WHY Do You Weigh Yourself??

All of my blog action from now on will be happening at my website, ginacology.com, so mosey on over to check out my new post: “WHY Do you Weigh Yourself??”

Where’s Your Wild Woman? When Was The Last Time You Let Her Out?

My wild woman in Joshua Tree, California I’ve promised to explore each of the letters in W.O.M.A.N, (my acronym) and so I want to begin with the “W,” wild.  When I speak of wild in all that I write, I am not speaking of the Girls Gone Wild, MTV version or the kind that emulates male promiscuity.  I speak of a primal wildness borne of the soul and rooted in our bodies.  It is a most crucial aspect of who we are as women, and sadly a place most never visit within themselves or share with another.  That other is the truly wild man (speaking as a heterosexual woman), and I’ll get to him a little bit later, but let’s focus on the Wild Woman for now. As I often share from my life, I can speak about the Wild Woman from a place of deep personal knowing.  She is the creature that feeds and renews my soul, and always has been, even before I knew her name.  So often in my life people refer to me as a “creature,” and it always makes me smile, because it means that they can “see” that wildness in me, front and center.  There is a duality in us as women – a tenderness of heart and this wild creature.  We are socialized to love and treasure that heart, and burned at the stake when we celebrate the wildness.  As you read this, see if you can call up a memory, a time in your life that you felt truly free, alive and instinctual.  If you can, then you have known your Wild Woman.  But don’t despair if you haven’t.  She is and always has been with you. Of late, I’ve found myself ruminating on past relationships and realized that I have almost always let my heart, and not my Wild Woman choose my partners.  With the exception of one man, who was truly wild, they were not.  What I also realized is that because my Wild Woman was not part of that decision making process, but such a huge part of who Gina is, she ultimately was the one who made me move on.  I had not integrated her in my relationships, but she was fully present in my aloneness.  And so after what was usually several years, she would whisper or yell loudly, depending on my level of disconnect from her at the time, that she was bored and unfulfilled and would ultimately lead me out of every relationship of which she had not been a part from the beginning.  And then I would languish with her for a very long time in my aloneness.  This is part of the duality of which I speak.  Somehow we end up needing to be alone to feed her, and she will not go hungry, let me tell you!!!!!!  But having known one wild man, I know there are more. Some women are afraid of their Wild Woman.  Many women experience her for the first time in dancing or in their sexuality.  Since society has tended to label us as promiscuous for enjoying our bodies and our sexuality (or witches!), most women subscribe to that in large or small part, and just send her packing.  But she will not be silenced for long.  For some reason in my own life, she has always been the voice I hear most clearly, and is the reason I crave freedom beyond all else.  I was never a woman who daydreamed about a wedding, and in actuality saw marriage as a prison for women. Guys, I know you’re thinking, “wait, that’s how I feel!”  I feel my wildness in my very core, and would rather be alone than to be with a man who is not truly wild. So what is true wildness versus the idea that wildness equals naked bodies acting crazy?  We have all seen nature programs on TV.  When you watch wild cats or wolves stalk, hunt and devour their prey, you don’t judge them or call them bad.  You recognize that this is nature; natural, wild and pure,  that those animals are acting instinctually.  They don’t judge themselves or their actions.  They are simply free and true to what they are.  They live as their nature instructs them, through all of their senses.  They eat when hungry, sleep when moved to, have sex when it feels natural to.  They are naked and wild.  To live in harmony with our instincts and our senses, animated by our souls is what I speak of as wildness. I love not knowing what I’m going to do next.  That might sound peculiar, but it’s the truth.  Living in total harmony with my Wild Woman means I don’t know what’s next.  I am a slave to the drives and hungers of my body most of the time, and what those are vary from day to day. Needless to say, being this way can scare people – men specifically in our culture.   What I have learned is that in honoring her, my Wild Woman, I can live, really live free.  Whenever I feel imprisoned in my life, it is because I have not fed and cared for Her.  And when I do, I am electric, fearless and attract-ive. One of my favorite books is “Women Who Run With the Wolves,” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  It is filled with stories about the various aspects of our instinctual natures as women.  She speaks of the duality of woman in this way: “Anyone close to a wildish woman is in fact in the presence of two women; an outer being and an interior criatura(creature), one who lives in the topside world, one who lives in the world not so easily seeable.  The outer being lives by the light of day and is easily observed.  She is often pragmatic, acculturated, and very human.  The criatura, however often travels to the surfaces from far away, often appearing and then as quickly disappearing, yet always leaving behind a feeling: something surprising, original, and knowing.” She is the part of you that is inspired and unpredictable.  She is the part that draws people to you in an inexplicable and compulsive way.  They don’t know what it is about you, but they can’t take their eyes off of you.  She is the part that makes you feel comfortable in your own skin, especially when you are naked.  If you feel at all afraid of this part of yourself, please don’t!!  You must simply remember that she is YOU.  You can begin to get to know her at any time.  How?  It’s really very simple, as she requires little to feel fed. Sensuality is a very big part of the Wild Woman, as it is in the animal kingdom.  Pay attention to how you move through space, what you smell, what you see, how things taste and feel, what you hear, and what you sense.  That sixth sense is so present in animals, and it is in woman as well.  Simply begin to explore it.  I suggest picking one sense a day and zeroing in on it as much as you can throughout the day, until you can begin to integrate all of them at once.  Eat with your hands.  There is something very sensual and primal about using your hands to put food into the mouth – yours or someone else’s. Let your hair down!  Seriously, if you tend to wear it up or control it with clips and bands, let it be free.  Try to stay as close to your natural state of beauty as possible.  For example, I have very curly hair, thanks to my ancestral gumbo.  When I have occasionally decided to wear my hair straight, I’ve found that I can’t take it.  It makes me feel contained and restrained!  I end up washing it by day’s end to get back my curls.  They are how I was born and they are a part of my integral wildness.  Find yours! This may sound cliched, but take off your clothes and walk around naked.  Love your body as a woman’s shape, and let go of self-judgment about that size and shape.  Find some music that is dripping in percussion and dance to it until you are dripping in sweat. Move your hips, move your hips, move your hips!!!  They are the seat of a woman’s soul.   There is nothing like drums to bring you to your wildness and your primal truth.  And make sounds from your throat, especially when you are having sex, but when you are dancing, too.  When your hips are moving, let the sound move from your throat and past your lips.  Hips and lips are intimately connected.  A woman’s whose hips are free, can also express herself freely verbally.  There is an esoteric connection between the throat and the vagina.  To open them both is to achieve ecstacy – and to share it with your partner.  Estes offers this in her book: “The way to maintain one’s connection to the wild is to ask yourself what is it that YOU want.  This is the sorting of the seed from the dirt.  One of the most important discriminations we can make in this matter is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls.” There could not be a discussion about wildness in its true, primal sense, without sex being part of that.  To really express it, we must free ourselves in our sexual expression.  That means that we need to have a partner that respects and understands our sexuality.  If you are wild and free and he is not, then you will not be able to go where you would like to.  If your partner doesn’t respect your boundaries, or where you are  with your current sexual expression, it will not work.  Respect and trust in bed is primordial.  Be sure that you enforce your own boundaries, so that you can attempt to arrive at a place of no boundaries together.  Love and sex are unquestionably the best of all, as long as both lovers are free.  I really believe that love is a free spirit, and one must be free to embrace it, for the spirit of love dies in captivity. And finally a few words about the Wild Man.  Not the promiscuous dog we all hear about.  Not the man addicted to pornography.  He is the Wild Woman’s mate, truly, and a very rare find.  I believe that men are looking for and long for him as much as we long to love and connect with our Wild Woman.  I just think they are lost and confused for the most part, as they are trapped in society’s imprisoning ideas of masculinity.  Here is what Clarissa Pinkola Estes says about the Wild Man: “We know that the creature, Wild Man, is seeking his own earthy woman.  Afeared or not, it is an act of deepest love to allow oneself to be stirred by the wildish soul of another.  In a world where humans are so afraid of “losing,” there are far too many protective walls against being dissolved in the numinosity of another human soul.  The mate for the wildish woman is the one who has a soulful tenacity and endurance, one who can send his own instinctual nature to peek under the tent of a woman’s soul-life and comprehend what he sees and hears there… so, the wildish task of the man is to find her true names, and not to misuse that knowledge to seize power over her, but rather to apprehend and comprehend the numinous substance from which she is made, to let it wash over him, amaze him, shock him, even spook him.  And to stay with it.  It will make her eyes shine.  It will make his eyes shine.” We all know the expression that men are dogs.  Well, they are, but on a soul level, it’s a compliment.  Wild Man’s dog nature is his instinctual nature, that which allows him access to the Wild Woman.  Estes says, “It is the dog-self that learns to overcome superficial seductions and retain the most important knowings…the dog is one entire side of man’s dualistic nature.  He is the woods nature, the one who can track, who knows by sensing what is what”    (about Wild Woman.) I’ve had these dreams lately about dogs.  I’m not much of a dreamer by night.  I think Carlos Casteneda would call me a stalker.  Usually I just crash.  My mind is so active by day, and so when I dream, I pay attention.  I’ve seen the dog nature of man in these dreams, and it’s not the colloquial slur.  They represented a deep love from the heart, a love that flows easily and long, forgives effortlessly and can fight to the death to protect you.  These are qualities that, to me, are very appealing in a man. So find your Wild Woman.  Make regular dates with her.  Integrate her into the fullness of your life.  Let her scare you, but don’t walk away from her.   You can’t.  When we choose not to know Her, our lives fall apart and we lose touch with what it means to be a W.O.M.A.N.  Love her and let her love you.  She is pure, wild beauty. If you’d like to take the first step to awakening your wild W.O.M.A.N., please join me for a 2-hour interactive webinar that will change your relationship to how you feel in your body, ELEVEN TOOLS TO HELP YOU LOVE THE BODY YOU LIVE IN. And please share this post if it moved you…or made you feel like getting on all fours…   With fierce, wild love, Gina Cloud

