Tanya Valentin's Blog, page 7

The Bittersweet Symphony Of Parental Grief

I recently posted a video of myself on my social media platforms crying. This was to highlight the parental grief that a lot of parents feel when their children are diagnosed with being neurodiverse and or come out as being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.  I received a comment from someone in the LGBTQ+ community calling my video damaging to LGBTQ+ people and that I should celebrate my children.

You can watch the video here

I have thought long and hard about these comments. I have some thoughts about this that I would like to outline in this blog.

My Thoughts On Parental Grief

First and foremost,  I do not know this person, I do not know her or what her life is like.  I also acknowledge the struggle of the people in the LGBTQ+ community and their need to be celebrated for who they are.  I love it when people challenge me with their perspectives. Listening to different viewpoints allows me to grow as a human being and to see things from another point of view.

However, I don’t think that this is an issue that is clear-cut or black and white. There is more than one absolute truth here.

My teens, like countless others, are neurodiverse (ASD – autism spectrum disorder) and are part of the LGBTQ+ community. This means – well…it’s complicated – for everyone!

I love my children unconditionally. They are unique, kind, talented, funny, beautiful miracles that I thank God for every day. My children are loved accepted and celebrated for who they are, wholeheartedly. 

I am in awe of my children for having the strength, courage and integrity to go against what is considered ‘normal’. They are so inspiring! I am proud of them for choosing themselves and for staying true to who they are.

CLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen

And…

As their mother, I grieve.  I grieve that they have this diagnosis that makes everyday life and relationships so challenging. And I grieve that they have chosen the harder path. I am deeply saddened by the injustice they will suffer at the hands of others, the hurt and the pain they will endure because of other people and their beliefs.

There is so much grief in me that because they are both neurodiverse and queer puts them in a double minority.

Imagine my anguish over the fact that due to their autism, my children are NINE TIMES MORE LIKELY to struggle with their mental health and die due to suicide.  It breaks my heart that the average life expectancy for an autistic person is 36-39 years.

I grieve for the young mother who twenty years ago looked adoringly at her newborn infant and wanted nothing but the best for her children. 

Do I grieve?

You bet. I grieve and I am not ashamed of this.

Why? 

Because grief is a natural process that experience when we go through transitions that are hard for our brain, body and soul to comprehend. We only grieve in the places where we have love.

We need to get past the idea that grief is just reserved for the loss we feel when someone dies. Many parents experience grief when their child is diagnosed as neurodiverse or comes out to them as LGBTQ+.

Here are some of the other expected and unexpected things that may cause parental grief:Becoming a parentHaving a birth experience that did not go to ‘plan’Having a baby born prematurely Your child being diagnosed with a disabilityWatching our baby grow into a toddler, our toddler grow into a preschooler, our preschooler going to school, our child’s first day at high schoolPutting away our child’s ‘lovie’Getting rid of our child’s baby clothesYour baby moving into a ‘big girl bed’Deciding that the baby you are pregnant with will be your lastYour child’s birthdayYour child’s first sleepoverYour daughter’s first periodYour child falling in loveYour child going off to universityYour child coming out to youYour child moving outYour child getting marriedYour child becoming a parent

There are so many more instances – things that we grieve as parents.

All of these moments are what I like to call the bittersweet symphony of parental grief. There is a dance – an aching backward and forwards between joy for your child and the heart-wrenching tug of sadness (sometimes experiencing the full range of this symphony of emotions all at the same time). 

What our bodies need is for us to recognise this grief and allow ourselves to feel it so that we can heal it.

Five Stages Of Grief And What This Could Look Like For Parents Of Children Who Are Neurodiverse And Or LGBTQ+?

There are 5 stages of grief that everyone who is grieving goes through.  These are descriptive, not prescriptive.  In other words, there is no one way of experiencing these stages. Parental grief is messy and it often doesn’t make sense. Although most people start at the stage of denial and ultimately end up in acceptance, our journey through the stages of grief may not happen in any particular order or for any set amount of time.  We can also go backwards, and forwards and flit between stages.

The 5 stages of grief are denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance.

Grief can look different for different people and the description below is a simplification of an extremely complex topic. However, a parental grief cycle of teens who are neurodiverse and or LGBTQ+ grief can look like this:

CLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen Denial

When we are in this stage of denial the underpinning story that we tell ourselves is that whatever is happening isn’t real. We do this because reality is often too painful for us to comprehend.  We may ignore warning signs, and deflect or dismiss what is really going on for our teens. As parents, we may delay getting help for ourselves or our families. We may tell ourselves things like -“I’m fine”, “My teen is fine”, or “My family is fine, we don’t need help.”

We may even think, “This is just a phase, they’ll outgrow it”, or “If I ignore it, it will just go away.”

Bargaining

In the bargaining stage, we ask ourselves “Why?”. “Why me?” Why my child?” or “Why my family.”

We may also get the “If only’s” as we move into blaming ourselves or others for what happened. A common thing that we may say to ourselves at this stage of grief is, “If only I had known…” or “If only I had done…”. We may try to bargain with God or whatever higher power we believe in.

In the bargaining stage of grief, as parents, we may even ‘bargain’ for a fix. A common thing we may tell ourselves is “There has to be something I can do to fix this”.

Anger

Anger can look like being angry with ourselves, our children, a co-parent, our parents, our kid’s school, our community, the medical system etc. For a lot of women, anger is an emotion that we were taught as ‘bad’. This can cause us to internalise our anger or go into denial about our anger (I told you it was messy!)

Depression

Depression sets in when we realise that whatever has happened is real and there is nothing that we can do about it.

It just is. 

This is a moment of futility. It is this feeling of helplessness, sadness and often utter despair.

Acceptance

The stage of acceptance is one that many families resist as many of the messages around acceptance are that when we accept something we say that it is okay.

The truth is that there are several layers of acceptance, the first being, simply admitting to ourselves the truth of what is. That whatever the diagnosis for our teens, whatever their choices in terms of their gender or sexuality it is.

As we move deeper into acceptance we believe in the reality that we are now living in. We may even allow ourselves to feel more hopeful as we start to think of what life will look like in this new version of actuality.

Grief is the most peculiar thing; we are so helpless in the face of it. It is like a window that opens on its own accord. The room gets dark, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what became of it.

Arthur Golden – Memiors of a Geisha

To move through our grief, we need to experience all of these stages – all of them.

CLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen Photo by Keira Burton on Pexels.comParental Grief And Shame

When a parent is shamed for their grief or experiences shame for grieving something from their parenting journey it can delay their healing and their transition through grief.

Grief is such a vulnerable place.

We all long for connection, love and support when we are at our most vulnerable. When we are shamed it is a separation a rejection of our ‘realness’ which pushes us into self-doubt and self-blame.

In other words, when a parent is shamed for feeling the way that they are, an instant reaction for most parents is “I shouldn’t feel this way” or “I am a bad person for feeling this way.”

This experience of shame activates our fight, flight, freeze or fawn response that disconnects us from ourselves and moves us deeper into denial. 

We are petrified in place as we tell ourselves “I am a bad person”, “I am going to get it wrong or say all the wrong things”. “I am going to cause irreparable damage, my child! I will just stay here in denial until it all goes away or resolves itself.”

Our self-doubt tells us, “I don’t really feel this way,” or “My feelings are not important.” Or we may even think, “I need to feel happy or positive for my child”.

The Consequences Of Being Shamed For Parental Grief

The danger of denying how we feel is that this disconnects us from ourselves, our emotions and our ‘realness’ as a person.  We disconnect from our humanity and when we are disconnected from our humanness we can’t make space for or connect with our child, their emotions and ‘realness’ – we are locked in our denial.

We separate ourselves from our children during a time when they need connection with us the most. Contrary to how it may appear to parents of a teen, our children are always connection-seeking. One of the biggest protective factors for teenagers who are struggling with their mental health is the feeling of connectedness with a significant adult.

Unprocessed parental grief can cause bitterness and resentment towards your child which fuels disconnection.

What Not To Do

Now I am not suggesting that you go into full-on “grief mode” in front of your teen.

I think that we can agree that this would be totally overwhelming for your teen and could be potentially damaging – teens internalise a lot of what is going on around them. 

CLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen Here Are Some Ideas Of What To Do Instead:Multiplicity

Multiplicity is our ability to believe that two or more realities are true at the same time.  And it is a parenting superpower skill that we can learn. Multiplicity simply means that instead of believing that one thing is true we make space for two or more (and sometimes opposite) things being true at the same time. 

One of the biggest sources of separation between ourselves and others happens we believe that only one thing is true. When I believe that only one thing is true, I am separated from others as I have to defend my ‘one thing’ and convince others of my truth.

As parents, we can have completely different experiences of grief, what we grieve and how we grieve. It doesn’t make one person wrong and the other right. Both can be true.

“We need to dispel the myth that empathy is ‘walking in someone else’s shoes.’ Rather than walking in your shoes, I need to listen to the story you tell about what it’s like in your shoes and believe you even when it doesn’t match my experiences.”

Brene Brown

When we can make space for other realities it makes space for empathy, understanding, kindness, compassion and connection.

I can be a parent who loves and celebrates her children and struggles and grieves. 

I can know that the reality of my situation is true for me and see that others may have different experiences or beliefs about the same thing.

The Founding Principle Of Multiplicity

One of the founding principles of Multiplicity is the assumption that all of us are fundamentally good. That we are all doing the best we can with what we have at the time.

In other words, our behaviour does not define our identity. Rather, our behaviour is a window to our needs as human beings.

When we combine the assumption of inherent ‘goodness’ and multiplicity together, we make space for magic to happen.

Practical Applications Of Multiplicity

As parents when we remind ourselves of our and our children’s ‘goodness’ and we encounter behaviour to the contrary this leads us to a place of curiosity rather than judgment.

For example, when I as a parent behave in a way that is contrary to my concept of ‘goodness’ then instead of blaming and shaming myself I can pause and ask myself, “If I am a good person and I acted in this way then what is really going here” (which of my needs am I, not meeting).

When my child is behaving in a way that is contrary to their ‘goodness’, I can pause and think, “My teen is a good kid who acted in this way, what is going on for them.”

CLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen

The beauty of this approach is that we are not trying to convince ourselves that one of the behaviour did not happen.  We may have done something that we consider to be ‘bad’, that we regret or feel shame for.  If were to try to convince ourselves otherwise, our brains automatically kick into defensive mode.  We are simply making space for both realities to exist together.

Next time you notice yourself starting down the self-blame path, notice, take a big deep breath and practice saying to yourself, “I am a good person/parent who…”

How To Safely Feel And Process Your Emotions

Most parents were not parenting in a way that taught them how to safely feel or experience their emotions. We live in a culture where the majority of the population is emotionally illiterate and where many of our emotions are vilified.

The good news is that it is never too late to learn the skill (yes the skill) of feeling and experiencing your emotions. Here is a simple framework to help you to do this:

Notice and Name

The first step is to bring awareness to and name your emotions.

Perhaps you have had a bad day. Your daughter and you had an argument because you wouldn’t let their girlfriend stay the night and now she has locked herself in her room and won’t come out.

First, take a deep breath and remind yourself, ” I am a good parent who is having a hard time.” Next, scan your body and ask yourself what am I feeling? Name your emotions – “I am feeling…”ValidateClose your eyes and channel a supportive friend’s energy. Tell yourself, “I just had an argument with my daughter.” “This is supposed to feel bad.” or simply “This sucks”.Or tell yourself, “it makes sense that I feel this way”.AllowAllow yourself to feel your emotions. Tell yourself “All emotions are okay – I am allowed to feel this way” or “I am allowing myself to feel angry right now.”Talk About Feelings With Your Teen

Our children take their cues about how to feel and manage their emotions from us, their co-regulation partner.  They are always feeling and watching. 

