Category Archives: sacred feminine workshops

How to be in your power as a woman AND be open to LOVE

Insights for women on how to find that sweet balance between being strong, vulnerable and open.

Do you know how it feels to be playful and open, and ALSO centered and connected?

This fusion of softness and inner strength is an important key to feeling fulfilled as a woman, and if we bring these qualities into our relationships they tend to be nourishing and empowering and fulfilling.

From working with SO many women I have noticed 2 kinds of patterns.

The first I would call ‘un- boundary-ed women’. These are basically women with undefined boundaries, women who find it difficult to say no and tend to ‘lose themselves’ in relationships. These women are ‘too open’ in a way that leaves them disconnected from their inner source of wisdom and strength.

This is one extreme. Where openness is not accompanied by firm inner roots connecting us to our self worth, our own needs and our unique voice.

Then there are the women with what I call ‘strong women syndrome’.

These women are disconnected from their feminine qualities in a way that hardens them and prevents them from being able to give and RECEIVE love freely and truly relax and let go of control in everyday life.

Both of these patterns can block us from living in our power and creating healthy empowering relationships.

Do you relate to this?

Like many women I suffered what I call ‘ strong woman syndrome’. Through necessity I learnt to look after myself and cope in many different challenging circumstances. The connection to my inner ‘warrioress’ helped me to create healthy boundaries and own my worth and speak my truth with confidence. But the journey has not stopped there…

Because I, like most women, yearn for intimacy….

I do not want to be so strong and self sufficient that I am guarded against receiving love….

I want to be acknowledged as a beautiful woman, to be seen and celebrated by the masculine and to receive appreciation, affirmation and love, not from neediness or disempowerment, but from a place of deep self love.

And i want to ‘get out of my head’ and feel deep pleasure, blissful union and surrender…daily….

Not only that, but I do not want to ‘lose myself’ and my connection to my own power in the process….

Are you with me?

So how do we find this delicate balance between the strong and the open receptive parts of us?

And allow both aspects to support us in living as confident and connected women?

and to experience next level love?

The following points are playful suggestions and guidance for your own exploration of fusing softness and strength in your life and your relationships.

1.Explore how you feel, constantly!

No matter which side of the scale you veer towards, self knowledge is always your super power, to notice when you are feeling tense, and/or to notice when you are losing connection to your center…this clarity of awareness is the most important information you can have. Once you are aware of the patterns that tend to play out in you, this gives you the opportunity to redress the imbalances as they arise.

Have regular check in’s with yourself, especially when you are in situations where you tend to fall into old patterns of doing things. For instance, when with a friend who you always end up saying yes to when you really mean no. Or when you begin to get tense and defensive when you feel upset.

Notice your fallback behavior.

Notice how it feels to be shut down, tense or disconnected from your centre, noticing is the first step.

2. Sign .soften and surrender

When you notice yourself getting hardened, or notice that you are tuning out and becoming ungrounded, take a big breath into your belly, let out a juicy sigh, come back into a connection with the sensations in your body RIGHT NOW.

Your body never lies!!

It is your ultimate reference point, when in doubt, breathe into your belly, connect to your soft feminine power through a nice long deep effortless breath, then another, then another..

Allow yourself to relax into your own self.

3. Ask for what you need to go deeper

Get used to asking yourself the following question..

What do I really need right now???

Perhaps you want to feel more relaxed and supported, or maybe you need a sense of feeling centered and grounded. Perhaps you would like to be held, perhaps you need to let go of your ‘to do’ list and go for a walk.

Or..perhaps you need to RECEIVE.

Get good at asking others for what you REALLY need too ..you could ask someone in your life if they could stroke your face, or have a cup of tea with you, or make love to you.

You are a woman; one of your ‘jobs’ is to receive, either from yourself, or someone else.

ENJOY IT!!!!!

Be sure to balance the giving and receiving in your life so that you KNOW how it is to RECEIVE in a way that is empowering, nourishing and fulfilling. Be creative in designing the experience of woman hood you deeply desire.

4. Notice which patterns and beliefs you inherited.

Was your mother a push over or a control freak? It can be super helpful to reflect on how you have been influenced by the messages you received from your early life. I would suggest that perhaps if your mother had the habit of dominating, that it is part of your work in this life to learn to be soft and receptive, and if your mother was a push over that part of your work in this life is to own your worth, know your boundaries and claim relationships which honor both.

Rather than feeling helpless about your inherited patterns and the ways that you have been conditioned see what you were given as an opportunity to find a more balanced manifestation of woman.

I hope these words were helpful, I have found all these principles to be extremely helpful in taking me beyond my own patterns and into a more free flowing and enjoyable way of living and giving and receiving and BEING a woman.

This has helped me to experience a quality of intimacy in ALL of my relationship which nourishes me and reminds me how wonderful it is to be a open, integrated woman, connected to my OWN power.

And my wish is that all women are able to experience this!

The post How to be in your power as a woman AND be open to LOVE first appeared on Wild Sacred Feminine .

How womens workshops can connect you to your feminine power

I have been lucky enough to facilitate womens workshops all over the world. And have witnessed profound transformations.

