How to Find True Happiness and Worth as a Woman in this World

October 28, 2022
Posted by lana

Photo: Levi Guzman via unsplash

Photos of young, naked women peppered the pages of my father’s newspapers. It was a serious newspaper (non-English) speaking to matters of politics and foreign policy and, yet.

Here were these photos too.

There were never any naked men in there. Just women.

I had already begun to internalize messages of being less than boys – my father outright told us such things.

These pictures, with the general conditioning of the culture-at-large had me believing that my value lay in how attractive and sexy I looked – to men – with as few clothes on as possible.

I felt a strange cocktail emotions relating to my body and my gender – disgust, anger, resentment, inferiority. I felt trapped. I felt at war with myself even if I probably couldn’t articulate it as such at the time.

One way in which this manifested itself very strongly in incredibly painful periods. Every month, a torture (until I was able to heal it).

The world we live in now is not quite the same as the one I grew up in. There are far better and more positive messages towards respecting and cherishing women and the feminine. We have more of a voice and the means to speak our truth and have it be heard.

Still, it’s not quite good enough. Misogyny is so pervasive it’s the air we breathe, most of us can barely distinguish.

It’s just normal or the way it’s always been. Sigh.

Even for women, we’ve internalized so much misogyny it’s a lifetime to extract and separate from it all.

So if you find difficulty in finding joy and your true purpose in your life, especially as a woman, you are not alone!

And the practice of finding joy and pleasure and purpose in being a woman is a lifelong one of discovery.

Below are my suggestion on where to start re-discovering your joy, purpose, power, and pleasure in being a woman. It’s based on decades of my own practice and in working with hundreds of women.

It may seem simple but I truly believe to begin these steps will liberate us. Start with one and I would suggest it be this first one:

Dance & Move Your Body. In Private. Just You.

When was the last time you danced? Or, more importantly, moved your body to music? If you can’t remember, or it’s been a really long time, you’re not alone.

And this needs to be remedied.

The discernment between dancing and moving your body to music is important for some of us to understand.

Sometimes we dance and we think it has to contain certain choreographed movements or look a certain way (like polished or sexy or ‘good’ in whatever way). This can be fun and challenging in interesting ways – nothing wrong with it.

However when we slow down and become present to our body with our attention and our breath, we can allow our body to move in the manner it wants and needs to move. I would still call this dancing but it’s not choreographed, it doesn’t necessarily look good. It can look chaotic and strange.

This is why it’s important to dance and move alone with no one watching. With safety and freedom to truly feel (and even discover!) yourself and move in all sorts of weird and unusual ways.

Pay attention to your hips and pelvic area. Chances are these are tight.

Pay attention to your jaw as you’re paying attention to moving your hips and pelvic area. Chances are this area is tight too. What will it take to relax all these parts at once? How can you move? How are you being moved?

What feels good can be your guide. Be prepared to have different feelings come up. Welcome them. Use the feelings to guide you in how you want to move. Bonus points for letting sounds out too.

Move the body. In private. Just you. Move in weird and different and unusual ways. Breathe. Breathe.

Pick your favourite music. Then pick music you don’t know or don’t particularly like. Try out different things is what I’m saying.

Do this every day! Yes, every day. Even just 5 minutes.

A stiff body breaks down. A body that moves is a body that lives, is a body that can respond and flow with the inevitable and unpredictable.

Of course, not every body can move in the same way.

There is a starting point for everyone. It doesn’t need to be the same. We start with where we are.

Where and how can you start today with movement and dance?

Dance with Others

When I was a young woman, one of my greatest joys and thrills in life was going clubbing. Music on full blast and dancing with people, flirting with strangers, being out with my friends was the thrill of finally being an adult.

But somehow, I got it into my head that once I reached a certain age and once I was married, going out dancing was supposed to stop. Like it was a flighty thing appropriate for young people only.

I’m not sure where I got, and why I had, that idea in my head. But those years where I stopped dancing were some of the most miserable in my life.

Whatever age you are, get yourself out to where people are dancing and dance. Find the safe spaces for this.

