Oana
Hi there. Welcome to a new and fresh episode of Uncut The Feminine Podcast. Thank you all for your magnificent feedback. Your questions are super relevant, and the best thing we are learning from them is that so no matter the ages or the stages we are in our womanhood, they’re not isolated questions or concerns. We, women, go through these topics again and again and again, no matter the stage in life we are at, no matter our age. And it’s very important for us to understand and come together through the questions and discuss our challenges and our personal insights about it because this is how we are creating the sisterhood and understanding that there is a sisterhood. We all have questions or concerns or things that show up in our lives that we don’t know how to address or how to address the best way. And I think talking about it in this Uncut version is an eye-opener. It’s like I say when I do women’s retreats live. Just coming together in the conversation brings solutions to the surface that we haven’t thought of or felt before. Because the power of the circle, the power of all these conjoined energies is enough to trigger our own solution.
Oana
One of the things we’re going to discuss today is the topic of self-care, and we want to bring you to the next level. We want to understand in a much more subtle way how we can take care of ourselves and what it actually means on a deeper or higher level, and why is that relevant and important to address in relation to different topics or areas in our life that don’t work for us? And we’ve really tried to make the questions very specific so that we can really get clear on some of the pathways or answers to these challenges we’re facing. And we’re going to address our relationship to our body and pain and even disease or sickness because that’s also part of the challenge and it’s connected to self-care. And I’m here with Ioana, and we’re going to go through the motion of that. But for those who don’t know us yet, I am Oana, founder of TheFeminine.com.
It’s an online platform dedicated to women all over the world. 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.
And I’ve dedicated the last aid 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 gift to the world.
Oana
And it 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. Hey, Ioana.
Ioana
Hi, Oana. You’ll be surprised how many men are giving us feedback and listening to our podcast. Yes, and also ask when are we going to dedicate some very specific episodes to men’s issues.
Oana
We should definitely do that.
Ioana
I always tell them, you’ll be surprised how many common issues men and women have. So don’t treat it like it’s a separate universe because they are interlinked. Anyway, I’m so happy we dedicated this episode to self-care and we look more to the bodies and how our bodies respond to the lack of self-care. Personally, I’ve experienced insomnia in the past years like a baby for my whole life until one day when I couldn’t sleep anymore and I was talking with my friend Maria and I told her we are going to address this issue and just ask her, is it any curiosity you as a woman have? And she told me, I would really like to know what I can do to sleep more because I have trouble sleeping at night. Let’s use this as a trigger just to start addressing more how not taking care of ourselves impacts our bodies and just to make a small parenthesis. I remember when I was really in a critical place. It’s not being able to sleep two or three nights in a row. You told me to start working with my body and I did some different kinds of therapy, including acupuncture.
Ioana
And it was the only thing that actually worked. What’s the explanation or how can we look at this?
Oana
The body suffers the moment we for a long time or for a long period of time, do not engage with our emotions and the messages that our emotions bring. And because this is actually the self-care we’re talking about, we’re not talking about going to a massage and dressing nice and being on top of everything and shining all the way your beauty to the world. We’re really talking about self-care at the level of self, at the level of core being of who you are, what’s your truth? What do you feel? How much do you give away your energy? How much are you receiving? And how are you aware of the boundaries that you should put in place? And it’s a deeper work and it’s a subtle work to do. And I’ve had struggles with my body and I’ve had struggles with disease, sometimes unknown disease. And it’s very frequent nowadays. And so many stress diseases that don’t have a cause or doctors. The clinical doctors don’t find the cause. And I’ve experienced it as an effect of burnout. That comes because, for a prolonged period of time, we don’t pay attention to our emotions and our inner truth.
Oana
And we compromise our inner truth. Because the environment is stronger. Or because we don’t want to take on some battles with people around us. Because we think it’s futile. So we don’t engage. And then this comes back to the body. Because actually, the body is just a channel. A very clean, clear, transparent reflection of what’s happening in your life. And we don’t pay attention to that. Because that would trigger us into self-awareness. And it would trigger a whole process that may not be physical. It may be emotional or spiritual. So there’s a whole pool of attraction and resistance going on there.
Ioana
In fact, one of the most frequent mistakes we’re doing, I think, because we’re not used to or even afraid to look at emotions. And we are not used to understanding how the body works on the emotional level. And we will take pills thinking that pills are going to resolve our health issues. Sometimes, of course, they do. Because sometimes it’s something very specific from a medical point of view. But so many times it’s not like everything comes out. The blood tests are okay. Everything from a medical point of view is all right. But you’re still struggling and you’re still feeling horrible. And you go take pills, you numb yourself, and you don’t address the issues. How can we look at our body so that we can understand that actually what we’re struggling with? Is it a sign of an emotional issue, of an emotion that’s not addressed correctly?
