“Though her soul requires seeing, the culture around her requires sightlessness.
Though her soul wishes to speak its truth, she is pressured to be silent.”
-Clarisa Pinkola Estés
A curiosity about her development as a gendered human being and the social and cultural norms that shaped her has brought her on a journey of re-discovering her embodied experience of being a woman. She needs to question what she’s learnt so far and the choices that led her to where she is in her life right now.
She is driven by a need to reclaim and own her life in a deeply embodied sense. She yearns to come back home to her female body and feel welcomed, accepted and loved with all her needs and longings. She sets off on a journey back to her “desires” as opposed to her “desirability”; a voyage back to her senses; a crossing over to trusting her embodied knowing and instincts; an expedition to a place in her, where she can feel unconditional love for herself, compassion and understanding for the choices she’s made and the choices she is about to make.
In her relationships, she’s often been challenged by an experience of efforting, discomfort in stillness, and inability to relax and feel satisfied. As if she’s been born ready to act, to make things better for others, to protect, save, and fix. She experiences it in her body, in tensing her buttocks, mobilising energy, always ready, always in action. However, what she longs for is a feeling of unconditional worth, a sense of belonging without having to prove that she fits in, and an experience of being valued, seen, and loved for who she is.
Slowly, by staying in touch with and honouring her needs, she cultivates a sense of trust in her presence and that there is value in stillness and “not doing”. She learns to just be, and what’s it like for her to surrender to the present moment. She befriends her vulnerability and discovers a power in expressing her feelings authentically. She becomes accepting of herself and starts believing in her capacities. She slowly re-owns her feminine, intuitive, and spontaneous nature, desires and longings from her father, other relationships with men, and from the ground where her female parts were not fully welcomed, didn’t feel safe to be present, or where her more male-like traits were supported and valued.
Through that process, she finds healing and feels more grounded and at peace with herself as a whole.
She arrives at an understanding that “when a woman reconnects with her sexuality as an innate creative life force, she recognises that it can take many forms as she expands her creative expression [...]. She understands that embracing her feminine sexuality allows her to have all her senses heightened, be fully present in the moment, experience her truth, and feel complete” (Johnston, 2000). She delights in her budding vitality, she feels alive.
With time, expanding her embodied self-awareness of gender and sexuality and strengthening connections with these parts of herself, afford her a sense of greater solidity and grounding. In her body experience, she drops down into her pelvis and genitals in a way that feels safe and comfortable rather than constricting and risky. She feels she can draw creative energy and support from the very root of her body and with more ease and awareness, she accesses located there sensations. She feels she can trust her embodied instincts more, and with the solidity in her woman-ness, she can be fully present and explore feelings of intimacy and sexuality in therapy.
A Gestalt therapist can support you in the process of becoming and discovering your wholeness, fullness, and completeness. I wonder what YOUR story of self-discovery journey could be like...?
Author: Aneta Gawin
September 2024
#FemaleEmpowerment #EmbodiedHealing #SelfDiscoveryJourney #OwnYourLife #GenderIdentity #FeminineWisdom #ReclaimingFemininity #Womanhood #TherapyForWomen #TraumaHealing #BodyAwareness #EmbraceYourTruth#VulnerabilityIsStrength
Works Cited
Estes, C. P. (2017). Women Who Run With the Wolves. Myths and stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (Digital Edition ed.). River Wolf Press.
Johnston, A. (2000). Eating In The Light Of The Moon. How women can transform their relationships with food through myths, metaphors & storytelling. Carlsbad: Gurze Books.
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