I am witnessing women collectively waking up to their feminine power as well as the power of sisterhood.

So why are womens workshops so powerful? and why are more and more women finding themselves drawn to them?

shakti activation

Mainstream education, and even much modern yoga training, has failed to offer us the all-important guidance that we need to tap into the mystery and power within our feminine bodies.

Without the support, guidance and the space to nurture this inner connection so many women report that they experience a profound disconnect from their feminine power.

How do you know if you have lost connection to your feminine power??

*If your attention is continually directed to the critical voice in your head

*If your time and energy is consumed in behaviours ,habits and relationships that are not nourishing, for example; over or under eating, comparing yourself to others constantly and worrying about what might happen.

*If you give your power away through looking to others for approval or to fulfill your needs

* if you apologise for who you are and shame your body

*if you feel numb , stuck and constantly tired.

What i am witnessing is that women are realising that there must be something more than this kind of reality, where we judge ourselves, we judge our bodies and we judge each other.

We are collectively waking up to our deep desire to be unashamedly sensual and feminine

We want to FEEL feminine AND we want to feel empowered,

We want to feel free AND we want to feel safe to be truly ourselves

We want to feel met, and expressed and sexually vibrant.

In other words , we want to be in our feminine power

And we are realise that to do this we need to be supported by our sisters…

So how do we reconnect to our feminine power?

Through working with hundreds of women,and through engaging passionately with my own life long study of feminine power. I would suggest that our feminine power is activated when we activate the feminine life force energy in our bodies- our ‘Shakti’.

Shakti is an ancient sanskrit word for the feminine principle, it is feminine energy, it is also translated as power.

As women we are embodiments of Shakti, our Shakti is our power. Due to a culture that has trained us to be stuck in our heads, most of us have lost connection to this primal feminine power within us.

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Obviously it is time to re embrace, redefine and remember.

Hence the surge of Sacred Feminine workshops, retreats and womens circles..

We are remembering !!!

And we are finding that we have to do it together.

I have held Shakti Activation workshops and rituals all over the world and i have been blown away by the transformations i have witnessed.

So what do women get to experience in womens workshops?

*Parts of us that have become deadened/blocked/ignored/wounded can be healed , with love. in this process the energy that has often become dormant inside of us wakes up.

*We learn practices that awaken us to life force, to aliveness, to sensation, to feeling…to the power and passion and presence of woman.

*In the collective field of sisters our Shakti begins to flow, it nourishes us from the inside. it makes us shine, it connects us to our purpose, our passion, our natural sexual expression.

*We remember how it is to FLOW and TRUST and feel safe to feel sensual and sexual.

This is often experienced as a ‘a-HA!’ in the entire being, it is a coming home, it is a wake up call, it is a blessing, it is a deep and sweet OH YES!

Women have ALWAYS gathered to sing, dance and pray together….

For good reason, together we are powerful. Sisterhood and our sensual feminine wisdom that we have been hungering for.

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Here are 3 reasons why womens workshops connect you to your feminine power..

1. Together we reconnect to our power centres

The power centres within the female energetic anatomy are doorways to activation of the whole body and mind and spirit. The heart, the belly center, the third eye and the womb space can all be portals to awakening.

In my workshops we use the super simple tantric tools of breath, sound and movement to activate the power centers back to their natural free flowing state.

Then these power centers literally breathe us back into an experience of feeling juicy, connected, grounded and vibrant.

This is a simple process that gets turbo boosted as part of a collective exercise, a group of women practicing this together creates an incredible activation to everyone in the circle.

2.We free ourselves from our baggage from the past

I am going to have to have to highlight this next bit…

WE NEED SAFE SPACES FOR EMOTIONAL RELEASE!!!

Did you get that?

All wise cultures provide spaces for collective out pouring of emotions, simply because this makes for a healthy culture.

It is hard to ‘go it alone’ and it is potentially dangerous to simply ignore the pain that we hold deep inside from past experiences. Our deep pain does not go away by itself; instead it eats away at our vital energy and prevents us from living fully ( it de-activates us….).

Sacred Space offers us the opportunity to express and release unprocessed emotional material in a safely held supportive space where this energy can be transformed.

Through releasing the stuck emotions we hold within we quite literally let go of the past, this in itself liberates so much energy., it awakens our Shakti .

Through emptying out we get a fresh start!

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3.We create a personal relationship to the divine

I have found that for many women a personal relationship with the divine is most easily accessed through a intentional connection to the mother of everything( aka MA or the goddess or mother nature) rather than an impersonal god who judges us.

Why is it important to have a personal connection to the divine?

It comes down to the power of attention, when we direct our attention to that which is so much greater than our logical minds we become open to receive guidance and inspiration from that which is so much bigger and greater than our small selves.

Through activating our relationship to the Divine we become receptive and available to experience this life as sacred, to experience ourselves as sacred and our bodies as sacred temples.

