What does femininity mean to you? Have you ever been shamed for femininity? Feminine Shame is a real thing; regardless of personal gender identification or physical anatomy. Do you feel confused or embarrassed by the notion of femininity? Despite how femininity in today’s society is still shunned, misunderstood, objectified, and not celebrated, femininity is neither bad nor a weakness.

Feminine Shame

Feminine Shame exists because of shame we carry around the things about ourselves that are transient and cyclical – like our physical bodies and emotions. Shame is a painful emotion. Shame is tricky, insidious, and mysterious, yet it’s at the root of most all human suffering and dis-ease. It’s responsible for the “there’s something wrong with me story” and is responsible for creating the things we dislike in our lives, our bodies, our relationships, and our health.

Shame is caused by resisting some part of ourselves and in that resistance, we live in a state of inner conflict and turmoil and are constantly ashamed of the part of ourselves we’ve been programmed to believe is unworthy or invalid.

Frequently Asked Questions About Feminine Shame

What is Feminine Shame?

What is Feminine Shame:
Shame is an often misunderstood state that we do our best to avoid – and about which we rarely speak! However, it is a natural, necessary response that arises when we perceive our sense of safety, belonging, contentment, and/or joy to be in jeopardy. It motivates us to make change so that we may repair our sense of safety, belonging, contentment, and/or joy.
 
Feminine Shame, a phenomenon and concept created by InnerSpark, is when we perceive ourselves, in our innate, natural state, to be the barrier towards our sense of safety, belonging, contentment, and/or joy simply because of our existence and presence. It is an intense and deeply held resistance, aversion, resentment, and fear towards anything that is soft, transient, cyclical, fluid, passive, nurturing, intuitive, an/or emotional in nature.
 
It is a shame towards that which is natural in a world attempting to get us on board with what’s “normal.”
 
This learned disconnection leads us into a perpetual state of “not enough.” We feel wrong, bad, unworthy, fundamentally flawed just for existing. As a species, we’ve lost our taproot and have learned that it’s better to ignore the innate naturalness of our being, unless we wish to open ourselves to scrutiny, judgement, and more shame. What we’ve learned and emulated across many generations now, largely due to Puritanical programming, isn’t “natural,” although we’ve come to certainly view it as “normal.”
 
Living with Feminine Shame is a constant fight between natural and normal and an internalization that there’s something wrong with us. We are disconnected from our InnerSpark and continually seek cues and validation externally. This compartmentalized way of life makes everything harder and wreaks havoc on us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually and contributes to dis-ease on a massive scale.

Why Does Feminine Shame Exist?

Why Does Feminine Shame Exist:
The root cause of feminine shame is in the programs that have taught us to shun our naturalness and to view it as wrong, bad, sinful. Since so much of our world in its natural state is meant to encompass these qualities (our physical bodies, the cycles of the Earth, the stages of life, growth, and aging, and more), it’s an unfortunate truth that we’ll all experience this feminine shame at some point our lives to varying degrees.
 
Always striving to fit into a rigid, external measure of “normal,” willing ourselves to continue the quest when what would truly bring us back to wholeness is embracing our natural state and our Spirally essence.

Who Does Feminine Shame Impact?

Who Does Feminine Shame Impact:
Feminine Shame impacts everyone – regardless of gender or physical anatomy. It’s an abstract, permeating concept that mostly refers to shame towards that which is natural and has virtually nothing to do with gender or anatomy.
 
It is when we believe our very natural existence and presence, especially those aspects that are fluid and natural, are the source of our sense of safety, belonging, contentment, and/or joy being in jeopardy.
 
While womxn do tend to experience it more directly, as a species, we’ve undoubtedly come to a place where the essence of “feminine,” or the Spiral Principle is not held with high regard. We are all impacted, as is our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and the health of our planet.

How Do We Heal Feminine Shame?

How Do We Heal Feminine Shame:
We heal Feminine Shame intentionally, compassionately, gently, and lovingly. We do so by embracing what’s natural and letting go of what’s been deemed “normal.”
 
In The InnerSpark Method, a system for supporting deep-feeling, sensitive women in breaking the cycles of burnout, people-pleasing, anxiety, and constantly trying to “fix” themselves, we heal Feminine Shame through five phase approach: befriending the body, managing our energy system (with resources like InnerSpark’s Energy Management Tools) and connecting with our emotions, mastering our mind, and aligning with Nature’s wisdom and rhythms.
 
We do so by reconnecting with ourselves, our InnerSpark, to see the parts of ourselves riddled with shame. We do so in community where we allow ourselves to be seen and witness each other. We come back to a state of reverent balance and holistic living and thriving.

Femininity And Nature

When we align with Nature and seasonal flow, we have a direct pathway back to what’s actually natural. When we’re living in a natural way, Feminine Shame simply can’t exist, and we’re reminded of the essence of femininity, or the Spiral Principle.

Nature is the epitome of the spiral energy. Through aligning with Nature and seasonal flow, we’re more able to come into right relationship with all parts of ourselves – even ones shunned by popular culture.

There are many more resources available for supporting your spirally reconnection, and I hope you’ll find something useful in each of them. Accepting and embracing your femininity can be an ongoing practice. As this more subtle, ever-fluctuating part evolves and strengthens, the ability to receive, surrender, and experience deeper joy and ease increase

Flow With the Moon

The moon and all of her fluctuations impact us on Earth. The waxing and waning of this fluid, dynamic celestial body fill and empty us with emotion, insight, and wisdom. The moon is a direct link to our emotional body and through dancing with her cycle, we’re able to understand our own. Emotions, a signature component of the feminine, are crucial messengers and teachers.

Seasonal Living

Living Seasonally helps us to plug back into the natural way of living; a way of living that our bodies and cellular intelligence understand. By having the external mirror of the flowing of the seasons as our guide, we remember what we’ve known all along. Read more

Plant Support

Turning to plants in their four main forms offers us a way to reconnect to ourselves, find healing and wholeness on all levels, and eradicate shame. Flower Essences, a form of energy healing, provide us with tremendous healing opportunities through working directly with our subtle energies. Through this deep shadow work, we’re able to influence change and healing in all aspects of our lives. Every plant carries a unique signature and offering. Unraveling the ways in which we’re disconnected from our feminine essence, befriending our core wound, and creating a bridge for re-connection is a beautiful journey that can be greatly facilitated with flower

Digestion + Sensorial Nourishment

Nutrition must be thought of as a holistic concept that includes all we take in through the senses, which is so much more than the food we put into our mouths. Like food, these inputs can be of a high quality, supportive nature, or they can be toxic and poisonous to the system.

Nervous System Care + Energy Healing

Ensuring our nervous systems are stabilized and loved on regularly helps us to experience the full spectrum of ourselves – femininity and all.

If you’re at all interested in holistic wellness or alternative medicine then surely you’ve heard of something called energy healing. From Reiki and Qigong in the Far East to Yoga in India and Quantum Healing in the West, the world is full of various methods of working with subtle energies. Even within these disciplines there can be significant differences among practitioners, leaving us to wonder what is energy healing anyway?

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These primal energies of the Universe, femininity/The Spiral Principle and masculinity/The Triangle Principle exist on a spectrum and are within and around each of us at all times. You get to define and redefine what it all means for you, how you wish to experience it, and more!