Oana
Well, by understanding, first of all, that the body really is a mirror. So if there’s something going on in my body, there’s something going on with me in life. And the body is just voicing that because I haven’t addressed it before. And it has come down to the level of my physical body. And the pain or the disease intensifies in a relationship. To how much I am not willing to look at the whole system of my life and where I am in my life. And what am I maybe I’m saying it to myself, but I’m not saying it to the universe. And I’m not taking a stand. For me. For us women, it’s very important to understand. That is the link between our emotions and our physical body. Is it the hormonal balance or the hormonal imbalance? And for us, it’s very important to take care of our hormones, which we experience through sensations in the body and emotions. And the moment we allow this whole system or channel to open up and see sensations as emotions, as water, as a river passing through this channel. Unstoppable, unlimited, unconstrained. Then we are tapping into a golden secret in a relationship.
Oana
To what makes us healthy and radiant and imbalanced both in an emotional state and a physical state as women. And I’ve worked with women for a couple of years, and I’ve experienced myself as well. When we do this in workshops and through the practice of breathing or through the practice of connecting with mothers, we raise up feminine energy. And this feminine energy is like a tsunami, like a big, strong river that’s going to get activated in the body, and it bumps against our blockages, and we start experiencing different dysfunctions. And the mind says, oh, my God, I went to this workshop, and now I have a disease. No, you were having a blockage. And through the practice of connecting with your feminine energy, you are becoming aware of that blockage. And the body is taking it as a form of dysfunction or disease because it’s signaling you. You’re not paying attention to the absence, the flow of your inner state, your inner emotions. And the moment we actually allow our emotions to be, our hormonal system becomes balanced, and we experience flow in the body and also healing. And yes, for many of us, this can trigger a crisis that can be resolved in many ways, alternative medicine or even classical medicine, and we have to address that.
But the root of that dysfunction is actually how much you are taking care of yourself.
Ioana
It’s actually true because one of the things I’ve learned while confronting my insomnia is that, of course, I discover after doing the work that I couldn’t sleep because it was fear keeping me up at night. And after I started addressing the fear, I discovered rage coming up, keeping me very anxious all the time, because I wasn’t used to addressing the rage, because we’re told it’s not okay to be enraged.
Oana
But I remember that you are missing the practice of shouting at the moon like a wolf. Yes, it’s an ancient practice that women do, which is what we’re doing. In the past.
Ioana
I still managed to find the right place to do that, but it’s something I’m looking forward to doing. But I remember something a colleague of ours told me once, you either do this or die. Of course, she was exaggerating, but for me, it was a very bold statement because it made me do the work because they didn’t have any excuses anymore.
Oana
But my problem, she was true on a psychological level, on a psychic level, you were actually going to die if you were feeling like I was dying.
Ioana
I completely got her message. I did not have any argument.
Oana
A very healthy practice for women. Shout your age and you’ll experience everlasting health.
Ioana
Yes. Okay. Until you do that until you find the voice to do that because you don’t have a voice for that. It sounds easy, but believe me, it’s not really easy shouting. I remember you have a practice you always give us to express rage. You have to hit a pillow and shout. And I’m still having trouble really shouting. So it’s not that easy. But my question is you come to understand these sorts of blockages after you work with them and after you meet somebody who can actually coach you through the whole process? But we’re not used to understanding what keeps us up at night. How can we start connecting to the body so we can really start to feel these emotions that are not being addressed?
Oana
I think the first step is just to bring compassion to your body and stop looking at your body either as a tool that you use to go along the day or something you judge because it has to look a certain way and you dislike it. And when you actually take the point of view that it is a vessel, it’s a channel that’s working better when it is connected to the Earth, because that’s how you are nurtured ongoingly with fresh energy, feminine, fresh energy. And it’s also connected to your higher spirit, your soul. So it’s a vessel that makes a bridge between the feminine energy that is in Mother Earth and your own feminine energy that is your soul. And if you look at it as a vessel and your whole intention is to allow everything that wants to move through you, to move through you and expand and bring gentleness and compassion and just subtle attention to everything that wants to move through you, a whole new universe opens up for you as a woman. It’s an amazing initiation, actually. It’s a whole spiritual initiation into the mysteries of the feminine principle that are subtle. They’re not seen at the surface.