Rather than worshiping an image of god that feels foreign to us, we can find a way of relating to the divine that is personal, real and meaningful and rich to us. Our relationship can be devotional , sexy, whatever opens us, whatever sings to us, whatever brings us back into deeper connection,

Womens workshops give you the time and space to explore this for yourself . To create inner foundations that sustain you in your everyday life and nourish all your relationships.

A personal connection to the sacred offers us physical remembrance of deep support and belonging. It allows us to let go and flow and receive. An experience that every woman truly yearns for, whether she realizes it or not.

You are not here to ‘cope’ you are here to live fully; you are here to shine your light and experience profound love and a life infused with deep meaning.

This involves connecting to your Shakti, your feminine power.

20-2 If you have not experienced a transformative womens workshop I really encourage you to come to one of my workshops or to one of the other teachers holding Sacred Feminine workshops with authenticity and integrity.

Find out about Upcoming workshops and retreats HERE

Find out more about the Wild Sacred Feminine workshop or retreats

Sisterhood (and bitchiness)

Everywhere I go I am blessed, loved and supported by incredible women.

I realise that I have created the most valuable resource for myself,

I have tapped into the awe-inspiring wellspring of support and love that is THE SISTERHOOD, and I benefit each and every day from this.

sister love saves
Sometimes sister support comes in the form of a big hug, a supportive smile across the room a place to sleep, a lend of something I really need, a healing, a pep talk or a kick up the arse……

What I am finding is that I have a global tribe of women to support me and to midwife me through the dips and dives of of my life. Just when I need some support then invariably BOOM another gracious sister emerges to ground me, bless me and remind me of the greater truth in the situation.

What did I do to receive this incredible bounty?

I committed to sisterhood, pure and simple.

What I had to do….

I had to learn to ‘show up’ more fully in myself in order to receive this incredible gift. There were things I had to look at in myself; there have been many moments where I have had to make conscious choices. In a way claiming the sisterhood paradigm has been a process of committing to love.

So what did I have to look at?

I had to have a good look at the mechanism of bitchiness in me, I had to learn how and why I could begin to separate myself from the sisterhood and fall into the trap of the bitchiness mind set.

What I noticed…

I am only a bitch when I feel threatened or insecure.

I noticed that certain women would trigger my insecurities and they were usually quite similar to me ( a mirror in the form of a sister!).

In the event of being intimidated by another woman I noticed that i would try and convince myself that the woman in question was inferior to me in some way.

I noticed that if I was emotionally triggered by another woman that there was usually something to be learned from our glitchy connection; that we were ‘sent’ to each other to learn and grow in some way. (Once I ended up sharing a seat on a 40 hour train ride from south to north India with a woman who I had a challenging connection with! By the end of the journey we LOVED each other- true story).

I noticed that women were only bitchy to me when they felt threatened and insecure…

I noticed that the mask of superiority what I could put on would only come as a an effort for me to make myself feel better about myself.

I also noticed that I could choose NOT to be a bitch and embrace her as a sister instead (even if she was acting as a ‘mirror sister’ showing me things I did not want to see.)

I noticed all this and I decided to commit to sisterhood because it feels SO much better.

I choose every single day to recognize every woman that I meet as my sister

I want my sisters to be happy so I offer them my loving presence in any way I can. I want my sisters to recognise their own beauty so I recognise their beauty and let them know what I see. I take every opportunity I have to say ‘Woah sister! – You rock!’. I have learnt from the example of other amazing sisters committed to sisterhood and i offer whatever support I can to a sister, whether I have known her for 10 years or 2 minutes.

I am not faking any of it, I really mean it. My sisters are truly awesome.

And the more I celebrate my sisters the more I celebrate myself, and the more they celebrate me. It is a win-win

At a Sacred Succulence Retreat with Rachel Love

What I did (and continually do) to commit to the sisterhood…

I recognized that my sisters and I all want the same thing, to be loved and appreciated.

I understood that we each have a different part of the pie and we do not have to fight for it.

If a sister is super amazing (even if it triggers my insecurities) I choose to TRUST that her amazingness is a gift to the world and no threat to me.

I choose to see us as a vast tribe working for the same big mama.

When I have fallen into the trap of judging and comparing I have asked forgiveness of the sister involved (usually just in my mind unless the right moment comes to share) for projecting my crap at her. (I use the process of ho’pono’pono constantly with this sort of thing- cant recommend it enough…)

Also…I forgave my sisters for collectively buying into this false notion of separation and competition. The fact is that we were trained into the separation paradigm that creates bitchiness…

Bitchiness is fabulous fuel for the patriarchy

It keeps us in competition so it keep us alone, so it keeps us disempowered…to claim sisterhood is to change your reality and claim your birth right as a woman to feel loved and supported.

The sisterhood will heal you (and the rest of the world too).

At a Tao Tantric Arts Retreat

In many traditional cultures it was understood that the women (when united!) were holding the fabric of the community together, they were bonding together, birthing together, dreaming together, praying together and working through their crap together. It was understood that to destroy the culture and health of a tribe you went and dismantled the women’s space first. Without the supportive web of the women, without the spiritual, emotional and energetic holding of the collective feminine it was easy to bring down the village.