 

 

Ladies, Wake Up YOUR Sleeping Beauty and Stop Exploiting Yourselves

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Ladies, it’s time to wake up YOUR Sleeping Beauty.  There is an unconscious part of us as women that actually engages in our own exploitation.  It is a form of mindlessness that we have absorbed since we were little girls. We take part in the commodification of our bodies and our sexuality with very little awareness, and I’ve reached a point in observing this that I cannot stand by without sharing my perspective MORE FIERCELY than usual. I hope that the words in this post will be your Print Charming– Ok, bad pun– but the idea is that these  words serve to awaken you from your coma, dear Sleeping Beauty.  This is another long post, so get cozy…

We teach people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves.  What we believe about ourselves we broadcast out into the Universe and that signal comes back in the form of the people and circumstances we attract into our lives. From the time we are young girls we get messages from all around us that we MUST change our physical appearance in a variety of ways.  The first place seems to be our weight, and I see little girls as young as 10 already obsessing about it and dieting.   Without questioning why, we just start doing things because everyone else does; like messing around with our eyebrows as a simple example.  Now lest I appear judgmental about what women choose to do as their beauty rituals, let me say this.  I have no objection to WHAT you do so much as I ask WHY do you do what you do?  Do you know?  Have you ever stopped to ask yourself or have you just always done so?   So many women spend crazy amounts of time, money and mental energy on a multitude of appearance changing/enhancing products and services, chasing that “ideal” beauty standard and the perfection of our outsides.  Those products and services can alter your appearance so much that in some cases you just don’t look like you.    I saw a recent report that said women will spend an average of $15,000 in their lifetime on makeup alone! Not to mention all the other services and products.   The list is endless really because the industry keeps finding ways to tell you that you’re so flawed and unattractive and will never find a man unless you invest in the latest way to become perfect. So again, I ask you, have you ever actually stopped to ask yourself why? If your first thoughts are things like, “well, I would look like hell otherwise,” or “I hate my ___” fill in the blank, then I  suggest that you’ve been asleep and manipulated most of your life.  If you are doing these things because you don’t feel good enough, then I invite you to revisit doing them at all.  If you do them consciously and you do them FOR YOURSELF, that’s a different story.

I want to ask you, what are you really saying about yourself and what do you really expect to gain when you promote yourself from the outside?  What is the payoff? When it’s all about what you look like and you keep shape shifting to conform to someone else’s idea of beauty and sexiness,  you live in terror of being seen as you really are.  BUT IT’S NOT YOU FAULT, LADIES.  Your self-esteem and self-worth have been systematically and brutally hijacked from your being, so that you have no choice, from that paralyzed, numb place, to adopt the media-driven ideas of what makes a woman desirable and wanted.  It is from this place that our bodies and our sexuality become commodities.

Now let’s turn to how we exploit our own sexuality. I live in Los Angeles and move through the world and see this obsession with manipulating our appearances and pandering the “come fuck me” mindset.  I see women walking in heels so high that they could literally fall off of them and hurt themselves — in the supermarket!  I hear women’s conversations as an outsider and with friends. There is such a focus on sexiness. And so much of the conversation revolves around men and how to “get” them, and sex seems to be the bait, based on how we are focused on our outsides. I see this bartering happening energetically in an unspoken way between men and women. Yes, women’s bodies have been exploited throughout history, but when WE take part in this desecration, we are basically saying, “this is all I’m worth.  The way I look IS my value. If I’m not fuckable, I’m worthless.”  What we don’t understand is that if you actually held your sexuality at such a high value within you, you would attract a man who would have to step up to a place of integrity within himself in order to be with you.  From that place you wouldn’t attract someone interested in the shiny outsides, or who just wanted to fuck you.  The use-you kind of  fuck, not the really good kind. When we live focused on our bodies and our sexuality as our value, we set ourselves up to be used.

When we think so little of ourselves, our bodies, our sexuality, when we give our souls away to look good and use that looking good to seduce a man, what caliber of man could that possibly be?  We aren’t asking much of that man, so he shows up in the smallest version of himself and the most unworthy version of himself to match the unworthiness we feel about ourselves.  And we complain about HIM, but we are creating that reality. I hope this post will cause an awakening within you that will allow you to see things from a perspective that will honor you, ALL of you. When you do, you will discover your true value, worth and inherent power, which has nothing to do with your appearance.  If every woman in the world took this stance, I believe there would be an amazing caliber of men on this planet.  We want better quality men but we are teaching them to expect so little, so they don’t have to step up and deliver with integrity.    I see the responsibility on both sides of the equation, with both genders, but ladies, the real power is within us to change all this. But are we too busy looking in the mirror to even see our power and all that we are capable of being?

Are you willing to take an honest look at how you may be unconsciously exploiting your body and your sexuality?  I’m asking you to look at YOUR MOTIVES underneath it all; to make what’s been unconscious and robotic, conscious.    We have to stop complaining about being used for sex, when we mindlessly walk around grooming ourselves to promote the message that that’s all we are good for. If you want love AND sex, are you really sending out the right signals?

