Your Sensory invitation

If you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, or insecure these days, you are in very good company! Most of the people I know-both clients and peers-are experiencing sensations that reflect a measure of the turmoil of transition that is going on outside of themselves. And while we know that inside and outside are simply reflections of each other, in times of transition, the level of turmoil that comes with any transition-let alone one of the magnitude we are all in-can be a challenge to navigate while living everyday life.

Overwhelm, anxiety, insecurity, fear are simply mental states that invite us into remembering we have more than our minds with which to navigate and negotiate what life brings our way. We are transitioning from a time in which the mind reigned supreme and our body, spirit and soul, and heart relegated to second string in living our human life. Yet as many a wisdom tradition knows, our soul/spirit and body/heart-what I call our "sensory self"-are crucial to living the capacities and capabilities of our life human. As we move into a time based more on the energy of vibration, we need to no longer exclude these innate resources of transmitting and receiving energy our body contains.

We have been taught that we have but five senses in which to experience and engage life and this is simply not so. Wisdom traditions base their tools and techniques on the many ways we humans have for both sending and receiving information, resulting in a much richer palette from which to respond to life and it's challenges. Our soul/spirit and heart/body offer tangible and powerful guidance and support for the sacred journey of a human lifetime. The invitation-and imperative-of these times we all find ourselves in is to re-acquaint ourselves with our full range of sensory abilities for meeting our turmoil and transitions.

When we learn how to engage our full (and already installed) sensory self, no longer are we limited by what we know or what we seem to have as physical resources. Learning (remembering truthfully) how to tune into our spirit, soul, and heart using the sensory aspect of our body, channels the wisdom that lives in the timeless Universe, simply awaiting our sensory-not mental-call of invitation and download. Given the vast resources of what makes the Universe go around, is there truly any challenge we cannot meet when we engage our sensory self?

So the next time you feel overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, or insecure, smile to yourself and say "my mind is talking, let's see what my sensory self is saying" and use your breath to take yourself within your body for finding out what else is being said. Our (mother) earth is clearly in the turmoil of transition and with our physical bodies as her children, we too are feeling the effects of this turmoil of transition. Our bodies as women, with their capacities and capabilities of creations and transformation, invite women into leadership in remembering our sensory self is for our daily lives!

A Woman First

At my family reunion last weekend, one of my "outlaws"-as the spouses of my siblings have come to call themselves-asked me to explain to him the whole "divine feminine thing" he kept hearing about from the women he worked with in his job as a surgeon. It was a question sincere in his seeking and I smiled in appreciation at how women's evolution was impacting even this man who prided himself on being a man in charge of his kingdom.

Simply put, I said, the "divine feminine thing" was the invitation for women-and men-to evolve the definition of a woman as one based on the "to-do lists" of roles and relationships to the living expression of grace and the sacred in our life as human beings. The whole 'I am what I produce each day thing" I said was not so great a definition for anyone's life as a human being; for women, basing our value in life upon what we produce through the to-do lists of each day is especially inappropriate and devaluing.

To be born a woman is a grace and a destiny that comes with innate vision, strength, and creativity, a destiny that can be challenging in a world where one's value is often what we produce for others. To be born a woman is the capacity to deliver vision and leadership for the benefit of those in her community (although to be born a woman still means for far too many women abuse simply due to birth as a woman.). To be born a woman is a dignity, divinity, and nobility that is not old-fashioned and limited to times and ages gone by.

The "divine feminine thing" in it's most simple terms is a woman's commitment to living the grace, strengths, and abilities being born a woman granted her. The divine feminine is the choice to live first her integrity as a woman and second the to-do lists and expectations of the roles and relationships she is in. The divine feminine is the decision to live one's spirituality in the sacred temple of everyday life, not in compliance with authorities outside herself, but through living what is true for Herself within. The divine feminine is the honoring that she is the guardian for all of life and as such, it is her responsibility to speak up, show up, stand up as she heeds the call for sacred vision.

When I finished my rather impassioned words of what "the divine feminine thing" is for me, my brother-in-law looked at me and said "I would love nothing more than dignity, divinity, and destiny be the values my daughter lives her life by and that the men in her life support her in doing. God knows my wife is who I count on to keep me smart about what is important in life". I smiled and said that maybe he knew much more about the divine feminine thing than he was giving himself credit for and perhaps the nurses ribbing him was simply his invitation to share at work what he honored already in his home.

The "divine feminine thing" is not something outside ourselves; it is our choice to honor ourselves first as women, making our choices in daily life in alignment with the dignity, divinity, and destiny that is ours as women. When we honor ourselves as women first and to-do lists second, we deliver the vision, leadership, and creative grace within ourselves with ease and effort that simply flows. To honor the divine feminine is simply to live that being born a woman does make a difference.