Infants are hardwired to connect with their parents in a way that will get them the best chance of survival. As parents, we shut down in our children what we were not allowed in ourselves.

I would like to invite you to take a moment to think about how your emotions were dealt with when you were a kid. 

Did your parents talk to you about emotions being a normal part of the human experience? Or did they punish you for expressing anger and outrage? Did they tell you that crying was weak or try to distract you from your distress?

Whatever you learned about your feelings as a child, or if this is how you have parented your children about their emotions, you always have the opportunity to grow, evolve and do something different.

You can normalise emotions by talking about them to your teen as information about our needs.  Explaining to children that our emotions belong to us and that they or other people did not make us feel a particular way. That it is normal and healthy to feel a full range of emotions excited, joyful, happy, sad, angry, frustrated, worried and everything in between.

Further Ways To Support The Normalisation Of Emotions:Support your child (and yourself) to normalise emotions by taking time to notice them with curiosity when they arise.Grow your vocabulary about feelings. Take time to correctly label your emotions.Differentiate between thoughts and emotions. (A lot of language about ‘feeling’ is about how someone or something made us feel and not about the emotion we are experiencing).Educate yourself and your children about how our brains and nervous system workTalk about where in your body you feel your different emotions. Explore the needs our emotions could be pointing us to.RepairCLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen

Many parents find it confronting when unpacking the complexities of grief and emotions. It can bring up a lot of shame especially if we believe that we have ‘done it wrong’. Life is a constant process of learning, unlearning and relearning. Please know that there is always the opportunity to go back and repair with yourself and your children.

It is never too late and in the wise words of Maya Angelou

Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better do better.

Maya Angelou

CLICK HERE If you would like more ideas on how to connect with your Neurodiverse and LGBTQ+ Teen

The post The Bittersweet Symphony Of Parental Grief appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

Will My Midlife Spiritual Awakening Cost Me My Marriage?

Do you feel stuck in a life that is ‘fine’ but doesn’t feel like your life anymore? Does this cause you to feel depressed, overwhelmed and confused? It could be that you are delaying making important changes in your life because you are scared that it may end your marriage or relationship with your partner.

Many midlife women delay making important changes in their lives because they are worried that it will mean the end of the relationship that they have with their significant other. This is especially true for women who are in long-term relationships.

I totally understand why you may feel this way. As a woman, I have been through an intense period of awakening and personal growth over the last decade. I have also been in a relationship with my husband, Wayne for nearly thirty years. I too have struggled with this fear throughout my awakening journey.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.What Is Really Going On In A Midlife Spiritual Awakening?

Let’s face it, over the years you have made so many concessions and compromises. You have put yourself on hold while you took care of everyone else. In the process, you have repressed your very soul and now it has reached its critical mass of what it is willing to tolerate. Your soul is awakening and telling you that it is time for YOU to come alive again!

Your Midlife Spiritual Awakening is a time where you become more self-reliant and return to yourself. There is a surge of independence that rips through you as you awaken to who you truly are. The embracing of your Wild Woman energy can cause you to become a lot more insular. There is a shift in your relationship energy with yourself that calls to you to seek solitude and go within. You may find that you need to re-evaluate your values and priorities and make hard choices to align with what is truly important to you.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.The Secret War Inside You

During the awakening process, you begin to discover a different future for yourself.

However, there are demands, especially from other people that are used to the ‘old you’. They may feel emotionally triggered by the changes that you are going through and try to convince you that it is better to stay asleep.

Your soul is at odds with your ego. Your ego liked things the way they were before you awakened and may tell you that it would be so much better if you just went back to sleep. Now that you are awake, your soul has tasted freedom and will not let you go back to sleep. This tug of war between your two parts is exhausting!

You may worry that as change your partner may not like who you become or that they no longer fit with your renewed values and priorities. You may worry that your relationship will become a casualty of this transition.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.

This is reflected in the themes of books like Untamed by Glennon Doyle or Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The messages in these books convey the message that in order to choose yourself you have to leave your marriage. This can feel super scary.

However, what do you do with HER – the ‘secret’ you who awakened in you during your Midlife Spiritual Awakening? You know that she will just keep calling to you, she won’t go away and can’t be silenced.

Who wins the war? I would argue that this war inside of us is one of the fundamental reasons that so many women feel lost, stuck, confused and even depressed during their middle years.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.So Does It Mean The End Of A Marriage?

I can only speak from my experience. My husband, Wayne and I celebrated our twenty-sixth wedding anniversary last week. We have been together as a couple for nearly thirty years. At the age of forty-six, I have spent more of my life with him than without him. There can be a certain amount of enmeshment and security that happens when you have shared your life with another person for a long time.

Looking back at our relationship we have been through so much together…

Wayne and I met when we were eighteen years old and got married when he was twenty-one and I was twenty. (Weren’t we cute! We were just kids really) He was the big love of my life.

We moved countries together, mourned the loss of our first child together and supported each other’s businesses and dreams, faced poverty and possible bankruptcy together and raised three daughters together.

Over the years we have both grown and changed. There have been good times and heart-breaking times. There have been times when we have felt totally in love. And there have been times when we hated each other and wondered if we were in the right marriage. If fact, there have been times when we have both felt as if our relationship was too far gone and that there was no saving it.

But somehow here we are still together.Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.

Now, I am not sharing this to make you feel bad if things did not work out this way for you. I believe that each of us has our own unique life journey to walk and your journey may look nothing like mine. I am also not advocating for staying in a relationship where there is an abuse of any kind. However, I do not believe that your Midlife Spiritual Awakening means the end of your marriage.

The Marriage Caveat

My above statement comes with one very important caveat.

Your relationship is the sacred container for the coming together of your souls. As your souls evolve and grow your container will need to transform in order to fulfil its divine purpose.

The relationship may not come to an end as an entity, however, your relationship as you know it may have to die and be reborn in order to stay together.

Just think about it… When you met and got together, however many years ago, you were very different people from who you are now. Those people who met and fell in love no longer exist.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.

You have both grown, and changed over the years. There may have been life experiences such as parenthood, further study, career changes, financial hardship, infidelity and mental or physical health that would have shaped who both of you are. These things would have moulded the relationship.

We all come into our relationships with others with a certain level of cultural programming that will need to be identified, explored and unlearnt along the way as you both evolve as human beings.

Spiritually we unfold and awaken to new truths about ourselves, others, how things are connected and where we fit in the divine order of things. Throughout our lives, we go through many life-death-life cycles.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.How Do You Stay In Your Marriage And Still Be True To Yourself?

That is the million-dollar question!

Here is what has worked for me in my twenty-six-year marriage.

You Can Only Change Yourself

One of the most important lessons that I have learned throughout the course of my life and my marriage is that you can only change yourself. This may sound simple but it is so hard to put into practice. Let’s face it, as women we want to control and we want to fix. It is also so much easier and more comfortable to place our focus outside of ourselves than to look within. There are not very many things that I would state as universal truths, but this is what I know – our external world is a reflection of our internal world.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.When we work on ourselves things outside of us change.

True story – when I first started my own awakening and exploring the spiritual path, I tried to change Wayne. And he would say to me, “Don’t come near me with that woo-woo shit”. A first I felt insulted and angry. However, what I realised as I backed off and worked on myself is that it was not my job to ‘fix’ him or change him in any way. My job was to focus on myself.

So many women who I work with want to change their partners, children, parents or co-workers and I always guide them back to themselves. When we change others shift and change around us almost like magic over time.

I am reminded of the story of the sun and wind.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.

The sun and the wind were engaged in a rivalry with each other. One day during their usual banter they observed a man dressed in a thick winter coat walking down the street and they decided to test their powers by seeing who could remove the man’s coat first. The wind was up first. He started blowing harder and harder, trying to blow the coat off of the man. However, the man, feeling the cold of the wind pulled his coat tightly around him and hunkered down.

Eventually, the wind gave up in a huff and allowed the sun to have a turn. When it was the sun’s turn all the sun did was shine brighter. The light from the sun warmed the air and burned away the clouds. The man who had been hanging onto his coat for dear life stopped, looked up at the heavens smiled and took off his coat!

You can influence others just by being yourself and shining your own light as brightly as you can!

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.Watch Your Expectations

So many of us come into a relationship with unhealthy expectations of what a relationship with another person should look like. We have certain agreements and rules about what the other person should do or how they should act that is really unrealistic, damaging and even dysfunctional.

Little girls are taught from a young age that a ‘prince on a white horse’ is going to come along, save them with a kiss and they will live happily ever after. Boys are expected to be the breadwinner and the person responsible for everyone’s security and happiness. If life doesn’t work out this way then we feel that we have ‘failed’ in some way.

It is not the job of our partner or our relationship to make us happy. Instead, our relationships and the people we enter into relationships with, are there to show us places where we need to heal so that we can evolve and grow together.

Conscious relationships require work and commitment. They ask of us to examine these pre-programmed expectations of our partners and relationships. In order for a relationship to survive and the people in them to thrive, we need to unlearn these rules and expectations. We need to be open to redefining what being in a relationship looks like and it may be nothing like what your culture expects.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.Redefine What Love Means

As with our expectations of each other and relationships. We learn to define love from watching our parents, movies, consuming social media and reading romance novels which can lead to a pretty warped definition of what love means.

For example, a lot of women believe love means losing themselves in a relationship, having no boundaries and abandoning themselves, their needs, desires and dreams to please others. Many women equate love with selflessness. Some women may see love only in a romantic way and if their partner doesn’t buy them flowers or woo them with candlelit dinners they feel disappointed and unloved. Many men view love physically and if their sexual needs are not being met they feel unloved.

Another piece of miscommunication that we grow up to believe is that all you need is love, or love conquers all. We certainly need love, compassion and kindness in our relationships. However, there are many other ingredients that need to come together to create a healthy relationship.

I cannot define love for you, only you and your partner can decide what this looks like for you in your relationship. However, it may be worthwhile sitting down together, examining your stories and redefining what love means to you.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.Intimacy Over Enmeshment

Many of us grew up in families that forced us to do everything together. You may have witnessed your mother sacrificing her interests and needs for the sake of her partner or children. Or you may have been punished for not wanting to go on a family outing or to a family event. Our culture often refers to “two people becoming one” when it comes to marriage. You and your partner may have taken this to believe that you have to become one person in order to have a successful marriage.

This is an example of enmeshment.

Enmeshment is a pattern of family dynamics where there’s lack of boundaries. This means lack of privacy, an over-involvement with each other’s relationships, + fear or guilt in not fulfilling your role within the family unit.

The Holistic Phychologist

In an enmeshed relationship, togetherness and love are defined as doing everything together and sacrificing individuality. Your partner’s differences from you may have been what attracted you to them in the first place, but in an enmeshed relationship, we try to ‘fix’ them out of their differences.

In many relationships where enmeshment is the over-arching theme, this breeds resentment between partners because wanting time alone, or choosing to do something that is not a shared interest is met with feelings of guilt and shame. This also fuels a fawning response – where we act out of fear of disapproval or rejection from our partner and so we suppress our needs to please the other person.

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.

True intimacy comes from knowing and trusting yourself and then trusting your partner with your true self.

Intimacy brings us closer as a couple and enmeshment drives us apart. When we chose intimacy over enmeshment we recognise that each partner is an individual who is allowed their own thoughts, interests, dreams and desires. We don’t try to force the other person to change to fit into our idea of who they should be. Instead, we create a safe space where we can have hard conversations and be vulnerable with each other about our differences without fear of rejection.

