The woman who gave until she lost her hands.
There is an old story about a woman who gave so much that she lost her hands.
The tale is called The Handless Maiden.
In the story, the young girl’s hands are taken in a bargain her father makes.
But when I first encountered this myth, something struck me deeply.
Because many women lose their hands far more quietly, not *always* through violence, but through over-giving.
Through becoming the one who keeps everything running smoothly.
The one who anticipates needs before they are spoken.
The one who absorbs tension in the room and makes life easier for everyone else.
And for years, we’ve praised this.
“You’re so strong.”
“You hold everything together.”
“I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
But slowly, something else happens.
A woman can become so skilled at tending to everyone else’s needs that she loses touch with her own.
She can organise everyone else’s life…but her own begins to feel strangely out of reach.
Like trying to grasp something without hands.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Give to Gain.”
And it raises a powerful question.
What if many women learned to give from a place of self-abandonment?
What if the deeper invitation is not to give more…but to reclaim the parts of ourselves we handed over in order to belong?
The Handless Maiden does eventually find her way home, but not by continuing the old bargain.
She walks into the wilderness.
She learns to trust something deeper within herself.
And slowly…her hands grow back.
For International Women’s Day this year, I hosted a gathering exploring this myth and the deeper story many women recognise in their own lives.
We looked at:
🍂 the unconscious bargains women make around giving
🍃 the cost of holding everything together
🌿 and what it means to reclaim the parts of ourselves we gave up along the way.
If this story stirred something in you, you would be very welcome to join us.
Have courage, dear heart,
Charli ❤️🦁