I truly believe that what we are doing now is bringing healing to the world through reclaiming sisterhood.

The more we let down our defences, show our vulnerability and open up our hearts to each other, the more love is going to be pumping around this planet healing us all and creating the harmony that we all need.

It is every woman’s inherent birth right but it takes a commitment to rise above the conditioning that tells us that a sexy/successful/beautiful woman is our competition and not our support.

Yes- you have to surrender your judgements and question where they are coming from. And yes you might have to learn a completely new way of relating…

Instead of contracting when you see a woman who you are judging/being emotionally triggered by, you will have to be willing to look at her with the eyes of love, and see your sister, who hurts like you, and dreams like you, and yearns like you.

And in return for your efforts you receive the ultimate prize!

You will have a tribe of deeply loving women supporting you, loving you and blessing you, every step of the way.

What could be more valuable than that?

Truly, the only reason I am able to do what I do is due to the back up of my super strong sisterhood. Through our sisters we learn to love ourselves, from this place of wholeness we can be in relationship with the men in our lives in a healthy way.

To create a fulfilling experience of woman hood, the sisterhood comes first !

Do you have difficulty connecting to other women? If so perhaps you could benefit from working through these issues with a loving sister coach ( like me!).

I am available for one on one sessions and coaching programs Contact me now !

Living Love- Reclaiming our Wild Sacred Knowing

Our wild sacred feminine knowing is our connection to the depths of who we are. To live in relationship with, and receive guidance from, our inner wisdom is to honour and serve the divine feminine principal at a time when its very resurgence has the potential to transform consciousness and bring the world into a state of harmony for the next generations to enjoy.

So how do we do this, how do we live in connection to love, being love, giving love, embodying love? and how do we reclaim our wild sacred knowing, our living connection to the Sacred Feminine?

The mainstream view of modern society is that we need to do something, be something, get something to have a life of meaning. It has us believe that we need to control life rather than be a channel for aliveness .We only validate knowledge from ‘what is scientifically proven’ and fight against our bodies, we have forgotten to listen It is obvious that the world suffers in the face of such an imbalance.

The feminine wisdom that comes from our living experience offers us a completely different paradigm. The feminine values and practices honour the qualities of receptivity and compassion, it values simplicity and beauty and the sensual art of being.

When we befriend and learn from embodied wisdom we transform ourselves and our lives follow suit. We literally embody the Sacred Feminine, bringing healing and balance to the world.

The change that comes from within

Before the change can come in the external world, before we can end the struggle ‘out there’ in the world around us we have to end the fight with self.

And it all begins with the way that we relate to ourselves, it has everything to do with the way that we allow ourselves to be who we naturally are-or not.

It usually requires a lot less effort and a lot more effortlessness, a lot less doing and trying and a lot more being and allowing.

When we initially contemplate such a shift in direction and perspective we might feel fear or disbelief, if I stop ‘trying’ to be good and ‘trying’ to do good, wont I just get lazy, what will I do, how will I contribute? It can feel scary to let go of the reigns of control, but we must do this in order to feel that ‘something deeper’ that wellspring of love flowing beyond the fear,

The most radical thing that we can do is learn to love ourselves because exactly what the world needs is more love, through learning to love ourselves we quite literally transform the world.

The good news is that this is simple, it may not be simple to rewire the ways that we have been doing things for as long as we can remember, yes that does take perseverance and tenacity(and yes this is the path of the warrioress), but the methods of cultivating self love are simple and completely within our means to utilize and live.

More than that… it is a path of profound discovery, effortless unfolding and incredible joy.

Knowing who we are

In order to know and feel our inherent worth we need to cultivate a relationship with ourselves and our bodies that is self-affirming and supportive. We have to know ourselves- really well. We need to know what makes us feel good, we need to know what does not make us feel good, we need to know how to ask for what we need and most of all we need to be able to give ourselves what we need.

Our spiritual path as woman is a process of feeling into our experience and learning to trust and be guided by our natural wisdom.

(Not by emotion-this is a very important distinction to make for a woman as although the emotional life needs to be fully met and experienced and accepted, and the energy within the emotions skilfully channelled, if we navigated life purely from our emotional perspective then we can easily fall into confusion and overwhelm.)

Yoga and Tantra and the Tao all offer us tools to explore ourselves and our relationship with the natural flow of things. But whatever our spiritual and life practice looks like what counts is our capacity to listen, to learn the language of our inner world and find out our unique way to navigate our internal terrain with skill and respect.

And it is not a part time job, our Wild Sacred Wisdom is ever changing. It continually invites us to meet ourselves with fresh eyes, to fold our entire experience into our exploration and understanding of divinity. Our everyday life, listening and loving, becomes our spiritual practice. With the very way we move and breathe and live becoming a pure expression of ‘Shakti’ (feminine life force) flowing freely.

This quest requires dedication, curiosity, tenderness and devotion.

It requires gathering up everything that we are and everything we have experienced and everything in our present experience whatever that may be, in our tender embrace.

