Do you know the Aretha Franklin song “Natural Woman”? Listen to it here. 
My favourite lyrics are these:
When my soul was in the lost-and-found
You came along to claim it
And that got me thinking.
Do we need some “other person” to help us feel like a natural woman? And what is a “natural woman”?
As always I simply give you my humble perspective, but for me, my experience of feeling lost for numbers of years, lead me down a dark path. Where did that lost feeling come from? From not feeling included, from feeling different and from feeling very alone. My soul simply felt lost and didn’t know where to find itself or find its place.
During that period of teenagehood where I isolated myself within the world of academia and imprisonment of eating disorders and the secrecy and privacy of that, I really did not feel womanly, and certainly not a “natural” woman. And the same goes following my marriage split when I felt so alone and humbled to little.
If I reflect on womanliness, in those two periods of my life, I found myself dressing quite asexually. My religious upbringing also herded me into less than “natural-free-spirited-woman clothing”.
I didn’t enjoy fluidity in my body. Yes I played some sport and yes I did my daily walking, but I did not feel the flowing, flirtatious and fun-induced movement in my step as a “natural woman” would.
I did not learn the art of make-up, and therefore opted for “natural.”
During my singledom I opted for what I call “mechanical” sex. Some would call it “friends with benefits”. This, for me, is not natural. Love-making within a loving relationship is. Allowing myself since then to learn fuller sexual expression is the freedom I gift myself and another as I learn to embrace more of my “natural womanliness”. It is an interesting path to explore such vulnerability, nakedness and naturalness with another.
A natural woman oozes femininity – but that is not something I was schooled in, role-modelled or had the option of exploring until years after my marriage split, when I started to see some light. Dresses and shoes and sexy lingerie, I chose to enjoy. Being less controlling and more receptive became my way of being. Seeking someone to compliment my femininity became my yearning – in the sense of finding a man in his own natural strong masculinity.
I guess when I think about the lyrics, my soul was in the lost and found department and yes I was desiring someone, not to come and “claim me”, but for two souls – each complete – to find each other and create a brand new “whole”. And this is what happened after years of patience, finding my own wholeness and learning to be more of my “natural” self – void of too many material possessions, too much “baggage” and too many tick-charts of what my ideal soulmate would be like.
And what do I think about someone claiming my soul that was lost? I’m not sure it’s the right word. For me it felt more that we found each other and we are each part of each other’s soul healing and we are both part of finding ourselves again in a new light. Yeah to that and the joys and challenges that brings us!