I’m not saying don’t dress the way you want to or to cover yourself up. I love being a woman and I dress the way I want to express my beauty, but my sexuality is not an advertisement that precedes my entrance into the room. Nor is it the primary form of communication I use.  I am sick and tired– yes angry– at seeing young girls taken advantage of because the world we live in sexualizes them so much that they now joke about rape.   I am sick and tired of seeing young girls unable to say no to advances, because at an early age they, too, fall into this deep slumber and believe that’s what they’re here on Earth for, and that being wanted this way makes them special or validates them.  I’m sick and tired of seeing grown women aging and believing that they have no worth, spending even more of their hard-earned money to try to chase youth and get rid of the wrinkles so they can reclaim their desirability and “value.” Doesn’t this piss you off, too?

Your sexuality is a gift and a force.   Explore it, get to know and understand it, and do not allow it to be pillaged or to take part in the ways of our world that promote you as a valueless shell for someone to use and never know YOU; your heart, your soul, your real face.   When you come from a place of honoring your sexuality, it can feed you in ways that you cannot imagine because we live in a sexually shallow society.    One which, by the way, still fears the true depth, intensity and hunger of female sexuality.  When you live in integrity with this part of you, you will attract a higher caliber of man, one who values your sexuality as well, one who has great respect and integrity within himself and for himself, and one with whom you can have mind-blowing otherworldly sex.  So ladies, stop complaining about the man. Part of my inspiration to write this piece was hearing so many women complaining about them.

Know this, too. It’s a lonelier place when you live this way, in the sense that until all women live this way, it will take a while for the world of men to understand the old rules no longer apply, but you will TRULY feel better about yourself and from a place of deep self-love you will know a new kind of joy. I learned this personally the hard way, but it is the absolute truth.

This deep slumber that we are in also keeps women from bonding with each other.  When you are living this superficial life chasing the perfect body and working the best seduction tools,  when a beautiful woman walks into the room, you go into comparison. competition, insecurity and bitchiness.  You look her over and try to pick her apart in order to elevate yourself because your yardstick for value is your appearance.   When you are living in integrity with your body/sexuality,  when a beautiful woman walks into the room, you can admire her.  You want to know her.  You are drawn to her.  You recognize her as your sister.

As I wrap this up, (because clearly I could go on and on and on :)) let me leave you with some questions to ponder.  What if you could wake up naked lying alone or next to your man/lover/partner, no makeup, hair however it chooses to be, and feel so comfortable in your skin?  What if being that way was the most sensuous feeling?  What if you threw away your scale and just didn’t give a fuck? What if you stopped trying to change your appearance via whatever tools you use, no longer spending money and time obsessing about them?   What if you chose nurturing and beautifying rituals instead of appearance altering ones? Why do you do what you do?  Is it because everyone else does?  Is it because you feel unattractive?  Do you use your sexuality to “get” attention and men?  What do you really feel about your value and your worth as a person?  As a woman?  Are you doing all those self-modifications and still alone, if getting that man is what drives you? Are you part of the Victorias Sheepret parade, following the herd?  (okay, that was a weird one, I admit, but you get my point.)

If you have a daughter or wish to one day, would you want her to think so little of herself that she would follow this life path?

Enough said?  This is a lot, and I hope my words will open some doors to exploration that will lead you more fully into the depth and fullness of who you really are.    Think of this post as the kiss that woke up Sleeping Beauty…yes,that would be you. But this is no fairy tale, it’s your life.

Men reading this, I hope you will take the time to reflect on what value you place on women unconsciously, and share this post with the women you know. Try to put yourself in our shoes — The high-heeled ones that are hard to walk in, and see if you can find a place where you can show up differently in how you relate with women.

If all of this begs the question how do you get out of this maze and live authentically, I am teaching a two-hour interactive webinar with live Q&A at the end.   Click on the link for details about the webinar, HOW TO LOVE THE BODY YOU LIVE IN, with real tools to achieve liberation from this prison.   And please, if this moved you, touched you, stirred you, please share it…And take the time to reflect on the questions I’ve posed here.

I am DEEPLY committed to each one of you and taking a stand for all that you can be and helping to liberate you from all of the boxes we live in, so that you can just shine your bright, authentic beauty and radiance into this world which so needs who YOU are.

And finally, I would love to have you join my e-mail list.  There’s an opt-in box on the bottom of this page, just below you. And visit my website for more to inspire you…

Much love and  A BIG WAKE UP KISS!

Gina

A WEBINAR FOR MY LADIES: Your Menstrual Cycle as Teacher, Mentor and GPS Of Your Life

         As some of you know, I’ve been WAY slow on catching up with technology and social media.   I’m an in-person kind of gal. Many of you have been asking me to do this for years, and finally I’ve surrendered (something I actually love to do :)) and put together a series of webinars.  The first one is:

Your Menstrual Cycle as Teacher, Mentor and GPS Of Your Life

I know, those of you who may be new to my world and my work are ready to move on from this page, thinking WTF?? That’s a response I’m used to.    But don’t.  I have never failed to bring great clarity and inspiration to ALL women who have been exposed to this particular aspect of my work.  It’s truly life-altering.  So click on the link above or HERE and see what I have in store for you.  Spots are limited, and I will have Q&A to answer your specific questions.

And guys, you’re more than welcome to join in, too.  This information will only make your relationships with women better; whether they are wives, girlfriends, friends, sisters, daughters.  If you’re a guy reading this, please share it with the women in your life.

And please hit share if you feel this would be great for someone you know.  Join me on January 24…let’s get in the flow together.  Okay, horrible pun.  🙂

 

With love & gratitude,

Gina

 

 

New Year’s Resolutions And More Tango Wisdom

I saw in my newsfeed this morning among the many quotes that people post on their walls, one that struck me: “If you don’t know where you want to be in five years, you’re there now.” It’s that time of year where everyone is making New Year’s resolutions, of course, but I don’t believe in them any more than I believe in diets. Because I tend to look at things in strange ways sometimes (okay, MOST of the time), it just got me thinking about the idea of focus. And that morphed into the idea of focus and the masculine and feminine energies. I know I have been there many times where I had decided I was going to accomplish A, B, C, but because I live so much of my life in the energy of the feminine polarity, it has always been difficult for me to focus and not be distracted by the massive amounts of inspiration that flow through me CONSTANTLY. The feminine polarity is inspiration and creativity and intuition. But one of the really beautiful aspects of the masculine polarity is singularity and focus, whether it is in pursuit of a goal or a woman. I used to believe that I could only have one piece, a career or a relationship. My ability to focus on more than one thing at a time–which was actually the masculine polarity–was so impaired that I believed I had to choose.

As a dancer, lover, and student of tango, I am constantly reminded of the interplay of the masculine and feminine polarities, known as the lead and the follow in tango. But when there is true integration between those two and no separation, the lead and the follow, or the masculine and the feminine, become one and there is only connection. So as we all set about on those infamous New Year’s resolutions, thinking about what we want to achieve in our lives going forward, let’s remember to be inclusive in our focus of ALL that we desire. Intention is the master of creation. And I am learning to embrace the full spectrum of my own energy, both masculine and the feminine integrated within me, the two becoming one, in this beautiful tango of life. Somehow we end up thinking that we have to close the door on one polarity in order to accomplish something, but that is not the case. If you are dancing tango and you don’t pay attention to the music or you don’t pay attention to your partner or you don’t pay attention to your feelings, you will never be able to accomplish the goal of dancing tango. So if we shut off our masculine or feminine, we can never be fully integrated.

