One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.
As women, we intrinsically step into our power. Bound to the cycles of nature we become acutely aware of the deep and complex connections of living and attune to the feeling of being centered and likewise when we get knocked off balance, feel untethered, fall into old malign patterns, and become disconnected from our roots.
Most of us were raised in a patriarchal society with a misrepresentation of ‘god’ as strictly male. Separated from our sacred feminine and intuitions, peddled insecurities via the dominance of a hyper consumeristic culture, continually sexualized, and reminded to submit, it is no wonder we as females oftentimes experience derailment or even detachment from our divine and inherent wisdoms.
It’s not you.
It’s the structure you exist in.
You are not deficient.
The game is rigged.
Interwoven throughout our life-spanning journey is our inherent connection to the divine feminine. The divine feminine is not only for women. In fact, we all carry both feminine and masculine wisdoms, tools, and energies. Divine energies transcend gender. We’ve been systematically suppressing the divine feminine for thousands of years. In doing so we suppress something fundamental to our existence and untether the necessary connection between psyche and nature. In short, we have isolated ourselves from nature. By suppressing feminine energy and elevating masculine energy we have lost our balance not only within ourselves but in our culture and our human movement.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes said, “she is the life energy that animates the male principle, and the male principle, in turn, animates action in the world.” Without feminine life energy the divine masculine fails. Man-made movement and law dissipate and cannot withstand without the structural foundation of and connection to our universal laws of nature. By balancing our energies and moving out of individualized animations we can move interconnected in wholeness and become a true force of nature.
Movement provides us a way to (re)connect with the divine, to unify and balance the soul so we can again, face the world from a space of light and authenticity with grace.
Below are some points, some small shifts, concepts, and ideologies that can be taken or adopted which helped me to deeper discover, examine, and excavate my authentic self and helped muse me into a deeper connection with my womanhood.
A few offerings to muse you deeper into, and in more connection with, your divine journey…
Begin to heal.
Movement therapy is a great way to begin reconnecting to yourself, to heal traumas, and discover who you are (and who you aren’t).
- For tips on how to begin this practice, see the activity below. ?
How To Begin A Movement Therapy Practice: 101 Dance Activity
Find out who you are (and who you aren’t).
There are many facets to our lives. How we choose to spend our time, and with whom and what we identify has a major impact on how we see ourselves and the world in which we reside. We are multifarious creatures full of depth and various identities we juggle. How and to what depth we identify ourselves in relation to our different personas plays an integral role in our personal discovery and growth. In example you are not just a mom/dad/sister/Buddhist/activist/lawyer/teacher/etc. identified solely by your career or social statuses such as wife, nor any other individual characteristic of your life. We are amalgamate creatures deriving energy and creating from a melting pot of wisdoms and experiences unique to ourselves.
It is easy to get ‘lost’ in our roles and expectations which is why we need to acknowledge, explore, and make space for what flows naturally from us outside of our daily obligations. This is what makes us ‘whole’ and unifies us with fulfillment, contentment, and inner peace.
Who are you and how do you move when nothing is required of you?
Learn to love, embrace, and nurture your shadow side.
We are all cyclical creatures ebbing and flowing through rhythmical patterns of coming and going, decline and regrowth. We swell with creativity, energy, joy, and passion, and then naturally wane through periodic episodes of uninspired, tribulation, and disconnection.
When you find yourself in a pain, winter, or shadow phase let your thoughts be focused on the formative and growth through the pain, not the desire to take the pain away. Lean in. Practice acceptance and being. Grow and evolve through your cycling. I tell my children when they are ill and vomiting to relax and lean in. I reassure them that their bodies know what they need and what to do, to trust that process, and that the sensations are temporary – it too will pass.
We will never rid all the pain of living away but we can grow larger to envelop the pain and become larger than our pain. Learning and choosing to absorb your pain as a tool will help support and nurture you in your cycles of pain. Allow the pain to serve you by turning your wounds into wisdom. Also, recovery is not a race. We all heal at different rates.
Not every day is a day filled with joy, positivity, achievement, courage, and hope… and that’s okay. In fact, it’s necessary, it’s balancing, and is required for us to understand and experience the happiness and successes we do. Our unfortunate situation may not be perfect in relation to our immediate desires but it has a purpose. Whether the sun is shining or not, each day is still a gift and an opportunity (that’s why it’s called ’the present’ ✨?). The tides will change, the moon will cycle, our shadow will eclipse and we will find ourselves full circle, again and again… falling into obscurity and arising once again. With every ‘orbit’ we choose our level of growth and understanding. ???????
