Empowering the Feminine

I would encourage you to setup an Altar for this 7 week Devotional Practice. Choose a special place in your home, or in your room. You can even have more than one! Choose any items of power, or beauty, that are important to you. Your altar can have as little or as much as you would like to have on it. You may like to have a representation of each weeks specific Goddess on your altar as we move through the weeks.

I encourage you to connect with this altar daily, as a reminder of your connection to source, to spirit and to the wisdom of your higher self.

Each week, we will work deeply with a Goddess that invokes the energies that we are working with. Some you will feel resonate strongly within you, others may feel like strangers. I encourage you to embrace each
one. Make a conscious choice on a daily basis to bring this Goddess into your life so that you may use her divine symbolism to sink deeper into the feminine wisdom of this work.

We are starting with the biggest one here! Phew, here we go...

Lets begin with some self-enquiry around you emotions and how you express them.

How do you work with your emotions? Do you give them freely, allowing yourself to be seen in all your authentic flavours?
Do you hold or suppress them?
Perhaps you receive through your emotions so fully that you live in a constant state of overwhelm and confusion.
Or perhaps you let them control your life, determining actions and making important decisions based on how your emotions are making you feel?

Being emotional is a natural part of being a woman (and being human!). However many of us can spend years trying to control, suppress and hide our emotions, thinking that they made us weak and vulnerable.

It has taken me years of inner work to be able to cultivate emotional intelligence and share my emotions freely, whatever they are, as they come up, in a safe and respectful way.

Emotions work best as Energy in Motion, flowing through uninhibited, clearing out old debris, revealing the truth and honouring your experience of now. They are a fine tuned guidance system, messages to ourselves, that help us see where we are out of alignment, so that we can take steps to come back into our sweet spot.

There are a number of things that I have done over the years to help me come back into emotional balance, so that I don’t end up feel crazy, neurotic and/or overwhelmed by life! Some I needed to schedule in regularly, and some I tapped into as needed. It's important for you to grow your understanding of what these needs are for you, so you can prioritise them!

Connecting with Sisters; Top of my list! I need to be able to talk and share with heart sisters. Women’s circles are ideal for this but any close girlfriend is absolutely perfect too. The most important part though, is that this sharing needs to happen in a non-judgmental and non-solution focused way. What I really need to do is unload the myriad thoughts, feelings and experiences that have been building up inside of me. I don’t need dialogue, I just need to be heard and understood. Other women are usually best at this, as men generally like to solve our problems and fix things for us. Do you get enough time with friends and sisters, to share, laugh, cry and feel validated and understood? This aspect is so important to me, that for many years I facilitated regular Women’s Circles and women’s gatherings, so that I knew that my emotional needs would be met and that I as also facilitating other women having their needs met as well!
Being Held in a Safe Space; I do my best to be mature and self aware, however as an imperfect human being, who is continually learning and growing, sometimes I am just in my shit. I am so
incredibly grateful that I have people in my life now that can hold me in a safe space, when I react from a place of fear, or old wounding’s, or self-sabotaging belief systems. By being held in this safe container I have found that I have healed so many past stories with ease. The Feminine by nature is mysterious and chaotic,
ever changing in moods, feelings, thoughts and expression. It is vital to know that we are safe when overwhelming or unwanted feelings come to the surface. Being able to share our truth without fear of how the other will react, knowing that they have the maturity to be present and conscious when we are at our most vulnerable, is a powerful gift.
Feeling Connected with My Partner; My emotional wellbeing is absolutely tied in with my relating to my partner. My emotional love cup gets full by feeling emotionally connected to my lover. Without this emotional connection it is very difficult for me to engage sexually and as Divine Union is one my favourite spiritual practices, emotional connection is pretty high on my list! I am, of course, an individual who can separate my feelings from others, however as a receptive, sensitive, sensual and open woman, having this heart connection with my man brings me a deep peace and contentment that I highly value. Which leads me to number 4.
ALONE Time; as a sensitive introverted empath I just HAVE to have alone time. Spaciousness, where I can feel my own edges and know what is definitely mine, and what is anothers. Whether it is creating space with children, partners, family members, friends or the collective consciousness, it is vital to be able to switch off and come back to myself, so that I can fully centre myself before re-engaging with the world!
Stop doing the Emotional Labour for Other People; What is emotional labour you say? If emotional intelligence is the ability to self reflect, be self-aware, be self-responsible and accountable for our feelings and emotions, and to be able to change our behaviours to come into better alignment with our happiness and truth. Then emotional labour, is when we are doing this for others! When those we live with, or share our lives with, seem unable to do their own inner work, then we are left with the often unacknowledged burden of holding space for their feelings over and over and over again. Because if they aren't doing the work, it can feel like groundhog day and yes, it is as exhausting as it sounds!
So bringing balance and harmony to our emotional well-being can be a daily practice for most women, as we negotiate the ebbs and flows of our menstrual cycles and daily lives. However, when we truly allow ourselves to be seen, in all our forms, we have an opportunity to drop all the masks that we have taken up over the years.

