3 key tips to help you decide if the space of feminine business is right for you – an article for the woman who is exploring if feminine business is the correct approach for her creative talents.
something i wish was more commonly known in the space of success and ambition is that not every person is meant to go into business.
a part of us can find this difficult to believe especially if our media spaces are filled with stories of millionaires at 21, business owners making 6-figures in 6 months time (most of these stories not being transparent and quite misleading, to add)
reading and listening to these tales makes those of us in the corporate leading peaceful 9-5 jobs develop dissatisfaction towards the sustainable success we already have.
and those of us with evergreen businesses with an existing ease of income start doubting our enoughness when we come across these distorted stories of success.
i can speak from my experiences of working with women, is that not every woman out there feels the inner call to go into business.
and that is completely okay.
a woman can still have a fulfilling career while doing a 9-5 job. she can still have a full life outside her workplace that’s protected by her boundaries around time and availability.
she can still become wealthier by not getting influenced by every consumer trend and instead putting her money in long term investments.
she can still grow her career by upgrading her current knowledge to attract brighter opportunities in her field of work and move forward and upward.
when i look back on my own corporate life, this is the vision i deeply related with and was embodying at the most micro level.
for me, things started shifting when my feminine body started screaming for safety from the hustle-oriented ways i was moving her in the pursuit of success in my career.
beneath all my material and financial success, was a body pleading me to slow down and honor her needs – asking me to eat on time, sleep on time, move her just enough so she feels regulated and alive.
i ignored this voice for the longest time until she gave in, landing me in my fancy hospital ward for an unexpected surgery. in the blink of an eye, i was forced to slow down and pay the overdue attention to her needs. from there onwards, began the long journey of setting boundaries within and around myself so i would never again abandon my core needs.
when i set upon that pursuit, my simple assumption was that it was only me who needed to shift the way i was showing up in my life and work, that it were my own blind spots that had led me to undermine what was needed to live a both nourished and a fulfilling life.
soon enough though, i came to learn that this was a result of a deeply embedded conditioning that had led me to believe that the only way to success is the masculine-focused hustle approach. that ingrained in me the beliefs that if i slowed down even by a little, i’d lose in the race of life. that if i took breaks, someone else will take over me and all the work i had poured my time, energy and bodily resources into would be taken away from me.
it was when i peeled back the layers of this conditioning one after the other that i started seeing how the industry and the workplace i had chosen to grow a career in, was deeply imbedded in these extractive and heart-hardening ways of operating. as a result, even after i had made all the possible shifts in my own ways of being, living and working, i could see that this was a mismatch at a deeper level, that i was choosing to slow down in a work arena that was founded on the fast-paced striving and forceful ways of working.
from that point onwards, it was a choice for me – to move to another industry by upgrading my skills or opt out completely from the corporate world and build something of my own.
the latter idea seemed scary, especially at a time when i was at the peak of a career i had built by pouring myself into it completely. and yet this was calling me very loudly. it made sense to something deeper in me, that wasn’t very logical and rational for most around me.
years later, having cultivated a skillset that not only pays my bills but also fulfils me so deeply, i know i made the right decision for myself. a decision that i arrived to after infusing my logical awareness about the practical realities of my world with my deeply wise intuition that was able to foresee my future without me being even slightly aware of it.
i didn’t have this level of mastery in the work i do today when i began this journey years ago. but i felt a deep conviction in this decision that led me to that one right step, one right action, one right decision at a time slowly forming the path that i covered to create a truly rich business for myself, one that nourishes and enriches not only my soul but also my bank account today (a journey that i also guide women on in my feminine business course)
today in this blog, i want to share with you 3 snippets from this journey, pieces of advice that i wish i was given when i began walking on this path of birthing my feminine business.
these tips will help you assess where you might be on your career journey and will help you make a sound decision if you’ve been feeling the pull to translate your talents and passions into an emotionally fulfilling and financially sustainable business.
