The path to femininity: Owning who you are

Femininity, female energy, divine female energy, oh wait for it… awakened feminine.

Buzzwords you will most likely come across when scrolling through your newsfeed on social media or when you pass the kiosk at the station.

Over the past decades, there has been a growing consciousness among women about celebrating and claiming their female energy – their presence in the world.

Female energy is a concept that occurs in ancient traditions. The most common names are Yin, Shakti, or Gaia.

In Hinduism, it is believed that Shakti and Shiva, a cosmic duality, are necessary for creation. One without the other implies that the universe will stop existing.

In addition, it is believed that both men and women have feminine and masculine energies.

If one can balance those energies from within, then true freedom can be experienced.

Today, the ancient traditions of Shakti and Shiva have reached western societies through practices such as yoga.

Sometimes masculine energies are linked to ego, dominance, ambition, focus, and drive, and feminine energies to passiveness, compassion, and intuitiveness.

Hinduism sees these as character traits of every human. That is why ambitious women and intuitive men exist.

These characteristics are not necessarily linked to feminine or masculine energies.

Linking these traits to masculine or feminine energies comes from a western point of view.

The path to femininity, to me, is about becoming who you want to be and owning your presence in this world.

It is about the way you show up when you meet family, friends, colleagues, and yourself.

For some women, it means dressing nicely, wearing heels, being compassionate or ambitious, taking up sports such as boxing, honoring the cycles of the female body, and/or tapping into their intuition.

It is also about finding out what your talents are and what feels natural to you.

We can see this clearly by observing children. My niece loves to sing, but when other people watch her, she stops singing.

Similarly, when I was a child, I loved to dance but other people watched, I stopped dancing.

As I grew older, I felt most comfortable dancing when no one was watching. So, I would always wait for the moment when I was home alone, run to my room, close the curtains, turn up the music, and DANCE!

That is how I got to know that dancing feels most natural to me when it comes to expressing myself.

Through body movements, you can tell a story, convey feelings and emotions, and connect to others and ourselves.

It is absolutely liberating.

Up until this today, if you would ask me: Shakila, what do you feel is more comfortable to you when you stand in front of the audience, talking or dancing?

I would answer dancing!

Feeling liberated in what you do, who you are, and how you show up, is when you embrace your femininity.

Yet, it is something that feels unnatural to women because women are constantly judged for their behavior, appearance, and sometimes even for expressing their feelings.

The way women are treated today is the result of hundreds of years of constructed inferiority.

Many women like me attempt to restore that which is lost.

But what has been lost?

The thing that many writers are aiming at when they write about female energy or awakened divine feminine: the female voice.

For example, some women like me focus on studying women’s development throughout history, some women like Pooja focus on spirituality, and others focus on researching women’s health.

The female perspective was lacking for a long time.

The upsurge of the female perspective can only come from a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.

A journey that I had to go through before starting Our Shakti.

That is why I want to encourage women to go on this journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.

It will help you to express yourself wherever you are.

When you know who you are, what you stand for, and you fully claim your space wherever you are, that is when you stand in wisdom. 

Shakila 

Our Shakti | Women’s development and taboos 

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Visit http://www.ourshakti.com to read articles on the importance of female representation, the construction of feminine beauty, why financial independence matters, reproductive health, and mental health.

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