Please note that these monthly experiences are created for you to indulge in with full presence. They are meant to be consumed through audio but I’ve kept the written version for your convenience.
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Close your legs.
Show just enough skin to entice.
Let him open the door for you.
Let him pay for dinner.
Seem interested – but not too much.
Are you a feminist?
Why are you so angry?
Stop trying to rule like a man.
Why are you wearing a miniskirt to work?
Calm down.
Are you PMSing?
Did you take your Midol?
Don’t be angry.
Men don’t like angry women.
Don’ t be too soft.
You’ll seem like a doormat.
Have an opinion – but not too much.
Be soft.
Be strong.
Be angry.
But not too much.
I still wince when someone uses the word feminist to address me. I confess it makes me uncomfortable sometimes. I get defensive. I get nauseous. This is then followed by shame and more nausea because I’ve fought for so much on women’s issues in my life so far that it seems hypocritical and self-hating to have a hard time swallowing the label.
I’m pretty textbook feminist. Im the girl who in 7th grade submitted a short story of Female Genital Mutilation called The Patchquilt. My favorite course at McGill was Gender & the Sociology of Mental Health. And as a producer, I put together a fully-female crew for a feature film – something that at the time hadn’t been really been done in the US ever.
Pretty textbook feminist, I’d say.
Then there is my work now. Where I guide women to their softness, to their emotionality, to their erotic and sensual bodies, to ease and flow and intuition and connection. So they can feel safe in their bodies and safe to sink into the surrender of a partner’s arms without needing to control it all.
Somehow I’ve felt like there is no way to be both. No way to fight for what’s rightfully ours AND simultaneously ask for someone to love my softness, my emotionality and my bigness. No way to put our foot down AND keep our hearts open. No way to wear red lipstick to the office and be taken seriously.
There is a revolution occurring in our midst. The Goddess Revolution. Now before I lose you to my new age choice of words, let me explain.
This revolution is different than any before. This isn’t about equality or sameness. This isn’t about black or white. This isn’t about right or wrong.
This is about integration of different energies. This is about the humanity in all of us. This is about the marriage of feminine & masculine energies inside us and in the world around us.
It’s about inviting in duality, complexity and opposing realities. It’s about REALIZING once and for all that it’s ok to embrace our angry feminist while coming from a place of pure expansive love.
It’s ok to embrace our angry feminist. It’s 2016 and there are still many things to be angry about. There are still many things to fight for. There are many voices to clear space for.
Declaring your anger, highlighting the wrongs and using your dissatisfaction for collective freedom is not mutually exclusive from embracing your soft, vulnerable feminine side, from reclaiming your layered sensual self and from loving & revering our glorious perfectly imperfect men.
We can be both. Angry and loving.
Just ask Beyonce.
Just ask Michelle Obama who Monday launched an epic initiative (The United State of Women.)
Just ask the rape survivor of the Stanford assault who bravely wrote and shared her despair & loving heart with all of us this week. We can be both.
The pose that most describes this revolution, this energy, this new way of approaching what is working and what isn’t is a yoga pose called GODDESS POSE.
With legs wide open, bent knees and an elongated spine, you reach your arms out in cactus with bent elbows and wide open heart.
This pose is both. It is loving and it is angry. It is vulnerable and it is powerful. It is open-hearted and sure-footed. It is expansive and grounded. It is light and dark. It is the inhale and the exhale.
We can be lovingly angry – just get into this pose and feel it in your soma. Feel the Goddess that is here to help you embrace your range.