of your considerations.

Unwind your loyalty to the system

Accept that most of your life you have been sold to. In embracing your multi-dimensionality to a fuller degree, you must unravel these threads. Use the system consciously, for your rising, but without engulfment. Become aware that you are wearing a lens shaped by others which disassociates you from your birthright: from nature, from god and spirit. As you step outside of this lens and invisible bubble, you can learn to love yourself more deeply.

Your co-dependence with others

Co-dependence is the condition of human nature. We try to fight it but we are all here, alone and together, loving and loved by one another.

Accept that you cannot run away from the part of you that cares. Make better choices with that part of you. Put yourself in the company of people who bring out beautiful sides of you, who make you feel safe to unravel and be every version of yourself.

Growing sometimes requires fighting with family or friends. Some leave, others return. Learn to stand up for yourself, learn to make up, learn to bring love to your relationships. Give your relationships little hugs when they aren’t looking or asking for attention.

And if you must explain yourself to others – for whatever reason – do it leisurely. Take charge of your narrative, and be proud of it.

You can be all these things, successfully

Never use your chaos or elasticity as an excuse not to show up for yourself, to not believe that your dreams are possible. Realise that it is possible to be in many different states on any given day and still accomplish your dreams. It happens all the time.

There are no prerequisites to your success. You can be creative and flowery and financially astute and romantically satisfied. You can be studious and wild, unpredictable and discerning. You can show up to a business call and school a CEO and have a meltdown that same afternoon. Do not remove credibility from yourself because of all these facets. Do not berate your own fluidity, let money pour into your wallet and opportunities come knowing as you stand in your power, exactly as you are.

Be the poet and the muse. Let the world please you. Let the bees hug you and flowers speak to you. And don’t be shy to speak back. In the end, everything is a conversation between you and the universe.

Hold different worlds, roles and realities

Life happens at different levels and intersections. Embrace how your projects and passions and places and friends can come together and make figurative babies in new and interesting ways. Let it surprise you how these adventures happen. Be open to them; invite them in.

Some of your projects will happen more quickly than others. Some plates will be fuller, others empty, some dishes are in the oven being heated and others are still being formed in the mind of the chef. Grow a certain level of comfort with this process because mastery is not linear, and we cannot predict accelerating factors.

Nurture your inner universe

You are a mini universe with your own constellations, stormy solar flares, healing waves and deep wisdom. Learn your frequency, your flavours, your places, your people, your vibe, your style. Be curious about yourself and your wavelength. Learn what is yours to improve, and what no longer serves you.

What does it mean to be an individual if you don’t give yourself full permission to be absolutely and catastrophically loopy, sensual, creative, full of strange and dissonant contrasts and spilling over the edges of the universe with life?

When you leave your inner universe and step out into the world, don’t be afraid to leave pieces of your soul in everything that you do. When people come across them they will get this very funny feeling inside and you will never know it but you will have made the world better in that moment.

Be your own midwife

Learning to receive new versions of yourself is a deeply special and nutritive process. You are incubating an empress, a poet, a tangled bohemian. This calls for the appropriate behaviours. When rebirthing yourself, celebrate your new bébé selves. Give them a good welcome. Do not repress them or tell them instantly that they are not good enough. Congratulate their first steps.

Also, learn to hold the space with your mind for your life to go beautifully. You are safe to make mistakes. To unravel. To grow in new places. Don’t inhibit the passage of thoughts, art and creation into the universe. Let these rebirths happen. Loosen your grip.

Seek out visual representation in unusual places

Every woman needs many muses, including the many women she has buried inside. The best way to learn about all the ways of being a woman is from other women. Hear their stories. Watch them move. Learn to see truth, beyond branding and appearances.

As you walk down each street and turn every corner, notice how there are women all around you advancing, learning, growing, evolving – being more of themselves because they can.

As a final note, this is what I’d like to tell you:

Time is truthful.

You will become who you’re meant to become.

Keep unravelling.