Co-written with the Founder of Book with Tiffany, Tiffany Vakilian.
What does it really mean “Embrace Your Feminine Power”?
This month, I’ve connected with some phenomenal women who have ignited energy into an already hot summer’s end. Their energy has helped them leap forward into their future.
Each of these women, in their own right, demonstrates how each of us can call upon our divine feminine energy to support inner healing transformations, and use that energy to create unique gifts to heal the world.
Each soul innately holds both masculine and feminine energy. Both femininity and masculinity qualities are sacred and hold value.
In modern society, especially for professional career women, the feminine energy might feel muted. The pressure to “be enough” in the realms of the workspace has resulted in dimming the light of “femininity”.
Allowing the Yin to Step into the Light
Traditionally, the Yang energy shadows the light of the Yin energy. From a personality perspective, the masculine Yang energy is considered action-oriented, direct, sharp in tone, competitive, cerebral, and industrial.
By contrast, when it comes to personality, the feminine Yin energy is rooted in intuition, compassion, collaboration, creativity, receptivity, and emotions.
Both energies, when united, create a holistic balance.
Feminine Archetypes
There are archetypes based on mythical Gods from different cultures. Feminine archetypes are the earth mothers.
Ancient Mediterranean cultures include goddesses like Aphrodite, Astarte, and Hecate.
My Hindu upbringing exposed me to the concept of Shakti, which means life force energy. She is the archetype who you’d invoke for strength, fertility, and power. The Hindu Goddesses referred to as Devi, embody this Shakti, universal energy, and can take form different forms such as Sarasvati, Lakshmi, or Kali.
Discovering Divine Feminine Energy
Devi manifests and expresses her energy in different forms. Devi can manifest the divine feminine energy as beauty. Or she can be expressed as consciousness or intelligence.
When expressed as the energy of Goddess Saraswati, Devi brings poetry, music, and philosophy into human lives. As Goddess Lakshmi, Devi manifests as livelihoods – such as abundance, grace, and charm. But these are not the only ways they can be seen.
And what would humanity be without the mythical stories, songs, and rich languages of the world?
Devi can also be expressed as Goddess Kali. Think of Kali akin to the Incredible Hulk. Hint, you don’t want to piss her off! This archetype celebrates the fearless, powerful, and feminine energy of the modern woman.
Kali is visually depicted as a wild beautiful dark young woman, with deep blue skin, wearing only a garland of 108 severed human heads, a skirt of severed arms, and brandishing a sword.
In Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s definition, to be wild means
“establish territory, to find one’s pack, to be in one’s body with certainty and pride regardless of the body’s gifts and limitations, to speak and act on one’s behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one’s cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, and to retain as much consciousness as possible.”
She is a fully embodied volatile beauty that personifies the essence of fierce feminine energy.
Goddess Kali can take on two aspects of the same Shakti ultimately representing spiritual transformation. One aspect of her can be very approachable and compassionate. This aspect manifests as the liberator or protector. She stands by your side to help you conquer your fears and doubts. She represents unconditional love and forgiveness.
Kali, however, can take on very opposite energy. This aspect of Kali is the death of the smaller ego self, bringing liberation from the illusion of time, materiality, and human form.
This ferocious form of Kali is often illustrated with an image of her holding a severed head of a male demon that had the audacity to challenge her unfairly. Metaphorically this head represents injustice, arrogance, and ignorance.
This aspect of Kali is highly potent energy triggered during times of collective stress, which can lead to the emergence of inner transformations and major shifts.
Kali holds qualities of wildness, rage, fierce maternal protectiveness, liberation from ego, cycles of life, and the source to ignite immense creativity. All of these qualities are an embodiment of the wild woman archetype that lives in each soul agnostic to gender.
She erupts often during moments of collective stress.
All of us, at times, have experienced this form of stress. It is during those times we feel tested by the Universe. And those stressful periods we feel may feel ourselves resisting the energy that is contracting us.
This is the form of divine feminine energy that I experienced when my mom suddenly passed away. During this period, I suffered the sudden upheaval that upended my life.
Overwhelm was soon to follow with a series of other life tragedies in short order.
Meeting My Shadow Self
The Universe invoked my inner Kali.
I witnessed myself go on a journey of spiritual transformation.
On the inside, I was deeply broken. Having spent years in the corporate world, my feminine light was dim.
The very thought of going through the motions of playing my roles as a mother, wife, daughter, and professional working woman, felt like more than I could handle.
Yet, slowly I gathered the courage to confront my shadow self.