So ladies, let your inner masculine support you and give you focus, and men, listen to that intuitive feminine within you and let her guide and direct you as you take action. As I think about where I want to be in five years, that is the goal, to have achieved that integration (which includes real world goals). I’m realizing more and more that the primary polarity that we live in, the masculine or feminine, can impede our development in the areas governed by the polarity in which we are weaker.  So for all us women living mostly in the feminine who are working on growing their businesses, we need to dig down and find more of that masculine polarity and focus on doing exactly that, without losing the divine feminine inspiration, creativity and intuition that is a hallmark of what is beautiful in woman.

And men, with all of your focus, you need to remember that when you’re driving in a car, if you’re only looking straight ahead and if you ignore your peripheral vision ( the feminine polarity within you) you’re likely to crash as you change lanes while only looking straight ahead. On the road of life it is no different. When men fix rigidly to a particular focus, yes, they do accomplish what they set out to do for the most part, but there are things along the way that you can also miss out on or lose simply because you didn’t have that peripheral vision. So let’s all learn to dance the energetic tango of the two becoming one: the masculine and feminine within each of us evolving into a full and complete connection so that we can all live in love with ourselves and each other.

And for those of you thinking, “How in the world did Gina get to all this from that quote?”… Welcome to my mind. It’s a crazy place.

Much Love,

Gina

The Vulnerability and Wisdom of The Vagina

As I begin this post, I can feel that it will be raw, visceral and deep. So grab your beverage of choice and sit with me in a place of no distraction.  This topic is important, for both women and men.

The primary focus of my work, as many of you know, is teaching women the powerful and unique language of their bodies as a path for transformation.  Women’s bodies speak a particular language, via our reproductive experiences; namely the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause, and also via our sexuality.

After a recent conversation with a woman about her sexuality and these body messages, I began to think about the vagina (often I will refer to as yoni) and its profound wisdom and vulnerability in our lives.  There are a range of experiences women have which involve this portal, both literally and spiritually.  In the normal spectrum,  there is giving birth, to our monthly cycles, to sex, to the undesirable experiences of rape and sexual violence in all forms, as well as female genital mutilation.  Our vaginas are messengers and teachers, yet many women have shame, fear, ignorance, and numbness, to name just a few, around this area of their bodies.

Vulnerability is defined most simply as capable of being physically or emotionally wounded or hurt.  For most men, and many women, the word vulnerability provokes discomfort.  Why would anyone want to be vulnerable?  Because without vulnerability, we are closed.  When we are closed, we cannot receive love and the many other blessings which are possible within the range of our human experience.  The key is to be vulnerable and to have discernment.  This is a gift of the vagina.  Whether women realize it or not, your vagina speaks to you via body messages even when you are not tuned in to your truths.  It is a vulnerable space and yet it is capable of stretching to birth a child.  It has a profound physical resilience.  Its vulnerability lies in its connection to our hearts.  Its discernment is mind-blowingly clear through the messages it delivers to a woman’s body as feedback.

In teachings on tantra and other sacred texts, there is a known connection and polarity between a woman’s heart and her vagina/yoni, and a man’s heart and his penis.  In a woman, the positive pole is her heart/breasts and the negative is the vagina.  In a man, his heart is the negative pole and his penis is the positive.  When a man and a woman embrace in a normal hug and/or sexually, these poles are activated in the same way that battery cables work.  For women, the vulnerability of our hearts is tied to our vaginas.  Any woman knows, and men should, that when a woman opens her heart, her legs are powerless to remain closed.  When a woman surrenders her heart, her sexuality comes alive.  And this is where the vulnerability of the vagina begins.  In entering a woman sexually, her heart is also entered, even if she feels closed, as in casual sex.

Many women today are engaging in sex without an awareness of this aspect of themselves.  But the vagina knows, even if you are completely oblivious.  When a woman allows a man to fuck her without a heart connection, or respect at a minimum, penetration becomes denigration.   A woman KNOWS when his has happened because she feels used, empty, sad, depressed.    There are many, many shades and flavors to sexuality.  When the vagina is accessed without connection, women suffer on various levels.  And your body WILL tell you when a man has no business being inside you.  And this doesn’t apply just to casual sex, but also to any relationship or marriage.  We all choose unwisely at times in our lives, myself included.  But your vagina invariably knows the truth.

How?  For starters, immediately after being with a man, if it’s a situation where you’ve been used, or a relationship that has never honored you, you just feel empty.  Many, many women know this place as not wanting to have sex, but doing it anyway.    Some women may be unaware of this emptiness if it’s been the way you’ve done sex your whole life or for a protracted period of time, but there is an emptiness, and often there are tears, if not immediately in his presence, later when you are alone.  When you’ve chosen wisely, you feel CONNECTED, more connected to that man after being penetrated by him.  And penetration by him is beyond his penis.  When a man truly penetrates a woman, the WHOLE woman and not just the hole of a woman, he finds his own heart and all of the polarities come alive.  There is vulnerability and trust.  A woman may cry after this kind of sex as well, but the tears will be very different because they will be from a place of being embraced rather than used,  a place of connection rather than disconnection, a place that reached into her heart – and his.

I’ve worked with women who were sleeping with men that they knew were wrong for them, yet they continued to have sex with them.  Often, your body will create physical dis-ease as a message to you about your choice.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve encountered this phenomenon in my work with women.  I remember one client would get a yeast infection every time after sleeping with this man she was attached to.  Her vagina’s wisdom was literally speaking to her, telling her this man was wrong for her.   I’ve seen women get bladder infections as well after sexual encounters with men who were bad choices for them.  Cervical issues as well are often body wisdom messengers speaking to a woman about how she is not honoring herself. Many women will have an intensification of menstrual pain, if they are prone to it normally, and women who normally don’t experience PMS will while in a relationship, sexual or otherwise, that does not honor them.  Ladies, you KNOW.   You may be choosing to ignore that you know, but in that deepest part of you,  there is wisdom.

Someone shared with me recently that they read an article saying that it’s impossible to have a vaginal orgasm, that there’s no such thing.  That’s utterly ridiculous.  When a woman’s body is shut down emotionally or indulging in fast food sex, which is the cultural norm, there is a lack of vulnerabilty IN HER HEART.    Remember the vagina and heart are connected.  If your heart is closed and you have sex with someone without connection, orgasm is not possible vaginally for most women.  Vaginal orgasms are the deepest, most profound form of orgasm.  Many women are getting off on jackhammer vibrators, using only clitoral stimulation, which only promotes more desensitization, resulting in more of an inability to feel the subtleties within the vagina.  It’s aggressive,  surface stimulation, and I know that many men feel with penetration they can’t compete with those quickie surface orgasms.      It  deprives them of an ability to become great lovers if women seem to only want to get off clitorally.   Deep, vulnerable, heart and soul-stirring orgasms come with a willingness to choose openness of your heart and the wisdom to discern whether you should open your legs to this man.  That is why women are finding it difficult to have vaginal orgasms, not because they don’t exist, but because our relationship to our vaginas and our hearts is so fragile.

