Your Story Is Your Power

by Elle Luna

  As women, seekers, and authors, we’ve gone through all of the steps in this book—and many more—over time. As we recognized and confronted our own internalized misogyny, the experience rippled through our lives and a beautiful feeling arose—a feeling of having come home.

  When I started to firmly handle and control my inner misogynist, I had boundless energy; I felt like I could do anything because I could imagine anything. I connected to the vitality of my own youth and the vitality of a full life before me. The world became a place to play and to learn because I felt unshackled. I could do what I wanted to do because the voices inside of me were now under my direction. I could still ask for their counsel, but for the most part, I had become my own captain, my own queen, my own longed-for friend and confidant. It was like finally getting a vitamin that had been denied.

  After I identified the ways I was blocking myself as a woman, I had a dream. I was on an elevator in a floor-length red ball gown. Its long silky fabric flowed like waves around my legs. I took the elevator up to the very top floor. I stepped out into what looked like a sea of cubicles. The overhead lights were white, and the geometric shapes extended as far as I could see in every direction. All at once, I began running down the aisles, singing at the top of my lungs, and spinning and twirling in my red dress. When I woke up, I was shocked. I realized that it was the first time in my life I had ever had a dream where I had a voice—my feminine voice.

  Power can be used to describe the effort used when exerting physical strength or authority over another person, or it can be used to describe someone’s influence. But it can also be used to describe a person’s electricity or energy. And in a woman, when her natural personality is freed from the confinement of a patriarchal system, a kind of generative energy is unleashed—this is what we call Feminine Power. Our friend Zandra Kaufman describes this phenomenon, saying,

  “The reason it is generative is that it is a power that is now exerted over another but is a power that is with another.”

  Feminine Power is powerful because it is shared.

  In India this power is personified in the goddess Devi. She is the creator of life and represents the fundamental reality of the universe—the creative source and the ultimate truth.

  “I permeate the earth and heaven, all created entities with my greatness and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.”—From the Devi Sukta

  “Feminine power isn’t something we go out and acquire; it’s already within us. It’s something that we become willing to experience. Something to admit we have.”—Marianne Williamson Spiritual Teacher

  As you resolve the conflicts that stand between your defense systems and what is at the heart of your soul’s longing, you will experience the infectious, generative, and inspiring power of being a free woman who is fully alive.

  Like working your way through the labyrinth, the journey takes time. Sometimes you might feel like you are meandering back to where you started or that you are returning to the same place again and again. Even once you have reached the center of your story, it still takes time to continue to practice the lessons in this book. But as you continue to walk this meandering, twisting, and turning path, share feminine love with yourself and remember that small daily steps eventually lead to big leaps.

  “How might war and capitalism and criminal justice and a thousand other things be different had they not been designed with half of humanity locked outside the door”—Anand Giridharadas Author

  In science it is well established that for any ecosystem to survive, each of its diverse parts has to contribute uniquely as well cooperatively. If the contributions aren’t balanced, or one aspect is consistently suppressed by another, then that system becomes fragile, incapable of change, and eventually dies. Sound familiar? The immense challenges that we face globally are because of the loss of the feminine. But we believe that women will bring about seismic shifts as the courage to bring our feminine voices forward grows. As you continue doing this work, remember that your strengths and gifts as a woman are real, and the global ecosystem needs them more than ever.

  “Both nature and nurture appear to have shaped women into relational experts.”—Michele L. Takei Psychologist

  Distinct Brain Functioning

   Women have more connections between the right and left hemispheres, which means: Women can retrieve information from different sides of the brain simultaneously, affecting what is called intuitive thinking, or making effective decisions quickly. Furthermore, having simultaneous access to the right brain, which is associated with creativity or imagination, indicates that women can be more readily compassionate and can more easily connect to the present moment.

   Women have more gray matter in the hippocampus, which means more neural density in this area.

   Women have very good working memory and process more emotional information and input from the senses.