If you have ecstatic dance happening near you, please try that out. It’s dance as meditation. Dance for expansion. Dance for the sake of pleasure and as the name implies, ecstasy. No one else is looking at you, they’re dancing ecstatically themselves. If it’s done right, it’s a safe and supportive space where the new parts of ourselves we are uncovering can begin to emerge.

Dance and move with other people. Allow your self-discovery and emergence to continue in the presence of others.

We don’t fully heal alone.

Befriend and Spend Time with Women Who Love, Nourish, and Uplift You

And minimize the time with those who do the opposite (even if they say and do ‘love’ you).

Most of us carry deep wounding we’ve experienced from the behaviours or words of other women and we’re yearning for re-connection, trust, safety, and the love of female friends.

A good place to start could be to spend some time contemplating and even journaling on the women in your life right now who love and uplift you and those who do not. (And sidenote: if someone falls into some middle category between the two, slot them in the ‘do not uplift’ you category).

Make a commitment to surround yourself as much as you can with the positive, loving, affirming women. Create and attend gatherings. Make friend dates. Do errands together. Find your like-minded people and agree to support each other in the manifestation and creations of your life.

I think ‘Sex & the City’ is so iconic and enduring in part because of the strength and constancy of the friendships of the 4 women. This is something we need and want in our own lives. The thing is, we must be proactive in creating it. I think this is the mistake a lot of us make. If doesn’t really just happen, we have to make it happen.

It’s such a gift to have even one such friend, and honey, not uncommon, if you’re feeling you have no one. If this is you, you might like to think back to someone at some point in your life. Perhaps a kind, thoughtful teacher or an auntie, or someone who was kind, loving, and generous towards you. Someone who really saw you for you and loved you.

Remember how that felt and feel the gratitude of having had this person. Remember how they made you feel- comforted, special, loved, etc. Come back to this feeling, and the memory of this person often, as you go out and explore different ways of making new friends.

I’ve heard the lament that it gets harder to make friends as you grow older. I dispute that. I’ve made more friends, with ever deeper connections, in the past 10 years of my life than ever before. I fully expect this to continue.

Some of the places where I’ve found these friend soulmates: work, self-development workshops, trainings, women’s circles, in cafes, at parties, concerts.

We need the presence of people, and especially women, to reflect our beauty and light back to us. People who we can trust and have the best wishes in their heart for us. And like sunshine, we will always need this even as one day we begin to believe that yes, we are beautiful and wonderful.

Create or Make Things that Bring You Pleasure

(and that don’t need to serve any other purpose!)

This can be just about anything! We are creative beings. I know I’m not alone in drifting away from doing things I love as I grew older (like in my aforementioned dancing story). Is this you too? Is there something you loved doing and creating, that brought you pleasure and made you lose all sense of time? Are you still doing it? Time to start!

We need generative, creative experiences.

When we make something with our hands and bodies, we are in some important way blessed with beautiful evidence of our wonderful existence.

Some women want to create babies. Some women do not.

But I believe we all have a drive and desire to make something. To see and hold something of ourselves beyond ourselves.

I love cooking food especially for others. I love singing and making up songs and sounds. I love writing words and creating transformative, moving experiences for others.

What do you love to make? Are you doing it regularly?

Or, what did you used to love to make that you no longer make time for? Or that maybe feels frivolous? How can you start again?

Choose You First

You may naturally find your way here after you’ve been doing the first four recommendations (dance privately, dance with others, befriend uplifting women, make stuff that makes you happy).

Chances are that you are now experiencing (or beginning to experience) what it feels like to feel good. To feel satisfied and at home with and in yourself.

Which can start you on a path toward naturally making choices that are right for you.

Not making a choice because someone else wants you to, or expects you to.

You choose for you.

One of the harmful ways we’ve been programmed to think is in ‘either/or’ terms. This has us pitted against one another as though for one person to be satisfied or happy the other one must be unhappy and dissatisfied.

Try on ‘and/both’ instead the next time you have to make a choice.

Instead of saying:

I can do ‘yyy’ OR I can do ‘zzz’ (the either/or scenario)

Try on saying:

I can do ‘yyy’ AND I can do ‘zzz’ (the and/both)

You can apply this re-frame to any decision you need to make. See how it feels to use ‘and’ instead of ‘or.’