(in a previous article, i have shared in detail about what a feminine business really is. if you’re new to this concept of doing business, then i recommend having a read of it first)
1 | determining what kind of a business is right for you.
the first question that a woman is faced with when she starts reevaluating her career is whether to go into business full time or part time. this push and pull is very natural considering we don’t always have all the answers right at the start of anything.
which is why i want to reiterate here that it is very easy to watch the highlights of someone’s independent career on our mobile screens and assume that the grass is greener on that pasture.
what the same people won’t and can’t always share with you is the amount of resilience, support, disappointment that may have gone in the process of reaching where they are today.
so instead of blindly following someone else’s journey in business, give yourself time to assess what would the right model of business look like for you, if you’re feeling called to walking on this path.
as an example, when i look back upon this time in my life, i didn’t care about the money or growth i had in my corporate career then. i needed much more from life back then, that looked very different to my blingy life in dubai. i yearned for my lost inner peace, i craved slowness, i needed a routine that didn’t involve me rushing through the most sacred part of my days that were my mornings. i wanted to wake up without alarms, i wanted to stay in bed for a few more mins without the rush or pressure of getting anything done, i wanted to spend my mornings meditating sometimes for more than an hour, i wanted to enjoy a slow and nutritious breakfast, i wanted to sit out in the sun for some time before i started my workday, and then sit down to work feeling truly inspired. this was my most heartfelt vision when i started, a vision that’s grown deeper and richer over the years where my most magical creativity flows from this part of my daily routine. wherein the more time i allow myself to rest, the more inspiration i receive to grow my business creatively and financially.
having supported so many women with their feminine softening & embodiment, i can tell you that deep within, you too know what you truly desire when it comes to how you want to express, work and serve the world with your energy and time. you too know what would make work feel truly fulfilling for you.
in my 1-1 work with women, more often than not, this is the first step i help them develop clarity around. because i truly believe that we don’t need to succumb to the pressure of going into business full time if we already have a job that can allow us to slowly build a business on the sidelines. and i also believe that if the time has arrived where we are (emotionally and financially) ready to go full time into business, then it’s a disservice to our soul if we force ourselves to stay in a career that we don’t feel any fulfilment in.
this step requires the most care in my opinion, which is why it also requires us to turn down the noise around us and tune into the deeply powerful inner wisdom we women hold in our bodies.
both in my private as well as self-study feminine business offerings, i help my clients learn how to understand the language of these inner cues and develop a solid understanding of what would truly serve them on this path of creating a business for themselves. so that this decision stays truly theirs and they’re not met with any regret in tender moments that will arise on the path of deepening and growing their business.
(there of course is another layer of decision making in this step where you need to have clarity around what is the business idea that’s inspiring you to take this step. a topic that i will leave for me to write about another day on my blog. i have covered it though in the first module of my feminine business course, if you need immediate support around this)
2 | ensuring masculine-feminine integration in your business
in a lot of spaces that teach about feminine energy, there’s a sneaky resentment that is projected for our masculine essence. that makes us see our rather integral masculine energy as something undesirable and unhelpful.
i personally view this as almost a malpractice to be telling women to soften in their feminine essence especially in the process of building a business and not acknowledging the need for the masculine support they will need on this journey.
what i mean by this is, if someone today decided to go into independent work following the feminine business philosophy and didn’t have any kind of masculine support around them, they’re bound to fail miserably.
when i use the term masculine support, here’s what it can look like for us women in the practical sense~
having a decent savings net to protect us if the business doesn’t start growing immediately.
having a family, partner, a part time job, or a full time job that can support us financially as we slowly and naturally develop our feminine business.
having a plan B to pivot if by any chance the chosen business idea doesn’t take off.
having some kind of long term investments that you can cash out on if needed to, to support your business expenses temporarily.
these practical assessments are often reduced to labels like financial privilege, which is true to some extent. but if a woman is longing to go into business and leave the corporate path that feels suffocating to her, it is absolutely okay to receive this privilege, to make use of what’s available for her.
this is a step that requires one to be wise and understanding of where they currently stand in terms of their financial well-being.
growing a feminine business doesn’t happen in vacuum. you still need to pay your bills, you will still need to provide for your daily needs while growing the roots of your business. and all of that will need money. there shouldn’t be any shame whether you do or do not have the privilege of financial support.
