This week I felt my skin tighten, my hands go up in despair and my heart wrench again as I read an article from yet another “up and coming modern day woman” who is putting out a new online programme about getting shit done (GSD) and flagging the “emotional stuff”.
GSD is becoming a sought after disease in my eyes and it ignores the inherent nature of who we are in our feminine, and it also negates the positives of emotional expression, inner self worth and also the need or desire for a softer way of living life.
Ladies, from years of playing superwoman and becoming a burnt-out, unwell superwoman for a time, I now know we don’t always have to do, do, do. There is another way to feel successful without a tick-off list. And how many of us women cry for a rest or retreat but keep going – fighting the feminine who is crying out for more pleasure and less pain, more rest and less stress and more ease and less disease in our mind and in our spirit?
The feminine is “curves” – not just ploughing the straight lines of a field day in and day out, not just keeping the stiff upper lip while you are a blithering mess and not simply pleasing or appeasing others with your “brilliant efforts”, while ignoring your own self-care or natural ebb and flow of emotions.
And how about this?
- Imagine telling your teenage daughter when her relationship breaks up “Don’t worry darling, just get over it and get on with finding the next boyfriend” instead of allowing her to feel sad, pine and get the comfort and support she desires from you.
- It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that suppressed emotions don’t stay suppressed forever. Ignoring them, by getting on with life and ploughing on is not helpful. One day emotions will show their head in unwellness, in a massive tantrum, life crisis or some other guise.
- And GSD, I believe, is another from of escapism – much like being attached at the hip to your phone or social media posts. We lose sight of the real world, and we lose our connection and deeper intimacy with people we actually used to, or presently claim to care about because we are simply too busy GSD’ing.
- And what’s more is that GSD is a masculine way of measuring our success. We think we have to get stuff done, ticked off and accomplished in a time-frame and manner that warrants approval from yourself or others. The feminine in us knows, from a deep inner space, that self approval is the biggest measure of success whether we are doing loads, or doing nothing, whether we are looking our best or not, and whether we look like we “have it sorted” or whether we are fumbling around for awhile. And actually, why do we have to build an empire right here, right now when other things may be more important, more pressing or more up your alley in terms of what you actually value?
- And GSD – helps us block out the pain of change, grief or transition – where the actual gold is. How many women do you know who have had cancer, to then finally have the “aha” moment that there is more to life than business, GSD, success in the material world and being the next “biggest and brightest woman” offering the planet something. Sometimes, success is in the simple.
Food for thought ladies. Here’s to doing less, so we can have more.
Hey gorgeous, I would love you to send me what this post has sparked within you by sending me an email at janelle@janellefletcher.com or by posting a comment at the somebody beautiful facebook community.
And if you love this blog wisdom, why not share it with a friend using the social media links below?
And if you haven’t already, go to www.somebodybeautiful.com and get on my mailing list to update you with more goodness and help you flourish more in self-love, body-honouring and reviving your feminine spirit. There are also some great free resources on this website, upcoming events, coaching/healing options and updates on my up-coming book – Dancing in her own Full Moonlight – the ebb and flow of being fully woman. See you there!
Janelle Fletcher www.janellefletcher.com
Yesterday was Mother’s Day and as a mother of many (6 in fact!) I have a love-hate relationship with Mother’s Day. Some years I have gone in to the day with huge expectations and have come out feeling a little less than acknowledged or “pleasured”. Other days, like yesterday, I decided to drop the expectations and just make the most of taxi-driving to my son’s soccer game and then doing the pick-ups and drop-offs for my daughter and her friend. Not a great alternative to fine wining, dining, resting, coffee-ing or abandoning responsibilities that a mother secretly craves, but it was a conscious decision to enjoy the day no matter what and not rely on someone else to make it a good one.
So yes, my day ended out being a good one – in fact, a simple, yet pleasurable day enjoying my son finally getting a full game on the field and excelling – making me and himself proud, after weeks of spending half of the game on the bench. I had a nice (pre-game) walk with another mum and retold stories and recollections of women we knew who had been through some tragedies when it comes to being mum including loss of kids – in particular through accident, death and suicide, and we were reminded to be incredibly grateful for our kids who are still with us. And the afternoon, the pick-ups and drop-offs were far more pleasant than they could have been, and my son and I filled in time eating monstrous Movenpick ice-creams at the beach. Pleasant yes. Filled stomach, for sure!
But is was into the night when the “darkness” caught up with me – that is, my seething pain around my ex-husband not supporting the kids financially and the huge strain that is on me. It heightened my emotions around the fact that it’s ME, and not him that turns up for every occasion with the kids. It is me who feeds them, reminds them to do their homework, snuggles in bed with them, teaches them how to cook, shows them the way of the world…..He is an absent parent in more ways than one, and sometimes this makes my blood boil.
So I went to bed seething and I woke up feeling depressed, like an after-match hangover. And I stayed this way most of the day.
But what has this got to do with selling my jewellery? Well it’s a Taurus New Moon – a bit of a clean slate time and a reminder to let some of the past go. So this morning I ploughed through my jewellery box and found bits and pieces that my ex had given me or pieces that I had bought when I was grieving our separation, divorce and humble times…and I have decided to sell them, clear the energy and any of my “emotional umbilical cord” to that era of my past and the expectation that he support me in the way I feel I would love as a woman, mother to “our” kids and as sole parent to them now. I can hear my inner self saying, “For crying out loud. If you can’t send over money, at least tell me how grateful you are that I’m so flippin’ amazing!” but my self worth requires me not to rely on someone else for that or hang around wasting time with baited-breath for something different.
