We often see life’s betrayals, traumas, and painful experiences as barriers to happiness, but what if they are not obstacles at all? What if they are actually sacred markers pointing us back home to who we truly are?
Beneath every wound is a story about the essence that was touched—the part of you that knows love, trust, connection, and spirit. Your wounds exist because your deepest self exists. Without that true self, there would be nothing to wound.

Your Map Home

Your life experiences create a map—a series of invitations to reconnect with your unaltered essence. By looking with clarity and compassion at the places where you were hurt, you can find the coordinates back to your soul.

The truth is simple: You are not your wounds. You are what has survived them.

For me, owning and living my sexuality has been a form of healing work. It takes incredible courage for women to bring our sexuality with us everywhere we go –to work, shopping, alone behind closed doors (or not so alone…).

And it is not as though we have a choice, we are being constantly evaluated -the way we dress, move, laughs, who we smile at, or if we make eye contact. If the purpose of this analysis was appreciation, well, that would be an entirely different world than the one we live in.

Here, among other problems, women are judged and threatened when they are “too sexual.”

They are seen as “easy” by men and caught up in “the game” by more “forward thinking” women. They are stolen from and they are envied.

The state makes laws about their body, and religions make statements about their worthiness. They are controlled and they are condemned.

They are used and exploited.

Rarely are they, and their sacred and beautiful sexuality, celebrated.

When women leave their sexuality behind, or when they try to fit it to the acceptable standards, they lose a substantial part of their power. This loss of power makes them easier targets.

No longer having themselves, they search for what they are missing. They begin to feel insecure and needy. They look for validation. Validation in a partner, from their religion, or just from strangers.

When women try to own their sexual expression they are bombarded with unhealthy feedback. They get distorted and unhealthy approval. They are assumed to be available for inappropriate behavior. They are thought to be less intelligent, less spiritual, less competent.

They are seen as a threat.

Mothers, sisters, friends can rarely assist them because they are living in the same straight-jacket of oppression.

I believe it is up to each of us to reclaim what we can of this essential part of ourselves and find our own unique way of bringing it into being.
I wish this task were easy. I pray that someday it is easy.

This is not about augmenting hyper-sexualized, fake or prostituted versions of sexuality. It is learning to honor and intrinsic part of our nature, in all of its healthy forms of expression, when most people have lost the understanding of what that even really means.

So, when I put on a sexy dress and a hot pair of heels, I am may or may not be looking for attention and that makes my actions no more or less impure. But, I am without a doubt, reclaiming my right and the right of women everywhere to own their own sexuality –to have their full self.

When I allow my body to be alive, open, and feel pleasure, I am not looking for someone to fill an empty space or let me know I am beautiful. I am reclaiming the right to my full expression.

Likewise, when I choose, to keep it to myself, have no interest in sexual games, or am just focused elsewhere, this could be a statement that my sexual expression is a gift that I can give or not -as I choose. It is a clarification, of what seems to be forgotten, that I am not a prop but a woman -and I owe you nothing. 

And, when I live my sexuality – openly, honestly, and with respect for myself – I am claiming my right to live without shame, to love in the way that is best for me, and to respect the gifts that I have been given.

When you see this expression in me, or in another woman, I ask that you pause your judgments, that you silence your desire to try and own my pleasure, and that you learn to celebrate us.

And, when we struggle with the burden of having something so sacred be mistreated, perverted, and oppressed, to the point that there is virtual no unsullied choice to make, I ask that you find compassion and see what you might do to help.

Because we are part of what is missing in this world. We are the much needed healing. We are carriers of the joy and the pleasure your heart so desires.

The feminine, in its essence, is vast, changeable, and deeply interconnected with mystery. Unlike linear systems of understanding, the feminine moves in cycles, contradictions, and paradoxes. Yet, modern culture has often attempted to define it in rigid, simplistic ways, creating a disconnect for many women seeking to embrace their full nature.

The Challenge of Definition

A key challenge in understanding feminine energy is its resistance to easy categorization. Society often attempts to label women as either nurturing or ambitious, soft or strong, motherly or independent—when in reality, the feminine is all of these things and more. This tendency to limit and define leads many women to feel misunderstood or inadequate.