Communication, Communication, Communication!

The only way that any relationship works long-term is by keeping the lines of communication open and judgement to a minimum. Healthy, conscious relationships take a lot of skills like active listening, empathy, self-awareness and positive coping mechanisms. This can take a lot of commitment, hard work and courage but it can also be extremely rewarding. Ultimately we all want to be loved, accepted and feel like we truly belong.

What has your experience with relationships been at midlife? Do you feel that they can survive a woman’s midlife spiritual awakening?

Would you like to discover how to navigate this season of your life and beyond with confidence and ease? Join my free live training HERE.

The post Will My Midlife Spiritual Awakening Cost Me My Marriage? appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

Stuck And Confused At Midlife? How One Decision Can Set You Free.

Can one decision really set you free?

It was a grey and wet Wednesday morning. 

I was sitting in a white room, at one of those white lecture room-type tables. The uncomfortable grey plastic chair I was sitting on felt hard and cold against my back and buttocks.  I could hear the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights. The smell of freshly made coffee in the air hung and turned my stomach.

My colleagues, other leaders from the early childhood organisation that I worked for, were sitting in the row next to me. We were waiting in anticipation for the presenter of our three-day workshop to arrive.

The tension in the room was intense, so thick that you could have literally cut it with a knife. 

The presenter walked into the room. She was a woman in her 50s. She was of medium build, with long blond hair, piercing, icy blue eyes and a Maori moko tattoo on her chin. 

Our presenter had an air of confidence and authority about her that took up the whole room.  Without even opening up her mouth to speak you could tell that she meant business and suffered no fools.

I heard someone next to me sniffle and I looked over at my workmate who shot me a worried smile as she reached for a tissue from a box placed strategically in front of us.

What was the reason that we felt so worried, tense and terrified?

Surely as teachers, we had been in professional development workshops before? And in rooms very similar to this one and with facilitators that were equally commanding?

But this was different…Each teacher in the room had paid thousands of dollars each from her own pocket to be in this workshop.And we had committed to a three-day live-in personal development course away from our families and loved ones.The reason we were here in this room was to learn about ourselves. This felt Incredibly confronting and terrifying to me.Let me give you a snapshot of what was going on in my life at the time.

I had recently turned forty. I was in a marriage that had been on the verge of collapse for years. My husband and I argued all of the time and often in front of our children.

What did we fight about? Sex and money mostly.

Firstly, I no longer wanted to have sex and had absolutely no sexual desire at all. 

Secondly, a few years before this moment, I had taken a couple of years out of teaching to open a cupcake business. A business that had failed and nearly bankrupted us, so the financial pressure was huuuge!

After the failed business, my confidence was at an all-time low. I went back to teaching which was my ‘safe’ backup option. The job that was I doing was ‘fine’ but if I was being truly honest I wasn’t really passionate about it.  I was caught in a situation where my job paid too much leave and because of our financial situation and my shame of being a ‘business failure’, I felt that I had no choice but to stay.

Man, I hardly recognised the woman in the mirror anymore and felt exhausted all of the time – drained of all spark, all energy. Numb, most of the time, just going through the motions of life.

I had been diagnosed with clinical depression and was on a high dosage of antidepressants to just get me through the day.

Internally, I felt lost as if I was living someone else’s life.  And boy was I stuck!

Have you ever felt this way?

I knew that as a mum and wife I had responsibilities. I knew that there were expectations on me on how I should behave and what I should do. But there was this other version of me. A wilder, more authentic me that wanted more and needed to be free.

Would like to have the freedom to be the confident, empowered Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREThe Decision That Changed Everything

Imagine my situation. I am feeling intensely uncomfortable. However, no matter my reservation, I am in this room now and I am committed to seeing this through. 

I have paid a lot of money to be here and besides, I am here with my work colleagues so leaving and losing face is not an option. I have this formidable woman in front of me who sees everything. As much as I would like to slink out of the room and run away, there is no escaping what is about to happen over the next three days.

And so I am faced with a decision.

The decision is this…

I can either participate at a surface level nodding, going through the motions and leave after the next three days lighter in my pocket with knowledge that is ‘good to know’ but doesn’t impact me and my life directly…

Or…

I can take this as a divine assignment and fully commit to the transformation the next three days are offering me.

I know that option two is by far the scariest, riskiest option.

But at this stage I’d, had enough. 

I’d had enough of feeling so miserable all the time and of feeling powerless and stuck.  I’d had enough of who I was as a woman and the impact that this was having on my own three young daughters. 

I wanted more from my life, I wanted to be more.

And even though I am petrified of what this will mean – Honestly when they asked us to write down our fears and reservations about being in the room on some brightly coloured post-its at the beginning of the day, I literally wrote “I am scared about who I will become” and “I am scared that I will lose my marriage over this.”

And… So…

Even though I have these really big, deep-rooted fears I decide to commit to the three days. 

What are some of your fears about doing transformation work?What do you feel the consequence might be if you don’t make this change?Would like to have the freedom to be the confident, empowered Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREChoosing Faith Over Fear

So I choose to lean into the fear, and the discomfort and to be 100% committed and present over the next three days.

What I didn’t realise when I make this commitment to myself to choose faith over fear is that in this moment I have just made the most important decision of my life.

My decision had the following consequences:

After the three days, I went home, pulled my husband aside and had an extremely difficult, brutally honest and freeing conversation about our lives and where we are heading as individuals, as a couple and as a family.I started working on my mindset and making it a priority to take better care of myself.I started to make more conscious empowered choices, aligned with my purpose and values.Within six months we sold our house, I quit the job that I felt so stuck in, and we decided to move to another city.We started therapy to save our marriage and this year we celebrated our 26-year anniversary.We took our children on a dream holiday to the USA for a month.I stopped taking antidepressants.I started writing again after 20 years. A passion and gift that I had long buried.I discovered my life’s mission to help others ease their emotional suffering.I engaged in more coaching, more learning, and more healing. Due to my continued commitment and investment in myself, I experienced phenomenal personal growth and confidence in myself as a consequence.I started my own business aligned with my purpose which made six figures, two consecutive years in a row.I become a thought leader who impacted 100000s lives and was invited to be interviewed by overseas media, to speak on podcasts, write guest blogs and speak at conferences.I also wrote and published two books (a dream I had since I was a very young girl)

These are just a few of the incredible things that came into my life from that one decision I made, to lean into the discomfort and commit to myself.

Are you ready to commit to yourself?Would like to have the freedom to be the confident, empowered Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREPhoto by Elina Fairytale on Pexels.comThe Impact Of My Decision On Others

Although success feels good, the best part of the whole journey for me has been when a teacher who has attended one of my courses emails me, sometimes months after we have worked together and she tells me that what I taught her has changed her life. This is significant for me not only because I know I have had a positive impact on the life of another (which is pretty damn amazing in itself). But I also know that any work we do with teachers positively impacts the lives of the children they teach. This in turn a powerful ripple effect out into the world.

Another highlight for me was being able to honour my younger self and her dreams by completing and publishing my books. I am now a living example to my daughters about what you can achieve when you allow yourself to follow your heart and your dreams.

It feels so fulfilling to achieve this dream of being an author that I have had for forty years! These are all outcomes I would never have thought possible before I stepped into that white room and those three days!

I invite you to take a moment here to reflect on your life and your dreams. 

What things would you like to make a reality? What dreams do you have that you may have abandoned, buried and believe are no longer possible?  How would it feel to achieve these? What would it mean to you and the people in your life?

Would like to have the freedom to be the confident, empowered Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREHere Are The Most Valuable Lessons That I Learned In My Journey: Transformation can be as easy as one decision.   I had been feeling miserable for years.  I had been stuck in confusion and overwhelm and depression for years – going in circles feeling worse and worse. It was so bad that I had to take strong medication to just help me get through the day so I could function.  That one decision contained the key I needed to unlock the answers that were already in me in order to take the action to change my circumstances. Reconnection with yourself can feel scary but it is the only way you will get the life you truly want.   I was terrified of confronting myself, my mistakes, my disappointments, my fear, my shame and what I would find. And the truth did hurt.  But I also found so many hidden treasures in myself that day.  Dreams that I had buried and forgotten.  My passion and talent for writing, my creative self, my spirituality, my belief in myself and my courage to do hard things. When we choose to remain disconnected from ourselves we avoid discomfort. However, we also remain disconnected from our dreams, our desires and our purpose. And when I searched myself, I realised that these things mattered more than my fears ever did. You have to be willing to invest in yourself, take accountability for yourself and decide that you are not willing to put off action any longer to get the life that you want. I had to literally invest the money and time, be coachable and take action. 

Before I made the decision to commit myself, I felt like I only had one option – the reality that I was stuck in – living day in and day out. Now I know that the possibilities and the choices are endless. 

I have the freedom to create the life that feels right for me as the Queen of my own life.

Would like to have the freedom to be the confident, empowered Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREWhat does being the Queen of your own life mean to you? Let me know in the comments.Would like to have the freedom to be the confident, empowered Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HERE

The post Stuck And Confused At Midlife? How One Decision Can Set You Free. appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

Why Your Midlife Spiritual Awakening Is Really Your Queen’s Journey

Are you currently experiencing a Midlife Spiritual Awakening?

If you are going through a midlife spiritual awakening, you may be experiencing the following things:Feelings of discontentment, restlessness and frustration.The need to spend more time alone.An urgent call to be more authentic, more creative – more true to who you really are.Curiosity to explore new places, philosophies and ways of being.Renewed energy and determination to declutter things, beliefs, thoughts and people from your life that no longer serve you.A call to have more ‘meaning’ in your life. This could take the form of more meaningful relationships and conversations, or realigning with your values and seeking out your purpose for being here.New perspectives on old cycles of behaviour in yourself and others.A need to heal old wounds and generational trauma for yourself and your loved ones.More intentional or conscious decisions and actions.Your psychic gifts or intuition are ‘coming online’. You may get more tingles, ‘gut feelings’, idea and thought ‘downloads’ or experience vivid dreams or sleeplessness.

There is no doubt about it Midlife is a powerful Awakening time in your life!

Curious about finding out what your stage of spiritual awakening is? Take the Quiz to find out!

This stage of your life can feel exciting, exhilarating and transformative. But at the same time lonely, scary, confusing and totally overwhelming!

What’s really going on during a Midlife Spiritual Awakening?

Let’s face it, over the years you have made so many concessions and compromises. You have put yourself on hold while you took care of everyone else. In the process, you have repressed your very soul and now it has reached its critical mass of what it is willing to tolerate. Your soul is Awakening and telling you that it is time for YOU to come alive again!

The secret you, the wilder, freer, fiercer you calling out – demanding to be heard with an urgency that you can feel deep in your bones.

Your soul is calling you to reconnect with yourself, your dreams, your desires and what you were put here on this earth to do.

I know that you can hear HER – the you that you were meant to be. This magically coincides with midlife – the alchemical stage in a woman’s life when she returns to herself. Freed from the urge and responsibility to reproduce, a woman’s body, brain and spirit are literally rebuilding themselves at the cellular level to prepare her for this ‘upgrade’. I know that you may have been taught to believe that this may just be menopause or even a midlife crisis, but I believe that something more powerful – more magical is happening to you.

Alchemy is the sacred process of energetic transformation. It asks us to deeply understand the separate ingredients of what we wish to transform, so that we can recombine them through an intense progression of distallations and refinements into a higher and truer form. Menopause is a graduation stage in every woman’s lifelong development of herself.