When a woman allows a man to f.u.c.k. (my definition: f.ree u.nrestrained c.onnection to k.undalini) her from a place of heart connection, both can let their freak flags fly.  All those shades of our sexuality, when done from a place of real connection and trust, can be incredible to experience, and promote the deepest of intimacy.  But when we allow men into this vulnerable place, using that definition of vulnerable I mentioned earlier, our bodies know immediately if we can trust him.  If a woman is tuned in to herself and the subtle energies that we have access to through our vaginas, that knowing is unmistakable.  If you are tuned in to your body in general, you know before you ever get to the point of penetration.  But we often ignore that voice that tells us not to go there.  And then when we do, it’s like we have broken our own hearts.  If we can’t say the word vagina, if we can’t look at it, touch it and have pleasure through it, then we are disconnected from its wisdom consciously, but it will speak to you via the body messages I’ve mentioned above, and more.  Even if you don’t physical issues related to your vagina,  depression will often be the messenger.

There is another layer of vulnerability to the vaginas of women who have been victims of sexual abuse or rape.  In my work with women in this area, I see that women cope with this painful violation — which is of the soul, and not just the body — in different ways.  Some avoid sex.  Some indulge in lots of disconnected sex.  Some eat their unprocessed feelings, and put on weight as a way of protecting themselves, with the idea that if they are overweight, they won’t become victims of sexual violation again.  These are but a few shades, as each woman deals with this trauma in different ways.  Even for those that go through some form of healing, their vulnerability in this area is even greater than women who have not suffered this abuse.  Men need to understand this, and women need to honor this piece if it is part of their life’s truth.  I don’t think that men truly understand what it means to be penetrated.  To have a man enter into this vulnerable place.  The only analogy I could possibly offer is for a straight man to experience anal penetration.  For most straight men, it provokes vulnerability.  Here we are in a society where we are barely able to look each other in the eyes, to penetrate each other in our gaze.  Yet often women allow themselves to be penetrated vaginally without an awareness of the sacredness of their bodies.  When was the last time you were with a man sexually and you were able to hold each other’s gaze?  Do you allow him to penetrate you without being seen?  The eyes are the window to your soul.  If you’re unwilling to allow access to being penetrated through your eyes, how can you possibly allow vaginal penetration.  It’s an act of disrespect.  And men, how can you not see the woman, the human being, the soul that you desire?  How can you fuck a woman without caring who she is?  Women, if you value yourself more, you wouldn’t find yourself with a man who would do this to you, and if you did, you’d walk away.  The more you learn to honor what you carry between your legs, the more you will understand its connection to your heart.  The more you honor your heart, the more you will be unable to allow sexual penetration of this vulnerable, sacred space.

Couples who have love and trust can explore 50 shades of gray, and every other color under the sun.  Sexual exploration is vital to our understanding of who we are, but for a woman, opening to allow those experiences with a man who doesn’t value her, honor her, will make her feel used, violated.   Without intimacy and trust between two people, we are violating ourselves repeatedly.  I believe that the kind of sexual experiences people are longing to have can only happen in a SATISFYING way if the people involved have that heart connection, that trust, that intimacy.  Women, you know.  And you must listen in order to take care of your own heart.

In our culture today, so many men are using women’s bodies as receptacles for their pleasure, dismissing and discarding the heart and soul of women.  And many believe that women are okay with it.  Many women falsely believe they have to comply with “men’s needs” in order to have a man, so they make themselves okay with it.  I’m offering a different perspective.  Men reading this, I ask you to dig deep within you and try to imagine the vulnerabilty of penetration for a woman, and the pain and hurt you can cause by just not giving a damn about her, using her only to get off on.   Even if you think she’s okay with it, even if she says she is, many women are so wounded and blocked here, from so much pain, that they are numb.  The harm you do by using a woman at any time is beyond my ability to convey to you with words.  I am not asking you to read a woman’s mind.  I am simply asking you to examine your motives.  If you know you’re only using her for sex, perhaps you could make a different choice.    You know what your intention is.  Be mindful of that.  Find a place inside you that honors women, our bodies, our hearts, and that vulnerable portable you are all so fond of inhabiting.  It’s not yours to take ownership of or to use as you wish.  Women, you MUST stop allowing this to happen.  We have the power through honoring ourselves to put an end to this.  We have the power to educate men with love and grace by simply standing in our own self-love and self-respect.  We don’t have to make men wrong in order to change this.   I also believe that when women honor men and stop vilifying them, men in turn will honor women.  When we understand this simple truth, our relationship to each other will be transformed, and we will learn to truly serve each other.

 

With love & blessings,

Gina

When Was The Last Time You REALLY Smiled At Someone?

“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”

― Mother Teresa

Today I want to share an experience I had while shopping yesterday in the market.  I’m often still amazed at where my inspiration comes from for my blog posts.  More often that not, it’s in the simplicity of a moment, and in simplicity is such profound truth.  I’m someone who moves through my life from the inside out, so what I experience and observe in my day to-day existence is ALWAYS colored by deeper meanings.  So as I was in the produce section perusing my ingredients for my next pot of soup, I looked up and saw this tall, Black man.  Being a passionate lover of other cultures, I’ve been blessed to travel to 15 countries (and counting) and I literally am a magnet for foreigners. Looking at him, from my years of African dance and exposure to people from various parts of the continent, I just knew he was African.  Our eyes met as total strangers and he smiled at me so bright, so brilliant that he took my breath away and touched my heart.  It was a smile from his soul, saturated in his being which he offered to me completely, without hesitation, and it produced without any effort on my part, one exactly like it from me to him.  I told him he had a beautiful smile and as he said, “thank you very much,” I heard that distinctly African accent.  It was a smile between two genderless beings, as it was soul to soul.  It took us both to our essence and opened that portal to grace and gratitude, love and  joy: the heart.

I was SO TOUCHED ALL DAY by his smile, by his offering of his heart to me through this simple gesture.  I kept seeing it and experienced my eyes well up from the FEELING that was conveyed from his glorious smile.   It became my inspiration to write and share with you about the deeper meaning of this experience and to invite you to explore what smiling means to you.

One of the reasons it struck me so was because it’s RARE to have someone smile at me like that.  People do the fake smile thing all the time, especially here in L.A.  But you can’t fake THAT.  There’s a frequency, an energy that’s emitted when someone offers you themselves without an agenda, just “here I am,” fully  and freely.  It takes nothing really from us to offer this to everyone we meet.  But we live so closed in our hearts, and afraid to be vulnerable to each other.  And clearly for some reason, so many perceive smiling as an act of vulnerability.  I suppose it is in the sense that you are revealing your heart for that moment in time.  We are willing to have sex with strangers yet we are afraid to smile at each other.  I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a stunner to ponder.

So let’s talk about you.  When was the last time you gave someone a big, bright blast of a smile from your heart?  How much do you actually smile? And I’m not talking about the nervous smile or the fakes.  Only the ones that light you up from the inside.  Stop and think about it.  If you’re one of those bad asses that think smiling makes you seem weak or vulnerable, or that it messes up your poker face and isn’t cool,  it’s probably been a while for you.  Does smiling make you feel vulnerable? Exposed?  Or does it make you feel SEEN?  My sense is that this is the big culprit in why so many don’t smile.  When you do, from the heart and soul, you are saying “This is me and I’m sharing me with you.”  It’s the Big Reveal.  That’s what that beautiful man’s smile said to me.  The vulnerability comes from revealing yourself to another.  Again, I will say, why is it that we can have sex with total strangers but we won’t smile at each other fully clothed…

Diving a bit deeper, ask yourself why you’re afraid to be seen, why you’re afraid to reveal your heart through such a simple vehicle, and why you’re unwilling to share yourself with another, soul to soul, as you pass through the moments of your life, interacting with other human beings.  There’s no real risk in a smile — except that you might just be seen as the gorgeous soul that you are.