This is love in action, this is radical, sometimes it is incredibly painful to love our selves through our dark times, in our contracted shapes, our fear and our vulnerability. But we can no longer run and hide from life if we want to receive the fruits of our knowing. This is part of the deal. To BE HERE FULLY and not shut off, not shrink away from the intensity of who we are and what we experience.

Guided by deep feeling

On this journey we have the power of reasoning that we can draw upon and something much deeper still, a wisdom that is in a dynamic relationship with life and which has a greater view of the picture than our reasoning mind ever has.

On the path of self-discovery

everything is welcome

Our power lies in our willingness to show up and enquire and to be there for ourselves whatever happens. The connection to our inner divine feminine is, in a very real way, the quality of the divine mother with her capacity to gather us up and love us up whatever we do. She shows us that when we fuck up we can learn from it and that when we begin to pay attention and listen deep it is amazing how much we begin to notice and learn.

We can learn to be guided by deep feeling……..

Deep feeling being our inner wisdom, a sense that is deeper than the emotional whirlwinds of experience, you could call it intuitive knowing, our gut feeling- call it whatever makes sense to you, personally I call it wild sacred feminine knowing. Whatever you call it, it cannot be understood or logically explained, no scientist is going to be able to prove it, it has to be experienced first hand. It has a life of its own, and in all indigenous cultures the women were shown how to connect to it, these days we have to find it ourselves, you could say, we have to reclaim it.

Fortunately it never went anywhere and many of us have accessed it very naturally. Because it is natural, simply the most natural thing ever, but if we are stuck in our heads, like most of us were trained to be, then we miss it.

And if we miss out…..

When we miss it, we miss out on our inner guidance, the compass that always shows the way and we will probably miss out on the capacity to accept and embrace all that we are. We might find ourselves living a life that does not truly satisfy and fulfil us, we may find ourselves walking around in shrunken versions of ourselves or in relationships that do not allow us to blossom, we will probably not be the living breathing glowing radiant self that we were born to be, unable to taste our feminine essence and express the juiciness of who we are.

And what a shame that would be.

The good news is ….

The good news is that although our connection can be forgotten, or even just overlooked a bit too regularly, it is always there ready to light us back up, ignite us back to life, illuminate what we need to know.

We can find it together ( our capacity ‘to listen’ magnifies in the company of women sharing the intention) and we can find it through our own relationship with life. All we need to do is learn to listen, listen deep. That’s it. To come out of our heads and into our hearts and into our bodies and listen.

Life is continually providing you the opportunity to listen deeply within and meet all that you feel with unconditional loving acceptance

When we feel comfortable with ourselves, we find that from this basic space of allowing, we can meet and explore ourselves and the life that is constantly expressing itself within us, through us and around us. Our whole life becomes the stage on which we dance the unfolding of our unique Wild Sacred life.

Knowing ourselves is an endless quest and learning to access our inner knowing is an endless journey with no definite destination. It is the journey of our lives, the unveiling of the wild sacred woman within.

A love story….

And it is a love story, an adventure thriller, a murder mystery (where we die again and again and live to tell the tale) there is action and stillness, romance and heartache.

The story is both deeply personal and completely collective and entirely impersonal, a shared drama where there is a place for every aspect of our inner and outer life, and we have to be there through THE WHOLE THING and participate with every level of our being! Because by showing up and being present to being here fully we contribute our essence to the mix this is our sacred offering, when we all show up then this story can be a great one,

It is our part of the story that we have power over,

Our actions and reactions, whether we listen to our needs or ignore them, whether we listen to what our bodies tell us or push on through regardless. Whether we allow ourselves to dance with life or just keep on walking in a strait line, not looking, not feeling, not listening. Whether we follow the call of our hearts or the reasoning voice of fear in our heads.

The great letting go

This is a path that requires letting go of what does not serve us and also walking gently on the earth. Of allowing our selves to be held as we grow and learn and to hold others in the same way, this is the feminine resurgence and this is the medicine that the world is hungry for. Through this capacity to STAY WITH and BE WITH and BREATHE THROUGH and FEEL INTO we learn to sense that something is holding us all the way through, this is divinity, the greatness that is both beyond us and within us.

This quest is the quest for truth, and what is truth but love?

And what is the point of love if we do not feel it and be it and dance with it and be danced by it? This is the feminine way and all women are cordially invited to take part and by doing so we call in the wild sacred masculine and let it know that we are ready to meet and create together. We do what we do in service of love, the greatest love that is, a love that is lived and alive and expressed within us, and through us.

I love nothing more than to provide spaces for women to experience this for themselves, to plug into the wisdom and power from within. Please Join me at workshop or retreat or book in for a private session.

Tantra 101 – 4 tips for daily life

We think that the way out of our old patterns will be complicated.

Secretly we want the release, we want to feel free, we want to feel alive, comfortable in our own skins and confident in our place on the earth. We crave this, yet we also fear this, we fear ourselves, we fear being exposed. We are conditioned to be afraid of life and our patterns keep those fears in place.

We fear that perhaps we will never move past these patterns that hold us in fear and separation…we can begin to think that it will take a super powerful highly advanced technique to get us out of our old patterns and into an experience of freedom.