Jane Catherine Severn – The World Within Women

I believe that your midlife spiritual awakening is the start of your Queen’s Journey. The Queen’s Journey represents a woman’s transition from an asleep, powerless damsel or selfless mother living by the rules of who other people think she is to a fully awake, confident, Sovereign Queen of her own life.

Read more about the Queen Archetype HERE

In this blog, I walk you through the 3 Stages of Your Midlife Spiritual Awakening and how this relates to your own Queen’s Journey.

Curious about finding out what your stage of spiritual awakening is? Take the Quiz to find out!The Queen’s Journey

There are three parts to the Queen’s Journey. The Call, The Cave and The Return.

The Call

During this Stage of Awakening, sometimes called the Caterpillar Stage of Spiritual Awakening, you receive The Call to start your Queen’s Journey.

Something has happened to you recently that has changed the way you see your life. This experience has given you a new perspective. As much as you try, you find you can’t unsee or unknow what you now know as ‘truth’.

During this Stage of Awakening, you are at the start of your Queen’s Journey in the ‘ordinary world’ – at the foothills of your journey. It may feel as if life is happening to you a lot of the time. You have been through a lot in a short period (some of it traumatic) and you are still processing what has happened to you. Although this Stage of Awakening is usually one where we feel energised, a lot of this energy comes from the fight or flight survival mode which isn’t sustainable over the long run.

You are starting to read books and seek out personal development courses. You are searching for and following guides and mentors that can help you along your way.

Photo by Josh Hild on Pexels.comThe Cave

During this stage, sometimes called the Chrysalis Stage of Spiritual Awakening you have already received The Call and have embarked on your Queen’s Journey.

During this part of your journey, you have entered The Cave. The Cave is the ‘cocoon’ where the caterpillar will transform into the butterfly. But first, you must go through, the sometimes painful stage, of transformation through the ‘dark night of the soul’.

In this stage of awakening, you have woken up and can see and feel a different future for yourself. However, there are demands, especially from other people that are used to the ‘old you’. They may feel emotionally triggered by the changes that you are going through and try to convince you that it is better to stay asleep.

Your soul is at odds with your ego. Your ego liked things the way it was before you awakened. It keeps telling you that it would be so much better if you just went back to sleep. Your soul likes being awake and now that it has tasted freedom will not let you go back to sleep. This tug of war between your two parts is exhausting!

It is important to know that this Stage of Awakening is not permanent. The purpose of The Cave is to help you to remove outside distractions so that you are allowed to do important digging for who you authentically are. During this stage, you will want to spend time alone. Emotions will rise to the surface for you to process and clear. You are reconnecting with who you truly are and letting go of who you are not.

The second stage of The Cave is the Long Sleep Stage. This is where your soul – exhausted from all its labour needs time to recalibrate and come back into balance.

Photo by Stijn Dijkstra on Pexels.comCurious about finding out what your stage of spiritual awakening is? Take the Quiz to find out!The Return

During this stage of your Queen’s Journey, sometimes called the Butterfly Stage of Spiritual Awakening, you are birthed into this world as a brand new Queen after some time in the transformative belly of The Cave.

You have been through a period of transformation, confusion and overwhelm. However, you have emerged from your dark night of the soul and sleep period with a renewed sense of confidence and purpose.

This is the stage where you learn to integrate all you have learned in the ‘special world’ of The Cave. As a new Queen, you are given the opportunity to test your wings and figure out how to apply them in the ‘ordinary world’.

You are still ‘you’ but an ‘upgraded’ version of yourself and you will notice shifts in how you perceive the world and your part in it. What you tolerate from others, what you say “no” to and what you are attracted to will have changed too. You are more sensitive to energy vibrations and synchronicities and may start feeling more psychically awake.

At first, you will feel a bit wobbly like a toddler who has found their legs for the first time. However, over time and with practice, you will achieve mastery. Eventually, your old life as you knew it will feel like a distant memory.

If you are on your Queen’s Journey and would like to discover 3 Secrets To Becoming The Queen Of Your Own Life, then sign up for my free training HERE

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How To Be The Queen Of Your Own Life

Do want to be the Queen of your own life?

Chances are, if you are here reading this blog, the answer is ‘yes’.

But what does it really mean? What does it mean to embrace your ‘feminine sovereignty and to be the Queen of your own life?

This blog is the last in my series on Feminine Archetypes. I will shed light on what feminine sovereignty means for you and uncover who the Queen Archetype and her Shadow Archetypes are. Discover what it means to truly step into your own power as the queen of your own life!

If you would like to find out how the Queen Archetype relates to your own Queen’s Journey – Click Here to find out more…

The Queen Archetype

The Queen embraces her power, she is confident and a natural-born leader. She is clear about her vision and her divine mission. The Queen represents mastery and female sovereignty (our dominion over ourselves). She knows her worth and doesn’t tolerate negative, unhelpful attitudes around her.

The Queen is loyal, protective, and responsible. She can make good decisions for herself and others and has a natural drive to form meaningful alliances. She is referred to as the ‘Queen B’ in social circles and will often enjoy being the centre of attention.

The Queen knows the importance of investing in herself. She ensures that she surrounds herself with the best mentors and experts. The Queen knows the value of growing and challenging herself. You’ll find that she’s on a divine path and is here to make great change and serve others. The Queen’s strength lies in her fierce loyalty to her partnerships and her ability to lead. She is connected to her power, her integrity, and her sovereignty. She trusts her team and she delegates power and uplifts others while staying confident in her own worth.

When the Queen seeks a companion, she is attracted to a powerful partner. She will demonstrate complete loyalty to him/her, supporting them to achieve their goals.

The Queen values her energy. She recognises that her time, energy and focus are precious resources. Therefore, she creates and maintains firm boundaries for herself to preserve these resources for herself.

Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREWhat Is Feminine Sovereignty?

The word sovereignty means to have ‘dominion’ or ‘authority’ over and is connected to a royal leader. Throughout the millennia women have been treated as property for their fathers and husbands to control. Women have been silenced, suppressed and excluded from positions of leadership and power.

Throughout the generations, men have had authority over women. Many of the freedoms you enjoy today as a woman were not available to your grandmother. We are less than 100 years removed from that time in history. We have not yet healed from this as our grandmother’s struggles and pain still impact you and our collective psyche.

According to the author, Bethany Webster,

(Feminine) Sovereignty is a power sourced from within, from a woman’s connection with in herself. It’s a power sourced from your own connection with your body, your connection with nature, with your heart and with all life. It’s NOT a false, patriarchal power, wich is based in power-over someone or something else. It’s not competitive, dominant, submissive or hierachical in any way. That’s why a woman’s sovereignty individually and even more so collectively, is a HUGE threat to patriachy and why women’s bodies and psyches have been demonised, pathologised and supressed – because we don’t actually need a mediating force outside of us in order to access it and embody it.

Bethany Webster

Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREExamples Of The Queen Archetype In Our Culture

Examples of the Queen in our popular culture are Beyonce, Elsa in Frozen, Angela Bassett, Queen Elizabeth and Denise Duffield Thomas.

In Greek culture, the Goddess associated with the Queen is Hera, wife of Zeus (goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth). As mentioned in my blog on The Maiden, Persephone also has claims to the crown as Queen of the Underworld. The Hindu culture worship Indrani, Queen of the gods and the Egyptians worship Isis.

Photo by antonio filigno on Pexels.comWhat Does It Mean To Be The Queen Of Your Own Life?

Ultimately, I believe there is no one way to be a Queen. Every woman will have an innate knowing of what sovereignty looks like in her life and means to her.

Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HERE

This is what being the Queen of your own life means to me:

A Queen knows who she is and does not allow others to discount her worth.A Queen is a connected and visionary leader.A Queen is connected to her own divinity and trusts that she is here for a purpose.A Queen is aligned to her purpose. She is confident in and trusts her mission, decisions, abilities and the power of her intuition.A Queen does not need others to choose or validate her. If a Queen is a mother, she knows that she can be a loving mum and live her life in a way that feels true to who she is as a woman. A Queen lives to serve, support and uplift others. She knows that she can only do this from a place of love and power. She sees it as vital to protect her energy with boundaries that she sets and maintains for herself and others.A Queen has a team, she allows others to help her and attracts aligned support from others.A Queen invests in herself and her mission. She is committed to her own growth and healing. She knows that her growth and healing are not only powerfully transformational for her but for the collective all.What it means to be the Queen of your life may look different to you. I invite you to take a moment to reflect. Create your own list of Queenly qualities. Remember there is no right or wrong answer here, whatever feels right for you is perfect.Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREPhoto by Bestbe Models on Pexels.comShadow Queen Archetypes

The Shadow Archetypes of the Queen are The Evil Queen and The Veiled Queen

The Evil Queen

The Evil Queen has a predisposition to be fairly judgemental, image-conscious and shallow. The Evil Queen is prone to feel possessiveness and jealousy which can lead her to be quite vindictive. She wields her power cleverly so it can manipulate others or put them down. The Evil Queen lacks humility and is likely to look down on and judge others harshly.

The Evil Queen has a temper. She projects this towards other women especially if she feels they have stepped on her territory or jeopardised her relationships. The Shadowed Queen values appearances and the significance it gives her. Therefore, she will overlook the indiscretions of a partner or a spouse for the sake of appearances.

The Evil Queen In Our Culture

In a culture that values the Maiden and Mother Archetype, we have been given little to no example of what it means to be a Queen. The majority of Queens represented in our culture, are Evil Queen Archetypes.

The Evil Queen Archetype is how we have been taught to view powerful women. We were raised on ‘Evil Queen Stories’ (think of the queen in Snow White or Maleficent). Our social media, movies and books are brimming with endless stories about celebrity divas, ‘Karens’ or rich bitches. Our fairy tales, movies and social media are full of these ‘Evil Queen’ stereotypes.

I invite you to think about the stories of your childhood, how was the Queen portrayed? What did it cause you to believe about women and power?Photo by cottonbro on

Powerful women are shamed and held up as an example of ‘too muchness’ which can be frightening. This is especially true if we have been taught to value being liked over claiming what is rightfully ours.

We are warned repeatedly about the dangers of being ‘too powerful’, ‘too successful’, ‘too sexy’, ‘too emotional’, ‘too opinionated’, ‘too wealthy’. We’ve had significant warnings embedded in our collective psyches, such as the Salam witch trials, or the beheadings of the wives of King Henry VIII about what will happen if we deviate from the ‘path’ or get ‘too big for your station’. We interpret these warnings to mean that our personal power is ‘unsafe’ or ‘too much’ for us to handle.

In movies, books, and social media we are shown the example of what it means to be ‘wealthy and ‘successful’. We are told that ‘power ‘corrupts’ and that power is going to change us into someone whom we don’t like. Being ‘nice’, ‘clueless’ and ‘poor’ are shown to be synonymous with being accepted. We are fed a ‘cookie-cutter’ version of what it means to embody the Queen Archetype, and this may not fit in with who we are.

Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HEREThe Veiled Queen

The energy of the Queen is ignited when we lead. However, we may notice the traits of the Veiled Queen in ourselves when we have not yet integrated the power of our own sovereignty.

It’s normal to feel frightened by our own strength and potential. We have a habit of keeping ourselves small and self-protect when we feel that our light is shining too brightly. The Queen is a highly influential Archetype. She is extremely polarising as an Archetype. Many women want to be her, but are at the same time, extremely intimidated by her.

You may know other Queens. These are women who have already claimed their crown and have stepped into their sovereignty. You may look at these Queens, who radiate self-love, self-confidence and self-worth and feel a bit intimidated by them. This comparison may cause you to stay veiled and hidden in the shadows.