I personally, have a tendency to hold my emotions. I hold my breath, my body gets tense, I shut down, close up, and protect myself from the feeling, or at least from feeling more of it. Whether it’s something on
TV, or a disagreement with my partner, my learned response is to HOLD. It takes mindfulness for me to notice the holding and then encourage myself to breath, to relax my body, to open into the feeling and to
allow the fullness of it to be within me. Whether it’s excitement or fear, it is accepting the fullness of the feeling, without judgment, that allows me to more quickly come back to a place of balance.

Learning how to balance our emotions is one of the most important things that we can integrate as juicy, feminine, warrior, goddess women. Whether you are embodying the Mother through gentle kindness and
nurturing, or invoking Kali by destroying all that doesn’t serve you and your highest good, emotions are a catalyst for change, within and without. As you learn to harness their power, you will see transformation
take place on many levels!

If you watch children you will see that they can experience a range of emotions within a very short span of time, usually however, if they have been allowed to express without censorship, they quickly return to a state of happiness and ease.

Watch how they flow with their emotions, the younger they are, the less story they have attached to feeling any particular way. They emote freely and if they feel heard, understood and validated, they usually, quickly move on. This is the epitome of Energy in Motion, an allowing of the flow of emotional release as it moves through the body naturally and easily.

As adults, we have many years of wounding’s and old patterns that we have developed to help us survive and sometimes thrive, throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood. More often than not, these patterns do not serve us now, especially as women, when it comes to naturally and freely expressing our emotions as mature adults.

It is your wounded child that learnt which pattern was going to be most helpful for your survival. Whether you suffered from abuse, neglect, rejection, abandonment, violence, or anything else that created a traumatic reaction within your body and mind as you grew up. It could have been one single event that shifted your emotional behaviours, or it could have been a series of events. Regardless of why, it is now your choice, as a conscious and awake adult, to take steps that bring you closer to your natural state of being and expressing.

Here are some reasons that we can be out of balance with our emotions. Remember, no matter which is your default pattern, the answer is to allow it to flow through you, with tenderness, authenticity and responsibility.

Some of the possible reasons that we lose our natural ability to express emotions are:

Ridicule when we expressed our emotions as children
Rejection or abandonment from Mother or Father figure (including adoption)
Feelings of powerlessness during life changing events
Violence within the home (to others, or self)
Neglectful upbringing
Over controlling environments
You may be able to add even more to this list. It takes concerted effort to acknowledge, honour and move on from these childhood wounds. It can be quite difficult to feel safe enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of others, especially when you are feeling triggered.

I would encourage you to take this first step as slowly as you need to. If this is your first time going deeper into yourself and into your past, you may even decide that professional help through different forms of therapy, may be necessary for you to come to a place of acceptance and balance with your life’s story and experiences.

If you are feeling stuck, please feel free to get in touch with me, I have many specialty treatments to support release, transformation and growth!

The Oceanids and Sea Nymphs represent the ability to express the full range of emotions from serenely calm, to raging storm. Styx is the older sister of the oceanids, and as such, has access to a deeper emotional maturity.

Women need to flow, we are chaos, we are no rules, we are the raging river, the trickling brook, the pounding waves. We have the 3000 Oceanid daughters within every breath, every feeling, every experience. WE are born to express, to flow, to change, to blend and to separate. Our thoughts, feelings and emotions are constantly changing things. WE are their mistress however, they belong to us, and we can learn to express them powerfully, gracefully and effectively, for the sake of ourselves and those we love!

Energy
Giving Freely, Unconditional Love, Balance of Emotions, Trust, Innocence, Confidence & Honesty.

The true essence of self can be freely and openly shared when we allow ourselves to give unconditionally, when we give ourselves full permission to express our emotions authentically and to own our stories completely. Trust in what is coming through, belief in your own souls inner essence, having confidence in who you are and being honest with yourself, and others, about what you are feeling in the moment.

PRACTICE: This week, consciously embody the energy of the goddess Styx. Connect with your emotions but practice not being attached to them. Allow them to authentically flow through you, in the moment, with vulnerability and strength.

Keep coming back to the breath
Consciously relax your body (release the tension and create space)
Move your body (yoga/dance/exercise)
Acknowledge the emotions and what they are telling you (vocalize)
Practice heart to heart communication (vulnerability)
Set a time limit for feeling crappy (2hrs/1day/3weeks - whatever works for you)
Practice alternate nostril breathing to bring balance and calm back into your body and mind (balances hormones)
Would you like to dive deeper? Check out this blog/article I wrote all about the 'Science of Emotions', there is so much awesome info in it!

This is just a gentle reminder to continue to have love and compassion for yourself and your journey. You are exactly where you are meant to be, doing exactly what you are meant to be doing, feeling exactly what you are meant to be feeling.  

You are a Warrior Goddess and you are also a Vulnerable Child. You are both and everything in between. There is nothing to get “right” in this weeks practice. You are just being reminded of what you already know. That you are a beautiful, juicy, divine feminine goddess, who is on this earth to shine her light, in a way that is most authentic for you! All of these teachings are here to support you, to reveal more of yourself to yourself and to the world, if you so choose.

So take a deep breath, give yourself a hug, relax and allow your naturalness to take you wherever you are meant to be.