Oana
And they are developing your intuition, they’re developing your sensitivity, they’re developing the depth of how much you feel and why you feel the way you feel. And they’re developing your womanhood inside out. And actually, disease or pain is a very strong threshold to look at that. And I have a very funny question and a synchronicity because one of my women clients that I’ve been working with a long time, a beautiful woman, an independent woman in her 50s, is very successful. And we’ve been working for a while. And actually today she came to therapy, and she was having this stage in her life where her mother passed away a year ago. And she is a very strong woman. So she took the challenge, and she was always on top of the situation. But fundamentally, she was very sad and depressed because her mother died, which is like a normal experience of being human. And she’s been struggling to understand what doesn’t work for her in her own family, including her parents and her children and her lover, and what doesn’t work for her in general. And she was fine. We have these glorious moments, and then something happens, and then something’s not fine anymore.
Oana
And we don’t know how to really engage with why is this happening to me. I was okay. I don’t understand what’s wrong. That whole process. And she started having issues with her body. She started having problems with her thyroid. She started having discomfort, and her body was always her rock. She would always be proud of her body because her body would be like this strong vessel. And now she started having these issues, and they were all connected to all the emotions. She wasn’t allowing herself to really fully in-depth experience so that she can consciously mourn not only the death of her mother, but what symbolically does that represent for her? Because it was stepping into authority for her at a new level. She was birthing her whole new self. And this year, she started having issues with her body, and she started having issues with her father because her father became sick, and she was afraid she was going to lose her father, too. So she started getting closer to her father, and she started bumping against a dynamic between their parents. Through her mother, she was bumping against a lineage of women in her family that was not honoring their voice and not taking care of themselves like her, but she wasn’t aware of that.
Oana
So everything boiled up, boiled up. She decided to make this surgery and come up with a solution that would quickly fix her classic doctor intervention. And she was very happy. She was strong. I’m going to do it. I don’t need to take care of myself. I’m not going to talk to anybody about it. I’m just going to do it. And I was like, well, yes, but how about we slow down? How about we have compassion for your body? How about you take a break and integrate the surgery? Surgery was a mess. She ended up really struggling for a month after the surgery. She started having real issues and real problems with her body and the pain in her body. And she came to therapy today, and she was like, I just had an amazing insight. And she was like, I was reading your newsletter, and you told us in this newsletter about our emotions, and you keep telling us about our emotions. And it kind of became like this something that wanna say. But now I actually had this insight. I’m not taking care of myself at all. And this whole surgery, this mess that I don’t recognize, it was a beauty surgery, and she did it to lose weight very quickly, but disregarding her body, not going deep into the process and taking care of her body and really listening to the pain in her body and the sadness in her body.
Oana
So she just went the fast track. And she was like, you keep telling us. And it became like this noise that I don’t listen to anymore, but you’re really right. We actually have to be soft with our bodies. And, you know, I take care of so many people in my family. I’m the most nurturing human being in my family. I take care of everybody everybody is fine. I don’t find an avocado in my fridge to eat.
Nobody’s actually thinking, although I have a mate and her whole job is to make me happy to buy me a freaking Avocado.
So I’m left in pain after this freaking surgery. That was a mess. That I don’t know why I did it. Trying in pain to find an Avocado and understanding that nobody actually thought of me, that I want a need to buy an Avocado. And it was a tiny thing, but it was connected to how much she’s nurturing other people and not really standing up for herself. And also that it’s not self-care from time to time. It’s the ongoing eating every 3 hours, doing your meditation in the morning, listening to your intuition every day, and really allowing all the sensations and emotions of your body to flow through your body every day. Not just when you want a relationship or you want to go to the next level in your attraction with another man, or not just every time you want to cause a result. But every day is a part of you developing a love for yourself and also understanding how women work. We don’t need attention once per month. We need attention every minute. And it’s insane to think that somebody is going to actually be there for you every minute. So you need to step up into building that relationship with yourself.
It’s not selfishness, it’s an awareness of taking care of herself. And it’s funny, today was the moment that she had to commemorate her mother. It was exactly one year. Today, it was one year since her mother died. And it was a full circle for her that her mother was guiding her from the spirit realm for sure, understanding that in her family she needs to step up as a woman and she needs to bring something new to her daughter, for example, which is an example of taking care of yourself, period.