As it turns out, the way beyond our patterns does not involve a complex magic trick, it does not come in the form of a special drug or a high salary or a mastery of a sexual technique or a fancy meditation technique or any technique for that matter…

The cosmic joke is that we just need to REMEMBER HOW IT IS TO BE NATURAL!

Is that all?

That might seem overly simple, but the truth is that in our essence we are wild and sacred and naturally ‘plugged in’ beings governed by an incredible in-built intelligence. Most of us were not educated to listen and respond to this natural wild intelligence but there is a way of coming back to it.

Basically. Tantra in my practice and understanding, is essentially a way of living and relating in which we embrace life and reclaim our natural spiritual wisdom and innocence.

In innocence there is TRUST, there is playfulness, there is the ability to be vulnerable and open and SURRENDER to what feels alive in the moment. There is the willingness to go past ideas of right and wrong and our conditioned patterns to embrace life as it is and experience life in its fullness.

Through Tantra we learn to BE with ourselves rather than run from ourselves. We shine a loving light of acceptance within so that our shadows can exist without being cut off from our deep heart. We learn to be transparent about what is really going on for us and in the process we learn to accept who we are, open more to more of what we are, and move beyond the fear that keeps us wrapped up in our old patterns.

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Tantra means ‘ to weave’ and it also means ‘to expand’ . Through loving self acceptance and the willingness to honour all aspects of life as intrinsically sacred we weave all aspects of ourselves into one conscious tapestry of life. When we invite the possibility of expanding beyond ‘the known’ we invite great shifts and leaps in our behaviour and our lives.

The subject of Tantra is huge, yet it is only working for us if it is guiding us back to an experience of simplicity, of freedom, of love.

Gathering in a space dedicated to this living exploration (like a Tantra workshop) is amazing, but we can also explore the basic principals of Tantra in our daily lives by simply being DEVOTED TO THAT WHICH FEELS NATURAL. Through consciously reclaiming and inhabiting that natural wild, open, loving nature that we had as small children.

Here are a few tips for bringing this exploration into your daily life.

1. Follow the natural flow

When we are stuck in our old patterns we are usually trying to manipulate our reality in order to avoid pain and
rejection. This is kind of like the polar opposite of trust. This is the opposite of sensing into the flow and following that flow.

Following the flow involves sensing into what is moving in you right now, and following that.

Because most of us were trained to live from our heads and not our bodies then this usually involves a process of reorientation.

And it really is a process, it involves checking in with ourselves again and again and again.

You can stop at any moment of the day and ask yourself.

‘How do I feel right now?’

‘What do I need?’

Or if you come to a situation where you would like to learn to do things in a more responsive and natural way you can ask:

‘What would life want here?’

We can literally invite in more openness into our experience and consciously choose to trust in our natural responses as well as the universal plan.

Take the time to tune into your own energy, welcome whatever it is that you feel, express it, cultivate it, there are so many wonderful ways to do this, explore them, weave them into the tapestry of your life.

2. Connect, intimately, constantly.

Often we tend to think of intimacy as something that we experience only with our lover, and although the kind of intimacy we share in sexual experiences is indeed a potent form of intimacy.

We can experience intimacy anytime and anywhere when we let go of our sense of being a separate person.

My research experiment in recent years has been to see how it is to simply reveal the way that I am feeling and to lay myself bare under the gaze of others, even if they are bringing up my stuff.

Yes I actually ‘practice being seen’ and I really recommend this amazing but super simple practice.

Fortunately you can do it anywhere…

Great places to do it are dance floors, sexual encounters and anytime that you notice that you feel fear. In those moments you can notice what your instinct says to do. Is it to look cool? Is it to numb out? Instead of acting out of habit, take a pause, check in within, keep on breathing and focus on being in your body as you are witnessed by another being.

When you allow yourself to be real, you become a walking permission slip allowing everyone else to be real….

Try it for yourself…. amazing experiences of everyday intimacy could happen!

3. Create spaces for intimacy

Instead of waiting and hoping for profound exchanges of intimacy to happen, you can create those opportunities yourself by asking for what you need.

First of all decide who there is in your life who you trust and then decide on a clear way to ask them to join you in your exploration.

This could be a space where you will simply gaze into your each others eyes for 10 minutes then share a hug.

It could be a space where you meditate together and then exchange some intuitive healing.

Be clear about your needs and intentions and creative about the kind of container and experience you will create. If you are both clear about the guidelines and boundaries then both of you can relax into the space and great healing can occur.

I REPEAT! It is important to be super clear about the boundaries. You can ask the person if they are willing to hold a loving non- sexual space for you. This could be with the intention to help release some emotions, to ground you into your body through loving non-goal-orientated touch, or simply to share a space of presence together.

You could just say ‘Are you willing to hold space for me?’

Creating these kinds of spaces for intimacy is incredibly liberating and empowering, you can do this if you are in a relationship or not. Start small and experiment.

4. LET GO OF CONTROL!

It doesn’t have to be hard, it can just be a simple question to self:

‘How would it be to let go of this thought and allow myself to be free in this moment?’