as an example from my own life, long before i had started working as an adult, around the time when i was completing my MBA i knew that my life’s path will involve entrepreneurship one way or the other. coming from a rather humble background, i didn’t have the courage, the knowledge or the resources to go into business soon after graduating so i knew that i will have to reach my destination through a temporary stint of corporate experience. during the placement season at my business school, by a mysterious wave of grace, i attracted an international job opportunity with the Dubai franchise of a Fortune-500 multinational company. from day one, i was earning in a foreign currency an amount that was many times higher than what my peers were earning back in India. by the time i reached the point where i was ready to exit the corporate fully, i had a large savings net of cash as well as investments that would go on to give me the peace of mind needed to build my business as slowly as i desired. (this was despite some grave money mistakes i made on this journey leading me to go deeper into healing my relationship with money, that i quite vulnerably share in my money magnetism course)
if i hadn’t had this savings net, i can assure you i wouldn’t have had the peace of mind i felt on this journey of birthing my business. because i had the masculine support of financial resources (that i wasn’t born with the privilege of, but earned through a lot of hard work in my corporate life), i was able to create and grow a truly feminine business that fulfils me emotionally and takes care of my needs financially, to this very day.
this is why i believe it is important to consider these factors practically when deciding whether to go into business full time or part time. if you hold the desire in your heart to truly take the path of building a feminine business, a path that adds meaning and fulfilment to your life as well as your career, please know that you will need the masculine-providing support of money, people, resources, and other alternate opportunities, along the way.
i’d advise you to consider looking away from the glamorous stories of those flashing their success on screens and make decisions that are true and right specifically for you. (if you need deeper support in tuning into your embodied wisdom, i offer support around this in Birthing a Rich business course)
3 | honest assessment of the sustainability and longevity of your business idea and the chosen growth approach
i get a special kind of ick from people who without any kind of qualifications claim themselves to be experts in a field. i think this might be because i come from a background where academics and some sort of skill-training has always held some value.
this is not to say that one has to go through the rigorous and often the long and tedious approach to cultivating mastery in their choice of work field before they create a business around it.
may be they’re naturally skilled at the talent they want to translate into a business, may be they grew up learning that craft from role models in the family, may be they developed this skill through the day job the were doing for all these years.
in my work, i advise women to develop some level of a sound understanding around their craft, so that the advice and the service that they offer to people doesn’t end up doing more harm than good. especially if they’re desiring to increase the longevity of their business, doing this also naturally makes them less susceptible to the imposter syndrome that many of the most sincere businesswomen feel from time to time.
for example, when i decided to translate my personal journey of feminine embodiment into a business, i had two choices. either go through the PhD route or take the next best shorter route. because i am naturally averse to the shiny world of instagram, i instantly looked away from certification programs with thousands of followers on their pages. i think it was the magnetism of this heart-felt desire of mine that led me to a certification founded in scientific and embodied wisdom, that helped me develop a very sound understanding of feminine embodiment (and feminine softening, now that i have pivoted and deepened my business further in this domain based on my personal experiences)
another thing that is important to remember when going into business, is that the world is a smaller place now thanks to the internet. sooner than later, people will form a perception of your work and business, a negative one in fact if the business is indeed founded on the intention of extracting from people in the shortest time possible.
i share this from the common feedback i receive from my clients about how there are so many souls in business who don’t actually care about the ethics of their business practices. which is okay if that works for them. the question we need to ask here is, what kind of a business are we here to build?
the women my work attracts share similar values with my business in the sense that as sensitive-hearted women, it matters to us that we deeply honor the integrity of our businesses. it matters to us that the income we receive from our work is through deep and meaningful service to the world.
doing business this way creates a natural sense of sustainability in our business because even when we evolve on a personal level and want to pivot, there is an underlying skill that we have already developed and mastered over the years that will support this business shift.
now that we have covered the ethics and integrity piece of sustainability, lets finally touch a little about the marketing and growth aspect of it.
so, when we decide to birth a business (part time or full time), we will need to find ways to share it with the world. that is a very integral part of doing business.
and yet many sensitive-hearted women tend to feel a lot of shame and hesitation around selling and marketing especially because of the historical ways this has been done in the past. that “in your face, cold calling, forceful selling, penetrative marketing approaches” that can feel very intrusive.
but it doesn’t have to be this way at all. there is a softer, more easeful approach available to share your craft, your passion, your skills, your artistry, your wisdom with the world.
in my work, that is through the approach of gentle marketing ; a very feminine philosophy in nature, one that is also surprisingly supported by our inner masculine wisdom. this approach not only feels good to our inner feminine sensitivities but also help us create a sustainable flow of cash in our businesses.
