Rise Into Your Power: A Lesson in Feminine Energy for Fibroid Warriors

By: Kiara Burroughs

Veronica Lynn Clark

Have you ever walked into a room not knowing what to expect, and walked out completely transformed? That was me during our Journey to Bliss wellness retreat last fall. I had the privilege of participating in a feminine energy class led by the remarkable Veronica Lynn Clark, and I left feeling enlightened and curious. One thought kept running through my mind: the fibroid patient community needs to hear this.

Living with fibroids has a way of quietly chipping away at more than just your physical health. It touches your sense of self, your career, your relationships and the very core of who you are. So many of us are expected to show up, hold it together, and perform, all while managing pain in the most sacred space of our bodies, the womb. The source of life itself.

And the hard truth? Many of the pressures and expectations we place on ourselves didn't start with the diagnosis. They were already there. The diagnosis just has a way of pulling back the curtain and forcing us to finally see them.

What Veronica shared that day felt like a gentle permission slip to reconnect, express, remember who we are beyond the pain, and rewrite the story. I hope this introduction to the feminine does the same for you, and that it becomes a powerful addition to your healing toolkit on this journey.

Can you tell us a bit about your journey into wellness and femininity coaching? What inspired you to pursue this work?

It's interesting because my own journey into feminine, was a journey of embodying myself and coming back home to myself. My experience in life early on was a journey through sexual abuse and trauma for many years. I got to a point where I was like, I'm not a survivor. I don't want to be a survivor. I don't want to just be healing from this. What comes after healing? What comes after that? And what came up for me was how do I expand beyond that? It’s not about overriding anything or pretending like something didn't happen, but instead how do I evolve and blossom into the new possibilities of who I am. I'm no longer attached to telling my story in the same way or feeling my story is always going to be that way.

Now I say what is the new shape that this story gets to take on as I expand beyond the things that have happened? I truly believe that is fundamental to our own emotional well-being, our own co-creative power, our ability to create a new reality for ourselves, and to help to bring about more healing for all of us. So, whether it is fibroids or breast cancer or sexual abuse, there are different things that each of us has gone through in our lives. It sucked that a lot of these things happened, but what are we going to do now? We can still hold those stories tenderly and love each other through that and say, we've got to keep moving. Life is still in front of us, and where do we want to go now?

I love this so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story. These types of experiences transform us and I really appreciate your description of how we move beyond these experiences. You mentioned reclamation and femininity. What does "femininity" mean to you?

First and foremost, it's important to say feminine energy is life force. It is the Shakti. It represents life itself, full embodied expression. Life wants to be lived, so feminine energy is aliveness and vitality. It is everything.

Also, feminine energy takes on many different shapes and qualities, just like the seasons, weather, and different geographical places. Feminine energy is multifaceted.

It's important to explain that it’s not just about a man or a woman. All of us as human beings have feminine energy. Now, when it comes to a woman embodying her feminine energy, this is a powerful invitation. I don't think that many of us have ever felt safe enough to really hold the feminine energy in her fullness because sometimes it feels scary.

Who am I when I'm fully alive? Who am I when I am showing up for myself? Who am I when I'm courageous? Who am I when I feel safe to show myself in community? The feminine energy invites us to be fully expressed.

When we're not expressed, whether that's through our life force because we feel isolated for all the different reasons that people feel isolated and alone, that's actually turning the faucet down on our feminine life force and on our expression.

So, when a woman starts to fully embody herself, she's saying yes to herself.

Wow, that’s really powerful. I think many members of our community go through periods of isolation and feeling like they cannot show up fully as themselves. It’s one of the reasons we encourage them to share their stories. Tell me more about the facets and ways that feminine energy can be embodied.

Sometimes I think people think feminine energy is just happy, bright and beautiful, or soft.

Right now, we're in this “soft” era, but feminine energy can also be dangerous and catastrophic because it will destroy so that something new can be built in its place. That is the resurgence. It's the resurrection. It's the reclamation of our own personal power and our ability to destroy the stories to rewrite the stories or rewrite the code.

Our feminine energy is what has allowed us to have the conversation of how do I move beyond the things that have happened? That is feminine energy in action, saying that I am the creatrix of my life. I'm the creatrix of my reality and that means that it takes on many different shapes and sizes, colors. That is the extraordinary power of feminine energy. It really is an invitation into a fullness of being.

I love the idea of destruction to rebuild and rewrite. There can be beauty in the destruction of certain narratives. I appreciate the explanation of the full spectrum of feminine energy, from softness to destruction to rebirth. Do you notice it showing up differently depending on what someone may be navigating?