As young girls, we grew up with the male-dominated example of what it means to lead. We have been taught the value of ‘going it alone’, competing, ‘selling ourselves’, ‘working till we drop’, scarcity, domination and hustling for our worth. These beliefs can trigger Wounded Warrior tendencies in us because our previous injuries have taught us to protect ourselves by armouring up. This too can bring to the surface the Evil Queen Archetype who feels that she must compete against other Queens.

Stepping Out From Behind The Veil

When we claim our sovereign self and everything that this entails, we open ourselves up to be both celebrated and criticised.

Being visible can be terrifying! This is especially true if you have been raised to be ‘seen and not heard’ or spent your life safely tucked away in the shadow of the Unnamed Maiden. When we have come to associate approval and fitting in with love, connection and survival, going against this programming can be petrifying.

Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HERE

It is also far easier to abdicate decision-making to others and to blame them when things don’t go to plan. If respect for your own boundaries has not yet been set in place, this will allow others to walk all over you. It is common to feel as if we need partnerships and relationships to complete us. This can be true in our relationships and in business where we may feel fearful of standing in the power of our own worth. In this state, we abdicate in making decisions and compare ourselves to other Queens which leads to feeling inadequate.

Many of us are still that Maiden, are waiting to be chosen. Waiting to be given permission to step into our power as our own Queen without realising that we can choose ourselves.

Would like to find out how to become the Queen of your own life? Register for my FREE training HERE

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How To Reconnect With Your Intuition – The Wise Woman Archetype

Many midlife women feel disconnected from their intuitions. They don’t feel that they have an intuition, or that they cannot trust their intuition.

When we live our lives from this belief it can lead us to look outside of ourselves for answers. This in turn means that we repeat the same thoughts, damaging self-talk and behaviour patterns again and again. Because we rely on the advice of others who may not understand what is right for us, this cycle of beliefs, thoughts and behaviour leads us to an experience of stuckness.

You may be reading this now because you are feeling lost and disconnected from yourself. Perhaps you have experienced this cycle in your life and would like to know how to change it.

In this article, I will be exploring why you may be feeling this way. I will be sharing ways to reconnect with your intuition and the Archetype that controls our intuition – Your Wise Woman.

Who Is The Wise Woman Archetype?

The Wise Woman is a well-spring of wisdom and knowledge and is drawn to the pursuit of truth. She represents a woman’s intuition and inspiration as well as her ability to be objective, strategize, and reason.

A woman who is in touch with her Wise Woman is introspective, self-sufficient, and self-confident. She feels secure in her identity and does not compare herself with others as she has nothing to prove.

The Wise Woman has integrated her stories and her wisdom as she has met her shadow many times. She knows how to work with her gifts, talents and shadow self rather than being at war with herself. The Wise Woman has learned from her mistakes. She uses her past wounds as medicine to heal herself and help others.

The Wise Woman possesses wisdom in many different areas and expresses her insights in a variety of ways. Because she is deeply connected to her intuition and trusts it and herself she speaks her truth with confidence. An integrated Wise Woman uses her experiences to be a relatable teacher who shares her stories and lessons freely with others. She is brave, driven, and eager to continue her journey for learning about herself and the realms that she inhabits.

The Wise Woman speaks the truth; she knows her power and is fully awake. The Wise Woman’s greatest strengths are her intuition, dedication, strategy, and objectivity. She is capable of great introspection and is driven by a thirst for knowledge and understanding. She desires to collect experiences and ensures that she keeps learning lessons throughout her life.

When we embody our Wise Woman we access our authenticity and our inner bravery.

Tanya Valentin

Representations Of The Wise Woman Archetype In Our Culture

Examples of Wise Women in our culture are Oprah, Brene Brown, and Maya Angelou. The Oracle in The Matrix movies and Moana’s grandmother are examples of this Archetype depicted in our media.

The Greek goddess of wisdom, strategy and war, Athena is most associated with the Wise Woman in western culture. Other goddesses of wisdom from other cultures include the Roman goddess Minerva, the Hindu Goddess Saraswati, and Sophia, who is mentioned in some Jewish and Christian texts as the feminine personification of God. The Egyptian Goddess, Seshat is also associated with wisdom.

Photo by Sandeep Patel on Pexels.comWhy Do We Disconnect Ourselves From Our Intuition?

We are all born with intuition. Our intuition is the true expression of our soul. Our soul is how God/Universe created us. We are all born connected to this.

Just look at a young child. Children are connected to their truth and are unashamed and unafraid to speak it. They are unapologetically connected to their needs and their emotions. Children honour this truth by asking questions and saying what is on their minds in a way that often embarrasses the adults in their lives.

I invite you to think back to your childhood, how was your ‘truth’ received by the adults in your life?

Was it received and nurtured as a treasure? Or was your truth shamed out of you?

I challenge you, that the real reason that you may feel that you can no longer hear the voice of your intuition is that you have trained yourself not to hear it.

As we grow up we are given a multitude of messages and reasons as to why we should not be ourselves or trust our own inner guidance. We trade our truth for the security and acceptance that comes from pleasing others and fitting in. This is the unconscious agreement that we make about what it means to be a ‘good daughter’ or ‘good son’. It is how we are domesticated out of our instincts and intuition.

This is reinforced with ‘punishment’ for speaking our truth or stepping outside of what our parents consider inappropriate. We are conditioned to distrust our own instincts and the wisdom of our bodies. Over time we gather ‘evidence’ to prove that our intuition cannot be trusted.

Reflect on an occasion when you listened to your intuition and it had a negative outcome:

What was this experience like? What decision did it lead you to make about yourself and following your intuition?

Do You Need Help Trusting Your Intuition Again? Get Support HereThe Shadow Wise Woman Archetypes

The Shadow Archetypes of the Wise Woman is the Hag and the Sceptic.

The Hag

The Hag is often portrayed in fairytales as the old crone, a hermit, discarded out on the outskirts of communities. She is representative of how western society views aging in women. No longer a ‘Maiden’, a woman is cast out and forgotten. She no longer possesses the outward youth and beauty that is highly prized in our culture. The Hag also represents how our culture devalues wisdom and connection to inner guidance. Instead, we live in a world obsessed with seeking outside validation, instant gratification and ‘quick fixes’.

The Hag Is Prone To Loneliness And Senses That She Does Not Belong…

She feels that society does not make space for her. When we are out of balance with our Wise Woman, we may cast ourselves as a victim and isolate ourselves. Another way that the Hag can influence us is when we see our wisdom as superior. We consequently weaponise our knowledge and use it as a way to hurt or shame others. We likely feel bitter, resentful, or envious of the gifts other Wise Women possess. The Hag has little time for fun or frivolity and prioritises deep and meaningful conversations over ‘small talk’.

When The Hag Is Your Primary Archetype

You may find it hard to accept the aging process as a natural part of life. You may feel invisible and ‘cast aside’ and bitter because of this. If you feel like this, you are not alone. Women who identify with the Hag often find themselves stuck in a cycle of profound grief or live alone in their own ‘special world’.

The Hag may find it hard to free herself from being narrow-minded. She may find it challenging to form and maintain relationships with others or ask for help. The Hag does not value herself, her intuition, or her lessons. Therefore, she does not see herself as a Wise Woman with gifts and stories to share with others.

The Sceptic

The Sceptic is a Shadow Wise Woman Archetype who is ‘head’ led. She is smart and has a ferocious thirst for knowledge. The Sceptic consumes books and attends personal and professional development courses. She acquires degrees and academic accolades but she only applies this new knowledge academically. The Sceptic does not take time to integrate what she has learned into wisdom. She does not allow what she knows to guide her spiritually.

The Sceptic postpones taking action from what she has learned as she believes that she is ‘not ready’ and can’t trust herself. The Sceptic lives her life from the fear of not being enough and often feels like an imposter. Her thirst for knowledge is borne out of the belief and fear that she is not prepared enough. She, therefore, strives to learn more so that she can be better prepared before she can proceed. This procrastination can stop her from taking the action.

The Septic Does Not Trust Or Believe Things That She Does Not Yet Have Evidence For

Because the Sceptic lives in her intellect, she often ignores the wisdom of her body. She values knowledge above all and is disconnected from her instincts and intuition. The Sceptic values the opinions and advice of others over her inner guidance. The Sceptic regularly makes ‘head-based’ decisions that are logical while ignoring what feels right for her. This can lead her to feel confused, overwhelmed and out of alignment with what is in integrity for her.

The Sceptic tends to prioritise knowledge and truth over her relationships. She too can weaponise the truth and use it in a way that hurts others to mask her feelings of not-enoughness.

The Sceptic’s Woundings And Beliefs

The Sceptic is borne out of a culture that values the masculine ‘hard skills’ of facts and knowledge acquisition. This culture does not value softer, feminine qualities such as intuition, compassion, empathy and kindness.

Many women learn early on in their lives that if they want to succeed in a ‘man’s world’, they need to conform to the primarily male-dominated way of doing things. Throughout history, women have been disadvantaged in terms of education and the types of careers that they were allowed to pursue. Women have always had to fight to be taken seriously. It was a mere 173 years ago that the first woman received a medical degree, 139 years ago the first woman became an engineer, 62 years ago the first female prime minister.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.comThe Sceptic Believes That To Succeed In Life She Must Know Everything And Understand Everything

The Sceptic believes that in order to succeed in life she must emulate ‘wounded masculine’ qualities and suppress her softer feminine character. She has a strong drive to be accepted and approved of by her peers and to be seen as knowledgable, capable and serious.

The Sceptic strives for perfection and academic recognition as this is how she achieves significance. She believes that mistakes, emotional vulnerability and failures are a sign of a weak mind. To maintain a strong level of certainty in her life she must have the evidence to back up her thinking.

Connections Between The Wild Woman And Wise Woman Archetypes

The Wild Woman and the Wise Woman are ‘special world’ sister Archetypes that exist in relationship with each other during the chrysalis stage of a woman’s spiritual awakening. Both these Archetypes are related to our authentic selves. We need to activate and embody our Wise and Wild selves to achieve sovereignty over our lives. Where the Wild Woman can be fiery, fierce and chaotic, the Wise Woman is grounded, connected and calm. A woman needs both of these powerful energies to help her to navigate this reconnection time with her true self. This is the purpose of a spiritual awakening.

As women, we need both our stillness and our wildness to truly come alive on the inside.

This is especially true for women who identify with the Feral Wild Woman Archetype. The Feral Wild Woman is a Wild Woman who was once wild but then was trapped and is now free. She has endured many years of domestication and been forced to live her life trapped in the roles, responsibilities and other people’s expectations of who they think she should be which have deadened her sense of who she is. However, because she has been conditioned to place her trust in others, and because of her time in captivity, she has lost the connection with her instincts and intuition. Read more about the Wild Woman Archetype HERE.

The ‘Safe Problem’

I believe that we resist reconnection with our inner guidance because our intuition tells the truth. Truth is often painful, hard, unpalatable and extremely uncomfortable. The truth can stir up fear and shame, emotions that we have been taught to avoid at all costs. One of the most uncomfortable truths is that we have been conditioned to value comfort over truth. Reconnection with our intuitive, authentic self starts with the acceptance of this hard truth.

I would like to share a story about a friend, let’s call her Stacy. Her situation is one that many midlife women can relate to. Stacy has recently turned 47, she is miserable in her marriage. Her youngest daughter has just turned 16 and is needing her less. Stacy has been relying on staying busy and heavy drinking in her ‘spare time’ to cope with her life. Recently she went to her GP for help who prescribed antidepressants to help with her low mood and anxiety.