in fact, this approach to marketing is the complete opposite of all the ways we have seen businesses being marketed on platforms like instagram with those undesired ads disrupting our feed, the cringy youtube ads that make our feminine souls wither just at the mention of them.
i still remember how back in the day, so many of my past colleagues from my corporate workplace would offer me suggestions to make instagram / youtube ads selling my feminine embodiment business services. i eventually lost count of the number of times i would go on to say ‘no, thanks’ to these invitations. i could very clearly sense that none of these ways resonated with my inner system. and i also knew that this ‘wasn’t my fear of being seen’. despite this being a tender time in my business birthing process when i was feeling very alone in exploring a gentler way to market my business, there was a consistent and resounding refusal to adopt these kind of selling strategies and tactics.
on this long and winding journey, i did end up discovering quite a few ways that feel more than enough to grow my feminine business today. instead of feeling coercive or salesy in nature, they feel like a natural expression of what i have to share, and always end up attracting the people who are the right audience for my work ~ people who are out there actively looking for what i am offering in my work. this feels reassuring and calming to my nervous system and also helps me grow my business in a way that honors my feminine sensitivities (which was my whole point of going into into business!)
i have seen this in my 1-1 work with women as well wherein the more they can tune into their inner wisdom and let it guide them towards their personal best marketing strategy, the more confident they feel in using it for their business on a long-term basis.
there is a very deeper sense of sovereignty they start cultivating in the way they manage their business as a result, and this ripples out in all the other areas of their business including their creative expression. there is a very powerful embodiment process that i share around this in my feminine business course, if you’d like support around this area in your business.
to conclude, the feminine way of doing business can feel deeply fulfilling for you if you’re a sensitive and high-achieving woman who holds big desires in her heart for her life and work but is not willing to extract from herself anymore, and is not resonating with the traditional ways of marketing that have been founded on a very unhealthy hyper-masculine foundation of working and operating in life and business.
if you have been feeling hesitant, overwhelmed or even intimidated by the idea of doing business in a way that is different from the usual, i want to tell you how normal this feeling is. i still remember the fears i had when i decided to leave instagram for instance, and started exploring more magnetic, softer and easeful ways to share my business.
but like i discovered it in me, you too hold a deep reservoir of creative wisdom in your body as a feminine-essenced woman. that holds so much power in it that you’d be surprised at the ways it helps you grow and deepen the roots of your business in the world. this embodied way of tuning into our inner wisdom is what helped me grow my business so wildly and so far away from the traditional landscape of business marketing. and if i had to do it all over again, i would still choose this path.
if you’re at a point where you know at the core of your being that birthing a new business or growing your existing business in a different way is the next right step for you, and all you need is a little more support towards being able to trust your inner feminine wisdom in this process, I currently have two resources that can support you ~
one is my private coaching offering called Feminine Business mastery, that is a 8-weeks deeply intimate space for women who need a little more personalised and time-efficient support.
and the other is my self-paced feminine business course that’s launching soon (with live support available) and is available for purchase now at a super early bird price. it is called Birthing a Rich Business and you can learn more about it here.
if needed, explore and see which of these resources can support you in the current season of your life and let me know if there are any questions for me.
Navdeep 💗
p.s. looking for more articles on feminine softening in business? please visit here.
Softening in your feminine essence through heart-led forgiveness, an article for the woman who is desiring to release her past and restore the radiance of her being.
in my feminine softening work, i have noticed that when a woman starts returning home to her feminine essence, she experiences two kinds of emotions she is not expecting to find on this journey.
a deep grief for what was lost, for the time that got wasted, for a live unlived, for desires that were suppressed.
and, a burning rage for the wrongs she allowed to happen to her, for the ways she abandoned herself in the pursuit of love, belonging and connection with others.
she also knows that for her to keep moving on this journey of homecoming, she must feel these emotions, receive the medicine they carry within, gather the lessons they are teaching her, and use them to create an even more beautiful life for herself.
this begins with her practicing the art of forgiveness radially and wholly. forgiving without the former scorekeeping, forgiving despite the former resentment, forgiving even if there was a lot of hurt involved.
but this doesn’t always feel as easy as one can think of it to be. living in a heart-hardening highly-masculinised world, so many of us women lose touch with our softness, with the essence of our feminine energy souls.