Ioana
I’m so happy you brought up this example because two of the things that I really think we do against the feminine in our daily lives are the first one. We don’t allow ourselves to have so-called bad emotions. Whenever we feel rage, we stuck it back in the box and we’re looking for quick fixes. Like if we have a Friday evening free instead of just going back home and taking care of ourselves in darkness and in a peaceful way, we choose to go out and put our bodies in a very noisy place and all that energy that is not ours coming and invading our bodies. And I remember I saw, I think, a movie called I’m not sure that’s the exact title, the Palm Trees in the Snow or something like that. It’s a very beautiful movie. And there’s an episode in this movie when a woman, was from a country in Africa. I don’t remember exactly where the action took place, but she was living in a traditional community, and she has a very bad experience. She was raped by some foreigners one night. And the only thing she did but with a tiers force, like without speaking to anybody, that takes the decision.
She just disappeared in a cave for one year because it was the only thing she instinctively renew that could heal her pain. And she just disappears, leaving her lover because she was involved in a very beautiful laughter with a man. But she couldn’t even address the issue in front of him. But it was not shame, it was just rage. And that was the only way she knew she could hear herself just living in a place where nobody would know where she is for a year.
Oana
Yeah, because the moment we can’t engage with the rage or whatever emotion is going on, we are stepping down from whatever that new stage in our womanhood is bringing. And it’s not only connected through a trigger that’s negative, it can also be a development thing. And we don’t gain depth on an emotional level unless we learn the rage, we sit with the rage, we communicate with the rage, and we learn to own the rage. And by owning the rage, we learn to alchemize whatever dysfunction is happening in our body and restore ourselves to health. And that’s a very important mystery of the feminine, the power to alchemy dysfunction and bring it into function. It’s one of the true gifts of feminine power. And once we go through that lesson, we end up on the other side, strong, confident, present, grounded women. And we learn how to bring that to our environment. And that is the moment when we are making a shift. We are bringing true power to our community.
Ioana
Can we say that this sort of self-care and this way of taking care of yourself is the feminine way of taking care of yourself? For instance, the question would be, can a man take care of himself this way? Is it working for men, too?
Oana
I don’t think men connect to the depth of their emotions the same way as women. And in my experience, they still need the compassionate self of the woman, because how a woman feels and feels her emotions is something very particular to women. That level of sensitivity, awareness, of depth, is something that a man learns through a woman. He doesn’t learn it on his own at this level. And it’s something I’ve talked to about men that are really initiated and really strong spiritually. And they were like, yes, it’s true. At some point in a man’s journey in life or in spirituality, the feminine principle, either directly in meditation, if he’s a Monk, or through a woman, through the love for a woman. The man understands the intimacy that emotions can bring and that melee that unites and creates that intimacy between us, men and women through a woman. But a woman, not a girl. And a woman becomes a woman the moment she is willing to step into the fire of her own lessons and her own transformation. And don’t back down and go all the way through, whether it’s pain, disease, sickness, emotional heartbreak, or negativity in general.
Ioana
How does a woman look at self-care on a Friday evening? And how does a girl look at self-care on a Friday evening?
Oana
I don’t know what they do because they can do many things. Go out, not go out, be miserable in front of the TV, and pretend they’re out to the best bar ever, of course.
Ioana
Behind.
Oana
But a girl will always expect, need, and want something outside of her to come and rescue her or feed her or nurture her or engage with her through play or love. The woman may experience a need at that moment for plainness with somebody or with the outside world. But she experiences also the freedom to engage and play with herself and explore parts of her own personal self through meditation, breath work, just being by herself alone or listening to her favorite music or eating her favorite food, or celebrating herself. The woman has the freedom to be with herself. The girl doesn’t experience that freedom. There’s anxiety behind it.
Ioana
So one of the first things we have to shift is perspective, like looking at the moment of solitude as an opportunity for nourishing, not an opportunity for crying because you’re lonely.
Oana
Yes, but it’s exactly like what you said in that movie about the woman that got raped. She went in solitude because solitude is medicine. And solitude, funny enough, is a very strong medicine for women. I would recommend women to keep a practice of solitude as part of their month and week-by-week activity ongoingly, because the nourishment that a woman receives in solitude tends to that softness, that kindness, that compassion, and that patience. There are mysteries that the soul brings into the existence of a woman, and you don’t learn them outside solitude. You can’t learn them in noise. And the moment you tap into those subtle layers, subtle communications of your soul through solitude, you become strong and you understand that there is you on the other side, that’s unseen, that’s always present with you so solely to turn into a self-marriage. And from that place of self-marriage, you are much more confident and willing to go through the challenges of intimacy, including creating intimacy in a powerful way.