I’m one of those people who does smile a lot, genuinely.  I have observed in myself that when I am withholding my smiles that I’m usually hiding, withholding, afraid on some level and closed in my heart.  It’s also been a test of my self-acceptance and self-worth.  When I am loving myself, I am willing to share my big, bright smile everywhere I go, and after experiencing that man’s smile, I’m grateful to know that I, too, can do that for others with my own.  He showed me the power of this seemingly simple gesture.  As I said at the beginning of this post, there is profound truth in simplicity.

There’s lots of research on the neuroendocrine effects of smiling, and you can Google that if you want to know why it’s just plain good for your body to smile.  But I’m concerned with the spirit of the smile and it’s connection to how we feel about ourselves and our capacity to generate love from within us to share that love around us.  Imagine a world where we all smiled genuinely at each other.  Imagine the amount of love and joy we would be experiencing.  Imagine being willing to REVEAL your breathtakingly blinding beauty to each person you meet, to be SEEN and acknowledged by that total stranger or those in your inner sanctum in your life. That’s what happens when you smile from your heart.

I wish I had known that that young man’s smile was going to be the inspiration for this post.  I would have asked to take a picture of his smile, to share it with all of you.  But that smile of his will be with me for a long time to come.  It’s burned in my heart, and was a gift to me. And in the most beautiful way of the ripple effect, it’s a gift to you as well, in that his smile inspired this post, and I’m hoping this post inspires and opens you.  That’s the beauty in knowing that just one person can affect so many.

Know that you are a gift to every soul on this planet.  Share that gift of you through your smile, each and every day.  Don’t hold back.  What are you saving you for?  The world needs you, and we need each other, and if a simple thing like a smile can unite us and make us feel acknowledged, then what are you waiting for?  I’ve shared one of my smiles with you today via my photo.  Share yours with someONES today and every day.  And reread that quote by Mother Theresa at the top of this post, carry it in your heart…and just radiate you!!  🙂

Much love and big, bright smiles,

Gina

Why Women’s Sexual Dissatisfaction is An Important Awakening

Whenever I sit down to write these posts, I truly never have any idea how long they will be.  A title comes to me and, like a midwife, I sit down and allow myself to be used as a channel.  So before you read this, scroll down and see how long it is and if you have the 5-10 minutes to read it.  This one feels important, even before I begin to write the meat of it.

Lately I’ve had quite a few women come to me and express dissatisfaction with their sexuality/sex life.  When they come to me, often they feel there is something wrong WITH THEM because they aren’t feeling sexual, and as I begin to work with them to help them unfurl the petals of this vital part of their feminine nature, what I am seeing over and over is fear and disconnection, brought about by a woman’s own body wisdom.

Throughout my life I have always said that the most important things I’ve ever learned I have learned through my body.  Living in a world that from a very early age teaches women and girls NOT to listen to their innate body wisdom has caused a massive shut down in our ability to discern what is healthy from what may be dysfunction. We trust more what we hear outside of us, instead of what we hear from within.  So many women who feel disconnected sexually are actually in a place of awakening, as their body wisdom has taken over where the mind has failed them.  In their deepest heart, they KNOW that this version of sex they are being sold is all wrong for them, but because there is no body trust for most women, it becomes depression and a subscription to the mainstream mindset that there must be something wrong with you.

Sexuality in our culture has become a lot like fast food, and just as devoid of nutrition and satisfaction.  We are hungry for something that we know we are supposed to get via sex, both women and men, yet after living on junk food, we are physically sick and more in need of nutrition than ever.  That nutrition is the energetic component of sex that is all but lost in the way we do sex now, and yet women’s bodies are rebelling against this, even as women’s minds subscribe to the BS that there’s something wrong with you if you don’t want sex or aren’t having it.

You see the words “women’s sexual dysfunction” all over the place these days.  Women are being led to believe we are broken in our sexuality as we have been led to believe we are broken in our bodies because we get periods, have babies and go through menopause.  The more we are bombarded with these negative concepts via media messages, personal exchanges, and personal beliefs, the more “depressed” we become.  But that depression is your soul calling you to awaken and take ownership of your powerful sexuality as you reject the mainstream models.  We are in a hook up/porn culture, where sex is just something you do, for stress relief, recreation, or procreation, but there’s a whole other universe, literally, when two people who are REALLY connected merge their flesh.  Like all of what I share/teach/speak and write about, I live these truths, and my sexuality has been a FORCE in my life that has taught me so much, and I know that if I had been listening to the mainstream spewing of crap, I wouldn’t have had the powerful experiences I’ve always had.

Think about what sex is and why we are so compelled to think about it constantly (and yes, men, we do think about it that much!)  And think about the part of sex that everyone is obsessed with: orgasm.  An orgasm is like the transporter in Star Trek.  It’s a “beam me up Scotty” experience when the energies between two people are in sync.  That in sync quality has to do with the energy systems in our bodies and how they come together when our genitals come together.  Sexuality is meant to be a bridge to higher levels of consciousness.  Yes, I do believe and have experienced this.  It is a way to know whatever God you believe in.  I personally believe that the lack of this experience is why we have the obsession  with “lots of sex.”  It’s quality, not quantity.  The difference between junk food and the kind that nourishes your body.  The junk food tastes good but doesn’t really nourish, and yet it becomes addictive so you keep going for it, but it will never supply what you long for and need.    And women are feeling this in their souls now, as their bodies say no to what’s on the menu now.

Ladies, TRUST YOUR BODIES.  They are portals for a kind of wisdom that is all but lost in this modern world.  If your sexuality is turned down or turned off, spend time within your psyche and your emotional life to find out what is scaring you.  My experience in working with women has taught me that fear is the largest factor; fear of opening into an intimate place (or one that is supposed to be) and feeling used, not seen, not felt by your partner, and fear of not wanting to engage in the sexual violence that has become part of mainstream consensual sex.  The bottom line is that many women do not feel safe with their current or potential sexual partners.  They do not feel these men are trustable, and that is an important feeling for you to respect.  Don’t talk yourself out of not having sex by telling yourself (or listening to someone else tell you) that you’re sexually dysfunctional.   TRUST WHAT YOU FEEL.

Your sexuality is a frequency and it is powerful.  A woman who is aligned with the depth and breadth of what she carries between her legs and the energy inside her is aligned with her TRUE sexuality.  A woman aligned with her true sexuality will be able to say no from a healthy place, and yes from a knowing that when she chooses a man, he will be capable of riding that frequency with her.  I know personally that there are not a lot of men who can actually handle that kind of connection.  There’s a lot of fear for men as well around true intimacy.  Fucking isn’t intimacy.  But f.u.c.k.ing is.  For those of you unfamiliar with my redefinition of that word, it stands for f.ree u.nrestrained c.onnection to k.undalini.  Kundalini is  the spiritual energy that lies coiled at the base of the spine like a snake and can be awakened through yoga and meditation, but also through sexual energy.

There are energy channels all throughout our bodies.  There are meridians and chakras which are wheels of energy found in different places in our physiology.  The chakras have actually been scientifically measured as energy centers, for those of you who think this is new age  BS.  Ladies, remember this as well, we take a man into our physical bodies.  Literally.  There is a deep vulnerability in that.  Shouldn’t you think carefully about the quality of the man you say yes to, and who you allow to pass through this very sacred portal?  Life moves in and out of us vaginally, whether we are giving birth, menstruating or having sex.  I wonder how many of you have stopped to consider this idea, and in considering it now, does it hit you viscerally?  I hope so. And  men, please ponder that for a long moment.

