The Feminine Unfolding

The new year is upon us and as I look to my sankapla(vow) for this portion of my life, since it may take more than a year. I am sitting in the intention of surrender. Surrender is the grace of feminine action. I have always been a late bloomer, but I am ready to unfold with trust and vulnerability in ALL aspects of my yogini life. We only know we are ready for a change when the comfort zone actually becomes more uncomfortable than the change herself. Change and transformation is uncomfortable because it means to go against the grain of our habitual, conditioned responses.

I am completing my first book to be published spring of this year, about this awakening in trust, truth, and purpose in the world. It is what I have learned in over 20 years of yoga study, teaching, and as a yoga therapist.

It is easy to make changes in some areas of our life, while bypassing others..and others.

Yoga has made me an extremely strong female. My work is laid upon the foundation of generosity, service, and compassion, yet I can also be a fierce leader. Yoga is bringing a balance to our culture for both men and women, strengthening the woman, and softening the male.

The strong feminist in me is necessary in running a female dominated business and raising two little girls. I was even hoping we would get to explore this dynamic on a presidential level, as the time for women to reveal their power and potential is now, and in doing so we must not lose sight of what makes us women; men(or the masculine)-which is why we need men harmoniously to walk beside us.

My next book/lesson is on relationships(not just the straight female/male relationships, we all possess masculine and feminine traits, even in our leadership roles and businesses).

The strong feminine energy is that which serves the world in emotional healing. I have found my path as a teacher, by giving up the comparing and people pleasing(the negative traits of the female) and as a leader by using our biological stress response of tend and befriend to create a massive yoga community… Yet in relationships…I (and many of my gorgeous strong female yogini friends) are struggling with finding the strong partnership(masculine energy) that can stand beside us.

Men and women are both loosing themselves in the societal roles and changes that we have experienced over the past couple of decades. We have forgotten what it means to make each other feel like more of a man, and more of a woman.

Which is why it is a great time for this study to begin. How can we empower each other and redefine what it means to be a man and a woman now, and awaken to that.

Desikachar, the founding father of yoga therapy always said that to tell if your yoga is working, look at your closest relationships. This is much harder than the self-study, self-help-craze that Oprah’s program initiated 15 years ago.

The shadow we cast on our own is cast twice as big when walking together.

My last relationship made me a very strong woman, as I was always working on improving myself, but the flip side of that strength is pride, a very masculine trait. I have no tolerance for a man treating a woman poorly, or even if I perceive it that way, and I have the f-ck patience mentality when it comes to stepping up to the task of loving me passionately and presently.

It is going to be a passionate wild ride, but if you wrong me it will also go down that way too.

..At least that is my initial reaction. There is always a wiser side that is willing to be open to communication, but it takes an equally strong man to step out of self-preservation and be a warrior of truth. We all need to start there as the well of truth runs deep.

It is my vow for the new year, to become more of the feminine unfolding into trust and surrender rather than being self-reliant and dependent. It is stepping out of the new comfort zone, and I feel this as a universal principle that many of us can focus on in the upcoming year, coming out of the age of walking all over each other with our ideals and to get what we want materially or spiritually.

The next phase of human evolution is intimacy, which is the real essence of yoga. Intimacy has been dying a slow death with social media and busy-ness. We have forgotten how to really connect with one another. Sync your breath to mine. Run your fingers down my spine. Touch, time, and truth is the language of intimacy.

One of my teachers says, yoga is about “almost losing ourselves”.

I used to think that being a woman meant getting swept off my feet, or codependency, and weak-ness. The practice of intimacy is to be like the amaryllis plant. Two stalks growing together vertically side by side but nourished in one soil and one sun. This is the definition of harmony as well. Two chords weaving together in one vertical motion. This is the intimacy of relationship. To almost loose oneself. The feminine unfolding. 

My Sankalpa: I am surrendering to the grace of the feminine by reconciling my pride, allowing more patience into all of my relationships, and allowing myself to receive the gifts of grace others bestow upon me. As being feminine is to receive as well as to nourish. Bend rather than break.

What is your sankalpa?