Ioana
I know I’m asking you this question on and on again, but maybe there’s a reason behind it for a beginner, let’s say for a beginner for somebody who’s just at the beginning of working in this way with self-care, which is the most effective way to connect with our body and take care of our body and nourish our body as a way of self-care, just a practice of small practice.
Oana
The attitude of gentleness and kindness to the body includes acknowledging when your body really wants something and addressing it. So if I’m tired, I have to honor that I’m tired. I actually have to make that step of slowing down and taking care of and resting.
Ioana
So just if I just feel like I really need to sleep, even if my colleagues are going out on a Friday evening, I have to be woman enough to say I’m sorry, I love you, but now I’m going just so I need to sleep.
Oana
And it’s the same with work, not just colleagues or lovers like boundaries.
Ioana
Without feeling guilty or without feeling.
Oana
Without feeling selfish, without thinking that you’re missing out on something or you’re going to lose these great opportunities, the great lover, the great friends that you’re having, just understanding that by really honoring whatever is your truth at the moment that the body tells you’re, gaining actually strength. And when you will show up with your lover, with your friends, or at work, you will be vital, you will be present, you will perform, and you will be engaging. And that will bring a quality to your work that comes from healthiness and it comes from being radiant. And it pays off. Truly pays off.
Ioana
I would like to also address a topic that I know many of us always have in mind, even if we do not address it all the time, which is desire and sexuality. And I will give you some context on where my question comes from. I was telling you a few days ago, I just discovered a beautiful story about tapestry which is hidden in it. Not hidden, it’s actually exposed, but was hidden in Paris. It’s called the Ad and the Unicorn. And it has six pieces. Each of the pieces symbolizes one of the senses. Of course, five of them are the common senses, smell, touch, et cetera. And the 6th sense is not intuition or call it as you wish, it is desire. So in the Middle Ages, desire and of course, sexuality, because they are linked in this tapestry, we’re considered the 6th sense of a woman. But we’re not used to addressing sexuality and desire as a need, as one of our senses and the need. How can we integrate this part into our lives as a way of self-care?
Oana
For me, this whole lady in the Unicorn piece, I think, talks about desire, intuition as the wild self of the woman, as her soul, which is not sexual in the sense of sex, but it is sexual in the sense that sexuality or the sexual energy is actually the feminine energy. So it was like the subtle realm of the feminine because we experience pleasure through the senses of the body, the physical body. But then there’s a subtle dimension of pleasure that we get to experience when our soul when our desire comes from our deep self, deep soul is present. And it’s about allowing the soul to take you to that level and that depth of feeling and become present in the way you interact with pleasure. And I think this is what’s actually being addressed through that beautiful portrait and painting and tapestry and we need that because it is the wild self that the sexual self that is enraged that needs to shout at the moon because life isn’t fair and unless it does that you’re not alive. And when you’re not alive you don’t have any desire and desire is actually that passion that’s deeper than the hunger for sex or compensation of frustration or just whatever level of intimacy you are used to, that’s superficial that doesn’t feed you because the moment you bring your sexual self, your desire, your passionate self into your life with yourself and then with your intimate lover, then you are including your wild self into the conversation and that’s a passion that’s aliveness, that’s a desire that’s you living life to its fullest intensity and charge.
Oana
Without that, you are numbed and you are craving for something outside of what you think that’s going to come through something rather than it’s something that you have to allow and give birth inside.
Ioana
I think there’s so much juice in this topic that I think we should address a specific episode only for this.
Oana
We have teased you. So we hope you are going to come back to our podcast and listen to a full-on topic about desire and sexuality. We haven’t actually talked about desire and sexuality.
Ioana
No. We had the above inhibition and sexuality, but not desire for sexuality.
Oana
We should hit it.
Ioana
Yes. And please send your questions. If you have questions regarding desire and sexuality, we’re really curious to know.
Oana
I really know that women are craving and their hunger for because I am and I know that I have been for many years in my life for deep passion and deep sexuality we definitely should talk about it and understand it more and see in what way we can contribute to our relationship so that we can manifest this experience in our life. So next episode or the next episode, thank you for being patient with us. It was not necessarily a very fun topic to talk about pain and disease, but I think it’s an actual topic and we have to address it as part of the challenges of being a woman. So join us on our next episode and bring me your questions. Your challenges were here for you and totally subscribe to our episodes, our YouTube channel, and our website. We’re here with fresh topics about womanhood. Thank you. Bye.
