Woman Returning

~ womeninlivingness

Earlier this year I attended a workshop titled ‘Relationship with Self’, part of a new series presented by Natalie Benhayon, and Esoteric Women’s Health. The idea around these presentations is that as women today, we are not living the fullness of who we are, lacking that deep connection and knowing of ourselves as women which is impacting many areas of our lives.

At this particular presentation Natalie Benhayon was presenting alongside Miranda Benhayon and together the two women were speaking about intimacy, and in particular intimacy amongst women. They shared how as women this is actually a very natural part of us, yet in many instances it seems we are holding ourselves back from sharing this natural intimacy with one another.

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Menopause: a Deeper Connection to Myself as a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

My journey into menopause began as I started noticing and feeling certain changes in my physical body: my shape rounded slightly around my hips and lower abdomen, and there came a series of what felt like a volcanic heat erupting in my body, particularly from the chest upwards. These sweats would come and go quite quickly in duration but vary in their intensity as well as their frequency. At times the heat felt prickly and all consuming, and at other moments it was a feeling of letting go, with a quality of freedom. There were intermittent feelings of frustration, with a yearning to understand more of what was going on inside me. I found I experienced varying degrees of feeling light and heavy within my body throughout the months, and the cycles of no bleeding became longer and longer until a year had passed with no period.

What I am describing here are only some of the physical changes I began noticing. But there is more to menopause than just the physical symptoms.

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My Third Trimester of Pregnancy & Giving Birth – Surrendering to Being Vulnerable as a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

The first two trimesters – Letting go of Control and Perfection of pregnancy for me were a time of new beginnings, with the opportunity to feel what was in the way of me being able to more deeply embrace the womanly quality of stillness I naturally have. I found that during my first trimester my need for perfection was revealed, and after releasing as much of this need as I was able to, I began to see moving into my second trimester of pregnancy that it was about letting go of my need to control others and my environment.

So as I headed into my third trimester without this incessant quest for perfection or the overriding drive to control in order to ‘protect’ myself, what was being uncovered was my natural tenderness in being vulnerable.

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Getting Lost in Mothering

~ womeninlivingness

I wanted to be a mother from as early as I can remember.

This was not due to seeing my mum love being a mum, it was that I felt I would be good at it and that it would be great to be able to love something I created. Well, my childhood wish came true and I ended up being totally lost in mothering my seven children – yes you read correctly, it was the wish that kept on giving.

In being caught up in fulfilling my childhood belief that I would be a good mother, I lost my connection to the fact that I am a woman before I am anything else for anyone else.

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Me and my Menstrual Cycle: Connecting to my Body and Myself as a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

I am a 43 year-young woman and for most of my life I have had no relationship with my menstrual cycle. At some point, I found out that there was such a thing as ‘menstruation’ and at the age of 14, wearing white pants on that particular day (how convenient…), it started for me in the toilet at school. I had my first menstruation and I had no idea what to do. I felt awkward and embarrassed, especially because it was on a day that my father picked me up and suggested we go for a long walk with the dogs. That was the longest walk of my life. I asked my two older sisters for support and I was introduced into the world of sanitary pads. And having my monthly period.

And so my life continued…

At the age of 16 I had my first boyfriend and my mother suggested taking the pill. Not because I had difficulties with my period, but for birth control. After that, for many years to follow, and having several relationships, I took the pill, had my monthly ‘fake’ menstruation, put in a tampon (so much more convenient than those big sanitary towel ‘mattresses’), and I lived my life; A life without any connection to my cycle, my body, my uterus, my ovaries, my breasts, my menstruation, my ovulation – in other words, to the fact that I was a woman, with a menstrual cycle.

I never took a moment to ask myself what it actually means to be a woman, let alone what it means to live as a woman.

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The True Beauty of Pregnancy – Embracing the Stillness of a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

Pregnancy is a time of new beginnings and not just because there is a new person growing and developing inside. The true beauty of pregnancy is that it offers the opportunity for a deep change to take place in the way we live as women. A change that is initiated from deep within and supported by all that is offered during pregnancy.

Pregnancy is a time for us, as women, to experience ourselves more deeply as the delicate, sensitive and nurturing women we naturally are.

I have had the opportunity to be pregnant twice and from these pregnancies I now have two amazing daughters. Each time I learnt a profound amount about how I was living as a woman leading up to each pregnancy and the changes that were needed as each one progressed.

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Preventing Breast Cancer – Changing How We Feel About Our Bodies

~ womeninlivingness

Having lived through breast cancer I now truly know that ‘prevention is better than a cure’, and the way forward in terms of preventing breast cancer and indeed all illness and disease has to be; changing how we feel about our bodies and embracing, acknowledging and appreciating how very precious and tender yet powerful they truly are. Honesty is the first step. Having discovered for myself the powerful medicine honesty is, I can share from my own experience with breast cancer and say without any hesitation:

I created my own illness from the choices I made on a daily basis.

A powerful statement, powerful in its honesty, and which had a powerful, remarkable impact on my treatment and recovery. By all considerations I was a healthy woman, I did lots of yoga, and did not smoke, rarely drank and was not overweight. So how did I create my own illness?

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Bringing my “Be Sexy” back with Sacred Women’s Movement

~ womeninlivingness

In the past I have accepted that how I behave is who I am, deeming myself to be a good person or bad person dependent on how society views this behavior. I felt I was extremely bad and gross if I in any way found myself, or anyone else for that matter, to be ‘sexy’. I related being sexy to being sexual and if I were to feel and act sexy then I was trying to impose it onto someone.

All of this changed for me after attending Natalie Benhayon’s Sacred Women’s Movement classes. This led me to explore and find other false beliefs I wasn’t aware I had around what it meant to be sexy. Some of these beliefs I came to shine some truth on were:

  • Being sexy is a form of leading men on and giving them the wrong idea
  • Being sexy is a sexual act
  • Being sexy is related to sex
  • Being sexy is shameful and cheap
  • Being sexy is attention seeking, neediness, trying to suck people into my web
  • To be sexy and playful meant I was trying to be sexually attractive or sexual towards someone
  • And what loaded this belief was the additional belief I had that sex is bad.

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From Feeling Unsure of Myself to Surrendering to the Woman I am

~ womeninlivingness ~ 42 Comments

A little while ago I connected to the hardness and tension in my body that I have felt many times before, yet had not ever connected this to the fact that it was there because I was feeling unsure of myself and holding-in the true woman I am.

I began to feel the details of what I am actually hardening myself against.

First of all there is a general feeling of a lack of confidence and being unsure in many situations. Unsure as to how to respond to the situation at hand, unsure because I may not understand what the other person is saying and unsure because what I feel to say may upset the person or people I am speaking with.

Yes you read correct I GIVE POWER TO BEING UNSURE OF MYSELF. Yet in truth if I allow myself to feel underneath the unsureness, there is simply a steadiness of love that is always waiting and willing to be spoken, it is up to me to give voice to this love.

So how am I coming to terms with this old pattern and how am I beginning to change it?

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