At times, it may be that someone is going to be disappointed or frustrated or unhappy by your choice, but I say let that frustrated person not be you.

We have been conditioned forever to be accommodating of everyone’s needs before our own. The more we veer into sacrifice of our own needs, the most burnt out and unhappy we become. This, too, serves no one.

Get more practiced at choosing you.

~~~

So this is it, the start to finding happiness, power, pleasure as a woman.

Note I said the start!

Now that you’ve read the steps go out and do them. The juice is in the action. Do these steps. Expect to encounter resistance and dance/move through it.

It’s very easy to stay in the mind about this and be critical. Like, I don’t get it. Why would any of this make the difference? The point is not to intellectualize and figure things out. Do it and see what happens inside the doing of it.

Click the image to the left for the list – feel free to print and put it up where you’ll see it.

Practice it all. Do it! Have fun with it!

And by all means, add to it!

It’s not in reading this blog that you’ll have transformed into joyful woman.

It’s in doing these things.

Now, go dance.

The Amplification Time of the Mother Archetype

July 23, 2021
Posted by lana

And ideas on how to make the most of it.

Art: ‘The Passion’ by Helen O’Sullivan

In the northern hemisphere, currently the earth (summer) and moon (full) are in this corresponding phase we can call Mother. Are you ovulating in your cycle? Then you are synched up too. I’ve been exploring throughout the year how this overlap of energies may offer some deeper connection or even portal to experiencing these archetypes fully.

The Mother archetype is one that we all have some experience with and may confuse with the role itself. The energies of the Mother archetype are very expressive, nourishing, fruitful, warm, flowing, loving

Some of what I’m noticing or feeling strongly in this time:

~ nature beckons, envelops, warms, loves us up; is primordial Mother to us all.

~ this time of year offers an incredible abundance. It is an enchantment to contemplate the heavy, dripping fruit on the trees and branches. The raspberries in my yard are ripening these days. The fruit grows plump and full and simply awaits release with any effort and I can’t help but meditate on how this can translate in our lives.

~ these are days offering much in the way of a potent and charged sensuality. Nature offers so much in the way of sensual delights:

the sights (infinite variety of flowers, blooms, colours, leaves, shapes, etc)
the smells (the fragrance of so many flowers, herbs, sea or ocean, etc)
the tastes (so much fresh food)
the sounds (birds, rustling sounds of trees, lapping of waves, etc)
the feels (breeze on the skin, grass under bare feet, rain on your skin, etc)

~ earth and mother is our primary, physical nourishment. In a climate like the one I currently am in, there is a tendency to want to grasp these times really hard and hold on to them. Life is easier, supportive, and more pleasurable in the warmth and the sun and the summer is relatively short compared to the rest. If we are grasping, we can’t be relaxing nor opening up to it. In our grasping and trying to ‘make the most’ or ‘squeeze every last drop’ we are in some states of lack or desperation. This phase is one in which to begin to explore release and surrender. We know nothing lasts forever and we know that the fall and winter must follow.

Below are some suggestions for utilizing these current energies for a deeper communion and experience with the Mother archetype. Use what works and ignore the rest.

~ explore some ways to bring softness and gentleness into your life, and your body in particular. Stop to take some deep breaths and notice where there might be tension. Good places to check in are the hips and jaw. Use some movement (wiggle, massage, yawn, sigh, etc) to keep relaxing these spots.

~ find ways of allowing the natural world to enter and nourish you through ALL of your senses. I listed some of the ways above but the possibilities are endless. Even if you live in a dense city are there trees (or a tree) you can seek out for communion and appreciation? Or find a spot to gaze up at the full moon?

~ consider where in your life you might be grasping and holding on too tightly when you could relax and let things unfold in their own time. There are things we want but worrying and grasping actually never guarantee that we get them, just make our lives stressful and compromise our health.

~ spend some time meditating or attuning to the energy in your heart. Does it feel tense, guarded, or closed? Or soft and open? Can you use some of the communion with nature and your senses to open and feel into your heart more? Even as this means feeling the grief that may be stored there?

