UNSHAMING | the ‘Dark Feminine’, Active Surrender & Sexual Sovereignty
Dark feminine* is a part of our human expression which is connected to feeling deeply, allowing all emotions to run through the body. She is connected to the body's primal intelligence, sexuality and to eros. Through her deep gaze, she demands authenticity. She is has the capacity to create life and to destroy (what does not serve). She ‘conceives’, she is fertile, she births and through her blood she lets whatever is to die to die. It is a part of human expression that has been shamed, suppressed and distorted.
This is the story of a woman I worked with, on her way to meet the ‘Dark feminine’ inside of her and finding her power through this journey.
‘I want to learn how to surrender deeper. I want to feel free and safe in my body, in myself, as a woman, a lover, as a soul in a body. I want to be able to trust myself, my body and how life unfolds through me’ she said the first time we met…
The ‘jumps’ that she chose to make throughout the 3-months of journeying together were huge! Yet in our last session, I could still feel the crust of something really old… something that if she chose to ‘own’, there would be no way back in therms of her relationship to her power and sexuality.
She shared that she had a fear of entering her own vagina whiles self pleasuring, something 'common' that I come across quite often in my work.
So I asked
‘Am I hearing well that you trust other people to enter your vagina but you don’t trust your self? There is a difference between surrendering and passivity, so am I hearing that you feel more comfortable being passive rather than OWNING YOUR POWER? Am I right in saying that you are scared of your power?
Her eyes opened as wide as the eyes of an owl … After a few seconds she shared that she is aware that she is scared of her power, another 'common' thing resulting form our social conditioning). She shared that she could now see the LINK between owning her POWER and owning her sexuality and her pleasure…
There was a point in the Tantric Healing Session where her whole body was relaxed, her awareness focused insight her body and her breath taking her to what I like to call ‘embodied trance state’ or ecstasy. The soft, nurturing, intentional, unconditional touch was stimulating the production of oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, whiles reducing the ‘stress’ hormones adrenaline and cortisol. In that state, her nervous system was gradually shifting from the sympathetic / fight or flight state to the parasympathetic state. This deep embodied meditation, breath and touch is what allows emotions stored deep in the cellular memory to surface, in a journey of shifting from numbness, to ’pain’ (emotional / psychosomatic pain) to pleasure. This rewires the brain and the body gradually returns to homeostasis and its natural state of pleasure and bliss.
I could feel her experiencing the pleasure of being touched, yet holding back her expression…Her body was still and in control… I felt her shame for feeling aroused, for experiencing pleasure. Her legs were ‘sealed closed’. It seamed like she was placing a big effort on holding her legs, and herself ‘together’, holding that ‘wall of shame’ and guilt against her natural flow…
‘How would it feel if you allowed your body to feel pleasure’? I asked.
And she said ‘I do feel pleasure but I am ashamed’ I am not sure why I am ashamed, I feel it’s ‘dirty’ … I’ve been wanted to allow my legs to open for a few minutes now but I held myself back because of this shame…
And I responded
How much effort does it need to keep that ‘wall’ intact? You are only ever opening to yourself…
Your pleasure is yours, own it!
It has nothing to do with anybody else!
Your pleasure, is INNOCENT
YOUR CHOICE TO DIVE INTO YOUR PLEASURE IS YOUR NATURE
You hold the KEY
ALLOW YOUR BODY TO RESPOND…
She slowly started breathing more deeply, melting away her resistance with her breath, slowly moving her body as eventually letting it ‘be moved’ by the waves of electromagnetic energy / life-force / pleasure, activated from within…
What I was witnessing in that moment, through this woman, was a defrosting of a part of the feminine expression that seamed to have been frozen for ‘centuries’. This suppression of the wild, raw, sensually untamed ‘dark’ feminine had past on from generation to generation, along with the shame that held it ‘together’ domesticated and proper…
That is the same ‘wildness’ through which a woman unapologetically enjoys making love, were every cell of her body is responding to her pleasure… She is in her power in an ‘active’ surrender as she owns her sexuality, in connection to her heart… It is the same state that a woman access through giving birth to her children, in full surrender to life and as life, in full trust of her body as she owns the territories of her own sacred gardens…
And I said ‘There is nobody that knows your body more than you’; ‘Would you like to place your hands on your vulva?
She slowly moved her hands on her vulva… ‘It feels like its a very dark cave… the unknown scares me she said!
‘You know what you are doing, keep melting the fear away and keep going! Would the warrioress in you be able to enter this cave I asked? She burst into tears as she said ‘Yes… she would, she is ready…
‘I am a different woman that when I first started this journey...
I now understand the importance of building this relationship to myself, to my own body, to my own my sexuality to own my power! I felt a huge wall falling… I didn’t believe I could do it, yet it was easier than I thought… I was ready….
I experienced ‘pleasure' as a wave of freedom, a natural state of being that was not only focused on my genitals, but on the whole body! It is really NOT what I been conditioned to think pleasure is, or where my mind used to go when I thought of masturbation. Pleasure felt like a baseline that ‘hugs’ all other emotions, and ‘masturbation’ a space to meet myself and dive into my ‘inner garden’ without a goal. A place where all of me is welcomed; the mother, the lover, the worriers, the wounded child, the daughter. "
She thanked me but I felt like I needed to thank her as another ‘beacon was lit’ … It gives me great joy and touches me deeply to empower women in this ‘direct’ way and to remind them that they hold the keys to their own doors through which they find their power…
I want to see a world where these women are the examples of the new embodied female expression, whole and complete within herself. A world where these women create magic on this planet, form deep fierce ‘connectionships’ and become examples for their children and the children of the new world…
*You can find out more about the archetype of the dark feminine this video .*