Through soul-searching, I realized I had an unfulfilled calling. That is when I founded Omni Mindfulness, my life coaching business.
The activation of my inner Kali became the catalyst for me to seek how to experience authentic joy and peace through meditation and inner soul-work. When the divine feminine became awakened within me, I became inspired to bring the healing energy I found to the rest of the world.
Women Who Called Upon Their Divine Feminine Goddess
The women I interviewed this month have each experienced similar paths leading to the awakening of their inner goddess.
They share their stories about calling upon some form of goddess energy. This is the energy that is expressed in guest Marialuisa Diaz de Leon Zuloaga’s Mythic Life project, guest Sarah Peace’s Joyfully Delicious Kitchen Consulting project, and guest Tiffany Vakilian’s Manuscript to Market Process.
Each story may be unique, but as a collective, our stories paint a colorful tapestry of triumph.
Are you ready to step into your feminine power to heal the world?
Marialuisa Diaz de Leon Zuloaga – Mythic Life Creator
Marialuisa is an International Art Therapist, Somatic Movement Specialist, Author, Mythologist, Educator, Researcher, and Performer. Marialuisa personifies feminine power.
She is the creator of “Mythic Life: Embodying Wisdom, Beauty, and Courage“. Mythic Life is the fruit of over 20 years of practice where she integrates somatic movement, dance, archetypal psychology, mythology, ecology, and expressive arts to create possibilities for awareness, healing, growth, and transformation. She wrote an unpublished collection of academic essays, Somaphilia: Re-membering the Soul and the Aesthetics of Being, which she is preparing for publication.
Born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, Marialuisa has lived in many places in Mexico and the U.S., which has taught her to navigate cultural differences and enriched her view of the world.
Her professional experience in psychology, somatics, and the arts spans over 20 years and includes work in education, private practice, and community intervention.
Marialuisa received her M.A. in Engaged Humanities with Emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Since 2014, Marialuisa has served on the ISMETA board of directors. She is also a registered Expressive Arts Therapist through the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, and a registered Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator from ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association.)
In our conversation, Marialuisa shares the powerful story of the formation of a Feminine Archetypal Trinity, consisting of mythological figures: Inanna, Persephone, Demeter, Hekate, and Psyche. As these feminine figures constellated, each bearing their unique gifts, this union became the catalyst for the initiation into the feminine consciousness.
Listen to a soundbite of Marialuisa’s podcast by clicking on the video to the left.
To listen to her full podcast click here.
Sarah Peace – Joyfully Delicious Life Advocate
Sarah Peace is a Speaker, Joyful Life Advocate, and Kitchen Coach.
From birth, Sarah has learned to survive and thrive, having been born with a rare condition that required over 35 surgeries, paralyzed her vocal cords, and forced her to overcome PTSD. Once Sarah could not eat, except through a feeding tube. But when Sarah had her first bite of food as a toddler, she observed that the conversations during meals created special bonds.
While growing up in a “foodie family”, Sarah fell in love with food and connecting in the kitchen. She learned how to serve herself and others while gaining confidence through cooking.
Since then, Sarah has made it her life mission to connect and create lasting bonds through food and stories. She is the founder of Joyfully Delicious Kitchen Consulting, where she combines kitchen coaching with teaching how to live a joyful life through conscious choice.
She believes her feminine power comes from her ability to choose joy.
In this podcast, Sarah shares her story of overcoming voice paralysis to becoming a feminine empowered voice that joyfully shares her wisdom.
Listen to a soundbite of Sarah’s podcast by clicking on the video to the left.
To listen to her full podcast click here.
Tiffany Vakilian – The Manuscript Midwife
Tiffany Vakilian is a quintessential Renaissance Gal, who is an award-winning poet and performer committed to helping women use spoken, written, sung, or embodied word art to facilitate worldwide social awareness and connection.
Known as the Manuscript Midwife, Tiffany created her Manuscript to Market Process to help unpublished authors transition from holding their stories inside to confidently sharing published books on the global stage.
Listen to Tiffany as she shares her powerful story of overcoming grief and experiencing empowerment as a Woman, Wife, Mother, Editor, Author, and International Speaker.
Listen to a soundbite of Tiffany’s podcast by clicking on the video to the left.
To listen to her full podcast click here.
Co-author, Tiffany Vakilian
This blog was written in collaboration with Tiffany Vakilian, founder of Book with Tiffany.
She is an Editor, Writing Coach, and International Public Speaker.
Ready to share your story? Click here for a consultation. Or join her Manuscript to Market Workshop.