Reading headlines makes me feel things
Grief.
Rage.
Despair.
Like you, I am struggling to navigate this climate changing, off again/on again pandemic existence.
Who else feels they are on unpredictable, ever shifting sands?
The pandemic’s impact on women, especially, has been huge.
We are heading towards year two of constant twists and turns – spiking Delta cases, threats to our planet, rising death tolls, foreign countries in total disintegration.
Uncertainty is our daily bread.
We all share a sense of catastrophic loss of life, freedom, and connection.
I don’t have to tell you how bad it is. I don’t have to tell you this is just the start.
I know ours is the same broken heart.
And it’s overwhelming.
The temptation to shut down is strong.
It’s a way of coping.
But, Sister, hear me, I don’t want you to shut down.
I don’t want you to turn off.
We were built for this.
The world needs your turn on, your spark of life, your unique connection to your aliveness. Your rousing.
The antidote to overwhelm isn’t turning off, but turning on. Awakening.
And if you are reading this right now, I know something about you.
You are a woman who is in process.
In the process of awakening…
Awakening to life, awakening to herself, awakening to what makes her uncomfortable, awakening to what she wants for herself and others, awakening to her most deeply held longings.
I know you feel it.
The call to awaken more and more to who we are in the world. And to become even more deeply and powerfully ourselves, while taking the world around us higher.
Every day.
Which is a lot of pressure.
Because awakening – born of the old English word, awæcnan, which means “to spring into being, arise, originate” – is a conscious, deliberate action. Not an unconscious response.
You can transform overwhelm into awakening.
If we are to arise from our hand-wringing and hopelessness – and that’s the plan – none of us can make this transition with our thoughts alone. It has to be done with our connection not only to our body, but to the body of mother earth, herself.
We have to remember that we have access to something bigger than ourselves. We are bigger than ourselves.
When I feel myself in danger of turning off and shutting down, here is how I turn back on:
- I give thanks. Thanks for my rage, thanks for my intensely powerful feelings, thanks for the connection to myself, thanks for the anger and the grief of every woman who has the courage to come forth, now, in this world. I feel my feelings – all of them – and I go to the place where we are all connected, and I feel grateful for that interconnection.
- I dance, I move. I place my rage and sorrow into the heart of our sacred earth, and dance. I dance with the great mother, and lean into her. And just like the summer, gently giving way to fall, I place myself and my dancing body into the natural cycle of mother earth’s power to take in all that needs to be deconstructed, composted, remade into the clean renewable fuel of transformation. Her energy and ability connects me to my own.
- I create an offering of beauty. This might be my dance. It might be the simple lighting of a candle at my altar. Yesterday I took a handful of rose petals and created a gratitude ritual at my favorite tree in the park. It might be an action I choose to take on behalf of another, in the world. It might be the way I choose to dress, in celebration of my feminine. The way I choose to presence love, with my actions. The way I choose to be awake.
Refusing to turn off, and intentionally turning on, doesn’t end violence, or Delta variant, or climate change, but it returns me to myself so I am more whole to face those things.
It returns me to my humanity and my divinity, and from that connected place, I can respond wisely and lovingly. From my own inner GPS*.
The world needs more of us doing more of that, more often. The world needs us – women, life-givers – turning on, tuning in, and finding a new pathway home.
Choosing not to turn off, not to turn away, not to shut down takes so much courage and it’s more easily done with the support of other women. Mama Gena’s Masterclass: Using your erotic aliveness to manifest your desires is the best way I know to practice in the presence of sisterhood – live, in-person, on Zoom, and in community.
We are all, together, so much greater than what is happening on this planet right now.
And now is the time to tap in and turn on to that greater awareness and greater connection with ourselves, each other, and this planet.
Please come and practice with me in a circle of women, thousands strong.
You are invited.
You are needed.
If you feel called, it is my gift to you. (You may reserve your spot here for as long as seats are still available.)
Then, hit reply and tell me: How are you awakening? Transforming? Reinventing?
In what ways has your awareness changed?
Can you hear what is being called forth right now?
How do you turn on, when it seems so much easier to turn off?
With so much love and pleasure,
P.S. If you want to know what I mean by “inner GPS”, join me for Mama Gena’s Masterclass on September 22 from Noon – 2 p.m. ET.
P.P.S. Please pass this message along to the women in your life who need it most (you know who they are). And don’t forget to catch me on Instagram (@MamaGena) and Facebook for more ways to connect!
Regena is a feminist icon, a teacher, a speaker, a mother, a best-selling author, and creatrix and CEO of The School of Womanly Arts.
