Oana
Hello, and welcome back to the Uncut Feminine podcast. In our last episode, we talked about the four habits of femininity, four pillars that make the feminine principle something real, something achieved, something we can take in our day-to-day life. And the conversation was important, and what burst out of it was how we create the same habitual practices and express the feminine principle at work. So we started brainstorming it. And in this episode, we’re going to tackle this. How do we be feminine at work if you didn’t listen to the previous episode? Head over and do it now. We’re going to post the link in the description so it gets easier for you to access it for newcomers. I’m Oana, and I’ll be your host for the next half an hour together with my colleague Ioana. And we’re trying to find the best possible answers and ways of looking at life that can really empower your womanhood. For those who don’t know me yet, I’m the founder of TheFeminine.com. It’s an online platform dedicated to women all over the world.
Ioana
Our mission statement revolves around a totally new and fresh paradigm of self-care, well-being, and being feminine at The Feminine.
Oana
We really believe that the feminine principle can be a guide in our life, and it can enrich us not only on a personal level but on a social level as well. So we are developing, creating, and looking at practices and ways in which we can take the feminine principle into our lives and enrich our lives with it. I have been a transformational coach for 14-15 years now.
Ioana
And I’ve dedicated the last eight to empowering women to trust their voice, follow their heart, and embrace their womanhood completely. The Feminine is the embodiment of my work, and its main focus and intention are to support women in acknowledging their true power, connecting with their authenticity, and giving a full expression of their gifts to the world.
Oana
brings together practices and exercises and principles that are connected to the feminine principle, especially for women. But I think also for men. And we are going to look at that more and more because we’re bringing different ways in which masculine and feminine can interact in our day-to-day life. And today we’re going to talk about a very important topic, I think, how can we become feminine at work, how we can take femininity into our work without sounding weak or irrational, or disconnected from reality? And I have my friend with me, Ioana, here. And we are going to brainstorm on how we took that challenge for ourselves as a business and how we developed ourselves as a team, not being feminine and thriving to be feminine. And what were the trials of that process? We still have more to go, for sure. It’s an ongoing process, but I think we can brainstorm on it.
Ioana
I already have a question. I didn’t have it five minutes ago when we started recording, but it came up while you were reading the intro. And I was thinking that we so often put the feminine way in perspective with a masculine way. But it just came to my mind as an example, putting the feminine way perspective with a girlish way, because the feminine is also the better side of the girlish way, not always the counterexample of the masculine way. And the question came up because I was remembering an episode in my life. I was working in a very tough environment. I had a boss. He was an extraordinary man, a very strong man. But the environment was awful. And during two years, I think while I worked with him and for him, not from the very beginning, but in the last year, for sure, every single day I was going to him with my resignation and he took it and he put it in the shredding machine. And then the other day the resignation again, I’m thinking back on it and how patient he was. In fact, because it was a very garish attitude. It was my way of reacting to the environment because I was telling him something.
Ioana
The environment was supporting some different perspectives. I really did not have the ability to make my voice heard so that he would follow my advice, not what other people were telling him. And I really didn’t know how to do that. And I was trying to get his attention. Doing this resignation, being feminine is actually a demonstration of how strong you are sometimes, not necessarily how emotional or weak you are.
Oana
Like we are used to imagining when we think of the masculine-feminine opposite and understanding that the feminine is not garlic and it’s not vulnerable in that sense of the way. And that stepping into our power requires a different reference for how we express that power. I think acknowledging it first and with acknowledgment, we come back to the first principle.
Ioana
But yes, I didn’t even know I had power.
Oana
It’s very interesting because something really popped up for me not necessarily connected to the conversation we’re going to have. So I’m just going to put it in a bracket. But it’s I think one of the confusions that were generated after the Me Too movement because we made a declaration as women and we were stepping into our power and into owning our power. And I don’t think that the Me Too movement was the victim movement. I actually think it was sourced from a deep commitment of women stepping into the light and owning that something needs to shift. And yet we still have a lot of work to do as women. I think first and foremost of creating references and mapping out different ways of interacting that are not abusive or are not dysfunctional. And I think it applies to the Me Too movement, but it’s the same in the business environment. We don’t want to live in abusive environments at work anymore. We want to feel balanced and honored as women at work. And yet neither we women nor the men know how to do that.
