I’ve been exploring femininity both in myself and in the yoga classes I teach and have found it to be profoundly enlightening.
I told my students in class today to embrace their “sissy side.” I said it to provoke. I said it to stir up (real) belief systems. And I ask this question of you now to get straight to the heart of the matter, breaking old thought patterns and bringing freedom. How does this make you feel? Are you a sissy?
If you are still reading, ask yourself what is a sissy, anyway? I know what school kids mean by it when they say it and that proves my point: there is a real attack and diminishing of feminine qualities in our world. (Why is a whole other story, so I’ll skip that for today.) What I want to invoke is an embrace of the Divine Feminine that each one of us has. Femininity is nurture, kindness, patience, gratitude, interdependence, emotion, meekness, sensitivity, quietness, grace, innocence, flirtatiousness, softness, acceptance, love. These are great qualities to possess! Ones that our world is desperate and hungry for! So, I ask again, will you embrace your “sissy side?”
In a world that idolizes masculine traits such as independence, aggression, tough skin, competition, strength, experience, activity, self confidence, harshness, rebellion; in a world where even women try to be more masculine in order to get by and make it (in singleness, in careers, in order to be seen at church, etc.), we all may need to embrace our “sissy side!” (There is a difference between being a sissy and embracing aspects of the metaphor, let’s get that straight.)
I want to be both strong and meek, confident and sensitive, aggressive and kind. We need both masculinity and femininity, we need the yin and the yang in our world and in order to have that, we need to first embrace it in ourselves.
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
If you’d like to practice the utmost of sissy yoga, check out Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra is by far, the easiest and laziest way to yoga, and one that has profoundly changed my and my clients’ lives in ways that are hard to put to words…
Pingback: How I Came to the Goddess – Audrey DeLong Yoga
I love this post Audrey….I’m a firm believer of everything you said above! I don’t think its mentioned enough. I love how you put this position of gentleness/strength together. We need both!
I would define your thoughts in a different way, I would call it a Tender Warrior.