~ do you have people in your life with whom you would like to spend more time or share more love? The capacity of the Mother archetype to nourish and love is immense but in order to do it in a healthy way we need to be filled up ourselves. If we are allowing the opening and sustenance of our own hearts and souls, we will naturally want to give it to others. This may even be a time when forgiveness might come easier. Or even just having a difficult conversation that we may have been avoiding.

We are living in a time of great information, great awakening, and great destruction. The plethora of abundance I see in my own backyard isn’t the experience of all, as so many places on our earth are being scorched, many are flooded, many are being clear-cut of their ancestor trees, and so much more. Many are suffering.

These are some of my personal questions in this Mother phase – how can I love more? Can I be more of Mother now to offer the sustenance the earth and her species need right now as so much is ravaged and suffering? How do I do this?

As always, I love to hear about your experiences. Thank you for reading.

Where freedom is found

October 31, 2019
Posted by lana

Some days send me a gift. Like this vision of the water at the end of the street around the corner from my home. I turned the corner and, here, suddenly it feels like I’m in California.

I gaze at the water on the horizon… I pretend it’s the ocean and I’m walking westward.

I drop myself fully in the feeling of being in California walking toward the Pacific Ocean a short distance away. I feel myself melting, relaxing.
I consider why the flavour and the feel of the west coast soothes me in ways that Toronto seems to fall short. It comes down to a feeling of freedom and so the gift of today is to show me, freedom is a state of being, internally, either available wherever I am or, in fact, not at all.

This isn’t easy for me to fully embody at most times. I need to build this muscle of knowing and feeling myself to be free.

I walk down the street, amplifying California in my cells, and make my way to the water. This was not the original plan but I didn’t know setting out of my house today that I would be visiting the west coast.

This body of water is not the ocean, we call it a great lake but with the wind being what it is today on this vividly bright, beautiful fall day, it feels like the ocean. Waves crash onto the shore. To my ears the sound is music. The mist travels on the wind and gently sprays my face. I sit on the beach for a while and I watch the seagulls too, and they are a trip.

This is what they do.

In the air, wings spread, they are carried by the wind. It is all allowing.
A slight tuck, here and there, a slight re-angling, a slight withdrawing of the wings has them slip through the wind, drop down to a landing if they would like or be carried a little differently in the sky. All of them offer this allowing and surrender to the wind.
There is not a single one attempting to fly against the wind. They don’t do it. There is no imposing of will on the direction of the wind. There is no struggle.
Just a simple allowing of being carried by the wind. I consider how I’m witnessing intelligence and wisdom here.
And also, the most free of all creatures.

Love Yourself

February 8, 2018
Posted by lana

Vintage Valentine Cards

My love of Valentine’s Day peaked somewhere around the time of grade 2 or 3. It was such a fun arts and crafts occasion to create a little mailbox for my desk, to spend the time choosing out and writing the cards for my friends then to deliver and read all the ones I received. My 8 year old self loved the silly puns and the colourful cards.

I don’t know where my enthusiasm and interest died for it. I guess as we grew older our curriculum didn’t make space anymore for the ‘frivolous’ and by the time high school rolled around V-Day had definitely become something else. Instead of love shared between friends it became the day to flaunt and distinguish between the haves and the have-nots in the romance department.

I see this sentiment still operates for a lot of people beyond these teen years as though it is a flaw and a failing to be single particularly on this day.

As though a gesture one day out of the year will prove something about someone’s devotion, love, and ultimately worth.

Please understand me: there is nothing wrong with celebrating your love on this day. We can also celebrate and exalt love with reverence and exuberance any and every day of the year. And the best place, seriously, the BEST place to start is with the expression of love of and within your own self.

The extent to which we love and honour ourselves is the extent to which we can love and honour another person. It’s a full-time gig and for many of us there is a lot to unlearn, to heal, to acknowledge, and integrate.

It’s not a rational, conceptual activity but there are many, many ways…and from my experience is what they have in common is being PRESENT and EMBODIED.

That’s what this work is all about…

Big, loud love.

Receiving the Worldwide Womb Blessing

October 11, 2016
Posted by lana

The Worldwide Womb Blessing happens five times per year with an ever-growing number of women (& men!) participating each time.

