On my journey as a woman the past decade or so, I was noticing a steady depletion occurring in my energy specifically in relationships with men or exchanges, and tracking it sort of became a central focus for my life and work the past few years.
Tracking what was really going on and getting free of it, that is.
What I noticed was a devaluing of my inherent feminine resources.
My feminine capacities.
The things that come naturally to me and the capacities I’ve cultivated were wanted by others but not valued. Unfortunately, this led to a lot of disappointment and increasing amounts of depletion. Why wasn’t what I was offering being valued?
I was surprised by it.
I had, as you have, done a lot of self-work around all the things - healing trauma, spiritual awakening, setting boundaries, healing feminine / masculine, etc. I wasn’t “new” to the scene when I was noticing these things.
Which is where I think a lot of women now are. Women are in the reflection phase of “I thought if I showed up more evolved, I’d have different experiences of being respected.” Or, “I thought that if I healed my trauma, my experiences would start to feel different.”
We’re surprised we’re still depleted after putting in SO much work.
So many women I talk to have walked a lot of conscious walk, only to still be struggling with depletion, specifically when it comes to either past or present trauma with men / masculine and exchange systems.
So what is that about?
It’s something deeper than healing feminine / masculine relations. Which, one may think, “What could be deeper than that?”
Healing feminine / masculine in the context of exchanges and economics.
THE SYSTEMATIC DEVALUING OF THE FEMININE:
The devaluing of the feminine came a long time before you or I. Systems of exchange and finance were established, and feminine energy was sort of left out of those value systems.
Or so we thought.
It wasn’t at all that the feminine energy wasn’t needed, or actually that it wasn’t the energy from which the entire system actually ran, it’s that it was expected for free.
Feminine energy was taken. Snatched. Assumed. Raped. Expected.
So we have a double bind of a forced devaluation meanwhile an expectation that it is there for the taking.
What is this? This would be called “enslavement” of the feminine principle as a standard in our so-far status on this planet.
It sounds harsh, but we experience this. For example when a man wants to have casual sex or be non-committal, it’s a desire to access womb/feminine energy without actually upholding it. It’s a net-loss.
When we’re invited to participate in something, like a job or a relationship, and then the invitation is just dropped after we’ve invested ourselves, or, after we’ve drawn a boundary about what we will not invest.
Or, this happened recently in my world, we’re invited to “collaborate” or “play” (or other fancy words that mean “for free”) and invest our feminine resources (for free) when a man is in a pinch. No thank you.
There are still plenty of examples in this world where feminine energy is wanted and expected, but not actually valued (financially or devotionally).
I think the sooner we all realize this, the better off we’ll be. Which is why I’m putting a language and framework to this.
By naming it, I do not at all intend to focus on victimization of the feminine. I hope to name the depths and therefore allow more women to realize a liberation we have longed for is possible.
These old systems set it all up this way. You see? The underlying programs on women to over-give of ourselves in hopes that we’ll be valued, and the programs on men to assume entitlement to take.
It’s nothing new, but now we’re able to become aware of it and re-pattern exchange systems by first knowing the value of our inherent resources as women. This is what my path has taught me. It is big and worthy work, to get the feminine free. (Free as in, freedom, not as in, for free.)
FEMININE RESOURCES:
What are these feminine resources I’m talking about? The things that come from the bodies and lives of women and the planet. Our natural resources.
I say that women have 8 inherent categories of resources. Meaning, we’re born with them.
These are resources that we have access to, can cultivate, and those which are ours first. We can, theoretically, decide where to invest them.
These feminine resources are a woman’s: time, focus/attention, life force energy, love, sex/creational energy, body/physicality, mind/attention, wisdom/intuition, and emotional energy.
I will be leading a group of women through an 8 week soul-deep journey to define and reclaim these soon called Re*Source. Stay connected via my email list to be alerted.
FEMININE RESOURCES AREN’T FREE:
Okay so here’s where it gets interesting. I’ll write more about this in future posts because this gets really deep.
Women and the feminine are so naturally giving. We are heart-filled, nurturing, maternal. If our child needs something, we move to fill that need. We really love to caretake and give. As a mother and a woman, I experience this. I’ve had to teach myself about the risks of over-giving, because that is one main source of depletion. When I try to over-give to the world, but I’m not experiencing that my own resources are valued, then I feel depleted.
In those exchanges, the natural ones, like mother and child, of course there isn’t economic exchange. There is a natural desire to give.
There are other exchanges and situations, however, where it’s absolutely appropriate for us to receive financial compensation for the feminine energy we are investing.
So feminine energy both is, and is not, free.
Free is a word with many meanings, isn’t it?
FEMININE ENERGY ISN’T FREE. OR IS IT?
“Feminine energy isn’t available for free.”
==> Pay her. Don’t expect things from her or take from her. Don’t sexualize her and dismiss her. Pay her. Do I need to say it again? Pay her. For every one of the resources she is investing, and no less. Honor her. Commit or don’t ask her for anything. Period.
“Feminine energy is free.”
==> The feminine is sovereign. It is unencumbered. It is un-owned. It is unchained. We each can choose where to invest it.
“Feminine energy is freely given.”
==> A woman lovingly picks up her infant and puts the child to her breast. Nature provides the remedy. Mama bird flies over and over again back to her babies in the nest. Freely given means we can choose when to give our feminine energy freely, or for free.
And, we can choose when not to.
Perhaps in an ideal world, all things would be freely given. One thing I find about such ideologies as gift economies, is that there isn’t this distinction about feminine energy. And if we are going to talk about exchange at all, and upgrades to exchange, we must talk about the inherent resource value of the feminine, or it will be left out.
When we are clear on our inherent, natural resources and can define them for ourselves, then we can support the external world in understanding both our resources and the value that we ourselves place on them.
We discern based on our own clarity, rather than allowing these outdated systems and extractive tendencies to continue to decide for us.
It’s not an arbitrary “take back your power, women.” It’s about redefining our inherent resources and allowing that to inform our investments, value, and discernment about where to exchange.
Announcements:
Re*Source: Coming this March. Please be on my email list if you are interested.
Structure & Flow: 90 day system to track primary resources of time, attention and energy. Clarify boundaries. Decide how to prioritize your resources and where to invest. Contact me and I’ll connect you to it.
Private coaching & support: Reach out.
All at www.sarahpoet.com
