While these deeply wounded aspects trigger the biggest challenges, the most profound pain and suffering in our lives, keeping us out of being in right relationship with the self and others, it is only with the medicine of love, care and tenderness, that can help us gently peel back the layers to reveal the very heart of the story that has created this seemingly active predator within.
This predator within holds us hostage to our very dreams, self-sabotaging and suppressing the innate qualities of the feminine principle, intuition, inspiration, and imagination, connection and shared experience, qualities that feed our creative fire and nurture our desire and support us in experiencing life from a place of joy, pleasure and passion, aligning with what makes our hearts sing and our souls dance wild and naked in the moonlight.
The predator makes us feel threatened, unhinged and irrational, triggering fits of paranoia and jealousy, possession and obsession, making us see ourselves through the projected eyes of others, not good enough, not lovable enough, not worthy enough making us feel ostracised and criticised, blamed and ashamed for who we are, sending us back into hiding, telling ourselves, it doesn’t matter because for whatever reason we don’t matter. The madwoman in the attic.
So we stay small, we wear the masks, we perform and conform, we hold back, shut-up and put-up, and yet that fire within us screams for more, to be let out of her cage, to roar.
And all we can do is be patient, be loving, for with each layer we strip back we see another aspect of this wounded feminine psyche that has hijacked our deepest desires and in doing so we find the rational in the irrational.
We give ourselves permission to walk between the lines of sanity and insanity, meeting this madness within. Coaxing her out, warmly and gently, giving her permission to reveal her face and show us her roots as to why she is behaving and believing in this way.
Slowly she reveals the judgement, blaming, naming and shaming she has been exposed to, how it was not safe to be seen nor heard, for to do so would mean she would be damned for it, burned for it, ostracised for it.
So she hijacked our consciousness and kidnapped our creativity to protect us from harm. She became the madwoman within, projecting her deepest fears onto those around her, blaming them for not seeing her, loving her, caring for her, supporting her.
This a story we know all too well!
It is the rape and abduction of our feminine psyche, the suppression of the feminine principle in all of life and in all of creation. The need to disempower the self and others to feel worthy, to feel powerful, to feel in control revealing an intergenerational thread woven through our internal tapestry.
Where does it begin and where does it end?
How can we love these aspects of the wounded feminine psyche when they have caused us so much pain and suffering?
What can we do when we fear them, hate them, ostracise them for being the wounded and the wicked?
We go in, we meet them, listen to them and let them be seen. We give them permission to tell their story, to feel their grief, their anger and their rage. We give them permission to accept and be with their powerlessness, hopelessness and fears. We give them permission to help us untangle the poisonous thread that has suffocated our self-worth, our vitality, our energy and our creativity.
And in doing so, we experience the depth of marrying the deeper self, in sickness and in health, opening the gates of love and compassion once more to flood through the broken heart and fractured soul to heal the wounded feminine psyche and replenish us with beauty and grace.
The madwoman within can now rest, her work is done, her wisdom learned from, her wounds integrated. Her voice quietens and we come out of the woods, refreshed, revitalised and ready now to move on, more whole, more loving, more forgiving of the sacred self and the madness that was held within.
What is your relationship with the madwoman within? How does she show up in your life? Where does she keep you hiding from your creativity and potential?
With love,
Nicola x