this way of living feeds the ego, it is designed to work that way now. because any piece of history will tell us that when the world wasn’t so deeply masculinised, we thrived on connection and love and belongingness. we were open and willing to understand others’ perspectives and forgive them for their shortcomings.
today, that’s different..disconnection is the norm, empathy and understanding aren’t as valued. it feels easier to hold a grudge than to simply let go by forgiving and releasing ourselves from the life-reducing tendrils of the past.
and yet, we know that this is not the way we want to live, grow and shine our radiance in the world as women. we don’t thrive under this weight of resentment. it instantly reflects in the beauty of our souls, in the texture of our skin, in the glow of our faces, in the inner harmony of our heart.
it takes a rather radical inner shift to be able to see that forgiving and releasing ourselves from our past doesn’t signify weakness. instead, it is a deeper decision that’s rooted in our softer power as women. one that doesn’t let us shatter but instead helps us feel the pain of a heartbreak and alchemise that ache into something even more beautiful. a quality of our quiet feminine power may not be as celebrated, but is still a treasure that lies deep beneath our hard masculine shields.
because if there’s one thing i have felt in my own experience and in coaching women with their feminine softening and embodiment, is that once we have released an undesirable part of our past from our beings, it frees up so much of our life force that was trapped under this huge plateau of resentment, regret, remorse, anger and more denser emotions.
it helps our inner world regain its natural, pristine state that had taken a different shape with these emotions stored in our body. it helps us regain the emotional safety we felt within us before unpleasant things happened to us.
the deeper we can allow ourselves to soften into the ache of these darker emotions that we have been avoiding, the easier it becomes to reach that point within us where there is nothing else left but to forgive.
at this juncture, it is no more about the other person or our selves. it is simply a release, a liberation from what’s holding us back from living our most radiant life.
freeing ourselves from these traces of our past clears up our energetic aura creating a fresh new space in our lives for newer possibilities, relationships, and experiences to be allowed in our life. it makes us feel lighter, happier, more connected with our natural feminine Eros as sensitive-hearted women.
we start feeling more open to exchanges of love, to support, to compassion and kindness. we regain our inherent sense of playfulness and pleasure towards experiencing the bountiful richness of our lives.
we are able to open our heart to new possibilities and live out our most fulfilled version of life. and why else are we here on earth if not to create our own heaven of peace and happiness?
we are meant to flow through life, not restrict ourselves with the burden of undesirable experiences. not hold grudges for what didn’t serve us or affected us adversely in our past.
we are deserving of moving through life with ease, savoring each moment as it comes.
i can share an experience from my own journey of feminine softening and embodiment that when i started realising how much of myself had i lost to the hyper-masculine conditioning that was instilled in me starting from my teenage years, i felt so angry at everything and everyone around me.
there was also a deeper sense of grief that i felt for the years i had lost, for the ways i abandoned myself to meet the ideals of success and prosperity that my social culture had instilled in me very early on in life. for the ways i felt disrespected by a work culture that was not designed to support my growth as a sensitive-hearted woman and so i had to place shields after shields on my heart to toughen up and get going, climbing up the corporate ladder of success that on most days felt meaningless to me.
after going through quite a few rounds of this anger, resentment, grief and remorse, i found how exhausted i felt from this relentless spiralling. and as is the natural progression in the process of feminine healing, i reached a place within me where there was nothing else left but to forgive and release all the people, situations, experiences that had caused me harm, in one way or the other.
as i allowed myself to enter into this space of heart-led forgiveness, i noticed how much softer i felt in my being. this softening further gave me the strength to keep an open heart as i moved through life and showed me how to live a little more lightly, forgiving a little more sooner anytime i experienced hurt from there on.
and as for the highly-masculinised nature of the world we live in, i decided that the only way i could change it is by deepening even more tenderly in my own feminine embodiment.
this looked like allowing myself to fully embrace my softness, in my own life and in my relationships.
speaking my truth with courage even when i was the one who messed up.
not feeling scared to open my heart to love even after the hardest of the heartbreaks.
creating structures of business and success that honored my sensitive-hearted nature.
moving through life at my own pace, still believing that all that my heart desires is possible for me, even if it takes a little longer in this fast-paced illusion of time and space.
and so, if you’re at a point in your life where you’re hurting, where you’re feeling disheartened and weighed down by the seemingly assaulting experiences of life, please know that there is a beautiful life that awaits you beyond this ache and grief.