The Womb Blessing is an attunement and an evolving journey welcoming the energies of the Divine Feminine into our lives and allowing this sweet experience to guide us ever closer to knowing, appreciating and living our unique selves.

Whether this is your first time or whether you are a returning participant, I’ve prepared this blog to make participation easy and clear. You can participate on your own or you can invite your friends and create a circle.

First things first: remember to register at your chosen time (listed are UK times, so do the calculation for your region). Men can find out more about their gift and register here.

Things to have beforehand:

2 bowls (per person), one should be water-proof and the other non-flammable
1 tealight (per person)
1 main altar candle (can also be a tealight)
a lighter or matches (to light the candles)
a shawl
a small snack
the meditations/instructions (a link to these is sent to you when you register for the blessing)
flowers (optional)
altar items (also optional, can be anything that is special to you or reminiscent of the season or reminiscent of divine feminine energies or all of the above)
For the October Blessing in the northern hemisphere you will also need a doll & some white string/thread – this is optional and depends on whether you plan on doing the season’s ritual/meditation (which I recommend). This can be a simple thing you create such as a stick with ribbon tied around it or it can be a doll that you already have.
Time blocked off (30 minutes before the blessing time, 20 minutes for the blessing itself and I like at least 30 minutes after the blessing’s end)

On the day of:

Begin to prepare about 20-30 minutes before your chosen time. Set up the space where you will do the meditations and receive the blessing. Set up your altar if you are choosing to do this. You will set 1 bowl to the right (of the altar if you have one or to the right of where you will be sitting if you are not creating an altar) with the tealight in it. The other bowl you will place to the left and put some water in it. (see pic below for an example, this can be so simple, nothing fancy required!)
Get comfortable on the floor on a cushion or sitting in a chair. If you are on a chair, make sure that your feet are flat on the floor.
Read or play the audio of the pre-blessing meditation & visualizations (there are two: the ‘Stirring the Waters’ and ‘Womb Tree’)
At your chosen time, prepare yourself to receive the blessing. Set a timer if you wish for 20 minutes. Use your shawl to cover yourself or your head to create a bit of a sanctuary. Get comfortable either sitting or lying down.
Receive for 20 minutes and delight in the energy.
You can end here and drink the water in your womb bowl and have a snack to ground yourself. Thank the Goddess for her blessing

You can participate in the post-Blessing meditation and the season’s ritual:

Come back, stretch a bit and get comfortably seated.
Read the post-blessing meditations (these are the ‘Ray of Light’, ‘Sharing our Sisters’ and ‘Honouring our Ancestors’ meditation for Oct)
Drink the water in your womb bowl, and eat your snack to ground yourself. Thank the Goddess for her blessing.

As an Advanced Moon Mother, I am privileged to participate in the Worldwide Womb Blessings by sending energy with my sisters, and by answering any questions you might have. Please feel free to connect with me.

I encourage you to participate each time and to share with your friends. It is all too easy for the day-to-day grind to wear us down and each Womb Blessing is a chance for renewal and rejuvenation. The experience is unique each time and always what we need.

Much love

Romancing Self

July 1, 2016
Posted by lana

Photographer: Carl Warner

I’ve been in somewhat of a swoon these days. And last night, I had an insight that allowed me to name it.

I’m in a romance with myself.

(I just giggled writing that, like in the most delightful way.)

I’m in pursuit of romancing myself.

And this realization came about in particular the other night as I was walking a beautiful tree-lined street near my current home in downtown Toronto. How beautiful are trees at night in the summer time? The slight rustling of the leaves, the wide canopy overhead, the gracious and tremendous presence they hold.

It thrills me every time. And reminded me in an instant of many years before being thrilled by the same thing but also somehow negating the joy and the pleasure of the experience because I was alone. I felt lacking in romance because nobody was there with me to enjoy it with and so the setting (which is also ultimately my life) was lacking. I was missing what I didn’t have and consequently missing all that I DID have.

So it was a sweet moment of embodied realization to come to; that I was deep in romance with myself. What better person could there be for me? Who else is so uniquely equipped with the key to what turns me on? Who but me can be the ultimate authority on my wants and needs?

So why not give it and appreciate it, fully and completely.

And, don’t get me wrong.

