There's this interesting discussion that i've often had with clients and friends over the years in reflecting upon what in particular drew them to either wanting to work together or us to each other. And it often goes a bit like this. "I was drawn to you because of your strength. You're really strong in your masculine, but not too strong, like those women who've basically turned into a man in their job to meet the other men." Then yet others these days will hug me or endeavour to get a sense of me and remark about how gentle my heart and my energy is. I've often thought in response, it certainly wasn't an easy journey i, or anyone, goes on to be able to hold both polarities of myself, the "masculine" and the "feminine" traits. Which is why when people have said i want to learn to be both i've often joked that you sure as hell don't want to have to go through what i've been through to LEARN to be both! In terms of the strength side, yes, there is a certain strength we as people and we as women only find in the arms of adversity, in those moments where we our conviction and commitment to what we love the most and believe to be so is tested, where we either sink or swim, fight, flee or freeze. But here's the thing. It doesn't have to be huge crisis moments of adversity you face that "make you" and re-align you with what you love and care about the most though. What we fear and the magnitude of that, is different for everyone and the intensity of it is relative to their frame of reference and what they've been through in life. Not to mention, the relative to the depth of our love and how much we care. Therefore, i would now say to anyone who wants to develop this same kind of strength, don't wait to manifest a crisis, turn inwards and face not just what you love, but what you fear the most. Learn how to be present with what you fear, to feel everything that you feel in those moments and then make a conscious choice what your next move is. Otherwise that thing that we fear, whatever it is tends to run our lives and choices. We start making our decisions (wether consciously or not) based on avoiding that one thing and the potential consequences of that one thing. And wether consciously or not, we attract people and experiences which reflect back to us that one thing. But also even the beautiful people around us might behave differently towards us than we see them behave towards others if this one thing we're avoiding experiencing is blocking them from being able to be all of themselves around or for us. Or us from seeing them as anything other than the projection of what we fear. So to be able to claim our own strength and show up as everything we're here to be, to show up as and for love, and claim the experiences we're here to have, we have to face up to the demon/s within in and without. For women, so often this is conflict or our fear of the intensity of our own anger. We don't ever want to become the perpetrator and so we run from facing the wild part of us that could lose it's shit and do and say things we would legitimately regret doing. Yet until we, either in real life or some therapeutic space, have the experience of standing there face to face with some real or imagined "perpetrator", fully feeling our wild anger and fear bubble and swell up inside of us, to learn how to master the experience of it, the more we push it down, switch it off and try and be nice, the more we've given our power away to that thing or person we fear and the less able we are to show up as all of ourself. Because we're too busy trying to suppress and deny this one part and keep everything nice. Literally all of us have a fierce side that, if we just owned it, trust me, no one wants to fuck with, like, ever! But we've got to own it and learn how to wield it. So that we can then feel safe for more of our gentleness, softness, our love and vulnerability to shine through. Not to mention, for the masculine part of us to feel like "he" (we) are "safe" to be around. For all of us, no matter what gender, for our feminine to flow, and for us to be able to claim what has truly showed up for us to claim, we have to be able to stand there with the strength of Mumma wolf and say "this is mine", and if we had to, not be afraid to grit our teeth and snarl a little to hold our ground on the opportunity or experience our soul knows to be ours. Also to have the strength to swallow our pride, step back and humbly downward dog bow to our adversary every once in a while too, for when we, for whatever reason, need to. Once we've faced that fear, we can stand with conviction in our yes, our no, our maybe's, hold to our boundaries. And show up in our authentic self at the same time. That too is a part of what separate us from being a Follower into being a confident Leader, who leads from love, with love, in all that we're here to do and be. If you need some support with integrating this part of your journey, sing out. I'm here for you. Until next time, have fun, take care. Nat xxoo |
WriterIn a world in which we've got too busy for meaningful human connection, Nat talks about the ways we can bring it back. Archives
September 2024
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