where you will smile again, where your heart will feel happy again.
and for that, you must liberate all that’s feeling heavy on your heart.
you must be patient with yourself and let your body process and release these emotions.
you must trust that you are still allowed to hope for a life that your heart still holds the desire for.
after all, that is the path of feminine healing, a path that asks you to soften and keep your heart open so you can allow love, ease, possibility, fulfilment and radiance both in your inward and outward life.
when you want to journey deeper
if you need more support on this path, i offer some meditations in my Feminine Healing collection around this. more specifically have a look at the Liberate & Flow practice.
inspired from some of these personal experiences, i’ve also created an email course titled Her Soft Power to support women who want to soften out of their hyper-masculine conditioning, reclaim the quiet strength of their feminine gifts and live a life overflowing with peace, beauty, ease, joy and pleasure. if you’re at a point on your journey of feminine softening where you’re seeking healing through reading, reflection and journaling, here’s where you can learn more about this offering.
whatever you decide to receive support from, i hope it helps you soften a little more deeply and forgive a little more easily.
Navdeep 💗
p.s. looking for more articles on feminine softening in life and in love? please visit here.
Reclaiming the quiet strength of your feminine gifts – an article for the woman who is seeking to dismantle her heart-hardening masculine shields and experience the true power of her feminine essence.
something I have observed in my feminine softening work is that the biggest fear of any woman who comes from a culture that isn’t very empowering for her kind, is to lose her control, and in turn, lose her power.
growing up in spaces that don’t value women or worse, where a woman’s worth is tied to how much she can sacrifice, how much she can empty herself in service to those around her, leaves a very deep imprint on how she perceives herself and her feminine nature.
with no right models of true feminine power around, she clings on to the only kind of power that is visible to her eyes in her highly-masculinised environments.
the loud kind, the forceful kind, the hardening kind.
this masculine shield of power that momentarily makes her feel less vulnerable, in the long run leads to her gradually disconnecting from her beautiful and sacred design as a woman. wherein..
she starts seeing her softness and sensitivity as a weakness.
she numbs her sensuality and her feelings through a plethora of pseudo-pleasures.
she hides her beautiful vulnerabilities and never lets herself be truly seen in her relationships
she clings onto every last bit of control over how her life should unfold, while secretly resenting this weight that hardens her further.
but underneath all of this, the essence of her tender femininity still exists.
in moments that feel out of control and overwhelming, while she is still wearing her masculine shields, her feminine soul quietly whispers to her ~ reminding her of its existence, reminding her to let go, to relax a little, to let herself flow even by a little measure.
other times, in a more louder way, her feminine body screams loudly through illnesses, exhaustion, burnout..reminding her to look within and finally honor her sensitive, feminine design.
its only when a woman decides to listen to these nudges of her feminine body and soul, is then she begins the process of reclaiming the quiet strength of her feminine gifts.
she slowly starts understanding that while her masculine essence has been fully activated, trained and put to good use in her outer world (sometimes to excessive amounts), the missing piece to her fulfilment is her feminine embodiment.
she starts decoding the truth that her softness & sensitivities are as important as her ambitions and achievement-oriented conditioning, sometimes even more integral to her overall nourishment as a feminine feeling woman.
she starts developing compassion for herself for suppressing her tender feelings and emotions for so long, because she can now see how she was never taught to read and interpret the language of her feminine heart.
from here on, she naturally starts cultivating inner safety in tending to her emotional triggers instead of repressing them, eliminating the possibility of their erupting unannounced and affecting her relationships adversely.
she starts paying attention to her heart’s sacred desires and quietly yet surely starts reclaiming her worth for them.
she starts witnessing how easily this inner fulfilment amplifies her outward achievements, that previously felt meaningless to her.
she begins healing her previously dysfunctional relationship with her feminine sensuality and sexuality, recognizing the power she holds in her body outside the commercialisation and commodification of these gifts of her femininity.
she starts embracing her sacred rage, her grief and other denser emotions, seeing them as vital messengers to where she might be abandoning herself or letting herself be disrespected and devalued by those around her.
she gradually begins removing her hard masculine shields with deeper intention and starts practicing receiving from all those who are here to nourish and enrich her life’s journey.
