Healing the Toxic Feminine
Capitalistic ‘health care’ is at the root of toxic femininity. Women, we do not need to abide.
Whoever modeled the mature feminine art of connected conflict resolution?
Where have you seen women’s relationships that are generative and life giving?
What about embodying our female form in a way that is sensual but not sexualized?
Or mothering from the center of the family with healthy boundaries and tons of connection?
These can be terrifying at first, but with the right container it’s a superpower we can embrace.
You can be the one holding the flame.
The toxic feminine is real.
As a teen I was bullied by a group of girls. They were from wealthy families, and if you weren’t dressed correctly, you were ‘poor’ aka scum. I came from a single mom family and we couldn’t afford to buy the right clothes or shoes so I felt tormented by their relentless harassment and exclusion. I found reprieve as an athlete, where I often found myself surrounded by dudes who weren’t that way with me. It was better than being bullied, so I just avoided the girls altogether.
At age eighteen I had an awakening at the first women’s circle I attended. I hadn’t ever before known that women gathered this way, to listen to each other, to sing and cry, make art together and eat delicious potluck food.
I learned this was a thing that women have ALWAYS done, lineages of women from all cultures. I discovered a whole new side of myself when I learned to gather in a healthy way with women. It shaped the rest of my life and healed those old ‘mean girl’ wounds from childhood.
The things we could talk about, taboo topics like sex and abuse, the darkest threads that pulled on our hearts, and even the highest joys - hearing stories of other women was like an education. I knew immediately that having relationships with women, especially elder crone women, was necessary for me to grow and blossom as a woman myself.
Healing feminine wounds within ourselves opens the door to wildly fulfilling female friendships.
Many adult women have deep wounds that come from our early female relationships. We grow up in situations that we need to leave, but cannot. We learn poor boundaries as a survival tool. We cope by becoming demure or meek, trying not to illicit jealousy or envy. Because of that, like me, many girls grow up feeling a lot more comfortable around the guys.
Sometimes we have work we need to do within ourselves to heal the immature and toxic feminine imprints we have received. We need to learn how to be visible as empowered, healthy, wealthy, and/or sensual women. We need to heal the young ones within us that want to hide.
Today, I hear from women how sad they are that they never learned about their bleeding and birthing bodies from the women in their lives. Not when they were entering puberty, not in college, not even as they approached childbirth. Many women never learned because the women around them didn’t know to teach them.
Many women go further to tell me painful stories of the adult women in their lives who were so disdainful of their own bodies, that when they entered menarche and started their periods, they were ignored or dismissed… sometimes by their own mothers.
The patriarchal toxic narrative of women has infected many generations, and by now it seems it’s just truth. Almost every movie, commercial or public narrative about women bleeding or birthing comes with the tagline: “it sucks.”
It also seems normal that women treat other women with uninspected jealousy, envy, competitiveness, or straight up hostility. It seems normal that women lash out, overreact, become emotionally volatile, or create drama.
While it’s true that there is a fuck-of-a-bunch of discrimination of women occurring because of patriarchialized men, patriarchialized women treat other women even worse!
This is ALL a symptom of unhealed reproductive & nervous system wounds.
The women who are fertile, fit, articulate, balanced, and secure get it the worst. It’s unbearable to a woman who is out of control on her hijacked hormones to see another woman who is thriving.
In the last few years, I’ve evolved my work exponentially. When the definition of the word Woman is being misconstrued, when reproductive wellness is about making money for the man under the pressures of Big Pharma, Big Fertility, and Big Tech. When we are bathing in endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and are half as fertile as our grandmothers were…
The world is changing rapidly, too fast for our bodies to register and cope with. My work has adapted to take my clients beyond the symptoms they are experiencing, to see the bigger picture of why, and to release the sense of guilt or shame for their ‘failing’.
Women’s bodies are screaming louder and louder, our nervous systems are spinning and our hormonal balance is being fucked with at every turn.
Every day I hear from women that they have been minimized by their practitioners, that their intuition has been dismissed, and that they have been told that their only option is to undergo outrageously invasive procedures, or take hormone disrupting (or ‘replacing’) drugs. These are suggestions of a dead-end medical system that is just trying to make some cash, and does NOT revere women’s bodies or health.
It’s no wonder women are screaming. Females are the canary in the coal mine. Female physiology is telling us we are heading towards a cliff, and fast. And women can sense it, are trying to speak up about it, and are being silenced, coerced, cut open, and mutilated.
It’s no wonder we turn on each other. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Capitalistic ‘health care’ is at the root of toxic femininity. Women, we do not need to abide.
I believe that healing our wombs, cycles, hormones, female physiology will heal our female relationships. When we take back autonomy over ours and our family’s health, everyone wins. And doing such healing together in a group exponentially speeds this growth curve skyward. It’s contagious!
This is why we gather.
This is the fire that I cary that is fueling Becoming SheWolf, my new year-long sistering group. We are going to get the help and validation we need to stand up for our reproductive health, and that of our daughters too.
It’s about showing respect to our feral fierceness, learning to have boundaries that hold, and self-advocating in inarguable ways.
And because we are dynamic females, we will also explore the soft underbelly of surrender… and what helps us feel safe in our bodies, relationships, and culture.
We need to train our nervous systems to be both sovereign AND connected.
I’ve led women’s circles all my adult life, and this one I’m facilitating in September has a special place for me.
The SheWolf is a dynamic archetype of female polarity, the dark and light, the huntress and nurturer. She has RANGE, she can explore the fullness of her life, can hold birth and death, and can show up for her sisters.
We’re all learning how to live in authenticity to our true selves, while also staying connected in community. It’s not either or - we need each other now more than ever. And we also need to be sovereign and become who we were born to be.
It’s this wild juxtaposition that inspired me to create this year-long container for women. These are the questions I’m holding, as I call women to join me:
Whoever modeled the mature feminine art of connected conflict resolution?
Where have you seen women’s relationships that are generative and life giving?
What about embodying our female form in a way that is sensual but not sexualized?
Or mothering from the center of the family with healthy boundaries and tons of connection?
These can be terrifying at first, but with the right container it’s a superpower we can embrace. You can be the one holding the flame.
The Howl begins September 10th
Join us sister, if you want to hold these questions with us!