I had no idea I was terrified.
I just thought I was shut down. Turned off. And asexual.

I did not know why I received attention from men (or women) when I was not interested in it. Or how to get attention when I longed for it. I did not feel beautiful or attractive. I did not know how to create or maintain healthy (or even fun) relationships. I hid myself and pushed everyone away because I felt so much shame. I was celebate for a decade. I know I am not alone. What we don’t own, owns us.

There is no woman alive who has not had her pussy defiled or discriminated against, in some way.

Whether it’s belittlement. Gender discrimination. Rape. Molestation. Income inequality. The necessity for Title IX.

To those of us growing up in a patriarchal culture, pussies themselves are terrifying. They are desired and defiled in equal measure. They are powerful, messy, mysterious, and unknown.

We are warned that pussies are what men want from us. Yet at the same time, we are taught that they are utterly disgusting. They bleed; they push out babies; they have orgasms in capricious and unpredictable ways.

We are told they smell funny, and we are sold endless products to rid ourselves of their pesky fragrance. They are often considered ugly and in need of grooming to be presentable. We women shy away from them, and our men do not understand them. And yet, they are the source of life, itself.

Every one of us owes our very existence to the raw, relentless power of pussy.

One of the greatest pieces of unconscious conditioning we have in our Western culture is that we do not teach our children to name the source of this feminine power. Ask my students at the School of Womanly Arts what they were taught to call their genitals as a child, and you’ll get a parade of colloquialisms: Wickie, Cuckoo, Privates, Down There, Pooter, Pee Wee, the Fine China, Name and Address, Venus, Noonie, Miss Kitty, Purse…the list goes on. Those who were given a more direct word were often taught to call it “vagina,” a clinical term that is also physiologically incorrect.

But what’s worse, the majority of women were taught to call it nothing at all.

When we have no common language to describe that which is most essentially feminine about us, we have no way to locate and own our power as women.

I have been preoccupied with the question of why women have this limited ability to access their power and voice that nothing they do seems to ameliorate or resolve. As I look around the world of women, it seems as if our lights are off. We are turned off, like a light switch. The bulb is in there, but it sure isn’t lit up. And it is no wonder. We have all been taught to turn off, to turn away.

We can learn just as much about a culture from what it’s missing as from what it embraces.

When we live in a world that cannot even comprehend its own inherent bigotry against women – and thus cannot step forward to honor or support the women and girls who have been devastated by it – what is the recourse? How do we stand up to an invisible assault that does not want to be made visible? How does a woman weather – let alone triumph over – such a global denial of her experience?

How does she locate a pathway to mend, strengthen, and remake herself in a world that does not recognize she is broken?

How does she turn on when she has been systematically denied, passed over, and subjugated? Where is the opportunity in this story line for the victim to become the heroine?

How do we, as women, reconsecrate our holiness after we have been defiled, turned off, and ignored all our lives?

The solution for the epidemic of powerlessness among women, which neither great success nor higher education is able to solve, is simple: reconnecting a woman to her pussy.

Just as pussy is the source of all human life, pussy is the source of each woman’s connection to her own life force, her voice, and her sense of internal power. When a woman turns on her pussy, she is actually turning on her life force and connecting to her divinity.
When women are speaking the word, the weighty reverb swings toward us, rather than against us. The baggage turns into proud history.

And there is an immediate feeling of reclamation, which is the first step toward actual reclamation.

When I was able to finally connect with my pussy, which did not happen for me until I was in my 30’s, my entire life changed. I got married, had a baby, started my own business, wrote my first book. Powerlessness turned into power. I was filled with enthusiasm that I had never felt in my life. My inner switch was on and I became an unstoppable force. I owned the room. And still do!

I want that for every woman, which is why I wrote GPS* – my six-week online course that launches next week. It’s a crash course in pure, raw, creative power.

To find out what owning your Pussy, your feminine genius, your birthright can make possible, click HERE to learn more about GPS*. Together, we will turn ourselves back on, light ourselves back up, and share our radiance with the world.

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.