through both my lived and coaching experience, i have come to see how there’s so much beauty and courage in choosing this softer feminine way of living in the harsh state of our world today. it is that quiet empowerment that we don’t receive in many spaces of personal development (that are almost always pushing the hyper-masculine ideals of growth, a subject that i talk more about in my feminine softening course).
this act of reconnecting and reclaiming the wide spectrum of our feminine gifts can often feel like a gentle rebellion, where feminine-hearted women relentlessly refuse to abandon the qualities that nature has so wonderfully and generously endowed them with.
where they’re able to discern that honoring their sensitivities, their tenderness, their need for slowness, their desire for a peaceful and calm life is not weak or silly, but is a very wise decision to preserve themselves in a world that runs on the extraction of their feminine (physical, emotional and more) resources.
because it is this very wisdom that not only fulfils us inwardly as women but also guides us in the most challenging of life’s moments where instead of letting us harden and mindlessly “push through”… it invites us to soften and melt into our ache, creating the space for the right solutions to emerge for us.
..and this can matter so much to those who desire to live a truly intentional and meaningful life.
i notice this a lot in my feminine softening & healing work wherein a woman who is on the path of reclaiming the quiet strengths of her feminine gifts, starts feeling the desire to slow down and experience life so fully and wholly that she never again has to rush through life and can instead experience the richness that exists in the seemingly mundane moments of her days.
she no more wants to permit her hyper-masculine environments or people extract from her precious life force energy in the name of love, success or prosperity.
she finds herself wanting to feel so connected with her body, her pleasure, her flow, and the natural aliveness of her feminine being that she does’t have to rely on pseudo-pleasures like gossip, scrolling, food, meaningless sex anymore.
she finds herself desiring to learn how to opt out of the heart-hardening ways of striving and hustling so she can magnetise her heart’s wildest and deepest desires with utmost ease, joy and pleasure.
this is a journey i support women on through my feminine softening and healing offerings, namely ~
Feminine Softening 1-1 session, designed for the woman who is seeking to peel back the layers of her hyper-masculine conditioning and soften in her feminine essence, so she can show up in her life and love deeply attuned to her natural pace, her values, her feminine eros, her sensitivities, her radiance, her magnetism and her inherent wisdom.
Her Soft Power, an email course created for the woman who wants to heal from the impacts of her over-masculinised conditioning, reclaim the quiet strength of her feminine gifts and live a life overflowing with peace, beauty, ease, joy and pleasure.
and the Feminine Healing collection of embodiment meditations, curated for the woman who’s finding her way back home to her feminine essence, her softness, her body, her pleasure, her beauty, her depth, her truth and her magnetism.
if need be, you may explore these and see what would serve you the most in the current season of your feminine healing, softening and embodiment.
Navdeep 💗
p.s. looking for more articles on feminine softening in life and in love? continue reading here.
When softening feels like a threat or a weakness, remember this.. an article for the woman who is learning to find safety in the process of her feminine softening, healing and embodiment.
in both my lived as well as coaching experience, i have found that when feminine-hearted women begin removing their hard masculine shields of perfection, performance and numbness, softening into their most natural essence feels quite vulnerable.
it feels like an inner threat of losing control over the flow of their lives.
it feels like an outer threat of being perceived as weak and silly for no more following the heart-hardening masculine ways of living.
it feels like laying bare to be seen for who they truly are, which can feel very scary if they are in an environment that doesn’t value the feminine way of being.
almost every woman who I have interacted with in my feminine softening and healingwork, has felt this at least once.
in the process of honoring this sweet desire of her heart to live more softly and move at her own pace, she has found herself questioning the legitimacy of this gentler way of living.
she has found herself wondering if she will be left behind in the apparent race of life.
she has found herself fearing how will she be perceived by the people around her now that she is feeling called to a way of life that is not as celebrated, most times not even accepted in spaces she is used to be in.
but the more she has allowed herself to trust this quiet inner calling, the more she has found herself grounding in the truth that..
