Tony Robbins spoke about being Feminine...a viewpoint I wasn't aware of.
I never thought of where our feminine natures came from or how they were inspired or nurtured...and learned; that if a woman has to be the one in control, who is required to be strong, she is neglecting her soft side.
I have been exploring my feminine side now for the past 7 years. This side was eclipsed from me.
As a child it wasn't a safe place to be.
My being feminine was the very source of my abuse. My father liked little girls...to satisfy his sexual desires. It wasn't safe to be feminine. It was scary to be soft and vulnerable.
And, my body knew no one was in charge. I had no one who was stronger than I. My mother wasn't able to respond to my abuse. My father wasn't able to not hurt me. It is no wonder that my feminine side was sorely neglected. I had to be the tough one.
I knew I didn't have access to this vulnerable soft nurturing self, but I just thought I was born this way...It was good to hear how I grew this way.
I also feel that I am now able to relax and be feminine...that I can actually have both sides of being human.
I learned to be strong in my choices, to stand up for my feelings, instead of being strong while being in abusive relationships.
There is an ocean of difference between the two.
Being strong while being subjected to abuse language or actions isn't strong, it is being without a choice. Unable to move or to have free expression, isn't strong, it is a frozen victim.
To be able to extricate yourself, to begin to move after years of remaining frozen is a task that will require great strength and inner fortitude, but it can be done.
It will be seen as a weakened state, to tuck tail and run...seen as a traitor to the family etc, but it will awaken the feminine soft and vulnerable side within you.
As you begin to make choices, the emotions, which I heard yesterday means to move. Your emotions will come alive, you will begin to move and be moved by feelings.
This frozen state we are put in when we have no choice but to withstand the blows, leaves us without access to our emotions. We have to squelch them in order to not be hit or shuned or kicked out. Hide our emotions and don't move.
Once we start moving and feeling and following our emotions, we will be reconnected inside. I didn't have to go and find these feelings, these feelings began to feel free to be expressed.
Years worth of crying was stored inside of me. Years worth of feelings bubbled to the surface.
I wasn't born cold and unfeeling, I was that way in order to please my parents...I had to make no moves, emit no emotions; I couldn't be unruly in the chaos, I had to be the calm in the storm.
I had to make our family look normal...by being a 'good' girl.
Imagine the task at hand for a young child...to dissolve a pedophile and his knowing wife and create them to be normal folk.
The same strength it took to try and create this image is the exact strength I used to tear it down. To sit down and not lift a finger to paint them pretty, but to let them be in their raw glory.
A family of abuse. We looked like it, talked like it, stood like it, acted like, lived like it, and yet we had to be silent and pretend it wasn't happening...frozen in a land of impossibilities.
I am seen as unruly, acting untoward in regards to family. I am the oddity, the black sheep, the cold hearted bitch, by literally being able to move. I am no longer frozen and stuck, I am free to say and feel and act in the manner in which it suits my truth.
Again, I have a hard time trying to picture my old life...but can feel the heavy garment of restraint I lived under. Like trying to be joyful and free, while wearing a iron suit of armour.
We don this garment in order to protect our soft sides...pushing down and back all our emotions and walk in the world minus our feelings.
Like little army men ready for battle hits.
I also recall the day my suit or armour crumbled, when I shook and the truth was able to penetrate beneath this armour, when my feelings hooked up with the truth, the suit of armour fell away.
I recall feeing so helpless and vulnerable, so naked and raw, like a newborn child...with nothing to protect me but the truth. It seemed so flimsy.
Yet its strength is stronger than my former suit of armour...it penetrated it.
It broke it.
My suit of armour that I used to survive was called pretend...denial. A fantasy that I created.
My feminine side lay beneath the armour. It was reborn the moment someone else seen my truth. My truth came out in the papers, on the news on TV, it wasn't so much my father was a pedophile, but that it was he, who stole my feminine side. I didn't know it was wrecked and stuffed away. I thought I was born this way.
Photograph by Hannah Jukuri
I love that my feminine side is coming out in quilts...the Lady!
