Dearest one,
There’s stuck. And then there’s a particular kind of stuck that brilliant, hard-working, soulful women experience.
I recently took a slow moment out of my day and thought back over the last 20 years of working with clients.
What were the issues
that they were so puzzled about
and in pain over
that brought them through my door?
Should I leave my marriage?
Is it better to induce labor or wait for a risky natural birth?
How can I feel expressed in my body and sensuality?
Do I request the out-of-reach promotion even though it might get me fired?
Why can’t I launch my dream project already?
Impossible questions. Intractable quandries. The kinds that shape that woman’s life and future and affect not only her but the people she loves and cares about.
The kind of challenges that can’t be solved with other people’s opinions, plans, or well-meaning advice. They can only be answered by the woman herself.
Easier said than done.
The kind of woman is self-aware, driven, creative, visionary. She can envision the life, relationship, and work she desires but feels stuck around actualizing it.
Hers is no ‘ordinary’ stuck.
It’s a specific kind of stuck.
In order to get as far as she has gotten in life and love and work, she’s had to beat up on herself, ignore her signals, and put half of herself to sleep.
I call that The Sleeping Self: the parts of herself she’s had to hide, ignore, or that dominant culture has shamed her for:
Her own voice.
Her body.
Intuition.
Soul.
Sensuality.
Pleasure.
Bigness.
Loudness.
Fire.
Feelings.
In other words, her feminine life-force energy — or Feminine Genius.
In order to get unstuck a
nd go where she wants to go,
she must awaken her Sleeping Self
and activate her Feminine Genius.
It’s a little like the story of Sleeping Beauty. But it’s not a prince that’s required to rouse this woman out of her Sleeping Self slumber and awaken her to her true power and potential.
It’s her own kiss upon her own brow.
Aaaaaannnnnd. It’s not likely that this woman gets a daily bolt of electric realization that this whole stuckness stuff is about her feminine energy.
Or because culture-at-large has required her to invalidate so much of herself, mask her truth, and perform.
Or that those buried parts of herself are actually superpowers and the key to the success and satisfaction she wants and can nearly taste.
None of this is obvious.
If it was, she wouldn’t be this specific kind of stuck.
Actually,
her inclination is to buckle down,
push through, work harder.
After all, that’s what has worked to get her where she is. Logically, more of the same should get her more of the way to what she desires.
But what got here HERE
won’t get her THERE.
The things that worked in the past, won’t work now. In fact, they make things worse. They make the stuckness stuckier.
When she awakens her Sleeping Self and activates her Feminine Genius, she naturally, eventually — inevitably — emerges:
- Knowing her own voice and listening to it
- Connected to herself and her aliveness
- Self-trusting
- Feeling confident (without changing her weight, wardrobe, or income)
- Discerning what is and isn’t right for her
- Enjoying the delicious divinity of her body
- Clear about what next steps to take
- Growing backbone and audacity to take those next steps
This specific kind of stuckness can be so painful. Demoralizing. Confusing AF.
But in its own way,
it’s a form of good news.
This woman who I have the great fortune to work with and who is thusly stuck is on the edge of the kind of self-discovery of a lifetime.
She is at the edge of a path that leads to her becoming more of herself, rather than less.
Knowing all this often means the difference between getting lost in self-doubt versus being able to confidently make the decisions that shape her future, being even harder on herself versus treating herself reverently, feeling stuck in life versus living a life that is intentional, beautiful, and meaningful.
If you are currently this specific kind of stuck, I feel you and I see you. I pray you find a kernel of courage to stay steady on in your search.
What you are looking for is too-often distorted and devalued.
It is not readily available in status-quo media and society.
It’s not found in the shiny offers with their eye-catching blinking signs.
It’s not in the classic bait-and-switch that slickly sells you on working harder now to earn what you want later.
But it IS out there.
And most importantly, it is IN there, in you, even if all you’ve got to go on is a whiff of an inkling that there has to be MORE.
There IS, dear one. There IS.