..she will find people who will love, value and support her for choosing this path, who will cherish her sensitivities and her gentle essence, and
..she will be able to create a career path, earn a living and live a fulfilled life while honoring this desire of her heart to slow down and soften the hardness that’s been weighing her down for as long as she can remember.
from this assurance, it becomes easier for her to recover from the exhaustion she has felt in hiding her heart’s truest desires behind a masculine shield of nonchalance or indifference.
it becomes easier for her to drop the pretence that she can do it all on her own.
and above all, it becomes easier for her to decide that she is not going to strive, force or push herself through life anymore.
if you’re at a point in your life, relationships or work where you’re feeling called to soften and shift the way you have been living and being but are scared of losing yourself in the process, please know that you’re not alone and that this is a very natural and valid fear.
the hyper-masculine design of our world has trained most of us feminine-essenced women that the only way to feel our power is through striving, forcing, exerting and in proving ourselves worthy of our existence.
time and again, it has conditioned us to believe that our nature is ‘too emotional’, that our sensitivities and intuitive nudges are not a gift but something to fix, to hide, to contort into something more logical, something that makes sense to those around us.
it has made us lose remembrance of the truth that as deeply feeling feminine-essenced women, we cannot be pushed by logic, or what seems to ‘make sense’. that we have our own way of knowing, and it has little to do with shoulds and timelines and logical progressions.
it has trained us to oversee the fact that the masculine ideals of moving through life were never ours, that as feminine beings we blossom when we flow through life with a softer strength..
something i often find myself thinking about is how different our relationship with our softness might be if we had grown up seeing the right role models in the women who came before us.
would we still see our softness as a weakness if we had grown up watching women express their disappointments to their partners calmly and gently, resolving conflict as if it were simply a problem to solve?
would we still see our softness as a weakness if we had grown up watching our teachers or mothers teach the value of discipline without raising their voice?
when i look back on my own journey of feminine softening and embodiment, i realise how hardening makes it so much easier for us to break and fall apart. whereas softening, it strengthens our ability to survive, take a different shape and become someone new, someone even more beautiful..each and every time.
there’s a memory from my past corporate days that i still vividly remember.. a spring afternoon when i stood in the cabin of my department head telling me how i was “too soft to become a good manager” (looking back, i realise what she actually meant was that i was too soft to be successful in that highly-masculinised work culture). it felt so much easier to believe her then because she too was a woman, quite successful one at that. and i remember how from there on, i consciously started placing shields after shields on my heart that would continue to remind me that i’m never allowed to be seen as my softer self again. what i didn’t know then was that i would also be shutting down my empathy, my natural gift of connecting with people by taking on this new role of hyper-masculine toughness..
but as is the natural progression of life wherein those who are lost will one day find their way back, i too years later while still in that workplace, despite all my success just couldn’t carry the weight of those shields that had grown so much out of proportion. and so, i came back to the same softness in me but with more conviction this time as i had more experience with life, work, and my relationships with people now. i witnessed myself turn this gift of my feminine softening into my biggest strength that slowly yet surely repaired my relationship with the same people who had put up with my hardness for all those years in that workplace. and with that, i also came back home to myself, to my essence as a woman and never left my side again.
when i reflect upon my 1-1 work with women now, i find how common this trajectory is for women who feel called to the softening path.
for women who have experienced the harsh impacts of their masculine-focused conditioning, softening feels like a big exhale, like a respite from a way of life that they never really resonated with.
deep in their bones, they know the difference between the heart-hardening masculine way of life and the softening and nourishing feminine way of living.
they have walked the path of doubting their feminine value of softening only to realise a few steps later that it is their biggest and deepest strength.
they know how good it feels to soften into the trust of knowing that their life will unfold perfectly for them when they’re following their heart, instead of continually striving, pushing, forcing and proving themselves to meet the ideals set by their outer world.
and most of all, they understand that the art of truly softening into their feminine essence isn’t some outer social trend that they’re being drawn to, but it is in fact a deep inner calling of something unseen and only felt by them in their body, heart and soul..
if you too are in a season of life where you’re feeling this inner call, then just for today give yourself the permission to soften without guilt.
just for today, allow yourself to soften in the trust that your sensitive, feminine nature has a place in your life and in this world.
allow yourself to soften in the trust that your relationships, your deepest wishes and ambitions will blossom even more once you start embracing your heartfelt desire for a softer approach to living and being.
and in case you find yourself desiring more support around this, you may explore my feminine softening course Her Soft Power or work with me privately in one of my feminine softening 1-1 sessions.
Navdeep 💗
p.s. looking for more articles on feminine softening in life and in love? visit here.
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