Healing my Younger Self: Lessons in Womanhood are Ageless

I healed my younger self last summer.

Last summer, I worked at Shwayder Camp, a Jewish summer camp in the mountains of Idaho Springs, Colorado. I grew up as a camper at Shwayder, and felt a connection to the place and the people that could go back for generations. I slept in log cabins with girls I still call my sisters, climbed mountains I thought were out of my horizon, and learned to connect with my environment and community in spiritual and organic ways. While there is a lot of “magic” and fondness associated with my time as a camper, there were also times that girls in my cabin made me feel insecure in ways I had never experienced before. Mostly, I remember having to deal with my feelings alone.

So, when I was offered a newly created position as a “camper care specialist” I was eager, but didn’t know what to expect. I was working under the supervision of a licensed social worker alongside two graduate students in social work school. As the only member of my team without a completed degree, I knew I had a lot to learn. Our role was emotional support for campers: being a person for them to talk to, cry to, or to even mediate conflict. Because there were only four of us and over 100 campers, we rarely got to work as a team and took on most cases alone. Although I didn’t have the academic and professional training as my coworkers, I had one thing they didn’t: my understanding of the place and the experience.

One of the girls’ cabins in our 12-13 age group began struggling very quickly. One of the campers was struggling with an eating disorder, and as a result was talking about calories and eating habits with her cabinmates. Diet culture was something unfamiliar for a lot of these girls, but overwhelming nonetheless. Some of the girls quickly started applying the behaviors they had observed from their friend, and it ultimately consumed them. My heart shattered as I listened to girls talk about their bodies at such an early age the way I have, my friends have, and our mothers have.

During their rest hour, I came into their cabin and asked the girls and their counselors to sit in a circle with me. The tension in the room was palpable. I felt the gaze of 30 exhausted eyes. I sat there and told them that I am no better than them. Their counselors are no better than them. I told them that this was an unfortunate chapter of womanhood that was sadly inevitable, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t do better for ourselves and each other. That we needed to break the cycle. I encouraged them to be vulnerable and speak about how they were feeling, and counselors bonded with campers on a tragically defining aspect of femininity.

I assured them that the only way out of this was to hold each other accountable. I explained that as women, we already have society against us, and we need to make it easier on each other- not harder. That we should only encourage each other to speak positively about ourselves. That we shouldn’t comment on each other’s bodies; even if it’s positive. That we need to nourish and listen to our bodies so that they can thrive in our demanding environments. That we will push each other to do better, and don’t have to struggle alone.

This moment I shared with women of such diverse ages was a defining moment in my personal womanhood. I was able to go full circle, and heal a part of myself while helping others. When I was a camper, no one was looking out for me. No one was dismantling toxic behaviors we see time and time again. The opportunity to help girls experiencing things I struggled with reminded me of the beauty of what it means to be a part of a sisterhood. We look out for each other, so that we may save each other. These girls helped me as much as I helped them.

Ella Stern
Backcountry Squatters CU
2024 CU “Backcountry Squatter-ship” Winner

keep reading