Ioana
Yes, exactly. Nobody knew that.
Oana
And it’s up to us to create it. And I think that’s an important awareness to have because it gives us space and it gives us attention in the right place. Otherwise, we’re just going to blame something that worked until now and we became aware that it really doesn’t work at the level we want to work. It’s the first stage. It’s a very important stage, but we need to move forward. And I really hope that maybe this podcast will be an inspiration for many women out there who are struggling with being their true selves as women at work and in life in general, in areas where they’re powerful, where they’re leaders, and where they feel an unconscious pressure or a very obvious pressure from the environment to act tough to make their point across. And yeah, it’s up to us to balance that reference point for society. I think.
Ioana
I don’t want to ask you now, how do we do that? But I think two of the most frequent emotions or the way we perceive this kind of situation is that we either don’t know how to do it or are afraid to do it. It’s one or the other. How can we address it? Or how can we start addressing it? Because it’s a process.
Oana
Again, my work with men and women alike in my extensive coaching practice is always about conquering new unknown territories inside of you. And it’s about giving a reference point mental context for your hidden potential so that you can achieve it. And when you reach that level or that point in your self personal journey of discovery, you don’t know, you don’t know how to be and you have to create it. And the greatest coaching to live ever is the simplest basic coaching tool I’ve ever used. But I have used it ever since I started working in the coaching industry. And it’s 14 years now. And it’s like an open question. I don’t know the answer, but if I keep being open and curious and engaging my creativity with it, I will explore it. I will try it on, see what works, see what doesn’t work, keep exploring it, and then I’ll figure it out. It may be a very personal answer, but it’s an answer. It’s a reference point. And then other people can get the enthusiasm and the courage to take it on. So it’s an open question. How are we going to be feminine at work and what does it look like to be feminine at work and how can we allow the process to unfold until we figure it out?
Oana
Because it is a process I know for myself when I started working with the feminine, I really put a lot of pressure on myself to be feminine everywhere in my life as a way to have integrity with what I preach. And, oh, my God, it took me years to unravel a very dysfunctional pattern, just like working hard and not taking a break and not listening to my body when it says, take a break. I was abusing myself because it was the only way I knew how to work. And I was afraid to let go and find a different way and think that I will perform against a mainstream called society that said, no, you actually have to get burned out in the process. And if you’re going to make it, then you’re a successful person. If not, that’s it. There is a game. You either win it or lose it.
Ioana
But how can you do that in an environment that isn’t actually supportive? Because I’m just looking now at my past experience and how we as The Feminine do things because, in The Feminine, everybody who teams up or the people we work with are nurtured. Speaking about the benefits. The third benefit was nurturing. They are nurtured. Even if we don’t address it, it’s not on the table for everyone. Like that word, they feel nurtured. And for example, the graphic designer, in two weeks, if we don’t call him, he calls us, how are you? Where have you disappeared? And it’s obvious that he enjoys the process. And this comes from the nurturing part. But let’s be honest, not everybody has this kind of environment. There are women who struggle with very misogynistic bosses. How can you deal with that in a very unfriendly environment?
Oana
Well, The Feminine I made it my personal commitment as the CEO to provide the type of climate like that. I think most climates are not like that. So most of the time we are experiencing hard and tough environments, whether they are misogynistic or abusive, or dysfunctional. And there will be women who need other women to step up so that they can relax into the feminine. But there are also women who are going to be leaders and who are going to take it on themselves to nourish while they haven’t been nourished as a way to set a ground. And I think there are more and more women at this level willing to contribute. So that’s one thing, another thing where when I started it, I wasn’t nourished. I started nourishing without feeling nourished. But I created a personal tribe in my life of women that were holding me in a sacred space and a sacred commitment and were able on a personal level to be with me in my quest. So the feminine can be a place for you to become connected with other women who can support you in your rise as a leader and your rise as a pioneer.
Oana
And then you will have the challenge, which is also inspiring. It doesn’t have to be tough. I mean, it’s tough, but it’s challenging and it’s cool, and it’s inspiring because you are co-creating something very new and that can bring a lot of fulfillment.
