For a long time in my life I was deeply out of touch with the feminine. You could see it as soon as you looked at me. Whilst I may have seemed feminine at first glance by my hair and how I dressed, a closer look would reveal my hard edges, sharp corners and icy terrain. Those edges were my armor, my cloak, my mask. They were my very survival mechanism.
Not that different from you I would imagine, in some small or large ways. Most of us have been there, deeply ensconced in the masculine. The way we work, live, play even. We show up like that in our place of work, and wonder why our relationships struggle when we can’t switch it off when we get home.
It wasn’t until recent years that I started to realize something was missing. That there was meant to be another side to me. Not just the softness of the feminine, which I was desperately in need of, but also the fierceness that comes from a different place than masculine power.
So I went seeking. It was at first a slow process, and it would take years to find my way back to her. I stumbled and fought her as I grappled with retaining what I perceived as the power in the masculine that I wasn’t ready to let go of, not fully understanding that it was a false power, and would continue to slip through my fingers like grains of sand on the beach.
As I finally gave up the fight and declared I was ready, I intuitively knew where I would find her. On my yoga mat. Deep in meditation. In mother nature. Inside my creative practices like writing and painting. In the softer side of my mothering. In the nurturing side of my close relationships. In the open and womanly side of intimate ones. In spiritual texts of wise women who had come before me. In my rose essential oil and the bloom of flowers. In stillness and silence.
She was in my heart. And before her I had only walked life in my head. My soul had the work of reaching her and connecting the two.
It can be a hard path to walk, holding on to that feminine essence in this world we live in that can be so tough. We have to be dedicated to the path. To retain our soft center when the world tells us to harden our edges. To sit in our vulnerability when we are expected to have everything handled. To fill our longing to create rather than just our need to get things done.
We must seek it out, the feminine sides of ourselves, even though it is so inherently and divinely ours. Those of us who were born with it, and those who weren’t but align with it naturally. We must welcome her in, open our arms and our hearts, create a place for her, and make it safe for her to stay.