The Role of Archetypes

One way to reclaim a fuller understanding of feminine energy is through the study of archetypes. Throughout history, cultures have provided rich, diverse images of the feminine—goddesses, healers, warriors, mystics. Exploring these archetypes offers a more expansive framework for understanding the feminine, allowing for greater personal expression.

By engaging with different feminine archetypes, we give ourselves permission to embody aspects of the feminine that may have been repressed or overlooked. This exploration brings both healing and empowerment, enabling us to show up in the world in ways that feel true to our essence.

Moving Beyond Limitation

Rather than feeling constrained by cultural expectations, we can expand our understanding of what it means to be feminine. Embracing the wholeness of this energy allows us to live more authentically, create more fulfilling relationships, and contribute meaningfully to the world.

Feminine complexity is not a flaw—it is a gift. Learning to honor it, rather than simplify or suppress it, leads to deeper wisdom, creativity, and self-trust.

I was over forty years old before I realized I was beautiful—right about the time many people might believe that a woman’s beauty begins to fade.

I remember sitting in grade school, awkward and shy, with a unique sense of imposed style that often got me ridiculed, imagining that someday—when I was much older—I would be beautiful. It wasn’t a thought I dwelled on or fully understood at the time, but it lingered quietly, a small ember of knowing: someday, I would be beautiful.

Like many women, beauty was a concept shaped for me long before I could define it for myself. Growing up between two sisters—one a beauty queen and the other a model—comments about their beauty filled my childhood. When I was older, I was told that no one had called me beautiful as a child because they feared it would make me vain. But withholding that affirmation didn’t protect me; instead, it left me clinging to the idea of beauty as something elusive, something I did not have.

I was taught, like so many women, that beauty was both a target and a talisman—something that made you desired yet dangerous. Beauty was a rare and special gift, but being attractive came with risks. If I was mistreated, it was because I was attractive; if I was treated well, it was because I was beautiful. The world decided what I was based on arbitrary measures: my features, my clothing, my inherent energy—or their own desire. To make things even more complicated, I was also taught that attractiveness measured beauty, creating a vicious circle of proof and doubt.

As a young girl, I watched the women around me obsess over beauty, unable to see themselves clearly. What was made clear was that beauty was a measure of my worth as a woman. For a time, I rejected this script outright. I butchered my hair, shopped at thrift stores, and avoided mirrors for years. I didn’t want beauty to matter. I wanted to escape the exhausting pressure of whether I was—or wasn’t—beautiful. I wanted to leave behind the unwinnable battle

Beauty is not something we need to chase or earn. It is intrinsic, already ours. It is how the divine speaks through us. And the tragic but common inability to appreciate it for what it is cannot be fixed by avoiding its expression or dampening its flame.

And yet, women remain caught in a paradox. We are expected to care enough about beauty to always look good but not so much that it becomes obvious we are trying. We are asked to be effortlessly lovely, as if beauty is an accident of existence rather than the result of care, cultivation, and self-respect—as though care, cultivation, and self-respect would somehow limit our beauty rather than reveal it.

When we believe that beauty is owned by external standards, we lose sight of its origin as one of the most precious things in the universe. We forget that our beauty, in all its forms, is a gift we give to the world.

We live in a world that commodifies beauty, defines it narrowly, and sells it back to us. But true beauty cannot be packaged. It is wild, uncontainable, and uniquely ours. It grows in the cracks of imperfection, in the places where we allow ourselves to live authentically. It is nourished through our care and embellished with our love. We may decorate it with high heels or Birkenstocks, but the truth remains: our beauty deserves to be honored—not declared as a reaction to a world of abuse and misunderstanding, but expressed from the full knowledge of its magnificence.

So, sometime after forty, I began to see the beauty I had known was possible as a child. The beauty she somehow knew was not about how I looked or how the world responded to me, but rather the result of a courageous heart willing to bring the sacred feminine into being—right here and now, whenever and as much as possible.

It is not flawless, but it is real. 

And true beauty doesn’t demand that we be anything other than who we are. It only asks us to honor the luminous, intricate, sacred beings we’ve always been. 

My prayer for each and every woman is that we know our own beauty so deeply that it sings our heart through our skin and lifts the corners of our eyes with love.