Oh yes, definitely. Every single one of us as humans gets to express our feminine energy in a multitude of different ways. In fact, every single one of us has our own unique qualities and essence. That essence is going to help to determine how that feminine energy moves through us. When people are afraid to fully be alive, they’re afraid to show up in their life and those can show up as not speaking their truth, not having sex with their partner, being rigid and in control, and being mean. They may think I have to show up in a certain way because society has told me that I must be this way, and if I'm not this way, then I'm going to get kicked out of the club. Or that they’re not going to be approved of or loved. That is a suppression of the life force and a suppression of our feminine energy.

Okay, now I’m starting to understand. How can someone determine whether they are using their feminine energy or suppressing it?

The most beneficial way is to ask yourself, how do I feel? How do you feel in your own life? It will differ from person to person. We each have our own paint palette, and what each of us is going to create is going to be different. The feminine energy gives us the power to create.

Now, I'm going to bring it back to women. Women are powerful. It's not saying that we are better than men or better than anyone, but a woman is embodied in the feminine. Our sexual organs are receptive. We have the power to be able to channel and bring through other codes and messages that a male cannot. Not only can we channel and access and utilize the feminine energy as all people can, but we are also in a feminine body. This multiplies the power when we understand who we are, what we are, and how we can use that power for good. We don't have to limit ourselves to the way we were told we were supposed to be. We get to decide who we want to be and ask who am I underneath all of those layers of conditioning or programming. That means that we get to write our story for what comes next over and over and over again. We never have to limit or define ourselves. It took me years to learn and understand that. I am still learning how to use my paintbrush. I am giving myself more permission to feel, move, dance, create, and say things. Permission to be different in conversations and my relationships. Everything that we do that could help us to connect with other people is using some form of feminine energy. If we're aware of that, then we can tap into that primal life force and ask ourselves, what do I want to create now?

I love that! When we think about some women who may deal with certain health conditions, they may think, well, I'm not this generalized definition of feminine because I’ve been through a traumatic event or a life experience that I feel has transformed me or made me less of a woman. Some may think if you don't have these qualities or if some part of you or your body, like your uterus or breast, is not a certain way, or may not function normally, then you're less feminine. However, my understanding from what you’re saying is that part of embodying feminine is choosing to create, renew, and define yourself. Why do you think that there's this containment of what it means to be feminine?

Societal conditioning. It's the big box that all of us live in and has been here for thousands of years, truly, to try to control the narrative around what it is to be feminine and what it is to be a woman. So, when we talk about this, then we're also going to bump up against stereotypes and how a woman is supposed to act, behave, and to look like.

It doesn't matter whether you have breasts or not. It doesn't matter if your uterus has been removed. It doesn't matter. You're still a feminine woman. It’s those stories of the shaming and judgment of those conditions that are the roadblocks that prevent us from really being able to access who we are. I would say those are also the same roadblocks that unconsciously contribute to so many different illnesses in our bodies because we hold so much memory.

Societal conditioning is definitely something we have seen continue to be challenged over the years with steps forward and backwards. Tell me more about the memory and how this impacts us.

We hold so much memory, whether it was from our own lifetime or from our grandmothers, from suppression of all the things we're not supposed to say or do. All these rules are there ultimately to control feminine energy because it is so absolutely powerful.

It is a life force. Sexual energy moves through it. Creative energy that moves through it. When something is that powerful, when people really know who they are, you can't control them, right? This why I said feminine energy isn't just relegated to just women. You see male leaders who decide they will speak their truth and stand up for justice. That audacity comes from that feminine energy. The moment we start to realize we have the keys inside of us, we get to awaken and unlock ourselves and start to heal exponentially. Feminine energy is the most powerful energy, and it lives inside all of us. A woman gets to embody it and bring visibility to what feminine looks like, no matter what color, shape, size, or what our hair looks like. It has nothing to do with that.

When you start to access your feminine energy, you realize you have a whole closet full of all kinds of other shapes and sizes that you want to try on for the day. Some days you may want to be luscious and playful. Other days you may want to be passionate and stand up for justice. On those days, some people might say you’re angry; but really, you’re showing the dark feminine.

Sometimes I wonder if people realize that these parts of themselves need to be healed. We talked about men, women, conditions, but beyond this, people need to heal and reclaim these parts themselves that may have been suppressed long before any type of diagnosis or negative life experience. Why is healing important and how does someone know that they are wounded?

That's a really important question. Some people don’t necessarily know that something is off because they're so used to living the way that they are. Let’s say someone grows up in a household that is really religious and there are very strict rules around how to show up. There's a lot of rules in religion that make sense, but some messages get established really early and they're not helpful. They may have been intended to be helpful, but they're actually really restrictive. Somebody may not know that until later on after they've had more life experience and start to feel like something is off or that they’re missing something.

