Why Women Must Gather

“Every woman who heals herself, helps heal all the women who came before her, and all those who come after her.”
​Dr. Christiane Northrup

When I was a teenager, I, like many, felt fear about growing up and becoming an adult woman. What did that even mean? Would I work or go to college? Would I marry early, late or never? Would I have kids or no kids? Would I show up fully in my life and own it or become overwhelmed by life and run away?  These stressful times caused me to isolate. While I was social and gregarious at school, I would hide away at home consumed by my racing thoughts.

In tribal cultures, woman would gather regularly to plan for the tribe and connect with one another.  The elders would teach the young about what it meant to become a woman in their society. They would teach them how to honor their power, their shakti, their divine feminine essence within them. How to use it to ask for teaching dreams, how to interpret their feelings & intuition and how to respond to stress.  But as society advance these practices of gathering in such a way became primitive and almost completely lost.   Now, most women have lost their ability to honor their bodies and their systems. We lost touch with how we, as females, should process our stress, our fear and our grief.    
 
Many women experience daily stressors — full work schedules, demanding families, disappointing bank balances — but women are designed to react different to the ensuing stress. Our reaction, rather than the typical concept of “fight or flight”is, to reach out and nurture — in short, to “tend and befriend” — during times of stress, but when we feel isolated or we haven’t a place to befriend other women we impede our natural ability to process stress.

Psychologist Shelley Taylor, PhD, a professor at UCLA, developed the “tend and befriend” theory of stress response, challenges the notion that the individualistic, aggressive “fight or flight” model applies to all of us, observing that “the human response to stress is characterized at least as much by tending to and befriending others, a pattern that is especially true of women.” While both sexes share the capacity for fight or flight, women seem to use it less often, unless they feel isolated from female companions.

Seeking out social support and nurturing others, as women often long to do, is one of the best forms of stress relief. ~CLICK TO TWEET

“The social world is undeniably protective,” observes Taylor. “Ties with family and close friends are protective of physical health … [while] social isolation increases the risk for all causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents or suicide.”

If you are a woman of this world with blockages, shadows, layers, keeping your true soul essence, your light from shining then let us engage in practices to allow us to remember our true nature and our womanhood. As we reclaim our birthright, we not only pave the way for the next generation, leading by example, but we repair and heal all those who have come before us.

​We gather as women because it heals us to be together, we process our stress instead of storing those issues in our tissues.

The longing to surround yourself with other women is deeply seated in the hearts and souls of so many women. Today, the desire for woman-only sacred space has re-awakened. The energy is shifting, women are coming back into their power and learning how to heal ourselves.

This is a powerful time of change and transformation on the planet. Please join me Tuesdays in July 6-7:15pm for a very special series: Kundalini for Women at Yoga Yoga North. We will move, we will connect, we will align and elevate each other in this process, pulling from various healing modalities along with the technology of Kundalini Yoga, we will join together to expand our radiance and release the burden of stress we carry. Each week we will build upon themes and I will provide you tools to use at home to become more fully the being you were brought to this life to be.
Register Here: http://www.yogayoga.com/calendar/details?event_id=29921282

Sat Nam,
Beth