For you guys reading this, a few words for you.  Based on the coaching work I’ve done with men, which has all been around sexuality, I’ve learned that you, too, long for intimacy, even when you can’t and won’t say it.  I’ve often said that when you look at a woman and feel like you want her sexually, that’s just conditioning.  Societally and biologically in part, you’re pushed in the direction of that singular sexual drive, as you’re taught that is one way you prove you’re a man, but when you REALLY feel satisfied with a woman, it’s not from the actual sex or the orgasm, it’s from her WANTING YOU AND OPENING TO YOU.  When that happens, you are fed in places beyond your biology.  I know this from these men and from the men in my own life that I’ve had intimate relationships with.  But men and women are afraid of this deeper energy, of these polarities and frequencies that open you up.  When men and women have orgasms from this kind of connection, it brings about healing and realignment in your physical body.  Sex heals.  Marvin Gaye had it right…

So ladies, that feeling of dissatisfaction that so many of you are experiencing around your sexuality is a messenger.  It’s an awakening for you to trust that and to allow your true, deep, intense sexual energy to surface so that you can find men who are seeking to be blessed by this energy with you.  And in the meantime, as you cultivate a relationship with your own sexuality from this authentic place, you gift yourself with this powerful energy which can be used in your daily life, especially as a force for creating that which you desire.  Know that you are not damaged or broken or dysfunctional.  It’s time to trust your inner guidance to lead you to that awakening and the sexual healing inherent in embracing your own powerful sexual energy.

 

With love and gratitude,

Gina

 

Game of Thrones and Those Masculine Men

I’m not a big TV watcher, but my daughter has gotten me hooked on Game of Thrones. Until three weeks ago, I had never seen an episode, and now I’m all caught up and eagerly awaiting the Sunday night return for season 4.  So I had to ask myself what in the world is it about this show that’s just got a hold of me and won’t let go.  I mean, it’s brutally violent.  Back in those days, you literally lived and died by the sword and heads are graphically chopped off and severed and people, including women and children, are run through and beheaded as well.  It’s REALLY gory.   But it dawned on me just today what it is about the show that has captured me and IT’S THOSE MEN!

The men are so damned masculine.  That word gets thrown about a lot and it’s very of the moment for both men and women to describe and define it, and I suppose like beauty, masculinity is in the eye of the beholder.  Yet I do find a VERY consistent agreement among us women about this and any woman I’ve talked to who watches Game of Thrones agrees these men are an all-but-dead breed in terms of their character. If you are one of those men who is reading this, please invite other men to join you.

Now let me say first, there are many, many layers to this show and these men, and there are elements that are very disturbing, particularly the “right to rape” by the more brutal and savage men on the show, but for the purposes of this post, I’m only focusing on the masculine element of the men who are of an honorable ilk.

These men are strong, literally physically.  Wielding a sword and riding on horseback and walking everywhere makes the body strong and so muscular.  oooh-la-la.  A man’s musculature is just a sexy thing.  Period.  I know men have equivalent analogies about women’s bodies, but ladies, you KNOW what I’m saying!  They have to effort, and strive, and they bond with each other.  Their HONOR and their WORD, and KEEPING it, literally define them as men.  And that piece for me, is so seductive.

Often over the years in my coaching work with men and in their emails to me, the dominant question to me is: “How do I connect with women?”  And my answer to all of them, regardless of their situation is distilled into one basic concept:  Be who you are, true to yourself first.  Don’t change to accommodate her if it causes you to go against who you are, have something you stand for and never give that up.  Have integrity and honor.  Have a community of men that you never abandon, and live by your word.  A man like that will have women all around him. But more importantly, he will have men all around him.

The characters on the show have all of those qualities I realized.  And not all of them are good-looking (for those of you saying, “but those guys are hot, because they’re actors”.)  There’s a dwarf, who is sexy as hell because he’s powerful in his presence.  There’s a fat boy who calls himself a coward but when the opportunity to defend a woman and her child arose, he found it within him.  In fact, there’s as large a band of uglies on the show as there are hotties

So as I pondered why I’d fallen into Thrones and can’t get out, I realized that those kind of men are very rare these days.  Speaking not only for myself, as I know other women feel the same, I long to see the return of that kind of man.  When I watch the show, it’s a turn on to watch them, even if it’s on a screen.  And the turn on is from the inside out; mental, physical, spiritual.  It’s DEEP.  These men are willing to fight for their causes and their beliefs and their loves and their families and their kingdoms.  We may not have kingdoms anymore, but we do have all the rest.

Many men would argue that they’re not appreciated when they try to lead or take charge, that many women find that to be controlling.  And there are men that are controlling and women who are equally as controlling.  I wrote a blog about the masculine and feminine energies of leading and following in Tango, and it is that type of energy I’m speaking of here. (read it HERE) 

For men though I think it’s much deeper than just an ability to take control or lead in a way that makes women swoon.  And trust me ALL women  swoon in the presence of a certain kind of man.(and there are MANY variations of this man, not one model).   I think that men, from boyhood, no longer have male models that teach them honor, integrity and the value of their word.  It’s a lost way of life for the most part and I for one would love to see it revived.  I believe the loss of connection to men’s traditions (whatever they may be for where you are in the world) and that missing brotherhood is a part of it.  I also believe that when men make so much of their lives about chasing and finding and capturing women, they innately lose themselves, and a man who has no connection to himself is unattractive to a woman of worth.  When you are self-centered you are magnetic, male or female.  Note that self-centered here means centered in yourself and not selfish, as it’s commonly used.  To be centered in who you are as a man, is THE MOST ATTRACTIVE quality you can possess.  It has nothing to do with your looks, your money, your breeding, the stuff you own.

Our culture is truly and outside-in one.  We think if we decorate the outside we can attract that man or woman.  But it’s just subterfuge which falls away quickly when there is no substance within to sustain it.  Men, you’ve been in the presence of men who you admire and wish to emulate.  You’ve been in the presence of men who are magnetic to women.  Think about the qualities those men had.  And please note I’m not talking about those men who have learned to manipulate women via psychology or “techniques” learned by gurus on how to get laid.  Those men are not worth a woman of worth’s time.

Another beautiful quality these men of honor have is the ability to bring forth the feminine in a woman. There’s a lot of sexuality on the show which is very different from what I’ve seen on other shows.  There’s a simplicity and rawness to desire that feels so natural.  The women are sexually comfortable and very feminine yet strong, too.  The time of the show was an era of great hardship and the women were VERY hardy and independent.  But the men are so potent and self-centered that the women, despite their own fierceness, surrender with pleasure. Literally!

There’s one character that was on the show that was an incredible embodiment of the wilder, fierce element of honorable men and he was my favorite.  There’s a wildness in my own soul that loves that kind of man,  But I also love the more refined version, too.  We have many shades as women.  More than 50 shades of grey.  🙂  I realized as I felt stirred by his presence on screen that the stronger the wild force in a man, the deeper the heart has been in my own personal experience. And a man’s heart is the really juicy part.   I believe this is true of women, too.  That shade isn’t for the faint of heart and it’s not everyone’s flavor.  But it’s my favorite.

So ponder, men, what masculine is to you.   And ladies, if you love this kind of man, you can inspire him to bring these qualities forth.  It’s in all men, closer to the surface in some than others.  And while a woman can evoke some of this from a man, it has to live within him for himself first.    Some of us are waiting, watching and hoping…and in the meantime, I’ll get my fix from Game of Thrones.

