What comes up for you when you hear “feminine” or “masculine”? Words are powerful. The frequency they hold and the concepts they convey are everything. They literally create our existence into form.

In my work, I’ve created a new way of thinking about and feeling into the concepts of “masculine and feminine” to free us of the pre-loaded meaning and help us to feel them on a deeper level for embodied sovereignty and inner union. This is how we begin to heal Feminine Shame.

The Truth of Who We Are

Let’s set a foundation for this little talk today by laying out what I know to be truth: we are divine and human, flesh and spirit, finite and infinite, limited and limitless. We are all of these things and none of these things. We are the people we think we are and we are not them at all.

Many of us are so caught in dualities that we cannot fathom a third option – or a fourth, fifth, sixth… We don’t see ourselves as divine or we resent our humanity. We may tend towards being ultra-spiritual and have our heads in the clouds at the expense of our physical bodies and the physical experience of life, or we are so attached to the physical we fear or forget about the rest.

We are in our bodies, but we are not our bodies. We are wearing them for a while we are here at Earth School. Part of the point of being at Earth School is to learn to hold all of us and to merge polarities – Heaven and Earth, masculine and feminine, human and spirit.

Spiral + Triangle Concepts

Spiral and Triangle are concepts I created to help us go beyond the use of “feminine” and “masculine.”  Because those terms are widely used and tend to mean subtly different things to different people, I wanted to create concepts that still captured what I believe “feminine” and “masculine” are trying to capture at their core, without the loaded connotations that “feminine” and “masculine” bring into a conversation.

Think beyond gender, beyond sexual identification, sexual orientation, and anything having to do with that for a moment, I’d like for you to think about “feminine” and “masculine” in deeper senses.

They are polarities, they are the opposite ends of the spectrum of creation. They contain the necessary substrate for creation, and everything is in a fluid dance along this spectrum: action and rest; lunar and solar; sleep and awake; quiet and sound.

The Spiral Principle, just to help us understand, could be thought of as the feminine and The Triangle Principle could be thought of as the masculine. The Spiral Principle is all that is transient, shifting, passive, and cyclical, like the moon. The Triangle Principle is all that is fixed, structured, active, and linear, like the sun.

Healing Feminine Shame Through New, Broader Perspectives

Understanding these concepts within ourselves is the first step towards sustainable evolution. My soul’s purpose is to heal the collective Spiral energy and Feminine Shame through remembering our natural essence.

The danger lies in only recognizing the binaries and failing to see a whole way of existing in the middle that is dynamic. There is also danger in trying to label everything as either/or and when we begin to paint one way as better or worse than another.

We’ve been taught to celebrate structure, outward expression, productivity, and action; to view it as safe, while anything that is transient, passive, and changeable is deemed unsafe and something of which to be wary, which breeds toxic feminine or spiral shaming. Check out this article and podcast on Feminine Shame for more on identifying, confronting, and healing it. 

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.

Connecting to These Concepts

Are you connected to your Spiral Principle? We sure have the Triangle Principle down in our society. The one that honors doing, evenness, and expression over rejuvenation, fluctuation, and introspection.

Everything exists on a continuum, a never-ending spiral. Nothing is ever fixed or permanent, despite our attempts. Literally everything in your life from the micro moments to an entire life-cycle consists of a series of concentric spirals on spirals on spirals.

The rising and setting of the sun, your daily body rhythms or circadian clock, the moon phases, turning of the seasons, the menstrual cycle, our shared collective life experiences and life cycles that are way more alike than not, thanks to these matching human costumes we’re wearing… spirals on spirals on spirals.

Even the growth and change process… ever feel like you’re continuing to dance with the same wound over and over and over again? In a sense you are… they’re yours and they’re sacred and are part of your soul’s purpose in this lifetime. However, you are certainly not experiencing the “same thing;” it would be impossible. You’ve grown and changed and evolved, as have all things within and around you. You’re being met with it again in a new way, just as this autumn won’t be last autumn or next autumn, yet it’s still autumn because we need autumn and its sacred wisdom and medicine.

The big secret is this: there’s nothing wrong with you. 

You don’t need to be “fixed” or “healed” or “changed” to earn love, respect, rest, whatever. You are love, you are respect, you are rest. All of these fluctuating needs and rhythms that exist within you and your emotional body, your physical body, your mental body, all the parts of you that are constantly changing and in flux are all absolutely beautiful. And, these spirally parts that are constantly changing and in flux will continue to be that way forever more.

No matter how you fight it or try to “fix” it because you think they’re wrong… the spiral is here. Being in our spiral, makes us feel needy because it’s fluctuating and changing – what worked yesterday, may not work today; what nourished last year, may not next month. Living in a state of flow and honoring our polarities and dancing between them requires authenticity, which requires vulnerability, which requires a transmuting of shame.

THANK GODDESS! And, the medicine is to be aware of and devoted to it through honoring your triangle.

The Invitation

We must unlearn all we think we know about ourselves and about life and living wholly nourished on planet Earth. It’s time to seek within. To know thyself. Deeply. To seek within and consult our own embodied wisdom, our potent subtle energies, and Mother Earth. It’s time to know that our “purpose” is not an elusive, out-of-reach thing for which to seek. It is simply to live in accordance with our values. Our core wounds are gateways towards pleasure.

It’s time to remember and reclaim the ancient wisdom that lives in our cells, to cultivate authentic, dogma-free spirituality, to claim ourselves as sacred and divine and to be guided by cosmic flow. It’s time to live in service to something greater than ourselves, understanding and realizing the tremendous power and responsibility we have together at this time in resurrecting the awareness of the sacred spiral energies through repairing our relationship with our inner authority, structure, and devoted discipline.

It’s time to heal Feminine Shame.

Embracing Your Totality + Putting it in Practice

I know for me, it’s a daily practice of tending my human and feeding my spirit; of finding that still point within to just be and know. Working with grounded resources, like whole foods, embodiment practices, herbs, etc., as well as spiritual, intangible practices such as journeying, dream work, plant spirit medicine, etc. are crucial daily parts of my life.

Have a daily practice – it’s non-negotiable. You’re a sensitive, introverted soul. You are as spirally as it gets; it’s your superpower. This requires you to be in solid relationship with your triangle, your structure. Show up. Have the container and flow within.

Tell me about your experiences with integrating these parts of yourself. What magical experiences of remembering have you had and what has felt challenging about the process?