I love sharing moments with other people.

(And I love being swept off my feet by a lover, and swooning over loving, generous gestures.

I love long, hot, deep kisses.)

And…

I still come back to and take responsibility as being the ultimate source of romance and ‘swoonness’ for myself. I swoon at the beauty of the moon, in savouring the feel of warm breezes on my skin, on creating beauty in my life in all sorts of different ways (from tending to my altar on a daily basis to changing all my passwords to phrases that bedazzle me!).

I cultivate romance through womb space practice and meditation (which I’ve shared about in other pieces here) and continually bringing myself back to a grateful state. Continually appreciating and growing gratitude for my life and all that features in it, allows me to look for the diamonds, allows me to see with different eyes, allows me the openness and curiosity and receptivity for new things to arise as well.

Look, I get that these are challenging times. (Myself, I’m typically overcome with some intense despair or grief and cry at least once a day. But even that is a kind of romance, holding myself and allowing emotions to move through me without judgment.)

But what I have been coming to understand is that the way we take care of ourselves, the way we fill our cup, the way we ensure we are lit up and nourished with enough pleasure is the only way that we will collectively find the healing needed for our families, communities and our planet.

I’m not kidding.

If we as women aren’t nourished, pleasured, happy in as much capacity as we can be, no one else around us will thrive. So I’m calling on you (and we’re all depending on you) to make your own joy, make your own romancing of yourself your priority.

What does that mean to you? What special gifts can you begin to give yourself today?

PLEASE. Start now.

Image: Carl Warner

30 Years of Blood

May 30, 2015
Posted by lana

“Final Entry” by Freydoon Rassouli

This month marked a full 30 years as a menstruating woman for me. I This works out to something like 400 periods (having never been pregnant), totaling close to four and a half years of my life…bleeding.

That’s a lot of time to spend ‘cursed’. And for most of my life, it was just that.

I’ve been a bleeding woman for more time than some of my younger friends have been around.

I am clear that I’m fully in the latter half of my procreative life and that brings up a lot of questions and feelings.

Am I sure I don’t want to have children? Could I have one now even if I tried? What is the next phase of life going to be like for me? What was it like for mom…? (I remember only bits and pieces and she isn’t around for me to ask anymore) How many more bleeding years are available to me and how do I make the most out of them?

I remember the first time it came; I was 11 year old exuberance, running, when all of a sudden, I felt something strange happening and I just knew that I had gotten my first period.

I remember the awe quickly turning to a kind of dread when I began feeling pain and getting present to how uncomfortable it was (and this was going to be a monthly reality for decades). I remember feeling so awkward with the thick pads I had to use and being certain that everyone at school could see their bulge.

I remember the first time the blood stained my pants and the overwhelming embarrassment. I remember subsequent ones too.

I remember some horrid periods, profuse sweating, being doubled over in agony, nauseated. I remember being sent home from school and waiting for the bus, not sure how I was going to make it home. I remember near fainting from the pain. I remember sleepless night, hollering and moaning.

I remember how I began to notice the changes in my openness and tolerance to life’s circumstances and situations as I approached my cycle. And I began to see through PMS. I was not in the wrong at this time; I wasn’t crazy. I just couldn’t tolerate any BS; I couldn’t and wouldn’t play nice and polite when it wasn’t warranted. And I began to see how conditioned I was to tolerating and accepting things that didn’t work for me. I began to see this pre-bleeding time as such a gift of insight! I began to listen for, acknowledge, appreciate and ask for what I needed. I took the time when I needed it. I said ‘no’ when it was the right thing to do even when it was scary. And somewhere along the lines, the pain ceased.

It took many, many years but finally a curse became a blessing and a miracle.

And it’s actually an ongoing process. Being a woman is wildly beautiful; the gifts keeps unfolding. Do you know what I mean…?

Sometimes, I’m sad it took so long to get here. But really, there is no expiry date on healing. When I began bleeding 30 years ago, I couldn’t have conceived of where and who I would be right now.

When I look at it, it’s pretty amazing and I’m so curious and excited about what’s still to come…

~~ At any rate, this is how it all occurred to me on this day ~~

Art: ‘Final Entry’ by Freydoon Rassouli

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