You know that sound a faucet makes when it’s running out of water – that gaspy, wheezy, death-rattle sound? 

I can hear it right now as I type this. (Hmm…maybe it’s coming from me???)

That is certainly a common feeling for women. Rung out, run dry, over-used, depleted. Our emotional, physical, and creative taps are sputtering and near empty. 

Which is why when we’re stuck in the inevitable clogged pipes of life, there just isn’t enough juice left to find a way through.

Even when you love love love (and did I say love what you are doing), you can still get truly and deeply stuck. Depleted. Over it.

You know the feeling…

You love your kids but you are just burnt-out, fried, and crispy at the prospect of dealing with one more argument or making one more dinner.

You love your job – or you hate your job – but either way, it’s almost impossible to want to work when you’re suffering from major Zoom fatigue, the weather is improving by the hour, and you’ve been pandemically pent up for over a year.

Sometimes you can get so stuck in a toxic situation or relationship, that you’re too empty to find your way back to sanity. Or worse, you can’t remember that there was ever anything called sanity in the first place.  

When we are stuck, we are essentially trapped in a full body bind of our own design. (It sounds kinda kinky, but trust me, it’s not.)

We’re cut off from our creative flow – our life force – and it’s uncomfortable. There is nothing a woman hates more than being stifled and stopped. 

The body truth is: when we feel trapped, we actually are trapped.

And the more we stay stuck, the more stuck we become.

So – what to do?

How to reconnect with our creative power? With the brilliant, turned on part of us that can solve any problem, and bring joy and fun anytime, anywhere?

How do we find our way back to that part of ourselves, when she’s nowhere to be found?

We blindly swing our vine in the direction of…wait for it…pleasure.

You see, pleasure is an orientation. It is a decision. It’s a conscious and deliberate choice to point your attention and redirect your behavior towards a fantastically better outcome.

I could have chosen to stay feeling stuck – it was so tempting to feel sorry for myself for having to work, and then bypass my crankiness with email, Instagram, Facebook, blue corn chips, ice cream, or any number of petty distractions so I could avoid having to feel what I was feeling.

Instead, I ran full throttle toward pleasure. To get back into my body, back into motion, and back to my native state of joy. I jumped into the very cold May ocean water near my house, and then ran home for the hot tub.

You see, it helps to practice pleasure and use the Womanly Arts on the small, day to day things, so that when the big things come up (divorce, loss of your job, rupture in your family, death of a friend, etc.) you’re well-schooled and well-versed in how to find your way back to center.

Life works out better, more gracefully, more pleasurably, more successfully for a woman who is in her body, present, alive, and supported. 

That is an immutable truth. And, maintaining that state is no small task! (Want to meet the Womanly Arts? I outline them all in my first book, Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts. Click HERE to order yourself a copy!) 

The key here is practice. And vigilance. And devotion to your own joy, creativity, and turn-on.

Practice, so that when sh#*t hits the fan, you know what to do.

You’ve got muscle memory. You’ve got a sisterhood to support you, and a community to keep you accountable to your greatness.

With so much love and pleasure,

P.S. If you know a woman who could use a boost, use some connection to her feminine, please share this blog with her, or have her join our mailing list (scroll down the page till you see a heading that says “Put Yourself On the List”). There’s lots of fun happening on our Instagram and Facebook accounts, too!!

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.