So diamonds, sapphires, garnets and silver…I loved you, I love you, but I allow you to go now as an act of cleaning my slate on this new moon and allowing new energies and emotions to rise within me and for new experiences to reveal themselves as the moon waxes once again. I am so pleased that life waxes and wanes and allows us to rejuvenate.
Hey gorgeous, I would love you to send me what this post has sparked within you by sending me an email at janelle@janellefletcher.com or by posting a comment at the somebody beautiful facebook community.
And if you love this blog wisdom, why not share it with a friend using the social media links below?
And if you haven’t already, go to www.somebodybeautiful.com and get on my mailing list to update you with more goodness and help you flourish more in self-love, body-honouring and reviving your feminine spirit. There are also some great free resources on this website, upcoming events, coaching/healing options and updates on my up-coming book – Dancing in her own Full Moonlight – the ebb and flow of being fully woman. See you there!
Janelle Fletcher www.janellefletcher.com
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!
Flicking this morning through the gorgeous book by Dawna Markova, “I will not die an unlived life” which I used years ago in a women’s group I ran, I was re-inspired when actually feeling darn tired!
How am I tired? And how are you tired?
Well for me, most people see me with bundles of energy, vibrant, vivacious, effervescent and someone who can speak with anyone, “up” the energy in a crowd and inspire people to live a less weathered and less busy life. And yes I am a natural at that, and also good at pulling off the “I’ve got loads of energy” trick!
Truth is, I am very tired. Nigh on 50, I have not had a decent night’s uninterrupted sleep for years and my body is exhausted, and it takes up a huge part of my reserves to even muster up physical or mental energy to create anything. It is a wonder I do! At times I feel heavy in my spirit, with the occasional glimmer of light and lightness. This is frustrating, because I live a spirit-guided life, trusting that my path gets revealed, rather than me spending too much time trying to work it all out. Such a way of living is often a patience game, and that game, truth be known, is wearing a little thin. At times I get inspiration and create – much like my recent book I wrote in just 30 days, or when I put on a women’s event that everyone raves about. Other times, if you saw me in my quiet, secret place away from the world, you would realize I spend more time than most in bed wondering what my next step is, why am I still doing a lot of stuff feeling alone and unsupported and why my best efforts, talents and service often still remain unrecognized or taken for granted, leaving me feel even more depleted. But serving others and always putting others up the priority list also zaps me of my own pizazz on occasions.
Actually nowadays I lead a much simpler life after years of caring for my big family, but I am still feeling tired – physically, mentally and soulfully. Yes I am also perimenopausal, and that is beginning to show itself in the feeling that I have of now “re-birthing” myself and my own soul needs, versus the years I have looked after many others’ needs. But this too is a tiring transformation process with its ups, downs, swings and roundabouts.
Today I also know when aligned with Spirit, life is not all roses. It is often bloody difficult as we are called to live a life of trusting and surrendering to the will of Spirit that sometimes takes us to “places and spaces” which may give us that “wobbly feeling” even though we know it is best for us to step into that place and space – whether that be the beginning or ending of life location, vocation or love-relation!
So how did Dawna Markova’s book today inspire me? Well I flicked randomly through it asking for the page to be revealed that would help me today. Without going into the story Dawna told, it reminded me of the joy that fills me when I do random acts of kindness that so easily and effortlessly come from my inner being. To befriend someone who feels lonely or different and let them know they are gorgeous and loved, brings me to tears. To do a simple act that makes someone’s life that much easier or grief less, I notice a “less tired” me! To speak with a random stranger in a bar of cafe and invite them to feel less anxious by connecting with someone in Spirit is my norm, and to see them physically relax into themselves and their current situation with less angst lifts my spirit too. To travel and experience new cultural delights and see the human spirit from an angle that is not my own, is refreshing. I have wander-lust indeed.
But I realize too that this can not come easily from the place where I often sit within my four walls or in the surrounding of my duvet. It will also not come from denying these simple acts I love doing and instead committing to a dead-end 9-5 pm job again under someone else’s jurisdiction. This kills my spirit and always will! My energy will not come from continuing to serve others before myself. It will also not come from doing the same as I have tried for many years in my business.
Dawna Markova’s book is called “I will not die an unlived life”. Intuitively it feels like I don’t need to exhaust myself adding better stuff to my life now to finally say on my death-bed, “That was flippin’ fantastic”. I need to die to my life that is right now, to abandon my past ideas of what my business and life could look like, and to start afresh. And that kind of change actually doesn’t scare me funnily enough, as I enjoy plunging into the unknown! I will keep you posted!
Hey gorgeous, I would love you to send me what this post has sparked within you by sending me an email at janelle@janellefletcher.com or by posting a comment at the somebody beautiful facebook community.
And if you love this blog wisdom, why not share it with a friend using the social media links below?
And if you haven’t already, go to www.somebodybeautiful.com and get on my mailing list to update you with more goodness and help you flourish more in self-love, body-honouring and reviving your feminine spirit. There are also some great free resources on this website, upcoming events, coaching/healing options and updates on my up-coming book – Dancing in her own Full Moonlight – the ebb and flow of being fully woman. See you there!
Janelle Fletcher www.janellefletcher.com