‘How would it be if everything was perfect and this fear/anger/sadness/insecurity that I feel is ok?’

And then breathe and stay grounded, allow your feelings, and be open to the energy shifting – and see what happens.

All these are simple ways to invite in a completely different way of living and relating. A way of living where we are not living from fear, a way of living where we are open to the fullness of life moving through us. It takes vigilance and courage and humility to notice when we are acting from fear, and to choose another way. But once you get a feel for how that feels in your life, you will begin to LOVE it.

I encourage you to take your natural self into the world, explore, share and have fun!

Would you like to explore these principles in a safe and supportive space with other women?

Join us for the Sacred Succulence- Feminine Yoga and Tantra Retreat in 2016 in Bali

Do you need me to hold space for you?

Thats what I do! I offer personal sessions and coaching programs (to both women and men) to help you identify and move through your old patterns in a loving supportive way.

And other workshops and retreats for women.

Get in touch! I would love to hear from you !

Take me deeper or do not take me at all

Last night I symbolically threw my shame in the river, I threw in the subtle shame I realised I hold on some level about being single. As if maybe that makes me somehow inadequate or undesirable or just not good enough at manifesting!

I released this unhelpful thought form, because it is not based on truth.

If I really wanted a man, I could ‘get’ one, I could manipulate reality somehow and find a body to share my bed with, but the truth is that I do not just want any body. I want a man who can truly open me and open TO me. A man who can really see me, a man who is dedicated to growth and truth in the same way that I am. A man who takes me deeper than I can go myself.

I am determined not to purchase the idea that men are ‘behind’ the women in terms of growing up and showing up (although I could easily rustle up a hell of a lot of evidence to prove this) and my intention in writing about this subject is not to point out that men are not capable of really meeting me. It is about me getting super clear about where I am investing my energy, where I am losing energy, where I am barking up the wrong tree, where I am forgetting to trust, where I am selling out for the hope of fulfilling a romantic vision, and losing touch with reality in the process.

Forgive me for making pronouncements for all women, because many might disagree, but from my own experience I would say that the romantic illusion is FUCKING STRONG for us women.

I am generally a very grounded woman (and pretty wise actually, ask my friends!) and yet in the field of relating I have observed an unbelievable tendency to create intricate webs of delusion centred around whoever it is I am attracted to. FUCK. It is SO frustrating, I experience first hand how I can go into a complete story as soon as I fancy a guy.

So this article is about ME, and this tendency of women to give our power away, in the hope of receiving love and validation and fulfilling a romantic fantasy.

Let me take you back 48 hours, to a scene by a river, here in magnificent beautiful tropical Bali. At a restaurant with a dear soul sister, I was freshly out of a period of fasting and meditation, with a fresh perspective on THE TRUTH about what had been REALLY going on with the last guy I had been relating to.

First of all, the guy is lovely, was as honest with me as he could be, this is not really about him.

What I could observe clearly, after a couple of weeks of being completely friggin confused and blind, was that I was moving towards this guy, basically because I was following a romantic impulse, and just really wanted to be seen, met and loved, by a man.

Yes I admit it.

I am dying to be loved, seen and met, by a man.

The problem is that this man was so obviously not in a position to meet me and fulfil these needs, yet something in me kept on moving towards him, I was moved from a place of lack rather than a place of fullness, I created a story which fed my unconscious insecurities, and my precious energy was wasted in the process.

On this night, in a fit of clarity on the whole issue, I made a stand for myself, I have no idea if I will uphold it but still it feels really important to at least try.

(And my friend told me I had to write about it, I really didn’t want to because this subject makes me feel really vulnerable, but when she said it I got a funny feeling in my tummy that indicated to me that I had no choice, I had to write about it. And I trust that if you are reading this then this might be meaningful to you in some way.)

So what did I make a stand for?

To not give my power and energy away to relationships that do not take me deeper into an experience of truth, intimacy and aliveness.

To not settle for unconscious relating or unsatisfying sex.

(Am I the only girl who gets emotionally attached as soon as she has sex with someone? This is not my pledge to be celibate until marriage but this is a kick up the arse to myself to honour the fact that my heart and yoni are inextricably linked, and to only create ties to men who are UP FOR THE JOURNEY and ready and willing to meet me in the depths and stay present for the whole process.)

My intention is to HAVE MY EYES OPEN and notice when I have moved from reality into fantasy, to communicate, to be authentic, to be CLEAR ABOUT MY OWN NEEDS, and find empowering ways to fulfil them.

And a note to the men:

I want you, I need you, and if you are relating to me intimately I need you to open to me, if you hold back your presence and love, we both lose out.

If you cannot open to me, please explain to the best of your ability what is going on for you, let me know where you are at, so at least I can try and work from it on my side.

Please help me, lovingly, to stay in my centre and have compassion for the fact that I have this massive urge to love and be loved, and if I am attracted to you, there is a good chance I will project some of my yearning on to you.

