Fleeing flat, stressed, tired or merely uninspired?
You may be lacking in your feminine power…
Here we show you why and how it can work for you…
Please note, this article on feminine power is not just for women, men who are also wanting to lift their burdens of stress, disillusion, lack of inspiration and level of fun and fulfilment in your lives read on…it’s not about being more feminine, just more whole…
In my recent Power of Yoni workshop, I was once again blown away by how truly amazing women, and their bodies can be. In this 4 ½ day weekend we spend a lot of time reconnecting with our bodies, our feelings, our self-awareness, our sensual and sexual selves and the innate power of who we are as women and the results are stunning! There is a radiant beauty about feminine power- a woman loving, trusting and connecting with herself and her body that cannot be recreated by any amount of makeup or photoshopping. The women themselves were also surprised by just who they are when they give themselves permission, to step out of their fears, limitations and their social conditioning.
No longer a place?
So often in today’s world it can seem like there is no place for the traditional values of the feminine but I can affirm they are as attractive as ever. And our sexuality is such a vital part of woman. Not merely through the act of sex but in her aliveness, her creativity, spontaneity, beauty and even her wildness. A woman owning her sexual self reeks juiciness and power in her own unique way- whether this is soft and loving, exuberant and fun, open and giving, wanton and abandoned or intuitive and wise. These are all part of the feminine gifts.
What does your own conditioning bring to mind when you think of feminine qualities? We’re definitely not talking about the good little woman at home here, aka The Stepford Wife, with no power, voice or substance of her own but someone quite different. The feminine in its essence is not afraid to speak straight, be seen and heard. She doesn’t allow fears of being abandoned or alone to prevent her from speaking up for herself and others as she knows she will always be in connection with herself and be able to renew connection with others. She doesn’t resort to playing games of covertness and manipulation because she is not afraid to be seen and to manifest what she needs. She gives of herself but not at the expense of herself. She is compassionate and loves nurturing others, giving the same to herself.
Now is the time…
There has never been a time when the gifts of the feminine are more needed. Western women are currently experiencing adrenal fatigue and emotional burnout in record numbers. As we rush constantly forward into more, bigger, better, harder and more competitive, even war like it can be easy to lose touch with our softness, openness, trust, vulnerability, radiant beauty and joyful sexual magnetism. We can even begin to regard these qualities as weak, or less than the external power of the intellect, achievement and outward success.
Power Within
We try to gain our power from our woundedness, resulting in a never ending war with men, treating them and therefore ourselves with disrespect and disdain leaving us wondering where all the good men have gone. When we claim the strength and beauty of our hearts instead of overly protecting them the good men will show up! Perhaps not in the Hollywood perfection our ego’s might desire but in a realness and loving that will be more than you can dream of.
This may sound pretty full on but I can assure you, there is little more powerful than a room full of women discovering these very parts of themselves. It’s a power that would have many externally driven folk running for cover. This power isn’t about power over anyone else, it is power within ourselves. We find this power by connecting with our inner selves. Not in some mystical woo woo way but in a concrete, step by step process. It’s a process more and more women are recognizing is necessary for them to survive and thrive in our busy, controlling, achieving worlds.
This power is not about the pushing yourself to go further, be better, try harder ethos we are burning ourselves out through, but a gentler, wiser process of awareness, nurture and awakening. Where we stop making ourselves wrong- women don’t need anyone else to make us wrong we’re so good at it ourselves!
Coming home to ourselves is finding our power
When we take the time to connect with ourselves it is like coming home to who we really are- a body, heart, soul and spirit as well as an intellectual mind. We come away feeling relaxed, nurtured, more open and authentic, even playful, not to mention 
sensual and magnetic, more easily attracting our desires to us rather than having to strive for them. We find our inner magic, our spirituality that lives directly in our bodies, as surprising as this may sound. We also find ourselves more confident, assertive, dynamic, creative, sexy and spontaneous. And guys, which ones amongst you would not like to find more of this in your lives, for these qualities live inside you as well? Not just in a woman but also in your hard working, over taxed and straight jacketed selves?
So how do we connect with ourselves and our bodies and find these gifts?
So we’ll have more of ourselves to share with the world…
- Practice acknowledging your perfect imperfection. Say to yourself daily “I am whole, desiring and desirable.” Even if you feel fat, ugly, powerless and worthless do it anyway. See your resistance come up and just let it go, don’t be willing to play into its game any longer. Just be ok with who you are. Doing this daily for 6 weeks has been shown to increase our overall self-esteem. The more you believe this the more you will readily seek to change the areas in you that are not working the way you would like them to. From a desire to discover more of you rather than a need to fix yourself.
- Take some time for yourself to connect, to be IN your body as we need to balance the amount of time we spend in our intellect and come back to it renewed. Yes, I know this is not easy but just 10-20 minutes a day will make a difference. Time to say YES to yourself without needing to be there for others. In your 10-20 mins sit somewhere comfortably (preferably in your special place if you can create one, even if it’s just draping a special fabric over your chair, cushion or yourself). Stop, breathe deeply, exhaling out through your mouth and simply noticing your thoughts and letting them go. Not trying to avoid thinking, as this is the way to madness, just noticing them and letting them go. Becoming aware of your body and then what you’re feeling within it. Just allowing whatever you find to be there. If you find discomfort, make this ok and see if it changes with acceptance. Accepting our feelings is paramount to accepting ourselves.
