Healing The Wounded Feminine

Being a woman is a great adventure. I'm sharing my experience of inner discovery and healing in a 3-part mini-series of podcasts. If you are a man, you can get a glimpse of the feminine world and better understand women in your life. If you are a woman - join me in this self-contemplation of beauty.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this talk.

It will be one of three in a mini-series dedicated to feminine power.

I felt this inspiration after the recent Women's Day and I'd like to share my own perspective and experience.

This may be interesting for both men and women because we all have both masculine and feminine energies and of course I will be sharing from my own subjective perspective so don't hesitate to write comments and add to what resonates and perhaps to what doesn't.

In the mini-series there will be three episodes.

First will be about the wounded feminine and it is actually this one I'm going to tap into this topic right after I introduce the series and the two other episodes I plan will be on the full feminine power which is the energy of the creative force,

The life-giving force inside us and maybe we will also cover female leadership there because leadership is one of the topics that inspire me a lot and then last one will be on the relationship between feminine and masculine.

So let's dive into the question of the wounded feminine.

Wounded masculine has become sort of a buzzword recently but I haven't heard so much about the wounded feminine so I'm going to share my own vision and this is actually something that I now remember.

I have started thinking about it a long time ago.

Perhaps it started when I began to transform in my teen years and the question of femininity first arised in me.

So I consider femininity to be sort of synonymous with beauty but not only on the physical level,

Not at all.

It is just a metaphor that I have come up with and just obvious maybe even stereotypical division that I at one point assigned to the differences between the feminine and the masculine.

So I explained it to myself this way.

Women are supposed to be beautiful,

Men are supposed to be strong.

So the concept of beauty was from that point on connected for me with the feminine energy.

Then I was of course growing up and deconditioning myself a lot and I let go of a lot of stereotypes but even today after more than I would say 15 years of thinking about what femininity is I'm still connected to the concept of beauty.

And beauty can be on any level and in any component of ourselves such as heart,

Mind,

And body.

So I consider the healed and healthy feminine energy to be something that allows us to have beautiful heart,

Beautiful mind,

And beautiful body.

And I'm not speaking only about conventional beauty,

Just speaking about beauty.

It is one of life's mysteries and it comes in many shapes and forms.

So this is the healthy version and now the wounded feminine version for me would be something,

Some energy that has a wounded or somehow not beautiful let's say heart.

It doesn't have to be not beautiful in terms of bad somehow,

Not at all,

But just wounded,

Flawed,

But not at its own call or fault,

But rather flawed because something has spoiled it in some way.

So a wounded heart,

A wounded mind,

And a wounded body in terms of beauty,

Flawed but not guilty.

That's how I see the wounded feminine.

And I'd like to make also a comment on the concept of feminism.

To me it's never been very resonating because I associate it with the wounded feminine,

The feminine that is sort of cornered and has to fight back and it is not wounded in terms of wrong somehow,

But wounded because someone has been chasing it and hurting it and now it has to defend itself.

And while doing so,

This wounded feminine energy can manifest in a lot of unbalanced ways.

Let's say to me,

As to a person coming from sort of middle way culture,

Somewhere in between the East and West,

I was born in St.

Petersburg in Russia,

Which is a city in Europe,

Very European and beautiful city in the sense that many cities have also a lot of feminine energy.

And we have a sort of perfectly balanced culture in this term,

Only in this term,

Of course,

Culture in every place is much unbalanced,

Especially in Russia these days.

But in terms of balance between masculine and feminine,

I'd say we are not so bad because there is not so much oppression.

At least I'm speaking about the good circles,

Let's say.

I've been very blessed to have grown up never,

Ever being oppressed in any way for my femininity.

So that's why I say it's quite good environment in some circles,

Because there was not sexism surrounding me,

Nothing provoked me to sort of fight the masculine back.

And I wish it on all women in the world that they wouldn't feel the need to fight back.

But on the other hand,

Why I'm saying it's balanced culture,

Because we also have a sort of this chivalry spirit that men are still trying to be gallant somehow,

Help out with heavy bags and opening doors.

And I find this beautiful.

And I find that such details,

If you accept them,

Can add beauty to your life.

And I personally have never been an advocate for complete and total equality,

Because to me equality means,

You know,

This mathematical sign of being equal,

Identical.

I believe in equal rights,

But not in equal genders.

And it may sound provocative to some,

But I do believe that we are different.

And this is why it's been such a gift for me to live in the culture when those differences are really truly accepted and not through the way of trying to level them out,

You know,

Not through the way of trying to trying to make women identical to men,

But through the way of beautifully coexisting and respecting each other to the fullest in cultural and legal terms.