Sometimes it's because they might look at somebody else's life or ways they express themselves and apart of them might feel oh, I wish I could do that too. Sometimes they might judge them at first, but a lot of times I see, secretly inside, they kind of wish that they could do that.

Think of the “good girl” and “bad girl”. The good girl likes being the good girl because she gets a lot of benefits from that. She gets accepted and she’s loved. The bad girl gets ridiculed, shamed, and judged, but she's also appears to be a lot more free, right? She gets to express herself.

Sometimes when people are just living life, they don't realize that they're not accessing their feminine energy. They're just used to how they are. Then something happens, sometimes in a marriage or in a relationship when it's just not working anymore. Then that's when they can start to turn inwards and start to ask themselves, okay, where am I willing to explore or expand? People have to be willing to investigate their own assumptions and the messages that they grew up with.

Tell me more about questions that women can ask themselves to uncover and liberate these parts of themselves.

I have a book called S.E.X. Boss. S.E.X. boss stands or sex stands for sacred energy exchange, which is really about feminine energy. One of the very first questions is “as a young girl, the messages I received about sex were_____.” “The messages I received about my body were________. “ We have to be willing to explore our messages. What was I taught about my body? What was I taught about being feminine? What was I taught about my period?

We need to be able to start investigating them from genuine curiosity and a place of neutrality, which is hard. In the beginning, it's hard. My foray into life came through sexual abuse. And it sucks. It was so painful to go through that experience for over a decade of my life. I would have never, ever, ever thought that I would be teaching about sexuality or femininity. What I realized was that is where my power was and if I continued to let that story of sexual shame and the trauma dictate my life, then I was not going to be free. So, I started a podcast called Liberate Your Orgasm and it was my intention to liberate my own voice, to start speaking about sexual trauma and sexual abuse, to help people to find their way out of the darkness. My wound came through that, but we all have these different wounds that can cut us off from our life force. We must ask ourselves, how do I feel and is this enough for me? Is this how I want to feel for the rest of my life? What else is possible for me? What do I need so I can trust myself? What do I need so I can feel safe to start branching out?

Thank you for sharing this because earlier in our conversation you said how sometimes when someone has these suppressions or wounds, they tend to manifest later in their bodies if they go unaddressed. So, I like that you're pointing out that may not see any physical symptoms, but internally, like emotionally, mentally, they might feel these blocks and those are signs that there's something in there that they might need to deal with. Thank you for breaking it down in this way.

As we near the close of our discussion, could you share a few steps that someone new to this journey might take to try to work on this process of reclaiming their feminine energy?

First, it is to really love themselves and honor wherever they are right in that moment, and to notice that there’s nothing wrong with them. They’re not broken, and they're not messed up. This is an important step, because so often, we feel like we should be someplace else. We think by now, I should be in a different place, or I should have known better. That takes away from us, our lived experience, and our journey and leaves behind so much of our value and our worth. We don't recognize just how strong, courageous, and brave we had to be to bring ourselves this far to the point where now we’re ready for something different.

The next thing is to start dreaming. What do you want now? What do you want for your life? What do you want it to look like and feel like and taste like? What do you want to experience? What would it look like if you gave yourself full permission to do whatever you want? Sometimes, we are taught that we can have some of our needs met, but we can't have all of them or be too greedy. Sometimes these conditions in life have told us that you can't have what you want. So many of us can want the world for everybody else, and when it comes to ourselves, it's so much harder to dream because we haven't been used to dreaming.

Third, you’ve got to go out and explore. You got to go try these things on. Earlier, I talked about the feminine closet of like all the different stuff you get to try. Ask yourself, what do I want to try on today? Maybe you need to go take a pole dance class, try ceramics, or go on a couple of dates. You've got to be willing to play and try out practicing different things that you think you may want. Then, you get to come back to your laboratory and ask, did I like that? How'd that feel? What was that like? What did I learn from it? What did it open for me? I invite all my clients and everybody to stay curious, not committed to the outcome.

The woman that I am today is not the woman that I’m going to be tomorrow. We're evolving and thank God for that. If we can acknowledge that, then we get to be even more excited about our life because we can see how far we've come, all the shedding that’s happened, and everything that has been revealed. It's going to keep getting better, not because you're trying to fix or improve yourself, but because that's the natural progression of life. Life is going to continue to evolve and open herself up and, as long as we stay connected to that life force with a willingness to open up, we are going to do the same thing.

Resources:

Stay in touch with Veronica!

• Website: https://www.veronicalynnclark.com/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veronicalclark/

• Podcast: The Liberate Your Orgasm Podcast | Podcast on Spotify

• Book: S.E.X. Boss