- Listen to your body’s messages. Notice when you are feeling hungry, thirsty, tired, sore etc and DO something about it. We are so good at pushing ourselves sometimes we’ll even put off going for a pee for hours! Our bodies are smart, they know what they need it’s up to us to listen, for the more we listen to them the more our bodies will give back to us in wellness and ease. This is especially true in taking breaks. Take a break not only when your boss says you can or the clock strikes 10am, take one whenever your body tells you to. Even just going for a walk around the office or the street, standing up and doing some stretches. If you’re at home put on some music and have a dance or put your barefeet on the grass. Our creativity stops if we push ourselves past our limits: the best thing you can do is take a short break and let your motivation and creativity flow again. Even workplaces like Google encourage this.
- Connect to your heart. Literally take your awareness to your heart and notice what it is feeling. Breathe life into it. Again accept and allow what you find. Let its love radiate literally inside you, filling yourself up rather than forcing yourself to always give it out to others. Ask your heart a question, something about yourself or life you would like to know and listen quietly for the answer. Our hearts are infinitely wise and just waiting for us to listen.
- Give yourself more rest. Women are cyclical beings and like the moon and the seasons we have periods of productivity eg. spring/summer and full moons. We also have periods of regenerative rest like winter and the dark moon. Just because we now have artificial light doesn’t mean we have to be “on” all the time.
- In your moments of giving to, or doing for others be fully present and mindful, fully enjoy the experience of giving from your heart, for if it’s not from your heart it’s not worth doing. Feel the joy of your devotion so you receive whilst you are giving, a complete surrender that makes the hardest task seem like a gift. Then you’ll come back to yourself renewed
rather than drained. You’ll also sense when it is enough, for both yourself and them. - Practice setting your boundaries. To conserve your energy and nurture yourself sometimes you might need to say NO here and there, especially if saying no is hard for you. How can you give energy that you don’t have, or that is blocked from resentment? Sometimes we need to say no before we can say a full YES! It is not selfish but being centred in yourself.
- Nurture your sensual and sexual energies as these are drivers of your enthusiasm and spontaneity in life. Take a moment to check out these sensual suggestions from our recent blog on “Women Aren’t Losing Interest”. Play with with your pelvic floor muscles, these muscles are drivers of your sexual life force energy. Sit with a rolled up towel between your legs (or you can sit with your heel tucked in there) and practice squeezing and releasing these muscles you use to pee with. Make sure you fully relax them between each squeeze. Inhale as you squeeze, exhale as you release. Imagine you’re squeezing and releasing a big pool of energy that lives in your pelvis.
- Become aware of your hips as you walk. Exaggerate the swing from hip to hip. Feel your hips and legs connecting to the ground underneath you as you walk. Breathe. Exaggerate the swing a little more, really get into this part of your body, own your sexual self and it will pay you back in spades. Do it for yourself not anyone else. The more you own your sexual self the more power you will have in feeling its pleasure and attracting the attention you want rather than the attention you don’t.
- Don’t get lost in playing the game of goal or orgasm directed sex. There is so much more to enjoy, and so many other feelings and things to experience that one “O”. Not that orgasms are bad (heaven forbid!), it’s just that if they are your only sexual focus you will miss out on so many other experiences that begin more subtly but become equally powerful! Invite your man there with you.
If you would like to experience more of this part of you come along and join me at m next Power of Yoni event Nov 2-6 where we pull all of this together and much more…
blankness of the depression family (some may say it is underneath depression), it is profound nothingness. This is what the eastern mystics do so well, and whilst we might not need to rid ourselves of our worldly possessions and live on the road without money like a sadhu, a life of nothingness it does have much to teach us. If we can be OK with our experiences of nothingness we can let go of the endless need to get, to have, to do, to accumulate, to be and to achieve. Not that these are bad things in themselves, our lives are richer for them. But if they control us we are out of control of ourselves. And the way to find this control within is to be willing to be OK in our nothingness, to welcome it in as a precious gift and experience for a time and receive its profound healing. Just like the night sky can be a relief after the intensity of a hot, sunny day. So if you come across nothingness in your ABC practice welcome it in!
wonder of it.
Temple at Khajuraho which is covered with thousands of highly erotic sculptures, considered vulgar or pornographic in the west. A student of this temple must meditate on each erotic image until he has come to peace with the lustful desires it inspires before he is allowed to enter the vast space that lies within the temple itself. A lustful mind will imagine a real orgy going on inside these temples, even more sex than is depicted on the outside, when actually inside is the vastness of nothing, where true peace lives. This understanding allows us to no longer be controlled by sex, to no longer destroy love at the expense of lust.
Can you think of time when you felt or ‘knew’ something in your heart that helped you, or that you needed to listen to?
doesn’t mean the heart tells you to ignore your fear, it goes beyond it to a place of deeper logic. The heart uses more simple language that may be about letting things be, letting them go or finding compassion, acceptance and understanding. Sometimes it might be about getting off your butt, holding a boundary or maintaining some tough love which is ultimately the best choice even though it might be a hard one to take. Heart outcomes are ultimately more satisfying and better for the whole, helping you break out of old ways of being.
If you want even more proof take the time over the coming Easter break to check out some movies made in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s compared to ones made today.
This is the place Eastern mystics call The Void – where there is a high level of awareness with little external action.