And I say that this is a gift.

I am grateful and I am blessed.

And I hope this account will help you feel confident and easy and inspired,

Because there are places and lives on this earth where this is a reality.

And I offer you immense compassion if you haven't had such experience in your own life.

But from the point of healthy feminine,

I'd like to invite you to really set aside the fight for a minute in case you are fighting as a feminist and see what part of this fight comes from the sense of legal justice and what part comes from the sense of being wounded and somehow underestimated culturally.

I believe that until we give ourselves the quality healing that we need,

We will not create conditions in the world that will be healing for us.

So it is our first and foremost role as women to give ourselves positive affirmation and healing and full radical acceptance.

I hope it does not sound too abstract.

And what I mean by radical acceptance,

To me,

Accepting that you may have differences is the radical acceptance.

Acceptance of your right to earn money,

To lift heavy bags and open your own doors,

But also acceptance of presence of men in the world and your right to choose the path of being a bit more passive,

In some situations a bit more receiving,

And letting the masculine take care of those heavy things and focusing unapologetically on more elegant and beautiful things,

Such as taking care of your home and creating beauty in life.

And you can do both,

Or you can do just one.

It is your choice.

But definitely,

I do not feel inspired by women that choose to only do the masculine role,

Only earn money,

Only be very self-sufficient,

Carry their own bags.

I do not find it beautiful.

And I know that some women choose this path,

And on no account am I saying that those women are not beautiful.

I think there is a lot of beauty in them,

But to me,

Not in this aspect,

Really.

I already feel this immense contradiction inside me,

And this is difficult to express correctly.

But I think the beauty of this act is in a human deciding to be themselves.

This is what I find beautiful.

And then the strength that is shown by these women who are completely self-sufficient,

And I do not consider myself one of them.

I consider myself to be independent and more than a woman.

I earn my own money,

And I am completely capable of carrying my own bag.

But I am definitely not someone who would restrict a man from helping me.

And I admire the strength of women who do this,

Who choose this path.

But in this moment,

To me,

From my perspective,

They are exercising strength,

Which is inspiring and liberating and exciting.

But they are not exercising the feeling of beauty in this conventional way,

Which doesn't mean that they are not beautiful,

As I said.

It just means that when we tap into archetypical characteristics,

This would be a strong woman to me.

And not a beautiful woman,

Which is not mutually exclusive.

But this is kind of the leading vibe,

The leading theme.

And why I do not feel inspired?

Because I know that with choosing this admirable,

In many ways,

Path,

We can also fall into many shadows.

And most women of such radical strength that I've seen in life,

They've also been very wounded in all three terms that I mentioned,

In the body,

In the mind,

And in the heart.

And by wounded,

Again,

I do not mean ill or defected,

But just somehow oppressed.

And here is probably the epitome.

I don't believe that strength heals those wounds.

I believe only beauty does.

So true feminism,

To me,

Would be accepting radically yourself as a woman,

As opposed and different to a man.

And if you are a woman choosing to live more in your masculine energy,

This is a free world and a free choice.

But definitely,

I would not connect those categories of living in your masculine and being a feminist.

Those are,

To me,

Two different things.

And I really wish for women in the world to be more unapologetic about their femininity,

As unapologetic as they are trying to be now in their masculine.

And maybe I'm getting ahead of time a little bit,

Because,

To be fair,

In most places in the world,

The right for women to be in their masculine has not been fully established yet.

But in my world,

As I said,

I was very fortunate,

And I am still.

So,

Thankfully,

I can already envision this age when we accept our femininity.

Now I'd like to conclude with some practical ways of healing the wounded parts of our feminine beauty.

And let's start with the heart.

A wounded heart is something that comes from heartbreak,

Some other wounds of heart.

And healing heartbreak is a whole different topic and journey.

But I'd say that a wounded heart can definitely cause wounds to the whole feminine energy in you.

So if you've ever been disappointed in some way by the way that your emotional life is going,

Your heart life is going.

So if any man hurt you,

Hurt your feelings,

Just a friend,

A female friend even,

If you had a disappointment in your heart when your beauty,

The beauty of your life,

The beauty of your emotions was compromised and emotions turned ugly,

That is a wound to the feminine.

And now I would tread carefully because we do not want to fall into toxic positivity.

In fact,

I think that accepting your shadow is a huge part of healing the wounded feminine.

But here it is now that it is all connected.

It is often so that when we have our heart wounded,

Then we start also having unhealthy or wounded thoughts.

And this is sort of the self-conditioning.

So we feel hurt and instead of healing our emotions,

Accepting our shadow and seeing the beauty in the shadow,

We start to have also ugly thoughts.