“I know that I need to make changes,” she said to me in a recent conversation, “But I am scared to look at my life too closely because I am scared of what I’ll find. Really my life isn’t so bad. A lot of people have it way worse than I do. I really shouldn’t complain.”

This Is What I Call The ‘Safe Problem’

Stacy believes, as so many women do, that a false sense of safety and security is more important than authenticity. As mentioned before, an agreement that so many adults unknowingly make in the ‘domestication’ we received as children, is that the way we get safety and security, which means love and acceptance, is to sacrifice who we really are. We enter into this agreement because we believe that this is how we will achieve happiness and fulfilment in life.

This is a great lie to live for most of our lives, but…

Our Soul, Our intuition, Our Wise And Wild Woman Knows Better And Keeps Giving Us Nudges…

As we advance into our middle years these nudges don’t go away. Our soul quickens as it starts to recognise how precious life is and how little of it we have left. The nudges become thumps and they just get louder and louder. When we don’t pay attention we suffer. We feel lost, stuck, anxious and depressed. We feel disconnected, don’t know who we are and as if we are living someone else’s life. Many women tell me that they don’t know how to ‘fix’ this.

However, I would argue that our intuition, which has always been there, it is now screaming at us with urgency to wake up before it is too late.

The real reason we don’t hear it is because we choose not to. We intuitively know that there are hard decisions we have to make, conversations we need to have and things we have to change. Our fear tells us that this will make us feel ‘unsafe’. Our intuition tells us that the only way to live as who we were created to be is to get ‘unsafe’ and follow it. It is this internal conflict that causes us to suffer and stay stuck and confused.

If you recognise that this is happening in your life, stop and ask yourself:

What truths am I avoiding? What hard things am I frightened of?

If this stirs up feelings of fear, shame and discomfort, know that you are on the right track and follow it. Recognise that your intuition is trying to tell you something.

If You Need Help Unravelling Your ‘Safe Problem’ Get Support HereHow To Reconnect With Your Intuition

If you have read this blog and this is resonating with you and you are ready to challenge the ‘Safe Problem’, then I offer you the following ways to reconnect with this sacred part of yourself:

Believe That You Are A Wise Woman

The first step to connecting to your intuition is to claim your Wise Woman status. You have to believe (or be open to believing) that you are a Wise Woman. You have an inner wisdom, gifts, lessons and heart medicine to share!

Recognise That You Are Connected To Divinity

My belief is that we were all created for a reason, a purpose and that we have a soul. Our soul is an unique expression of the divine (by whatever name you chose to call this divine being). In the native Maori culture of New Zealand, this is embodied in the word Mana Atua – a spark of the divine. I believe that all living things are connected by this life force and and it is our job to nurture and protect this divine spark in ourselves, in each other and in all the living things on this planet.

Our expression of intuition comes from our connection to the source of divinity in us. The more we nurture our divine light the clearer we will hear our intuition.

Tanya Valentin

Embrace Solitude And Stillness

There is so much busyness and noise in our lives. Even when we think it is quiet there is still the steady hum of noise from appliances and electronics in the background. We can spend a whole day plugged in to our phones, computers or other devices. This leaves no space for thinking or hearing our own thoughts.

When we are trying to avoid ourselves and our truth, this can be an effective coping strategy. However, if your intention is to be able to hear and tune into your intuition then you will need to learn to embrace being alone and being still.

In a practical sense this means being intentional about setting aside time for yourself where you are alone and unplugged. Engaging in soul nurturing rituals such as meditation and prayer will allow you to connect inward.

Spend Time In Nature

We were meant to live as part of nature and not apart from it. That is why it is so soothing on our nervous system when we are outdoors.

We need time to BE – hands deep in the dirt, surrounded by trees, swimming in the ocean, sitting under the stars, bathing in the light of the moon or feeling the warmth of the sun our backs. When we are surrounded by the life force of mother nature we are connected to the flow of life. The spark of the divine in us is in deep communication with the spark of the divine in other living things. This is when our soul and our intuition can recharge and strengthen itself.

Journal Your Thoughts

Writing down your thoughts allows you to observe your thoughts and to know yourself better. By journalling you learn to know yourself at a deeper level. Journalling is also a powerful way for you to meet shadow parts of yourself and to do healing shadow work.

Reconnect To Your Creativity

Our creative self is closely linked to our intuition and they are both linked to our authentic self. Our creativity is an outward expression of our soul and our intuition is the voice of our soul.

We were all born with the ability to create. Humans are makers. We create art, literature, gardens, homes, buildings, hand-crafts and nutritious, living sustaining meals for ourselves and our families. We make love and we create children. Our thoughts, beliefs and words create the reality that we live in.

On a physical level, creativity and intuition are both most alive in us when we achieve a ‘flow state’. During ‘flow state’ our brains produce theta waves – the brain waves of dreaming and meditation. We can therefore conclude that if we want to engage in more intuitive thinking we need to find ways to be more creative in our everyday life.

Challenge yourself to do something differently, write, draw, paint or dance expressively.

Your willingness to play, have fun, and be creative opens up your channel to communicate with the loving energy of the Universe.

Gabrielle Berstein

Reconnect With Your Body

Most adults spend the majority of their lives, living in their heads. Our head is where our fear and self-doubt live. Our intuition does not come from our knowledge or our intellect.

Intuition is a felt experience. We experience it in our bodies. That is why so many people, when speaking about their intuition, call it a gut feeling or talk about following their hearts.

When you are disconnected from your body and your emotions it is very difficult to feel your intuition.

You can reconnect with your body through regular exercise, yoga, breathwork, meditation, EFT tapping and other somatic modalities.

To Explore If Havening And EFT Tapping Are Right For You Click HereSeek Out Like-Hearted Sisters

The process of spiritual awakening can feel hard and lonely. So many women who are navigating a midlife awakening feel isolated and lonely.

Loneliness is a purely perceptual experience and is not defined by how many people you have around you. Loneliness stems from a feeling that you are misunderstood and therefore nobody gets you and what you are going through. You are isolated in your experience of the world.

Those closest to you may even be threatened by the change you are going through spiritually, emotionally and mentally. They may feel triggered by your ‘abandonment’ of them or feel resentful for not being the centre of your focus. You cannot expect the people in your life to emotionally hold you during this transition period.

Please remember, that you may feel alone, but there are millions of other women who are going through this experience alongside you. Reaching out and sharing experiences with other women who are navigating this period of their lives too, can be incredibly helpful.

Work With A Mentor

This awakening phase of your life can feel incredibly painful. However, it is important to know that like all stages of life this too shall pass. It will get better.

Your intuition is calling out to you for a purpose. The purpose being, to show you areas of your life that are not attuned to your highest good. This is so that you can awaken to your truth and live your life aligned to your reason and purpose for being here.

Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not.

Deepak Chopra

Even though this is a temporary stage in your life, you may be experiencing fear, confusion and overwhelm. Awakening is a process that can trigger past trauma and unpleasant emotions that need healing and clearing. When we are in this state even a few months of feeling like this can feel like an eternity!

Working With A Mentor Can Provide You With Support To Guide You Through This Process And Make It Shorter And Less Painful

In my work as a Women’s Midlife Mentor, I use my skills as a certified life coach and therapist to help you to reconnect with, love and trust the woman behind the weight of roles, responsibilities and expectations of others and who they think you should be.

I support you to:

Learn to trust yourself and your intuition again and feel positive about your decisions.Design and live a life that reflects who you truly are and is aligned with your values.Develop stronger, more loving, authentic, supportive relationships with yourself and others.Be empowered with tools that allow you to restore a sense of purpose, well-being and balance to your life.Feel at peace with your past and feel hopeful and excited for your future! Be the Queen of Your Own Life!

Book A FREE Clarity Session To Work With Me

The post How To Reconnect With Your Intuition – The Wise Woman Archetype appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

The Call Of The Untamed Wild Woman Archetype

The Wild Woman, the Mystic, the Witch, the Priestess, the Medicine Woman is an awakened, untamed and fierce soul. She belongs to herself and unequivocally defies the status quo while she moves to the beat of her own drum.

Photo by mauro savoca on Pexels.com

She is the protector of the hearth, our inner fire – our guiding light and authentic spirit.

The Wild Woman is deeply connected to her intuition, she is sure of herself, her needs and her desires. She seeks to spend time with Mother Nature. She is extremely confident and demands abundance for herself.

Whereas the Huntress is focused on external goals, the Wild Woman focuses her energy on her ‘inner hearth’– her inner fulfilment. She is the Archetype we ignite when we need to break rules or set ourselves free from the cultural programming that tries to force us to abandon ourselves.

Wild woman is the health of all women. Without her, women’s psychology makes no sense… She canalizes through women. If they are suppressed, she struggles upward. If women are free, she is free. Fortunately, no matter how many times she is pushed down, she bounds up again. No matter how many times she is forbidden, quelled, cut back, diluted, tortured, touted as unsafe, dangerous, mad and other derogations, she emanates upward in women, so that even the quietest, even the most restrained woman keeps a secret place for her.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women Who Run With The Wolves

She is the healer and we activate her when we need to conduct healing work on our shadow selves. Regardless of how emotionally charged a situation is, a woman who exhibits strong Wild Woman energy can detach and focus her emotions inward. She can objectively observe her thoughts, emotions, and behaviour patterns for personal growth.

The Wild Woman has no issue with spending time alone for extended periods. She enjoys solitude and pursuits such as meditating, volunteering, and exploring her psychic energy and spirituality.

The Wild Woman’s greatest strengths are her ability to reflect inward, serene calmness, deep concentration, focus, and creativity.

Our Wild Woman has never bought into the collective dream. She has always known that we are magic. She is the last woman standing in a world where life pulls us in many different directions, distracting us, and leading us further and further from ourselves. She softly calls to us, “just be here”.

Tanya Valentin – When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains

The Wild Woman Archetype In Our Popular Culture

The Wild Women Archetype is represented in popular culture through characters such as Pocohantas, the witches in Practical Magic, Thelma and Louise, Erin Brokovich, and the Scarlett Witch (Marvel).

The Wild Woman is comfortable with who she is and rejects the roles that others have tried to force on her. A common misconception in our society is that a Wild Woman is an out of control, crazy woman. However, this is not the case.

A Wild Woman is a woman who has returned to herself and her true nature. When a woman goes through menopause, her Wild Woman will call to her. She will call and call and not be silenced until she is heard. Many women go crazy trying to silence her or turn off the light that has been ignited in them by their Wild Woman trying to awaken them. But the real secret is that we are not meant to silence her. Nor are we meant to put out the light as if it fault on the dashboard of our car. We are meant to hear HER, become HER and feed the light until it is a blazing fire, because this is where our true purpose, joy and abundance live.

The Japanese word for menopause is konenki, which translates as ‘renewal years’ or ‘energy’. And if there is an energy upgrade at menopause, it surely stems from the resurgence of the girl within, a phenomenon that appwers to span the boundaries of culture. For example, in a study of women from the traditional Chichimila culture of the Yucatan in Mexico, anthropologist Yewoubdar Beyene observed that many women reported feeling ‘young and free’ with menopause because it meant that they could return to the stage of life before the burdens and restrictions of their reproductive years.

Lara Briden – The Homone Repair Manual

Have you had a ‘resurgence of the girl within’? Do you feel the call of your Wild Woman?

Then I invite you to join The Feminine School of Unlearning the free online community for Soul-Led, Midlife Women who are on an awakening journey. Together, we are on a mission to support each other through the ups and downs of midlife, share what brings us alive and unlearn beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us so that we can discover what it means to be the Queen of our own lives.