Embrace pleasure.
There is more to the word pleasure than sexual pleasure. Reconnect with pleasure in how the warmth of the sun feels on your face, by savoring those first steamy hot sips of your morning tea, in the sounds and scents that rain generates, the beauty of a rogue roadside flower, a summer sunset, and how fresh sheets smell and feel on your skin.
We can quickly and easily lose touch with our bliss and anchorage if we don’t consciously and consistently recognize and celebrate the beauty in and around ourselves. We program our brains (our thoughts, hormones, health, and physiology) by whether we lose ourselves in the monotonous, mundane, consumption aspects of life or we instead choose creative, joyous interplay with our gift of consciousness.
Choose wellness. Turn your light on the splendors in your life.
What do you love? What do you enjoy? What do you find satisfaction in? What inspires you to move and makes you want to become a better version of yourself? Connect to these energies – even if, and especially if, this pulling draws you toward or even outside the edges of your normal existence.
Growth, happiness, pleasure, and well-being arrive in many forms including from our dark and twisty battles. Embracing what arrises – those moments, those feelings, and those experiences – in infinite loving compassion will lead you to truth and ultimately pleasure.
Learn to love and appreciate your body.
Embrace your own skin – every stretch mark, dimple, freckle, and ‘flaw’. These are proof of your existence and the chapters of your story. Each scar beckoning the tale of its lesson with its mere existence. A life lesson of that depth, an experience literally etched into your flesh, is something to wear in honor of your survival of the battles you’ve faced upon your journeying. Pain, in this way, can also be transmuted to pleasure.
It’s not about how much we have but how much we enjoy. We each have but one unique flesh vehicle to navigate and experience the little time we exist in this form. It’s an apt and intelligent system in regards to nature and it’s cycling form. One that if learned, tended, and embraced properly lends us an insurmountable gift or if not, complete insanity. Making what you think, what you say, and what you do a harmonious act is one of the best ways to begin bringing peace into your life. Sometimes we don’t see how fragmented and disjointed our whole self is until we take a moment to focus on our own pleasure. Your body is transporting your soul. Understanding the mechanics of your flesh vehicle makes living a sport – you’re holding the keys.
Balance your energy.
All humans have both masculine and feminine energies however I feel that in today’s society many women (and men) have been left deeply distanced or even disconnected from their feminine energies and it is harming our wellbeing and diminishing our sense of selves.
As women, so much of our knowledge and our earthly connection derives from our midsections: our hips, our thighs, our bellies, pelvis, and core. As modern women, much of our time is required to be spent harnessing our masculine energies. We have to get things done and make things happen. We kick ass, take risks, are competitive, and continually engage in the fight to forge forward oftentimes using our minds more than our senses and working in decisive action more than in creative flow. We spend more time achieving and controlling rather than experiencing and being and more time giving than receiving. We push, lead, plan, initiate, control, compete, achieve, and immerse ourselves in logical thought. If this is you, it is exceptionally important to reconnect with your divine feminine. Make time and space every day to get out of your head and connect with your intuitive self.
As women (and men) in touch with our feminine energy, we know to trust our gut. The balance of our masculine and feminine energies is key to fulfillment, harmony, and health.
Don’t be afraid of change.
There is really nothing so permanent as change. When you resist change you fight against the fundamental workings of the nature of life. Without change, we’d have no butterflies, no trees, no creative endeavors, or adventurous experiences – you, and nothing else would exist and nothing new would ever arise.
Change brings opportunity, growth, and the evolution of all things. Oftentimes we resist change but other times we wish for nothing more. It is in our human nature to want all that we enjoy and love to remain static, unchanged, and in the state we feel most comfortable. We, in tandem, also experience deep yearnings for change in areas of unrest or discontent.
Have you ever done something you deeply regret but cannot change? It can leave an ever scabbing wound, ripped open again and again with every remembrance – a scar of sorts on your character. The ability to change this act would be a consolation but we cannot undo it as our only access to anything is through the now. Now is all we have. Tomorrow has not yet happened and the past is history. All you have is this. Right now is your only access to ANYTHING so to alter our path, we must change our conduct. Moment to moment every action, every thought, every deed, matters profoundly. If you have things to repent for the best apology is to change your behavior.
While a change in our shortcomings is welcome, we tend to shield or protect our happinesses from change as well which is why I like to look at change as evolution. We all want to be better people right? Positive change does not necessarily come from positive experiences. We all have that one thing (or seven things) that have rocked us to our core, hurt us badly, and caused us immeasurable pain but we’re happy it happed to (for) us because it changed us for the better.
