Rebirthing the female soul

I’ve just started reading Sue Monk Kidd’s book ‘the Dissident Daughter’, about the feminine path of spiritual awakening. She talks about a rebirth of self – first we learn the self the world expects us to be – after thousands of years of patriarchy, women are expected to be self-sacrificial, obedient, smiling. We’re supposed to look sexy from the outside, whilst also managing to be coy and demure, good mothers.

Then she explores what happened to her – that at some point she began to fight an internal battle to become something more.

There’s a rising tide of women realising that following the well-trodden path is deeply unfulfilling. There is a unique pain in being voiceless and powerless, in not knowing who you really are because you’ve twisted yourself to fit a mold that is just too tight for comfort.

As a very young women my drama degree at Exeter started to unlearn me of this conditioning. Indeed, they realised that modern school beat the creativity out of children so the first term was dedicated to re-learning how to be spontaneous and playful as necessary components of theatre.

I learned yoga, tai chi and a martial art as part of an actor training module, with a specific emphasis on cultivating internal awareness within. My teacher wrote a book called ‘when the body becomes all eyes’. What this 3 year intense training effectively did was put me in touch with something in myself that was deeper, more real, more juicy, more alive, more sensual than the rest of life had taught me how to be. I found a spark of life deep within. I was lit up by it. I became passionate about life in a completely new way. I was learning myself from the inside.

Returning to Guernsey and working in an office I sensed that there was no place for this new, deep me. She had no place amongst the small talk and the targets. I didn’t know what to do.

I considered this part of myself entirely essential. I allowed myself pockets to breath – a yoga class, a good book, a dear friend – but most of life was lived under water, under this mask I had learned was necessary.

I think there are a lot of women that feel this way. I think that it takes work to unearth that part of ourselves and let her roam free. It can be very unpopular! But I would also heartily recommend it.

I’m out now. I’m out everywhere. This unrestrained feminine energy is running my life. She’s present with my family, she’s present in my work, she’s present in my writing. It is deeply, soulfully fulfilling.

Without her, relationships can’t go deep enough.

Without her, life is grey and restricted.

Without her, a masculine consciousness is imbalanced in boardrooms and on the planet.

We need her. And she is awakening in millions of women. Is she awakening in you?

She’s the frustration and the rage at the tiny compartmentalised lives we live. She roars through you when you lose control of your conditioning. She’s the tears that come from you don’t know where. She wants to express herself through you.

Your conditioning is the fear you feel when you want to speak your truth and don’t. It’s the anxiety and the depression that have you clamp down and stay quiet.

This internal tussle, in my experience, will not abate until you surrender to yourself, to who you really are on the inside.

It takes courage to choose yourself. You may lose people. But you will gain new people who really SEE you. Who want the best for the REAL you.

Honestly, if this tussle is at your door, I don’t think it’s a matter of if, I think it’s a matter of WHEN. And I want you to know that the view on the other side is beautiful, that YOU are beautiful and worthy of being seen, just the way you are.

This process is exactly why I created the soul embodiment course - to create a place for women to breathe and become truly whole