“WHOLENESS IS WHERE EVERYTHING BEGINS.”

ABOUT MARGO DAVIS, MSW, LICSW

I am a licensed psychotherapist, writer, coach, and public speaker. Undergoing divorce and becoming a single parent in 2011, I didn’t have a pile of money and my constitution was so-so. Heck, I didn’t even have a job. I was determined, however, to succeed on my own, despite having no real plan for supporting my household. Like most women working through a major life upheaval I faced many tests and trials, however it was this all-consuming life setback that ultimately made me whole and earned me a clear sense of achieved identity.

About nine months into my divorce, I am standing at my stove after a long day of work and single parenting, and I hear an author on NPR talking about The Hero’s Journey, popularized by renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell. As if a lightning bolt directly struck my consciousness, I had to pause from stirring the lentil soup and turn up the radio soI could take notes. As if my destiny was speaking, “YOU WILL NEED TO BECOME A HEROINE MARGO—THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET THROUGH THIS!”. I knew then and there I was on a noble quest—just like every other woman out there swashbuckling her way through overwhelming roadblocks.

The heroine metaphor resonated because of how much courage and tenacity were regularly required for me to face my own gnarly habits of dependence and self-betrayal. In short, I had to dispel life-long illusions of being rescued by someone else. In my book I’ve tried to write about this very human reckoning with my own limitations, raising my two sons while endeavoring to become financially sound and emotionally whole. Integral in my approach is the concept that you can be your very own elixir; a radical departure from the female script of looking for nourishment everywhere but within yourself. This is how we break free from the power-leaking grasp what I call provider mythology.

Rooting out the erroneous myth about our own dependence is the first step to becoming whole. Taking myself under my own wing, I began to see each obstacle as a quest for my inner heroine to courageously tackle. Solving my own hard problems day delivered me from the learned helplessness that had been leaking my power for decades. At this very visceral level becoming my own robust provider has rearranged the way I see everything and operate in the world.

What seemed like a relentless series of terrifying obstacles required me to develop a host of new skills and tools for living life. I could not have imagined trapping the skunk that had been spraying into my basement, or repairing my own toilet from a YouTube video would be my path to wholeness. But these and triumphing over many other “manly tasks” became my new superpower. I was no longer waiting for any kind of rescue to solve my life problems. This is where something else was tested—my willingness to really have my own back instead of looking for security from someone else. This may sound radical but I literally became the security I had always been seeking. I became my own doting grandparent, mown inner coach, even my own erotic lover for a spell. Heck, I became my own dependable husband. By eradicating the erroneous belief in my own learned helplessness I stopped sytemeically leaking my precious power and was finally able to create the robust life and livelihood I longed for.

Over time I came to see the many subtle forms of self-abandonment embedded within my thoughts and actions. My addiction to longing was gradually replaced with an experience of “having”, appreciating and harvesting the fruits of my very own labors. I learned to live more in the present moment instead of a future time when everything would be much better. With echoes of Betty Freidan’s “problem what that no name”, I was able to pinpoint what I would later coin as the insidious female “provider myth”. Pondering what it might mean to be whole and full in oneself, I formed a new personal mantra, “when you come to see that you are the only one, you can always count on, to never abandon you in any way, ever again”, and it was life changing! But this revelation did not surround me right away–not at all. In truth it took many months, even years for me to gradually learn to become my own robust provider and source for everything I desired.

It would not have been something I would have chosen, but this life upheaval in the form of a divorce, was 100% necessary for me to forge an amazing new career, a new relationship with money, and a more enlightened paradigm for partnership. Still, if I was to tell you about the most important lesson learned, I would would have to say that the achieved sense of identity I found through witnessing all I could accomplish on my own was definitely the brass ring prize from my quest.

Amazingly, the toughest obstacle to overcome was that of my own self-doubt. Yet coming fully over to my own side instilled in me a mighty sense of self-efficacy. I came to see myself as a boomwrangler, a woman who believes she can handle whatever the world throws at her and somehow come out on top. This new view of myself and my capacities has truly become my very own magic sword, and I would have missed it if not for the long and winding road of my divorce. As a therapist working with all kinds of smart successful women, I began to see that many kinds of life loss and life upheaval could initiate a sacred journey into the nexus of female power and feminine wholeness.

In her 1992 book, Revolution From Within, Gloria Steinem said, “Self-esteem isn’t everything; it’s just that there’s nothing without it”. So how do we get there? I believe self-esteem comes from compassionate self-acceptance coupled with an intrinsic feeling of self-efficacy. In my substack blog: selfabandonnomore.substack.com and in my work as a therapist and coach I explore the question of what it means to be a self-referenced woman and how to achieve a greater sense of wholeness and achieved identity.

I have written an instructional memoire, “Self-Abandon No More: A Therapist’s Quest For Wholeness”, showcasing much of the fear and resistance I was forced reckon with before I could become more a courageous provider for my family. Throughout the book, you will see how I eventually grew excited each time I spotted a new obstacle on the horizon because the obstacles themselves were showing up as the building blocks of my burgeoning self-efficacy.

With all of my work my goal is to help women achieve wholness and that coveted milestone of itdentity achieved. This work will give you a method for placing your own life upheaval, be it financial, a health crisis or the loss of partner, into a larger feminine evolutionary context. Each obstacle you encounter has the power to grow you because of how it helps you forge new skills that will greatly increase your self-efficacy. Before you know it you will be triumphing over so many obstacles on the way to your awesome new post-upheaval identity. The hard part is that we do this by facing whatever we most fear, but the good part is that by facing what we fear we have less fear and our anxiety and depression are reduced, while our self-confidence and self-esteem are increased.

Working with women and couples as a therapist and coach since 2007, I received my Master of Social Work degree from Adelphi University and my life-coaching certificate through the Newfield Network in Boulder, Colorado. I am a longtime practitioner and facilitator of Insight Mediation. As an experienced workshop leader and public speaker, I’ve presented annual women’s programming on healthy relationships at Kripalu Center in Lenox, MA. I live in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.