A few weekends ago, millions of my soul sisters (yes, we are all connected like that) gathered around the world to connect and march together for women’s rights, immigration rights and civil rights. I would have loved to have gone, feel their energy, connect with their voices…but I had an even bigger weekend planned.
For months, January 20th was marked off on my calendar for an event in New York City, put on by Regena Thomaschauer a.k.a. “Mama Gena”…and here, connect our voices we did.
For years I’ve worked among both men and women and recall having discussions with women in the workforce, wondering if we should ask for that higher pay raise, wondering if we should take a risk and start our own businesses, asking each other if we think “we’re good enough to apply for that new position.” And it’s true that we women should have said yes to all of those things: yes, we should have asked. Yes, we should take that risk if that’s what we want to do. And yes, we’re good enough to apply. It turns out that across the board, women feel less capable than our male counterparts, yet in just about every instance, we test equally the same in performance.
Mama Gena, a NY Times best-selling author and self-described “pleasure researcher” would say this powerlessness among women is a result of living in a patriarchal society and that the solution is easy: reconnecting to our own life force, our voice, and and our sense of internal power. Once we’re able to do this, and we design and live our own destiny, everything wrong becomes right.
In the years of feminism in the 1960s and 70s, we wanted to have the same rights as men. What ended up happening, is that we started behaving like men. We thought in order to get what we wanted: the top position in the company – even a place in the company, we should probably behave like them. You’d think the result would have been a sense of confidence that we attained our goals – but the opposite is true. Women – even in top c-suite positions consistently show lack of confidence, ask for lower pay raises than men and report that they’re not good enough.
Mama Gena wants to change all that.
She wants women to feel a sense of our own aliveness.
She wants us to know that our spirit and body are one.
She wants us to know that we are full, complete and whole.
With this kind of connection to the internal, it means connection with our power and confidence – which will move us in the direction of our deeply held desires.
So instead of marching in the cold, holding signs in protest (which, I’ll have you know, I deeply admire just the same) I personally chose to connect with 2,000 other women, where we danced our emotions through our bodies, we told each other our deepest desires and dreams, we listened to each other brag about beautiful things happening in our lives, and applauded each other for our courage.
“Standing for your own radiance allows another woman to stand for hers. Treat a woman like a sister and a goddess, and you’ll bring out the best in her.” Mama Gena.
As a yoga and meditation practitioner, I was always told to try and not dwell on my emotions. I even wrote an entire album entitled, “Emotions Sit,” as I worked through this notion. The truth is, however, women were not only designed to be wildly emotional and deeply passionate, but this “big love” and “deep feeling” is actually meant to be celebrated, not diminished! Have you ever wanted to cry at work or tell someone off because of the way they treated you but felt like you’d lose your job or might not get promoted because you would’ve been seen as “too emotional?” Have you ever wanted to take a risk and leave your job but felt like you couldn’t make it on your own because you wouldn’t have the support, think your idea is silly, or just brush it off as a “pipe dream?” Mama Gena would say that it’s our rich, full range emotional life that connects us to our desires and without this connection, our desires cannot come true.
So during this weekend, instead of protesting and giving any more attention to a failed external system, we connected to the way we truly felt and stood together as powerful women and inspired each other’s enthusiasm for what we love – for our desires – for living truth.
I encourage all women to search inside for your deepest desires. Try writing it out. What is it that you want to accomplish? Who do you want to be?
If you’re a man who feels this sense of small – go ahead and try it as well. If you’re a man reading this who has all the confidence in the world, perhaps you can ask a lady in your life what she desires. Women are really good at asking others what they can do for them – but not great at finding a path to our own desires.
I meditate to cultivate a state of awareness so that when I am confronted with an emotionally-charged situation, I am aware of how to act in a balanced state. I also meditate so that I don’t dwell on thoughts from the past and made-up images of the future but rather can find joy in this present moment. However, as humans, emotions and desires do come through us and it’s our job to turn these desires into creations and art and stories and gifts.
So instead of living small; instead of joining with women to share stories of victimhood, I choose to share my desires and my inherent radiance. After all, “The degree to which you can own your darkness is the degree to which you can own your light.” Mama Gena
Om namah
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