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The gsport team has been discussing the introduction of a “Womanhood” column for several months, and I’m excited and honoured to be a conduit for what we hope will become a place of stirring questions and awakened possibilities in the months to come.

“Womanhood today is tentative and unsure, a thing more defined by what it isn’t than by what it is,” writes wise woman Marianne Williamson. As a complementary health practitioner working predominantly with women’s wellness, her words speak to the stories I have heard from woman after woman, anywhere between the ages of fifteen and seventy, as each has shared her search for who she is and who she wants to be.

Our biographies are vastly different: The family we’re born into, the socio-economic situation of that family, our beliefs and values, and the opportunities and challenges we face along the often precarious path from girl-child to woman are vastly different, even amongst women growing up in the same neighbourhood.

These differences are increased exponentially when the aspects of religion and religion are factored in, and yet … deeper than the differences and weaving a bright thread between the surface separations between women, are common themes and questions.

Questions I have heard repeatedly are those about the assumptions society – and we ourselves – hold about womanhood. Questions like: “Am I truly loveable if I don’t have the body of a celebrity, the mind of a scientist, or make the choices my parents would like me to?” “Am I unforgivable because I shouted at my children / let my team down / don’t follow my family’s religious beliefs?”

And still others like “Where does my mother, and her influence on my life, end, and where do I begin?” “Can I really trust another woman with my partner, my work, my secrets or my fears?” and “What does being a woman really mean?”

Perhaps you’ve asked or wondered similar questions yourself, in the stillness of your heart or in conversation with a trusted friend or counselor. You may be surprised to know that, in truth, the most successful woman you know, the sassiest girl at school, your own mother, and probably your best friend, have asked these questions at some point too.

Asking questions like these takes courage: They have the potential to leave us feeling as frightened, bewildered and unseen as a small child lost in a multi-story mall; or to draw us toward our own power as compellingly as the sunflower turns to the sun.

Choosing not to question demands a fair amount of vigilance and avoidance. That avoidance might play out through frenetic working, partying, exercising, shopping or whatever else helps to distract us from our doubts or fears.

Understanding that what we’re actually avoiding is our own growth, often gives us the courage to ask the things we need to, no matter how uncomfortable that might initially be.

The answers to the questions are seldom as important as the awareness they stir within us: awareness of what our life is asking us to challenge, to change and to choose. Awareness that, if we allow it to, leads us slowly and implacably to our own wisdom; and to creation of Womanhood that celebrates both the stay-at-home mom and the corporate warrior, the tomboy and the queen.