Ioana
So you have to act intentionally. You have to just say, I want to start living or having this environment, this life, and work within the intention and be very present in what you’re doing. Speaking about awareness.
Oana
Yeah. And if I look at one of the things that gave me more strength in the journey was taking the time to nourish myself, with myself. Like, I really became somebody who was bringing nourishment to work for everybody. And I know it was a long process with my employees to teach them that level of well-being.
Ioana
Yes, I can.
Oana
It wasn’t easy at the beginning. It was a very freaky challenge because you want well-being, but then you’re in a place where well-being is offered and then you’re all over the place about it because you’re in shock that’s happening. That’s first. And second, you don’t know how to act. And third, you don’t feel safe relaxing in it. I remember some of the members of my team, it took them like two or three years to really surrender. Like, oh my God, she’s actually nourishing for the sake of nourishment. She’s not going to punish me or ask something beyond what she’s already asking. And there’s no connection between nourishment and objectives. So it was really funny. But one of the things that I brought in this process of creating a climate of nourishment in how I work and in how I lead people in their work is by nourishing myself and learning the benefits and trusting the benefits, for example, because I saw how much it worked on me. And then whenever I was opposed to resistance, I didn’t back down because I knew it was just part of the process and it was another layer that needed to be dealt with.
Oana
But the benefits will be there and it won’t diminish the financial objectives of the business. It won’t diminish the growth, it will empower it at some point, and I don’t have to see the results right now. I need to trust that it’s challenging.
Ioana
Even for a startup, because even startups are very. They push in the way they do things. They’re not only the big companies, even startups go with a Manly attitude, with a very pushy attitude.
Oana
That’s true.
Ioana
And probably everybody does that because they’re afraid because they imagine soft is like weak and weak is losing the game.
Oana
I never put pressure on my team to stop being workaholics and perfectionists.
Ioana
You can’t do that anyway.
Oana
I’m also that. So I never diminished my masculine energy. I just increased the feminine. And I think that was the strategic tackle, unconscious strategic movement. I wasn’t aware of it and it felt safer for people. It felt safer for me. So we were working like, and we know we do that. We work like crazy and we’re very intensive and very competitive, but then we take the time to Nourish. Now we start trusting ourselves not only on a personal level but as a team. That’s okay. It took a while.
Ioana
It took almost two years. I think it doesn’t happen overnight just for the sake of offering an example of how we do things. Speaking about Nourishment on a Friday, we decided to have a meeting to decide some of the topics we’re going to address the following month. And it was planned to be in the same place where all this happens. And you just said, Girls, what do you say about working today in the park? And we just went out and just stood there for 6 hours strolling. I don’t think we ever worked probably for 15 minutes, but at the end of the day, we had the topics. They were there on paper. And I think that’s the most important. And you can do it. You don’t have to live in a planning room.
Oana
Yes. And of course, that’s more convenient for startups or for alternative businesses or small team businesses than companies, for sure. But if you were to look at Nourishment and how to bring it into your corporate environment, it would just be, I don’t know, five minutes of human connection with no link to the agenda and start that in an open circle where everybody just has to say about where they are at that moment in their life, in their work, in their day, in their hour. You actually taught me something very cool. Yeah. You were having a breakdown in creativity, and you were, like, shy about addressing it and struggling on your own. And we had a meeting, and you took the courage to say that you are struggling with your creativity, and it was where you were and it was threatening for you to say that. And it was threatening for me as the leader of the team, to hear that. And it opened up a very vulnerable, very insecure space for both of us and for the whole team. And actually, I was aware at that moment it was a choice also. What type of business do you want to run?
Oana
Do you want to run a business where people feel safe, tell the truth, and really be okay with that and allow that? Or do you want to run a business where you cover up the truth and just focus on the results? And you just said it. We didn’t even address it. It was like an open-circle conversation. And I stepped into a whole new level of vulnerability as a leader. And you actually, by acknowledging it, something shifted for you. And you came and you said, I don’t know, four days later, something shifted for me. I feel more alive with my creativity after I just had the courage to say that in front of everybody. Yes, maybe some businesses or teams are not going to be ready to go all the way through, but just a bonding of five minutes of where people are in their life, I think will bring an inclusiveness that will heighten performance.