Join The Feminine School of Unlearning HERE

Goddesses That Represent The Wild Woman Archetype.

There are several Goddesses who could be associated with the Wild Woman Archetype. A few of them are Hecate (Goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, moon, ghosts and necromancy), Hestia (Goddess of the hearth), Lilith (the first wife of Adam who was thrown out of Eden because she would not submit to Adam) and the Hindu Goddess Kali who is the embodiment of Shakti – female power.

The Feral Wild Woman Archetype

The Feral Wild Woman is a Wild Woman who was once wild but then was trapped and is now free. She has endured many years of domestication and been forced to live her life trapped in the roles, responsibilities and other people’s expectations of who they think she should be which have deadened her sense of who she really is.

Being a newly liberated Feral Wild Woman is an extremely vulnerable and sensitive period in a woman’s life. After her many years of domestication, she is finally free and is filled with the awesome rage and power of her newly acquired wildness. However, because she has been conditioned to place her trust in others, and because of her time in captivity, she has lost the connection with her instincts and intuition.

Many newly Feral Wild Women are easily caught by new cages and poisons such as drugs, alcohol or damaging relationships that seek to tame them again. Feral Wild Women can be chaotic and destructive and or isolate themselves in their own “special” world.

without firm participation with the wild nature, a woman starves and falls into an obsession of ‘feel betters,’ ‘leave me alones’ and ‘love me—please’.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The Witch Archetype – Witch Wounds

The Shadow Wild Woman, the Witch is a reflection of how society views the Wild Woman Archetype. The last woman was executed for witchcraft a mere 295 years ago and ‘witchhunt’ culture is still burned in our collective psyche, especially in our western, masculine-dominated, predominately Christian culture. The latest example of this is the ‘cancel culture’ that has become prevalent in our social media.

We are all daughters of Salem, descendants of the ‘wickedness’ of Eve when she tricked Adam into disobeying God. The ‘witch mark’ is something that most women today still unconsciously carry.

The Choice That All Women Make

All women are given one of two choices; submit and obey or get burned at the stake. We are either labelled as ‘nice’ or ‘good girls’ – women who ‘colour in the lines’, do as they are told, and conform to societal norms.

Read more about The Wild Woman and the other Feminine Archetypes in my book When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains HERE.

Women educated by their mother and the matriarchal line before them construct a pretty avatar, serve, please, stay small, fit in, and deny their own feelings and needs. Or we are branded as ‘witches’ or ‘bitches’ who do as they want – bossy, ballbreakers, selfish whores.

Women have been warned away from trusting themselves and embracing their inner magic throughout the millennia. The message is always “don’t be too full of yourself!” We become fearful of being branded as ‘too much’ and being burned at the stake for it.

This Shadow Archetype is not to be confused with the definition of a witch who is a woman who follows the spirit and nature-focused religion of Wicca this is a subsect of the larger category of Paganism. Witches follow nature-orientated practices or rituals which predate the Christian religion. Wicca is based on three pillars: magic, reverence for nature and the worship of Goddesses and other deities.

Claiming The Wild Woman Archetype For Yourself

Many women are fearful of their inner Wild Woman and her awesome transformational power. They are frightened of who they will be or how their lives will change if they acknowledge her and embrace her. Many women are afraid of what others will say or how they will act once they reject old roles and reveal who they truly are.

But here is the rub. If you know there is so much more to you. That there is something freer, more real, and more meaningful that you should be doing which is quickly followed by a sadness that you cannot quite articulate. If it is as if there is a distant self, calling out to you from beyond the horizon that you are trying to reach but as much as you try, you just can’t get to her… This is your Wild Woman stirring inside of you, calling to you to awaken from the dream of domestication.

The price of this fiercer, freer truer more beautiful self is the old version of you. The Wild Woman’s true nature is to make you feel more yourself, to heal and not harm. You can ignore her, but she will keep calling to you.

When the Wild Woman is honoured, she becomes a co-creator in your life. She nourishes you within your relationship with her. She gives you strength, courage, and insight into yourself, showing you things that you forgot even lived inside of you.

Feeling the Healing Presence Of Your Wild Woman

Light a candle or a fire. Watch a sunset and bask in the euphoria of the golden hour. Sit under a full moon among a galaxy of stars. Walk and breathe under the canopy of the forest walls. Place your hand on the trunk of a mighty tree and feel its heartbeat through the earth. Swim in the waves of the ocean. Walk barefoot and feel the grass or sand between your toes. Sit with your back to the warmth of the sun, or
simply connect with your breath. Feel it as it flows in, through and out of your body.

Place one hand on your chest and notice the steady beat of your heart, and place one hand on your stomach and experience how your breath causes your belly to rise and fall. Feel the intensity of your emotions. Allow yourself to be moved by them. Cry, laugh, rage, howl. Move into your strong, wild, and beautiful body. Hear the purr of energy inside of you. Still your mind and its infinite worries of tomorrow and know that she is there.

Tanya Valentin – When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains

Next Steps

If you have been hearing the calling of your Wild Woman and you don’t know what to do next. If you resonated with the Feral Wild Woman or the Witch. Then I would like to invite you to join The Feminine School of Unlearning the free online community for Soul-Led, Midlife Women who are on an awakening journey. Together, we are on a mission to support each other through the ups and downs of midlife, share what brings us alive and unlearn beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us so that we can discover what it means to be the Queen of our own lives.

Join The Feminine School of Unlearning HERE

The post The Call Of The Untamed Wild Woman Archetype appeared first on Tanya Valentin .

How To Reclaim Your Sexuality As A Midlife Woman? – The Lover Archetype

Do you consider yourself to be a sexual person?

Has sexuality or the idea of being a sexual being changed for you as a midlife woman?

Would you like to reclaim your sexuality?

Or are you finished with having sex?

Are you relieved to feel less pressure to be sexual now that your reproductive years are drawing to a close?

Whatever your answers to these questions, please know that they are all 100% valid and allowed.

In today’s blog, I will be exploring our relationship with one of the most complicated Feminine Archetypes, The Lover.

Read my blogs in this series on the fascinating Female Archetypes. Discover the Maiden, the Mother, the Huntress.

Who Is The Lover Archetype?

The Lover is a woman who is playful and confident with her erotic and creative energy. The Lover Archetype is connected to our sexuality, sensuality, body image and our emotions. This archetype is a transformative, provocative force in a woman’s life.

Filled with love and self-love the Lover, continually seeks to connect with others to acquire a deep intimacy. A woman who identifies with the Lover has a deep desire to procreate and to create. Her motivation in life is to have fun and enjoy the beauty of life. She naturally indulges her natural drive for pleasurable experiences.

A woman who is in touch with the Lover Archetype loves her body and the pleasure it gives her. She holds a great passion for life, magnetically drawing others towards her. The Lover relishes being the centre of attention.

The Lover Archetype is connected to how we feel about our bodies. Because the Lover is about receiving she is tied to our ability to receive wealth, pleasure and abundance for ourselves. When we embody the Lover Archetype we attract these things into our lives. Women who embody the Lover Archetype have a profound emotional need for both freedom and connection. The strengths of the Lover Archetype are built from her passionate and creative nature. This is in addition to her ability to seduce and arouse sexual attraction and passion in others.

The Lover craves to live in the moment, enjoy life and appreciates all it has to offer. Embodying the Lover Archetype is not about having lots of sex unless you want to. Embracing the Lover is about reclaiming your sexuality, sensuality and your body as yours. Activating the Lover ignites your birthright to attract joy, love, creativity, abundance and pleasure into your life for yourself.

The Lover Archetype In Popular Culture

Women in our popular culture who have a strong Lover connection are Marilyn Monroe, Sharon Stone’s character Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct and Samantha in Sex and the City.

There are so many mixed messages a woman will receive from the culture around her about what it means to be a sexual being. This messaging leads to conflict and confusion around female sexuality within ourselves.

Our Herstory, culture and religion have a huge influence on how we view sex and our right to receive pleasure. Many women have been taught as they have grown up that a woman’s sexuality is about pleasing someone else. We have to give ourselves to someone else. After all, that is what ‘good girls’ do.

As supermodel Jerry Hall said;

My mother always said, ‘to keep a man happy, you had to be a cook in the kitchen, a maid in the living room and a whore in the bedroom. 

Jerry Hall

Photo by Valeria Boltneva on Pexels.comGoddesses And The Lover Archetype.

The Goddesses who represent the Lover are Pravati the Hindu Goddess of love, the Greek Goddess Aphrodite (Goddess of love and fertility) or her Roman counterpart Venus.

Aphrodite was famous for her many affairs with both mortals and gods. She was the mother of Eros, (Cupid). Aphrodite was what was known as an Alchemical Goddess. She had the power to transform and cast spells that caused mortals to fall in love and conceive new life.

According to Dr Jean Shinoda Bolen;

Whomever or whatever Aphrodite imbues with beauty is irresistible. A magnetic attraction results, ‘chemistry’ happens between the two, and they desire union above all else. They feel a powerful urge to get closer, to have intercourse, to consummate – or ‘know’ each other.

Dr Jean Shinoda Bolen

When we turn on the Lover Archetype in ourselves this can inspire in us deep creativity, healing self-love, inspiration, magic and beauty.

Photo by Isabela Catão on Pexels.comThe Shadow Lover Archetype

During our womanly initiation to the Lover, many women disconnect from this archetype. None of us gets to womanhood whole as sexual beings. All of us have wounds to heal.

Because of past sexual trauma, sexual shaming and cultural programming, many women either suppress their Lover. We shut her down, as we move into the Wounded Lover. On the other extreme, we may engage in seemingly overtly sexual behaviour which does very little to honour and nurture the woman we are. This reinforces the idea of Lover as the Temptress – a wanton woman intent on stealing other women’s men for her pleasure. The cultural stigma that goes hand in hand with the Lover is often at the root of the Sister Wound. (The distrust or dis-ease we feel about relationships with other women.)

The Fragile Lover

One side of the Shadow Lover Archetype is the Fragile Lover. When we identify with the Fragile Lover we may appear to be overtly sexual. We may use our sexuality to shame others or to manipulate them to get what we want. A woman who identifies with the Fragile Lover echoes self-destructive patterns such as indulging in many casual relationships. When we embody the Fragile lover we may repeat patterns of sexual infidelity or we use our sexuality transactionally. These, often destructive patterns stem from wounds in our past that we have yet to heal.

The Fragile Lover sees herself as a receptacle for the lust of others. She will objectify her body to please others. The Fragile Lover has been taught through her past wounding that her looks and sexuality are her only ‘currency’. The Fragile Lover fears aging as she perceives the ‘currency’ as dwindling as she gets older. She appears confident and self-assured but the Fragile Lover needs to feel loved and wanted to feel significant and worthy. Her sense of self-worth is tied to her popularity. When she feels as if the attention is no longer on her, she yearns to have control and will attract drama and attention to boost her vanity and fragile self-esteem.

The Repressed Lover

Due to pressures from cultural and societal norms along with trauma wounds, many women have buried or repressed their Lover. This is particularly prevalent during the childbearing and child-rearing years when women often reassign the sexual parts of their bodies to mothering duties. Many mothers become overstimulated and ‘touched out’ and come to see the act of sex as a chore. They can view sex as one more way they have to ‘give’ to others. This can stop women from honouring their sexuality and viewing it as an act of ‘receiving’. This can allow them to become disconnected from their bodies, their cycles, their emotions, their sensuality and their sexuality.

I believe many women are still trapped in the puritan, patriarchal thinking of our mothers and their mothers before them. What we learn about our Lover is very much an unhealed mother wound. We are taught that sex and sensuality are purely an act of giving, and pleasing others, in our culture’s expectation
that women should all be Maidens or Mothers, and sex is something we only do with others and for others but never for ourselves.

