If I were to drill down to the very bluest part of the flame, the hottest truest mission of The School of Womanly Arts, it’s about feminine leadership.

It is my conviction that women are the greatest untapped natural resource on the planet. Feminine leadership is the medicine so desperately required by this world, at this time.

I am obsessed with this topic, and I have been for over 20 years.
It’s what fuels The School of Womanly Arts Mastery Program, and why I’m hosting a free, life-changing intro weekend next month.

What do I mean by feminine leadership?
What does it mean to be a woman who leads, both on the inner and the outer?

And how can every woman serve herself up a heaping portion to break loose and discover the world she has been longing to not only create, but inhabit?

A woman who leads her inner world:

• Is irrevocably connected to her source, her truth, her real, raw sense of Self that guides absolutely everything.
• Knows that every drop of her storyline is designed to break and remake her into the woman she was born to become.
• Is unafraid to buck convention and navigate her life from truth, not cultural expectations.
• Inspires and uplifts those around her, because she lives and breathes the courage of her convictions.

Leadership is an inside game.

Feminine leadership must start in each woman’s inner world. 

This is where we will begin, at The Womanly Arts Experience in January, and this is the lofty, beautiful objective of every course we offer at the School.

Every woman deserves to see, eyes wide open, where her storyline has been stunted inside a culture that devalues the feminine. And to know that she is capable of reconsecrating her sovereignty, over her own life.

But it does not stop there. 
It cannot stop there.

This work is about reclaiming pleasure, turn on, joy, emotional truth, receiving — yes. It’s about creating more enlivened, joyous lives.

But the next step is inevitable and deeply necessary:

When a woman leads her inner world, it cannot help but emerge in the outer world. 
We need feminine leadership not only internally, but externally.

We need feminine leadership – women’s voices raised, women standing as decision makers. Women bringing the values of the feminine, like:

• Collaboration, connection
• Deep connection to her full range of emotional truth
• Surrender, receiving
• Creativity
• Intuition
• Plugged in to sacred power

We do not have to look too hard, to see that we have a long way to go.

We live in a world that is extremely hostile to the feminine. And we take that hostility very personally.

I am so deeply interested in why why why women shy away from leading.
Why we batten down the hatch on our truth, and choose to silence our own voice.
Why we look outside of ourselves for guidance.
Why we feel outranked when a man is in the room.
Why we leave our life choices up to our parents, or our husband, or our boss.
Why we suffer in indecision, even about simple stuff.

I am interested in the story beyond the statistics.

We know the facts . . .
That women still make 79 cents on the dollar that men make.
That out of 109 heads of state in the world, only 9 are women.
That not only is there a huge wage gap and opportunity gap in Hollywood, but only 9 percent of the top-grossing films released last year were directed by women.

And, those numbers are averages for all women – the statistics become much, much worse for women of color who are finding their way at the intersection of both sexism and racism in this culture.

Each of these stunted story lines has a failed, disheartened, frustrated and resigned woman on the front lines.
A woman who has weathered so much disappointment, so much disenfranchisement, so much disapproval that she does not have the courage or the energy to take one more step.
And yet she can’t live with her own inaction.

There is that place, in her life, where she raised her hand, but never got called on.
The moment in her storyline where she put herself out there, but got shut down.
A pivotal conversation, at a pivotal moment where her opinion did not count.
Or, maybe her soul’s deepest truth never ever even had an opportunity to get all the way formed, simply because no one ever asked or cared.
Even though she stood, she never stood a chance.

For every woman that breaks through, there are dozens of women who are still stuck inside the patriarchal world culture.

And my obsession is simple: I want every woman who wants to, to become unstuck.
And paint her version of her life on as big and gorgeous a canvas as she desires.
We all know this: we have no time to waste, playing small.
Deep inside, each of us knows that now, right now, is our moment to step up and step out.

I’m standing for you, for me, for all of us, right here, right now, to step into the next growing edge of leadership – inside our relationship with ourselves, in our families, in our communities, in our governments. Now is the time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I want to know:

• Where in your life might you be playing small, or shying away from your radiant, fierce leadership?
• On the other hand, what relationships or circumstances in your life enliven your sense of self, and encourage your leadership to emerge?
• Where are you being called into greater leadership – on the inner, and/or on the outer?

Add your voice to the conversation in the comments below.

Xo,

Regena Thomashauer, aka “Mama Gena”
The School of Womanly Arts

p.s. If you haven’t already, check out The Womanly Arts Experience, happening in NYC on January 21st – 22nd: a two-day immersive live introduction to The School of Womanly Arts Mastery Program. Now in its fourth year, I couldn’t be prouder of this event, and I’m more fired up than ever to serve my community in this way. Hope to see you there!