Ioana
Actually, and especially that’s perfectly true. And I think people working in creative environments will benefit a lot if they start doing things from feminine energy because the feminine energy is what creates. And you really feel like the power of creation, even if you just address it. You don’t have to do very specific things. But yes, taking some time off with the intention of growing or creating can be very useful because people struggle a lot with creativity, but they don’t realize that staying in a closed office floor number 99 is not at all. You cannot become creative, only just scrolling on Instagram or okay, it can be very useful, but you have to just go out there and just connect with everything with small things like probably journalists understand better because connecting with the street and connecting with nature can be very useful for creativity.
Oana
Yeah. And I think it’s foolish to think that you can be creative all the time. And the leader, who does not allow for breakdowns, burnouts, and peaks and values in the process of their own leadership. And then the teamwork and how the team works acts mentally. And I think The Feminine that we can bring to the subject is a connection with the human aspect of ourselves. I get burned out. My team has the right to get burnout. It’s part of the process. It doesn’t mean that burnout will be there forever. And we don’t have a commitment to Pierce through that. But unless we acknowledge it from a place of feeling safe and allowing it to be, then we can’t really move with more fluidity. That’s my experience. The moment we allow the capacity to own where we are in the process, we’re moving more fluidly through the process. And this is a very different perspective because the masculine is always focused on the objective, no matter what. I have to get there where I want to be. The feminine is more oriented to the process. So you need to balance both. You need to stay focused on the objective, for sure.
Oana
But if you bring the feminine principle at work in how you manage your team or how you cocreate, then awareness of where the team is in the process brings a depth of information. It makes it more creative. And people get more engaged. And I’ve learned it because I’ve seen it in sequels of creation, where it ends, and then you create a cycle again. It brings a deeper level of commitment and engagement in the team because when you’re bringing awareness to the process, which is a feminine trade, people get more aware of the value they’re bringing, and that makes their investment in the project, in the outcome personal. So either they’re struggling with Will I start a new project with you or not? They’re more committed to that. It’s a paradox. It’s very funny, but it’s a paradox. It’s a cool paradox.
Ioana
What about intuition? How can you transform intuition from a cliche, something more related to magical thinking into an asset in decision-making?
Oana
You should tell me that because you were struggling with following your intuition in the workplace like nobody I’ve seen before, you were so afraid to step into your intuition for a long time, and you were so attached to what the mind says and wants and needs and how we should do things. So you tell me.
Ioana
I don’t think there was a moment when I realized that something shifted because I’m still attached to numbers and to scaling numbers. But probably now I trust more what I think it’s no, I trust more what I like or what inspires me. Because before I didn’t find value, business value, not value. Instead of things I like or things that I enjoy, I said, okay, that’s my thing. It’s something I like. Why should other people like it? But now I think, okay, if I like it, that’s value there, that’s merit there. So maybe that’s something there that other people will see. And now I trust what I like, and I like more what I like. And probably that’s the way I’m getting connected with what we call intuition, but I’m always backing it up with metrics and numbers.
Oana
Sure. And we always do that.
Ioana
But, you know, it was funny. And where I really get instant feedback on hashtags, is on Instagram, because sometimes I use hashtags, I just use some hashtags coming to my mind. And I couldn’t imagine something someone before thought about that hashtag, but like 2 million hashtags using those words, and they say, oh, my God. So I was right. People really have that as a reference, like a word or a phrase, or a sentence. And then I keep on using it. I said, okay, this should work, and it works. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. But probably it’s a learning process in the back of every intuitive thinking. Yeah.
Oana
And I think businesses always say that either you’re creating a trend or you’re at the right place at the right moment when a trend is created, and that’s the Avenue of success and thriving for a business or any project. And I think it’s true, I’ve experienced that. It’s true. I don’t know if it’s the only way, but I think intuition connects you more with the trend. They connect you more with the collective energy around the subject or around the product. So whenever you want to try and narrow it down to the masculine, objective, strategic thing, I think that’s very powerful, and it brings clarity to the workplace. But then if you just allow your intuition in a way, you’re mapping what’s the trend or where people will instinctively go in the future. And I think it’s a cool tool to allow in your business after everything is done. Said and calculated.
Ioana
It doesn’t matter if you are or are not a leader if you are just starting your career or approaching passion. How you can use these tools in your working environment so that you can empower yourself.
