First off, thank you to all those who read my last blog post and sent notes of appreciation that I spoke so honestly and openly, perhaps to something you were also feeling, and for offering a perspective that you needed, something beyond what we see in the news everyday that seem sometimes to just want to fan the flames of fear.
Part of my path is to shine a light on our shadows so we can all take our next step through fear and towards love, whatever that may be for each of us. Not easy, I know! But it is also so good and juicy!
I want to start with a quote by Glennon Doyle Melton that a woman, Aleka, shared with me:
We are often told in this world, especially as women, that our feelings are not ok. To cry is to be weak, to be angry is to be a bitch, to be upset is just too much; “stop being so emotional.” When I posted that last post it felt vulnerable because I wondered, was it too much? Or really, was I too much? And for some I was. But I also got so much appreciation and gratitude for my courage for sharing, and I felt encouraged and inspired by the conversations that came from the post. It affirmed for me that to be honest, vulnerable, and show emotion, sometimes in a public way is an energy we need right now.
To be able to show emotions is a very feminine strength, in a world right now where the feminine is rising up, to claim its place as an equal beside a masculine that has been dominant for far too long.
There is strength in being able to feel deeply and go to the depths of the shadow as well as the light. To hide that part of myself would be to disown a huge part of me. And as a culture that tends to be uncomfortable with emotions, when we implicitly or explicitly make our emotions not ok, we are disowning a huge part of our collective selves, a part of our feminine wisdom that is in all of us, and that our world needs.
Think about the last time you really let yourself feel your emotions. Do you remember how letting yourself feel allowed them to transform? How letting yourself feel allowed you to breath again, and use that energy from the emotions towards something life giving and life transforming?
On the door of the women’s bathroom at the Unity church there is a definition of Eve that I am not going to remember exactly, but to paraphrase, it says:
“Eve (Feeling) : the energy of creation.”
As women, our strength is in our feelings. And as men, there is strength in your feelings too, because we all have the masculine and the feminine within us. Explore those feelings, make room for them, and use them to transform and create.
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