Tanya Valentin – When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

The Lover Archetype is not just a woman’s sexual self, she is also a woman’s ability to experience joy and pleasure in life as well as being connected to her creative self. When we disconnect from our Lover, joy, pleasure, and creativity dwindle away and eventually die. When we deny our Lover energy, we withhold the ability to be able to receive love from others and ourselves. This can also hinder our ability to let go of the previous hurt, enjoy pleasurable experiences, appreciate beauty, have fun, play and be in the moment.

The Art Of Receiving

As mentioned previously, a way that the Repressed Lover can manifest herself in a woman’s life is through her ability to receive. Many women limit themselves in what or how much they allow themselves to receive.

This can be true in our lives, whether it is in allowing someone to do something for us, opening ourselves up to money, career opportunities, the abundance we deserve, receiving pleasure in the bedroom, or being able to accept a compliment.

The majority of women who feel stuck or as if they are living their lives with little joy, excitement, and purpose, are joyless and uninspired in their sex lives too. They have severed their connection to the Lover and have difficulty receiving.

“So many of us were taught to keep a lid on anything and everything outrageous. To just turn it off. We turn off our life force, turn off our feelings, turn off our sensuality, and as a consequence, we turn off our power.”

Regena Thomashauer,  Pussy: A Reclamation

If this is a problem for you, the best way to balance this wounded or shadowed energy is to learn at the feet of the Lover. The woman with a healthy embodiment of the Lover knows that receiving is her birthright and she actively seeks this out to receive this for herself.

Healing The Wounded Lover

If you read this blog and identified with the Fragile Lover of the Repressed Lover then chances are that you have wounds that need healing and beliefs that you need to examine and unlearn.

If you would like to know how to embody more healthy Lover qualities Join The Feminine School of Unlearning the free community for Soul-Led, Midlife Women who are on an awakening journey. 

Together, we are on a mission to support each other through the ups and downs of midlife, share what brings us alive and unlearn beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us so that we can discover what it means to be the Queen of our own lives.

Join The Feminine School of Unlearning.

The post How To Reclaim Your Sexuality As A Midlife Woman? – The Lover Archetype appeared first on Tanya Valentin .

Unlearning Lesson Seven – Saying “No”

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Do you struggle to say “No”?

Do you wish you could keep your promises to yourself?

Do you know that you should be better at setting boundaries, but you just don’t know how?

In this episode:I talk about boundaries and the real reason you may not be able to set or keep your boundaries.I share the role of nervous system deregulation when trying to say “No”.I explore common beliefs that many people have that stop them from setting healthy boundaries.Find out the real reason that saying “No” feels so hard.

To access my How To Set Better Boundaries Training at 50% off go to thefeminineschoolofunlearning.teachable.com/p/how-to-set-better-boundaries and use the coupon code HALFOFF at check-out.

If you would like to listen to the episode on your meta-emotions philosophy CLICK HERE

If you would like to listen to the episode on shadow work CLICK HERE

Message me on Instagram or Facebook @tanyavalentinnz

The post Unlearning Lesson Seven – Saying “No” appeared first on Tanya Valentin .

Do ‘Sensitive’ Women Outgrow Being ‘Sensitive’? -The Huntress Archetype

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Were you told as a girl that you were ‘too emotional’, ‘too sensitive’?

Were you told to “put on your big girl panties” or to “toughen up”?

You are not alone.

So many of us received similar messages growing up. And as a grown woman, you may outwardly appear to be less sensitive. However, this just masks your secret reality. Underneath the tough exterior is a little girl that still cares too much, feels too much and regularly feels hurt by the actions and words of others.

If this is you, then somewhere along the way you complied with the calls to ‘toughen up’ by armouring up or growing a tough skin in order to protect yourself. It could be that you deployed your inner warrior, your inner protector – the Huntress Archetype.

Photo by Alvin Ng on Pexels.com

In this blog, I explore the Huntress Archetype, her Shadow Archetype – the Wounded Warrior, common Wounded Warrior Beliefs and Warrior Wounds that you may need to heal.

To learn about the Mother Archetype and the Maiden Archetype read my other blogs in this Archetype Series.

CLICK HERE TO READ MY OTHER BLOGSWho Is The Huntress Archetype?

The Huntress, in her purest essence, is a woman on a mission. An independent spirit who pursues a life of her own and on her own terms. The Huntress Archetype represents a woman’s autonomy. The Huntress has the gift of being able to focus on her goals to achieve them without any distractions. She is courageous, protective, competitive, and self-assured.

A woman who ascertains Huntress characteristics relies on herself and doesn’t need a partner to feel complete. She’s a natural activist and stands firm in what she believes.

The Huntress is a protector of others, especially other women who have been victimised. She feels at home spending time in the wilderness of mother nature and has a strong affinity with the moon. The Huntress’s greatest strengths are her self-reliance, independence, confidence, persistence, courage, and ability to focus on achieving her goals.

The Huntress Archetype Through The Life Stages

The Huntress Archetype is our inner warrior. During the adolescence stage in our lives when we begin to withdraw from our family. We may have dreams of travelling and conquering the world. We use the Huntress Archetype to protect ourselves and to help us to focus on what we want to achieve out of life. Our inner Huntress gives us the courage to trust ourselves, leave our parental home and brave the unknown.

Some women in midlife have habitually neglected their Huntress in favour of the Selfless Mother Archetype. They have forgotten that they are fierce, brave, powerful and strong. Once you feel the call to your broken dreams and promises, you can start to feel a strong resurgence of the Huntress and her powerful energy rising in you.

We can use the Huntress’s energy to set and accomplish goals, take a new direction in life, find and follow a new purpose, or start a new career. This energy has the potential for you to be a courageous advocate for others.

Photo by Roy Reyna on Pexels.comRepresentation Of The Huntress Archetype In Our Modern Culture

Mulan, Raya, and Merida in the children’s Disney movies are all representative of the Huntress Archetype. We also see strong Huntress representation in superheroes like Black Widow, Wonder Woman or Xena warrior princess.

The Goddess who most strongly represents The Huntress Archetype is the Greek Goddess Artemis (Goddess of the hunt, wild animals, the moon, chastity and childbirth) and her Roman counterpart, Diana.

Myth has it that Artemis helped her mother Leto birth her twin brother Apollo. Even though she hunted animals, she was a ‘worthy’ hunter who was also a fierce protector of them – especially their young. Artemis is considered a ‘Virgin Goddess’. This could be why women with a strong Huntress are seen as self-contained, self-reliant and do not feel the need for a partner to complete them.

The Wounded Warrior – The Shadow Huntress Archetype

The shadowed or wounded Huntress is the Wounded Warrior. She puts up a facade of bravado which seemingly lacks vulnerability and she tends to push others away. Wounded by experiences with others, she casts a protective armour and finds it difficult to trust others. The Wounded Warrior does not rely on others or let others. She is fearful of being let down and hurt. The Wounded Warrior appears aloof and is often emotionally unavailable.

Even though the Wounded Warrior is a natural protector of other women, she can quickly resent them. She is repelled by the ‘neediness’ and ‘weakness’ of other women. This could be because she is subconsciously reminded of her own vulnerability or how she was hurt in the past. The Wounded Warrior will often feel compelled to compete with other women due to her Sister Wound (the way other women have wounded her in the past).

The Wounded Warrior often chooses to prioritise her work or her mission over her relationships because this feels ‘safe’ to her. This single-mindedness leads her to push others away and alienate friends and family because she shuts them out or neglects them.

The Wounded Warrior finds it difficult to slow down and celebrate successes. Instead, she shifts her focus to the next thing that she would like to ‘hunt’. She derives a sense of self-worth from her achievements and how productive or emotionally or physically ‘strong’ she is.

The Wounded Warrior finds it extremely difficult to rest or surrender control and constantly feels the need to act. This behaviour leads to being in a constant state of survival. The Wounded Warrior often risks burning herself out as she is unable to share her workload because she can’t trust others with her ‘mission’.

Core Beliefs Of The Shadow Huntress Archetype

The Wounded Warrior wears her ‘busyness’ as a badge of honour. She believes that her worth is determined by how many goals she can achieve and how capable others perceive her.

She deliberately distances herself from others as she believes that emotional vulnerability and asking for help are signs of weakness.

The Wounded Warrior has been deeply wounded in her past which caused her to put up armour to protect herself. She would like to let others in or have more connected, meaningful relationships. However, at her core, she believes that if she allows her armour to drop and for people to see who she really is they will hurt her again or reject her for her battle scars.

Warrior Wounds That You May Need To Heal

All of the Shadow Archetypes have wounds that require healing.

If you identify with the Huntress Archetype or find yourself falling into the shadow of the Wounded Warrior, then you may have one (or more) of these Warrior Wounds.

If you have put up armour but want to feel safe enough to lower it in order to have more connected relationships with yourself and others, then you may need to do some healing in these areas.

The Sister Wound

Many of our wounds as women have been inflicted by other women. You may have been hurt by your sisters and female friends when you were growing up.

For example, you may have been told by other girls that we couldn’t play with them. Or you may have been excluded from a friend group or have been made fun of by the ‘popular’ girls. Perhaps you had a falling out with a friend because of a boy or because they promised to keep your secrets and then betrayed you.

You may have had a sister who excelled in sports or academics and who you felt was your parent’s favourite. Or Perhaps your sister was really pretty and got a lot of attention from boys and the boy you fancied liked her instead of you.

Whatever the wounding was, this sent you the message that other women were not to be trusted. It also taught you that relationships with them were not safe for you. These interactions may have caused you to ‘armour up’ or distance yourself from having meaningful friendships with other women.

The Mother Wound

As a woman, your mother provided you with the most influential example of what it means to be a woman and mother. Our relationship with our mother is also our first and most influential female relationship. We inherit Mother Wounds from our mother which we internalise and take on as our own.

To read more about The Mother Archetype and Mother Wounds CLICK HERE.

The Wounded Masculine Wound

Most women grew up in a male-dominated culture. This culture does not only wound women but it also wounds men. Women learn that their ‘place’ is as homemakers, peacemakers and mothers.

Men learn that they need to be strong, dependable and a provider. Many girls who have natural Huntress characteristics and who have goals that they would achieve are taught through experience that in order to succeed they have to shut down their feminine side in a male world.

A lot is said about Mother Wounds. However, girls are hugely affected by Father Wounds too. If you idolised your father or felt neglected by him, you may have developed Wound Warrior behaviours to please, feel seen or loved by him.

The Productivity Wound

The Wounded Warrior strongly associates her worth with how productive she is or how many goals or how much recognition she receives. The wounded behaviour can stem from her childhood experience of only being loved or accepted if she was achieving academic or sporting recognition. This could be because the Wounded Warrior has not learned intrinsic validation. Instead, she rather needs the validation of others.

She may strive for perfectionism. The Wounded Warrior believes that she is never good enough. No matter how successful she is in life, she feels compelled to aim higher or do more to prove that she is good enough.

If you recognised yourself in some of the Wounded Warrior characteristics, beliefs and wounds, you are not alone.

In my online community, The Feminine School of Unlearning I support midlife women who are on an awakening journey to unlearn beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve them so that we can discover what it means to be the Queen of their own lives.

CLICK HERE HERE TO JOIN THE FEMININE SCHOOL OF UNLEARNING

The post Do ‘Sensitive’ Women Outgrow Being ‘Sensitive’? -The Huntress Archetype appeared first on Tanya Valentin .