Softening. The essence of being a woman..

I have spent most of my life navigating what it truly means to be a woman. I did not ever believe for one minute that I would have to ‘learn’ to be one. However, as it stands, I did have to learn, and I am still learning today. With many different and conflicting forms of womanhood afoot, I was at times very confused. It was only when I ceased looking outwards for some type of validation, I suddenly realised that being a woman certainly does not ride on appearance as much as it depends on essence.

With the embodiment of this realisation, I began to ritualistically surrender into myself where I knew I would find the essence of womanhood. I now understand that awakened womanhood depends on flow, rhythm, and nourishment to stay awake and that living a life with force, fear and expectation sends her back to sleep. Living where we consign to force or ridged structure and obsessive consistency, betroths the woman to tameness. It demands that she lives in rigidity, never leaving her open to spontaneous creation or to move in devotion to her monthly moon cycles, to tend to her children and family and to release or express emotions at will. It was never the woman’s role to stay consistent and ridged.

Women are fluid like water, they need to move, dance and sway to cultivate feminine energy. This energy needs to always be in motion. Like the water which trickles down the stream, moving fluidly around and beyond the rocks and pebbles, this is our true nature. This moving energy is the main resource we use to manifest and create.

In the past when I had adhered to my perception of womanhood through the examples I had seen growing up, I saw many women pride themselves on how well they could, “cover up”. Cover up their emotions, cover up their faces with makeup, cover up their monthly bleeds or skipping their bleeds altogether. I modelled myself on these ‘womanly’ examples. I felt proud of myself when I was upset but just “got on with it”, I’d feel powerful when I would harden up to the pain I could feel and soldier on. I felt accomplished when I had sports to play during my bleeds and I charged on through ignoring the need for rest. I was doing all the things I needed to do to be a woman that fit into the world I found myself in. I began to believe that having a hard shell got me further in life than being weak or soft. So, I lived everyday up until a few years ago, like a stone wall. That wasn’t to say I didn’t feel emotions in all ways, because I did, but I just held it all inside this firm exterior so I could show up to life like everyone else.

Three years ago, my heart started beating in a new rhythm. I began to yearn for more flow, creativity, pleasure and feeling. Yet I felt confined to the identity I had created to keep myself, “consistent”. I wanted a sense of freedom and liberation, I began to desire wild crazy, deep connected love and sex.. I could not control the yearning and it began to seep out of every crack that had begun to show in my stone wall persona. It was terrifying to even contemplate stepping into an unknown terrain that contradicted my very existence. However, a pulse deep down inside me began propelling a wildness through the network of my veins and out through the wounding of my skin that I was shedding.

I was ready to start exploring yet without a manual it took many years before I trusted, leaned into, and integrated this transformation of womanhood.

Here is one of the affirmations I ritualistically sight as often as I can to remind me of who I am as a woman in my essence.

Soft body

Soft nervous system 

Soft perception 

Soft mind

Soften to the land 

Soften to the pain 

Soften to the resistance 

Soften into rhythm and flow

And then…… 

Receive wisdom

Receive creativity

Receive love

Receive joy

Receive ecstasy and pleasure 

Receive magic 

Receive abundance 

Receive all the infinite cosmic gifts 

The true essence of a woman is to surrender softly into herself and ride the undulating waves through every situation life has to offer. She is an intricate masterpiece made from all the seasons and all the weather in those seasons. She is wild, captivating, loving and fierce. She is an explicit expression of it ALL.

To be a woman for me is to cry when the tears come, to wade through the muddy waters of motherhood, to softly accept others in their pains and hold space for them to come out the other side when they are ready. To accept my anger, not hide it, to be consistently inconsistent when working my way through the seasons of life, to awaken to my feminine body’s capacity for intense pleasure, joy and to soften into my body without the need to judge or get fixated on the exterior.

To be a woman is to feel the invitation into our feminine energy and to understand that our gifts and powers rise from the core of our essence not the dictation of external influences.

* This blog was first published on Claire's substack.