I'm not worthy of love,

I'm not beautiful enough,

I'm not desired.

And such negative affirmations then wound our mind and it loses its beauty,

Its primal sense of purity and self-worth and harmony in life.

And mind is so easily corrupted and the wounded mind wounds our whole feminine energy as well.

When we start to have ugly concepts introduced to us,

That is a huge wound to our feminine.

Ugly concepts is a sort of simplification,

But you understand it can range from just seeing cruelty and not understanding why,

To being conditioned in any way that is negative to your feminine energy.

And I believe that this is where the defensive reaction of feminism comes from.

Of course,

It comes from it's globally accepted like this.

And it is truth that feminist movement originated because of completely unjust conditioning that was inflicted on women throughout many,

Many centuries.

And this conditioning is not beautiful.

It is not beautiful for women to be unfree,

To be exempt from economical and legal systems,

To be oppressed.

It is not beautiful.

Just like that.

And I know it's subjective,

But somewhere inside us there is this barometer of beauty.

And this is not a nice thing to do.

And as simply as that,

We get wounded and our mind starts having the ugly fights.

And that's when our feminine energy inevitably gets wounded.

And of course,

Our own internal masculine energy,

The hero inside us,

Steps up to protect this wounded feminine,

Feminine,

Both in the mind and in the heart.

And then we can easily get lost in that hero energy and completely forget about the feminine.

But even imagine the metaphor,

Like a beautiful lady,

Our feminine energy,

Somehow wounded and hurt by something dark and ugly.

And the hero steps up to fight this darkness.

This is to me this metaphor for the feminist movement.

It's the female masculine.

And it fights.

But in the background,

There is still the wounded feminine,

The lady that is still hurt.

And the hero is not healing her.

He's fighting.

And the healing should also come from some sort of female energy.

So you can imagine inside yourself as the same way as we sometimes step into our inner child to resolve some issues.

We can also tap into our inner sage or some old and infinitely compassionate female,

A wise woman that can heal us from the inside.

Or maybe some of us have a gift to just connect to senior female relatives and just bathe in this loving energy.

This is healing.

This is female,

Beautiful healing for us women.

And finally,

The last but not the least,

There is the wound of body,

Which mostly does not come from some physical flaws,

But rather from some unpleasant occurrences such as pimples.

When you are a teenager,

You get acne,

Your hormones,

They start acting out.

And then also women have a lot of conditioning about their body in general.

So as you see,

Mind,

Body,

And heart,

They're all connected.

I'd say that the wounds of heart trigger wounds of mind.

And wounds of mind often trigger wounds of body when we see ourselves in our mind's eye and we are not beautiful.

But in fact,

We are,

We just don't see it.

And so subjectively,

Our body becomes too fat,

Too long,

Too short,

Too something else.

But this wound can be completely imaginary.

But also over time,

When we don't heal our wounded feminine,

It all manifests in our body.

And countless times I've seen the women who are in that maybe even healthy,

Masculine energy,

But totally wounded feminine,

And they have body flaws,

Like their body shape gets somehow confused.

For example,

They have spine problems,

Or they may be too heavily somehow positioned in space.

And you see that there is an imbalance,

Which is not like something that they were born with.

They just were living for decades probably with their masculine completely outbalancing their feminine and their feminine being also wounded.

And it maybe causes some energetic and psychosomatic consequences.

And then women also start to have flawed,

Let's say,

Unbeautiful elements to their body.

So this may be brutally honest and not resonating with everyone.

But to me,

This realization has been very healing.

And again,

I reiterate my complete acceptance and respect for the masculine energy in women and for the fighting and brave characteristics of the feminine,

Which are also true.

And we will get to them in the next episode on the creatrix energy and female leadership.

But for wounded feminine,

The concept of beauty,

In my opinion,

Is crucial.

And also,

As I said,

Radical acceptance,

Accepting your shadows,

Your weaknesses,

And loving yourself when you are weak,

But so beautiful.

This sort of surrender is immensely healing to the feminine energy.

I thank you for sharing with me this difficult but needed conversation.

And of course,

Those words are not final.

And there is a lot to discuss about the wounded feminine.

I will be grateful for your opinions in the comments.

Many blessings to you.

Reviews

I’ve really enjoyed your talk. You have a beautiful soft voice that is not defensive but relaxed and accepting into her femininity - very much like the concept you’re explaining. I’ve come to realise only at my forties that my feminine was restricted to flourish for decades, and also wounded. My masculine has done a wonderful job of protecting her. And thanks to that she had time to awaken inside and only coming out now, albeit still wounded. Thank you for helping me understand this deeper with your words.