Why women are so prone to collective dogma, emotional stagnation and become anti-feminine

I have been watching a program called Growing up Gracefully led by two young women in their twenties. They look at advice from the past and the modern world, through old texts on ladies deportment and new information from magazines and the web.

These two women show braverity, curiosity and playfulness. I love their concept and watching how they deliver it to their audience. Even though set to humour, the show is kind of shocking really. Looking at the rules women were silently and loudly told to shape themselves into. But what was more shocking to me was seeing how modern day advice is also just as absurd and continues to play out this polarisation of plastic perfection.

I had a lot of sadness come up. I am not afraid of sadness. In fact I welcome the strength of sorrow and presence to feel it. Collective issues ignite passion and invoke emotion in me that cannot be ignored.

I have been visiting horses, part of my own self care with a wonderful guide Emma. I have always wanted to spend time with horses. Not to ride just to be with. Observing these horses has been incredibly educational. I am learning even more about our nervous system and what it is to be present and with oneself.

When I am with the horses I feel joy in my heart. So at home I am, with these beautiful animals. I also experience moments of deep sadness river through my heart.

The horse I spent time with on Friday, her name is Ollie and as I felt the sadness I spoke to Ollie about how I was feeling and let the river pour through me. You see I have been looking for someone to hold the space for me as I hold space with women. And I have found it with Horses. They actually remind me of the way I work. It is such a beautiful, gentle, reflective and held experience.

There is no future for horses. They are in the moment. They stay with their bodies. They regulate their nervous systems with the out breath. When you watch them you witness how still they are in a moment, how they talk to each other through their subtle bodies and how present they are with eating, with peeing, with you.

I felt sadness for the collective feminine. After all this time women are still taught to be fake, to please, to be perfect in the eye of others, to criticise their bodies, to repel any signs of ageing and to sell themselves for money, for likes, for status.

On the show a woman who earns her living as an instagram model said “you always have to look perfect or you’re going to get criticism and people aren’t going to like you anymore”. No different is this from the 90 year old deportment lady telling you, you have to stand, sit and get out of a car in a certain way to look like a lady? Boned bodices and bound feet still live on just with a different face.

Women due to their design are naturally more receptive. And each woman’s degree of receptivity varies according to her make up and the life cycle she is in. Children are naturally receptive, teenagers are naturally receptive, menstruating women are more receptive, pregnant women and post natal women are naturally more receptive, women in the perimenopause window tend to be more receptive. And if you are a sensitive and or highly empathic you are even more receptive.

This means that females are generally more receptive to the silent yet loud dogma that comes from collective opinion that forms out of misunderstanding. Dogma is loud quiet, unsaid yet said, communicated through the collective nervous system. A females antenna picks this dogma up. Like homeopathic medicine her emotional, mental, spiritual and physical bodies get shaped by this information.

It starts when you are just an egg, it continues as a foetus. All this information is received into the tissues that form the bodies. I see it all the time with the women I work with. Embodiments of collective identification. We take on this unconsciously. In the past the reaction to this was be like a man. And that meant the collective herd of women moving further away from their feminine power.

You see we can only be equal when we land in our selves. We can only be in our authority and power when we allow it in ourselves. We can only be authentic when we are true to our feminine nature (soul).

Our receptivity is our gift. Great sages say to enter into spiritual enlightenment you must become female. What does this mean? Receptive!

Let’s take the strength of receptivity and be receptive, that is receive our feelings, our bodies, our soul, our sexual (kundalini) energy, our wellbeing individually and as a world women collective. We have girls growing up with even more informational input now and much of it is built on misunderstanding.

Growing a feminine friendly culture I liken to a flower pushing up through the cracks in the cement. We need constant reminders from each other, from ourselves and from the Earth and Mother Nature of our strength and courage, our innate power and feminine spirit.

Horses are very receptive creatures. They are prey animals like little girls and teenagers blossoming into women, new mothers vulnerable to 'fear and guilt mongers' and women who have not contacted the Wild Feminine inside.

Let’s all together envision a world that is kind to the mind of a girl, a teen, a woman, a mother, an ageing woman and an elder. The world is often governed by the mind. So it starts with our own judgements. It starts with what we feel and being present to this. Feel the sadness if sadness is what comes to you in the moment for there is a lot to be sad about. Healing starts when we stop pushing away, distracting ourselves and covering up true feelings.

When we can be with feelings like sadness and let it move through us we make room and space for more of ourselves to come in. Sadness like other emotions, is a doorway to wholeness. Part will be your own, your ancestry and the collective misunderstanding on a primal level.

Many fear sadness, don’t want to go there, afraid there will be no returning, critical of it being a party pooper, “just be happy”, “why cant you be joyful” the mind may say.

Sadness is just a feeling, like joy but different and when we feel it and allow it to move through us it brings us into greater wholeness. Horses also feel sadness at times. Learning to hold a circle of love for yourself means that when sadness or another feeling arises you are able to let it be in its fullness, bless and transform you. This is the way of walking with the Sacred Feminine.

Note/

Emma Ward based in the South West Australia can be contacted on her website https://horseassistedhealing.com.au/