Please be aware of how sensitive I am to your touch and presence, I have learnt to be vulnerable and soft so that I can surrender to you as the feminine principal, and that means I come to you un-armoured by choice, so please take care. Please understand that my yearning for love feels bigger than me. I can get blinded by my pull to merge with you!

And thank you for every time you have been honest with me, and loving at the same time, this is incredible medicine for my heart. Thank you for every moment you have come to me with respect and love and received the preciousness of my gifts. Thank you for every time you have entered me with presence and devotion. Thank you for every time you have stayed with me until our process is complete and left me with a feeling of being respected and honoured.

And to myself….and all women

Thank you for being open to love, thank you for being human too, and vulnerable and real, thank you for choosing to focus your energy on what Is expansive and supportive, and making wise choices that serve your greatest needs rather than your need to be validated.

And also.

Life is amazing you are amazing! Please do not sell out for that small part of you who is afraid that she is not loveable!

If there is not a man on the scene that is capable of offering you something of worth, and who is able to recognize and receive the gift of you, don’t waste you time. Be single and proud, make love to life, nurture your energy, feed your power and cultivate discernment. Respect the preciousness of your own energy and the temple of your own body and share it with the people who expand you beyond your small self’s fears…If they are not here now, they will come, until then, rest into being and TRUST!

How to move past fear and embody your inner goddess

One of the women who has attended our ‘Sacred Succulence’ women’s workshops and retreats, and who is, in her words, exploring what succulence is to her, and how she can embody that more, was telling me on day 2 of a 3 day workshop about the voices in her head that tell her why everyone else is sexier and more empowered than she is and tell her that maybe she should just give up and go home and get back into her comfort zone…

We spoke about how damn normal that is, how we all have our own versions of those stories. It was a beautiful sharing in which we could both reveal the ways that our fear works in us and closes us down.

Then the next time we spoke was the last morning of the 3 day workshop and something big had obviously shifted, she was standing taller, she was swinging her hips and smiling brightly and had obviously stepped into her goddess self. She looked at me and saw that I was seeing her, really seeing her and recognising her dramatic shift into her goddess self, and she said ‘yes-why not?’

Indeed..why not?

2000 years of repression of the feminine is no longer a good enough excuse as to why we would make ourselves small.

Those voices inside our heads that have nothing but negative criticism also need not be a reason for not saying YES to embodying our own power, beauty and sensuality.

The fear that our own power and sensuality is scary, selfish, inaccessible or lacking, need also not be a stumbling block that prevents us from connecting to our feminine essence and power.

What I love the most about my work in holding spaces for women to activate and explore their feminine energy is that women can feel safe enough to go beyond those voices and begin to discover for themselves what succulence, sensuality and feminine power looks like and feels like for them.

In these workshops and retreats we provide the space for women to explore what living as a goddess looks like and feels like for them, we are all a different flavour of goddess energy and we need to know, respect and claim our unique qualities.

Women might come in with the idea that they want to fit an image of what ‘sexy’ and ‘powerful’ and ‘succulent’ looks like and that they need to change who they are to fit this image. But they soon discover that the journey to embodying these qualities is really about creating the conditions for their own deep feminine qualities to emerge naturally.

In these workshops and retreats we provide the much needed space for women to awaken and celebrate their unique qualities ,and we provide the space for them to release what prevents them from feeling and living in alignment with their feminine essence.

I can honestly say that no woman has ever left one my workshops with anything less than a big smile and a twinkle in her eye and a spring in her step. And of course this has so much to do with the Shakti awakening practices offered, but the real medicine, the real jewel that makes it so potent and life changing is the nourishing space of sisterhood.

Whilst many women in the generations before us lived without communities of supportive women, that paradigm of isolation is no longer workable because it keeps us separated from the empowerment and activation that we receive from gathering in sacred space with other women.

Sacred space is a space we create together with the intention to go beyond the superficial, all indigenous cultures have gathered in this way and these spaces were the backbone for a healthy society. In that space we do not chat, we do not interact on a superficial level, we do not judge. We join together in a space of unconditional love and acceptance so that we may explore, release and connect to that which we have been over looking in our busy lives. This supportive space, like the womb, is the nourishing foundation on which we can grow and thrive as a woman.

The truth is that we can not do it alone, those voices can take over us, we can so easily get pulled into giving too much, we can get so stuck in our heads, up tight, closed off, and feel helpless, not knowing what we need or who we are.

In sisterhood we remember who we are, we remember how it feels to be supported and connected. From the ground we find within beautiful things can begin to grow effortlessly; we tap into the wellspring of Shakti, of feminine life force, rather than continually drawing from, and depleting, our reserves.

Together we are strong, together we are empowered and reborn, together we shine and are able to offer our gifts to the world, to our men and to our children with a sense of joy rather than obligation.

It is my prayer that more and more women offer themselves this experience of sisterhood and regular time spent in sacred space with other women, mining the gold that rests inside every woman’s body; that exquisite feminine essence of sweet succulence, so that we may navigate life in a more feminine way, honoring ourselves and life in the process.

Come and join us in sacred space! Click here for information about our upcoming Bali Retreats!

The Goddess of Willendorf

In Search of the Feminine Divine