Be the change you wish to see, live, or experience. Remember who you are, who you strive to become, and actively walk toward it. Be on the hunt for who you have not yet become and remember you are not what has happened to you but rather what you choose to materialize. Keep in mind that pleasure also only leads to pain as it is impermanent and subject to change as all is. Allow change to flow freely through your life.
Honor the natural flow and pass it on.
Everything that comes to us in our lives – our worldly goods, ideas, opportunities, wisdoms, and even people – all come to us so that we can pass them on. Be aware of the current of life and flow in harmony with it. Accept what comes, put it to good use, and when the time is right, pass it on. If something is not enriching your life, or is harming you, or is holding you back release it and let it go. In contrast also gracefully accept your blessings and too, let them go. Absorb and transmogrify what greets you then pass it on. Move on freely, through everything, without holding on.
“And when you get to where you’re going, turn around and help her too. For there was a time, not long ago when she was you.” – Hannah Neese
If we do not pass what comes to us on, good or bad, we are not honoring the natural flow of life and we feel pressure. Each time you feel ‘under pressure’ you are somewhere blocking flow. Unblock your flow. Once you do you can relax once again and be open to the next fortune approaching at the upcoming bend in the river. It’s not only our duty but the natural cycle we all flow through together.
Just as in a river or stream, small changes and shifts lead to massive transformations. In this gentle way, with a small shift, you can change the entire world.
One day or day one. You decide. Embrace it.
Re-wild yourself.
That is, discover a process in which to return to the more natural state that is YOU. Not what society says you should be nor what your in-laws, parents, spouse, children, or boss expects from you.
Strip off what is heavy and not serving you. Peel away layers of coping, trauma, and neglect to reveal what has always been there. Open yourself. Then become a steward of your own land. Nurture what you wish to see grow. Rebuild what requires rebuilding. Prune and weed and deeply connect to that which embodies wisdom.
By reconnecting to our nature and our rhythms we can reestablish our roots and flow in grace.
Discover how YOU move.
Understand the world you live in.
Study ethics, history, government, spirituality, economics, and law. Know the movements of the world you live in. Understand how to do research and determine truth and fact from dogma and propaganda. Know what you know not from social media or movies or video games but through actually living your life.
Strive for movement rooted in broad deep truth and unbiased radiance of being.
Your best life is only waiting for you to show up and live it.
Open yourself to spiritual radiance.
When we are in true connection with our feminine energies, we trust our gut. Through the nuptials of intuitive self-trust to the knowledge and compassion harvested from our years, spiritual radiance is born and fueled.
Marianne Williamson wrote “Beauty is an internal light, a spiritual radiance that all women have, but most women hide – unconsciously denying its existence. What we do not claim, remains invisible.”
When you open up to the intuition fed to you by your experiences and the wisdoms they’ve granted you, you shine so brightly you quite literally radiate beauty, experience, confidence, and a knowing so deep it’s spiritual and oftentimes lights the path for others. Connecting to your own unique knowledge in this manner can help ease, comfort, guide, and reassure those in a pain phase. It also connects us to our truths and inspires others to move in a noble and connected manner. It creates a network of kindness and understanding – a sacred space enveloped in loving compassion where we can thrive and help others to grow and live in peace.
The pains, dramas, failings, devastations, beauties, gifts, loves, and successes laced throughout your life are also laced and echoed throughout us all in our human experiences, uniting us all in a universal dance from which we can all learn and grow. What we alchemize and project from the stirrings of our internal and external happenings dictates our (and others) happiness. Imagine if everyone practiced this work and the world operated on a higher frequency. If you let your light shine brightly, it will guide others out of their darkness. Denying this is to shut off to our human nature and restricts the light, beauty, and lessons we have to offer each other.
We are not much more than individual waves churning in a vast sea, leaves on a tree or flowers blooming and wilting back into the nourishment of a wild garden. Part of something larger and ever-evolving, cycles are experienced over and over again. One is not born but rather becomes, again and again. This life, death, (re)birth cycle is the core of the feminine divine. Beyond our individualism is our association with creativity, being, intuition, nourishment, collaboration, and community. Embracing, exploring, implementing, and radiating the intuitions that arise from our experience is the key to living in graceful acceptance and abundant love for every stage and is what we’re ultimately here to do. Work and strive toward becoming the BEST version of yourself possible. Make it your purpose above all other purposes as YOU are the most important, most necessary, most pleasurable, and rewarding journey of your lifetime.
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Ava
Becoming woman… the divine project of my lifetime.
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