The Divine Feminist: Re-Defining Strength, a different type of courage

This is not bad. As women who had been tamped down by centuries of female oppression, we needed to learn how to empower ourselves with our masculine energy, an energy all of us have, including women and all genders.

As women, we were held in victim positions for millennia, the fear is in our bones. Even now, when we live in times when women have more freedom and power, the fear deep in our cellular make-up can keep us stuck.

We needed to learn to say no.

We needed to learn how to be assertive.

We needed to learn to set boundaries.

We needed to learn to ask for what we deserve.

In my 20s, the voice in my head always said “I can’t.” I allowed this voice to overtake me in jobs where I was underpaid, and relationships where I allowed my partner to emotionally control me. As a modern woman, I knew that it wasn’t okay for this to be happening, but I still couldn’t speak up for myself. It took me years to muster up the courage to change my circumstances.

I look back at this time period, and I have gratitude for what the hardship gave me. These situations showed up in my life in order for me to learn to use my masculine energy. It wanted me to see that I am capable and to not put up with bullies. To come into my power.

I now call this power in its healthy form, the yang-masculine. As in the yin and yang — a Taoist concept in which the yin-feminine and yang-masculine are two sides of the same coin. Integrating both energies in healthy ways is balance.

I see yang-masculine energy as one that is action-oriented. The doer. The yang-masculine energy within us that empowers us to take action, when we’re disrespected by others, or worse, such as abused.

It takes a lot of courage to step into our power through action.

For those of us who were not innately given the gift of being assertive, we learn to do it. I myself was given situation after situation, until I couldn’t take it in anymore. I began to plant boundaries firmly into the ground and spoke up for myself. And took the necessary actions to get myself out of toxic situations.

When we learn to do this, it is thrilling. We start to see how we had been disrespecting ourselves by allowing others to treat us this way. We begin to master the art of boundary-making. We get good at it.

We’re so good at it, we begin to place boundaries around us before anything even happens. We want to be in control.

We start to create invisible walls around us. Having learned from our pain, not wanting to experience what we had before.

We’re protecting ourselves; we’re protecting our hearts.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do that. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s a strategy. Whatever gave us pain before, let’s prevent it from happening again.

Except that when the walls become so thick, we become hyper-independent islands, unable to connect with others.

We may on a superficial level. But not in the real way. The way we long for.

We only show others versions of ourselves that are acceptable. As to not get hurt by parts of us that may be rejected. After all, we’re told to always show the best parts of ourselves in order to ‘get ahead’ at work. To always be polished. To present as a catch on our dating profiles so as to not seem like ‘too much’.

They’re like identities we create, so that we can be liked and successful.

On paper, we’re doing well. We should be happy. So then, why do we feel so disconnected from ourselves? Like, we’re not sure who we even are, anymore.

We tell ourselves that this is what it means to be an empowered woman. Without realizing there are other forms of empowerment available to us. Forms that may be closer to what our hearts have been longing for.

This different type of power comes from a deeper place. A deeper strength. A deeper courage.

The courage of truly showing someone who you really are.

The courage of sharing the messiness, the imperfections.

The courage of meeting the emotions we had to stash away to function in a ‘man’s world’.

The courage of seeing how we had abandoned ourselves to please others.

It’s the courage of opening your heart, even when it’s hard.

The courage of being in touch with the part of you that craves more softness, spaciousness, and randomness.

The courage of being connected with our emotions and emotional body. (Even if the fear says that we gotta keep it logical.)

The courage of being held by others, instead of having to be the one to hold it all together.

For me, it was during the pandemic when I slowly and courageously opened my heart. Not only was I healing from a corporate career I had left a year before, I was single and attempting to align with a loving partner in my life.

I realized that if I want love, I must find where I’ve closed off my heart. First, I looked toward my relationship with my parents. My mother has a tendency to be controlling, and my way of dealing with that as I came into my power was to put boundaries on everything.

Although it was something I needed to do for a time, I could see how my boundaries became overly thick with hyper-independence, the “I can do it myself” “I don’t need anyone” way of life.

I had castled my parents out of my heart, and it was in this scary time of masks and social distancing, when I was able to see perspectives outside our own status quo. I realized: we all need each other. And… I want my mommy.

I flew home for a month. And I finally allowed myself to soften.

I realized that I am no longer the little girl that couldn’t fend myself from their overbearingness, their rules and culture of obligation. I can open my heart and let them take care of me. And just because I am opening my heart doesn’t mean I have to do or be everything they want me to be. I was letting go of the limiting-belief that love must be transactional.

For so long I thought if I allow myself to receive from them, then I must give up myself and do whatever they want me to be. It’s not true — I have the power of choice whether to give back in return, and how. To do so only if I genuinely want to, from a place of real love.

I also realized that I am an adult capable of recognizing when boundaries were necessary.

This is a strength that isn’t just about enduring; where we’re just white-knuckling life to prove that we are strong.

Instead, it’s a strength of deep knowingness that we’re okay.

A felt strength that is serene and centered. It sits within us in a way that makes us so comfortable with who we are, that we don’t need to force things to happen.

Rather, the strength is vulnerability supported with deep trust in ourselves.

So that we can live with an open heart.

To feel the love we long for. Self love.

And receive love from others. To let others in.

To be connected with yourself.

To balance both our yin and our yang. The yin-feminine and the yang-masculine.

Because we do not simply need more women in power. We need women in power who are connected with their hearts. Their humanity. Their compassion. Their empathy.

It starts with each of us.

This is the strength of the Divine Feminist.

May it be so.