Oana
Well, it’s how I always advise women in my workshops. For them, it was also how I bring my feminine acquired soft, subtle capacities and emotions and ways of softening to my relationship with the man. Because he’s closed, he’s not. And I think in a way, it’s a very narrow dynamic that is present on the social scale. It’s how I always guide them and do the inner work. Because what’s really important with the feminine is not so much talking about it or preaching. It’s really becoming that feminine energy that is. Nourishment, I’ve never talked to my graphic designer about it. Nourishment, never. I was. Nourishing, even when I wasn’t, because my energy was cultivated in that way. So for us women to influence our environment, whether it’s at work with our men or in the social outskirts or in the community, we need to trust and understand the power that comes from cultivating our feminine energy. And if we take the time to cultivate strengths and be in our truth, we will be able to share our truth in a way that’s not aggressive, that’s not competitive, and it will land even in the harshest environment. If we take the time to cultivate compassion, we will become compassionate, that will Pierce through all the layers of our life, and people will feel they’re safe with us and they will open up even our boss, for example, because it’s a human trait that we are enveloping people around us inside of.
Oana
If we take the time to be fiercely committed to our intention and our feminine energy and ground ourselves and become more stable, we will create an atmosphere of calmness, of connection to reality, of stepping into what’s so and that will influence the environment we work. People will be able to step more easily into acknowledging what’s happening. And it’s a subtle influence, and it doesn’t have to shout, it doesn’t have to fight, it doesn’t have to create a revolution, but it makes a difference. So trust more and cultivate more the feminine energy inside of you until it’s so nourished inside of you that it becomes ripples outside of you, of waves of energy. It’s a beautiful, profound way of influencing your environment, no matter your position in that environment. It’s like water. Water is the most powerful element in nature. It’s the only element that manages to interact with stone and shift stone. Stone is an untouchable element. Nothing can really shift it except water. And the water just erodes by enveloping the stone. It erodes the stone. It’s the same with the feminine energy. We cannot be feminine unless we cultivate the energy of feminine.
Ioana
So what I hear, just to be sure everything lands very clear. You can develop emotional awareness. You can turn intuition into an asset and you can make nurturing values that you can apply in your environment, Business, or personal.
Oana
But nurturing habits.
Ioana
Yeah, nurturing habits. And of course, you can eventually embody all of this, but first, it doesn’t happen overnight Because you have to say yes. I want you to say yes, and you have to make an option to become every single one of these values. And then you have to do the work. Because when I was troubled and when I was confused and when I wasn’t grasping my power, It happened because I never said yes and because I never said yes, I wasn’t able to do the work.
Oana
You were struggling. Yes.
Ioana
And I see now a lot of friends and lots of people, Men and women, it doesn’t matter around me who struggle, who are afraid of admitting that they are struggling and they are like this Because they really never say yes or they really never say no. They just stay like this and expect something to come up and save them or I don’t know, I don’t want to sound judgmental, but it’s really important to say yes and then do the work and then you’ll embody.
Oana
Yeah. And the subtle point to that is embodiment doesn’t come from picking another box in your environment. Like, okay, I’m going to create nourishing habits for everybody. I’m going to ask everybody about their intuition. I’m going to bring emotional awareness to the environment and ask people how they feel about things. No. The feminine embodiment means cultivating the feminine energy, and this will bring your feminine essence to a level of enveloping people in the energy of nourishment. And that energy will unfold in many different ways and create habits in dynamics or on your own or for them that will burst out of the creativity of the dance of the energy. That’s a very important subtle pitfall.
Ioana
And it’s not fluffy at all.
Oana
No. And it’s exactly what you said. It’s saying yes to the process and actually doing the process.
Ioana
Yes. Thank you, Oana. It was a strong conversation, But I think it landed exactly as it should.
Oana
Yeah. And it’s a very complex topic. We should address it more often for sure. Hope it makes a difference to everybody, including men who are also struggling with how to honor and respect now the feminine principle that is rising to a whole new level of truth and try. I promise you are trying to work and say yes. And I was really looking forward to hearing your questions. Share your questions with us, share your challenges, Share your stories and help us bring them to the floor for everybody. Thank you.