Love & Blessings,

Gina

 

Why It Takes Two To Tango…

   WHY IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

We all know the expression, “It takes two to tango,” and we have probably all used it at some time.  I didn’t realize the profound meaning of this statement until I started to study tango in October 2013.  So in this post, I’d like to share the teachings I have been receiving about relationships through this art form.    Many of you know that I’m a dancer and believe that dance is an integral part of how we should live our lives as women.  It’s a sacred place for expression from our souls.  I’ve studied and danced many styles: ballet, jazz, tap, African, Brazilian, belly dancing, salsa.  But in tango, I was not prepared for the hold it would have on me and why.    All of us strive to understand and often struggle with relationships and the maddening and wonderful dynamics between men and women. Little did I know that tango would hit me between the eyes with some MAJOR relationship aha’s!!!  I’d like to share some with you here…

There are so many elements to tango, most of which I can’t cover in this post due to sheer volume, so I want to share what I’ve been learning from the two most fundamental aspects of tango:  the embrace and the connection.   The embrace is the way men and women hold each other in the dance.  It’s fraught with intensity, passion, promise, heartache, intimacy, sensuality.  Ahhhhhhhh, it’s just so good.   It’s the container for the connection.   And the connection is about FEELING your partner.  In fact when I dance tango, I cannot dance it with my eyes open.  They are always closed so that it becomes a moving meditation with the man guiding me, leading me and my trusting him.   Are you catching the relationships metaphors already?!

Additionally, the connection is through the heart, literally.  In the tango embrace, the man and the woman are connected at the chest, and the lower body actually does not touch in most aspects of the dance. The man leads the woman with his chest, right through the heart. Unlike salsa where you are literally sometimes being man handled as the salsa lead is through the hands.  As I am still in the early stages, so much is learned as you dance with your partner.   I have had a couple of breathtakingly beautiful male leads demonstrate to me with only one hand and just chest to chest what that feels like. And let me say that to be led by the male heart, as a woman, well need I say more? But what I am learning as a woman dancing tango is which man can you trust? I close my eyes and feel his heart, his arms around me, and the connection with the music.  It’s like the music and the man are my lover.  You can feel so much in the embrace, in the connection or lack thereof.   And the same is true of course for the man; they are looking for a woman that can surrender to their lead.  A woman who respects their power and who can feel him.

An interesting and unique aspect of the tango is that the woman is almost always moving backwards. She cannot see where she is going. It’s why tango clothes always have such sexy open backs.   Since we are walking backwards, trusting that man to lead is crucial. Especially because tango has a very unique set of protocols around how the couples move around the room. There is a pattern and a shape to it, and the men have to navigate that while deciding which improvisational moves to use in leading you.  I find it mesmerizing to close my eyes and to feel this man’s chest next to mine and to feel whether we are connected or not; to the music and to each other.  When we are, it is a spectacular and very present moment experience.  When we are not, you just can’t wait for it to be over, which is probably a lot like some of the relationships we’ve all experienced; we don’t feel connected so we just go through the motions, waiting for it to end.

I recently read an article on tango that was really fascinating. It spoke about the idea that when we hug anyone for 20 seconds or longer, this causes a release of oxytocin, the love chemical the feel-good chemical that our brains release. It’s also the post orgasm chemical as well. When you dance tango, it is done in what is called a tanda, a series of four songs hooked together, and the etiquette is that you dance with that person for the entire duration of the tanda. It is bad manners to step away in the middle of one.  Each song is approximately three minutes, so if you dance a tanda with someone, that is 12 minutes of a hug! That’s a lot of oxytocin and a lot of good energy. I recently went to a Milonga, which are the social gatherings where people go to dance tango, and danced about 14 tandas in one night. I was literally hungover the next day, in a good way.  Kind of the way you feel when you’ve been making love with someone that you are really into. It completely blew my mind!

There are also some other powerful relationship metaphors like interdependence. The woman has to lean pretty far forward into the man and at the same time, she has to keep her balance, not lean on him.  So tango teaches you not to be codependent!  If the balance is off and the woman is leaning ON the man instead of INTO him, she can lose her center (or herself in relationship speak)

Tango is 100% improvisational, and it’s not Dancing With the Stars ballroom dancing. This tango is social dancing, the way it was created and still done in the streets of Argentina.    So it’s real and gritty and raw and takes you so deep.  Just like  a real relationship.

Don’t get me wrong,  It is clearly not true intimacy, but it gives you an amazing platform to learn the tools because they are built so nicely into this amazing dance.   As one guy explained tango to me, he said, “This song is three minutes and in this song, for those three minutes, we are in love.”  He said, “you have to trust me to lead you.”

Ladies, I know how that makes your toes curl and your heart beat faster. But guys reading this, I’m sure that you would love the idea, the chance to feel that way in your own masculine energy, for a woman to submit to you and allow you to lead her wherever you choose.   You can see all the control freak women in the room, which is rampant in our society of course, with their eyes open and leading the guys. This is a powerful place to learn to surrender as a woman. I’m not saying you have to surrender to every guy you dance with, because trust me, some of them are not worth your trust, just as many men you encounter in your life are not deserving or trustable.  And guys, you can change pronouns here because certainly these things apply to you as well. But speaking as a woman, we must learn discernment about who we give our surrender to, under what circumstances and how far.  In the tango, when that man shows you that you can trust him to lead, it’s like you fall in love!

Some people may think that the way tango is set up is sexist.  As a woman who knows my own power and strength and is an advocate for equality, I find it so liberating to acknowledge that I want to be lead.  How many ladies reading this are embarrassed to admit this to themselves, let alone to allow it expresssion?  Surrender is a beautiful gift when done in the safety of trust.

As in life,  you also encounter in the tango room the guy who blames you when you can’t follow his lead. There is a major rule of thumb in tango, that if the woman doesn’t get it, it’s not her fault, it’s yours, the man. It’s your job. One of the most amazing guys I danced with yet said to me so beautifully, as I apologized for having missed something he was doing in his lead,  and he said “never apologize, if you don’t get it, it’s my fault and then it’s my job to meet you where you are!”  Wow! That just blew me away, because it all was relationship metaphor.

Ladies can you trust a man to lead you? Are you too busy trying to control and dominate everything around you, including the man in your life?. If you do that, he will never be able to be a real man in your life and he will seek that in a woman who is willing to provide that. Men, are you strong enough, clear enough and trustable enough for a woman to be willing to surrender in your embrace? Can you and do you lead with your heart instead of pushing her around, metaphorically or physically?

In tango also exists the expression “the two become one.”  When we embrace our partner, united at our hearts, feeling connected, interdependent, the surrender of the woman, the lead of the man is all there, and we merge with the music, we truly move as one. That is what we are all seeking in relationship. Yet we cannot receive what we are not willing to offer.  In this dance you can experience the microcosm of that perfect union we yearn for.

Tango is a fantastic place to learn about yourself in relationship to the opposite sex and in relationship to the energies of the masculine and feminine.   I find it to be an extraordinary place for me to fully unleash my feminine energy and to have it so well received by the men in the room that I perceive it to be food that nourishes them.  I have heard many of them express how masculine they feel in tango, where they are given permission to lead.

If you’re in a relationship, this is a great thing to do together.  It will deepen your trust in each other and reveal where you are lacking connection.   If you’re single, it is a great way to hone your feminine or masculine energy, to become  more self-aware and to learn to give and receive.  Ladies, learn to surrender to that trustable man, and men, become that trustable man so that she will melt in your embrace and let you lead her anywhere…

Now I KNOW that turns us all on, inside and out…

Love & blessings,

Gina