   Women have more “wiring” in the area of the brain called the left caudate, which has been associated with social cognition. This means: Women tend to have good communication skills.

   Women have a greater density of mirror neurons, which means: Women are more comfortable with relationships because they can empathize with the emotional experiences of others.

   Women release oxytocin in times of stress, which means: Women have a tendency, under stress, to care for and befriend, which allows them to work in solidarity and to form communities rather than compete for resources.

  The option of nonviolence

  On average, 86 percent of violent crimes are committed by men.

  “If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. . . . If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman.”—Gandhi

  A tendency toward the altruistic

  A group of Yale University researchers conducted twenty-two studies on altruism and discovered that women tend to be more altruistic than men. In the studies, they found that even women who identify themselves as having more traditionally “masculine traits” still exhibited greater generosity than men.

  In 2006, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their revolutionary social development work using microloans. Ninety-seven percent of the small loans were made to poor women in third-world countries. He saw that when he gave women small amounts of capital, they did not spend the money on alcohol or gambling, as the men did. Instead, they started or improved small businesses, improved the diets of their village’s malnourished children, and sent kids to school. Their repayment track record is close to 97 percent, year after year. The lenders discovered that women who receive loans not only build successful businesses, but lead healthier lives and improve the lives of those around them.

  It turns out that when we invest in women, women, in turn, invest in everyone.

  An ability to create beauty for healing purposes

  When a woman is pregnant, she often feels an urge to nest, adorning the space around her for her new baby. There is something powerful about creating a beautiful environment: A space that feels good, looks good, and smells good is a natural way to support a growing child and enhance our own well-being. Experiencing nature is another way to generate positive feelings. Being in beautiful settings is often a prescription for stress reduction. This makes sense because one definition of beauty is “something that pleasurably exalts the mind.” Women seem to know this instinctively and, as a result, tend to create nurturing environments. It’s also why so many women are stepping forward to protect the natural world.

  The power to tend to others when under stress

  Women under stress produce the hormone oxytocin. This hormone creates a tendency to nurture others, which in turn decreases stress. You will actually feel a reduction in stress if you reach out to care for someone. This explains why, g
enerally, in stressful situations, women seek to make contact with others. This innate behavior might be one of the reasons for women’s naturally longer life span, i.e., community vs. life-shortening isolation.

  The ability to befriend in order to solve

  Another side effect of oxytocin is the tendency to befriend others and collect in communities. The physicist David Bohm calls this cultivating “collective intelligence.” He observed that when people were brought together to share and listen to one another in community dialogue, the ability to solve problems and implement change increased dramatically, as opposed to a more individualistic “every man for himself” approach of harboring intelligence for fear

  of competition.

  The experience of feminine power is extraordinarily healing, even for men.

  “I had this experience of what medically, they call a stroke, and it was a death in the mind. Suddenly, a terrific force hit me and the mend went! Everything went! . . . People thought I was going to die, and I thought I was going to die . . . I said the proper prayers . . . and then I felt a need to surrender. . . . It came very clearly, ‘surrender to the mother.’ And I made this act of surrender and a kind of wave of love overwhelmed me. There was a friend, a nurse . . . looking after me, and I called out to her and said, ‘I’ve been overwhelmed with love! I don’t know whether I can survive it!’ “It was tremendous. The feminine suddenly opened up. But that was a real death you see, of the mind. And from that moment onwards, I have never really been in the dualistic mind. Something is always beyond it.”—Father Bede Griffiths Priest

  A creative vision of the future

  What if women could wake up to their skills and use them to bring about a world with more compassion, less violence, less hunger, led by both men and women? What would that world look like?

  Many artists and writers, especially science fiction writers, have attempted to visualize this very thing.

  Joan Slonczewski, a microbiologist and science fiction writer, poses a vision of a culture built on sharing and cooperation, showing the possibilities of true Feminine Power. Science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin depicts a society in which there is equality between the sexes in her novel The Dispossessed. Renaissance painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti used his talents to create images of a future with a strong female presence in his colorful, visionary mural The Allegory of Good and Bad Government. Hundreds of years later, this painting inspired the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony D. Romero, to file the first lawsuit against Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban.”

  Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the original Star Trek television series, presented a future world where there is equality between the sexes as well as among the races. In a decision that would have profound implications, Roddenberry cast Nichelle Nichols, an African American woman, in the role of Lt. Nyota Uhura, one of the key officers on the USS Enterprise. At a time when television roles for African Americans were rare, seeing Nichols in this role would have a profound impact on many, including a young girl who happened to be watching.

  “Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on. I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘come her, mom, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.”—Whoopi Goldberg Actress

  In Part Two we talked about how the Enneagram is a tool that you can use to watch how personality stops you from getting to the center of your story; how our personal myths and go-to behaviors become our way of survival and thus become addictive. This becomes a vice that is so indelibly etched in our minds that change appears scary. Like internal patriarchy, the warning signals from these patterns keep us at bay from parts of ourselves that we long for.

  “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.”—Helen Keller Author and Activist

  Because we are all different and have different challenges that keep us from our sense of possibility, our agency, it’s the vision of what we can achieve that lights the caverns of despair. When the block is cleared, our newly found internal director can see where to go. In Whoopi’s case she saw a woman in a role that was not defined by race—a vision with a dissolved obstacle. Because of this, Whoopi got the courage to pursue her dream, and we got to receive her gifts to the world—her inspiring and invigorating approach to humor, acting, and, most of all, her activism. Gene Roddenberry posed a vision and Whoopi leapt.

  When you realize what lies within the terrain of the dream, then jumping into that terrain seems brave and attainable. In the Enneagram, this is sometimes called the passion-to-virtue leap. You leap from a behavior driven by passion, which can be compulsive, to an action of virtue that brings you closer to your dream—which in turn is fueled by your personality type. These parts all work in coordination with one another. Like the conversation with the internal misogynist, to go against the compulsion can feel dangerous, but when you leap, it is invigorating. The energy that results is the essence of Feminine Power. It will bring the authentic you into the world.

  This is an emotional transformation. Rejection of parts of yourself is what keeps you in the loop of your vice. Self-compassion, created by getting to the center of your story, gives you courage to make the leap inspired by your dream. If you experience love for yourself in your heart, you can’t help do what is best for that heart.

  In the descriptions below, we use the term passion/vice to identify a behavior based on a compulsion to act to make a wounded heart feel better. The term virtue is used to convey the result of the reclaimed or healed heart.

  The Reformer

  Enneagram Type One

  Passion/Vice Anger

  Virtue Serenity

  Resentment at the world’s loss of goodness and feeling pressure to make it right.

  The ability to realize and experience basic goodness for the perfection it is.

  When Reformers bring gentle self-awareness to their personality structure, the pressure to reform begins to relax and they can begin to enjoy life as it is—perfectly imperfect.

  When a Reformer goes to the center of her story, she experiences a release from her perceived rules because she can see how they were formed. She begins to see that she has been following a formula to be good, but the formula isn’t getting her to her goal because she does not feel good. At the center of her story is the longing to be good, and she realizes she is innately good and sacred that nothing needs to be changed. Her resentment about not being able to fix the world dissipates and is replaced with a sense of serenity.

  Her Feminine Power emerges because she knows that she is good and her serene sense of self-esteem inspires others to transform.

  “They must first learn to value their own feminine qualities, an inherently spiritual process, then exorcise their guilt, one day at a time—one toxic thought at a time—to get at what is true for them.”—Michele L. Takei Psychologist

  The Caretaker

  Enneagram Type Two

  Passion/Vice Pride

  Virtue Humility

  Pride at being the one who is focused on others. “I am better than others because I know how to take care of others.”

  Humility in realizing that there is no hierarchy and my needs are just as important as others’ needs.

  As Caretakers become aware of their personality structure, they begin to understand that their heart includes themselves; they see that they are loved and can release their obsession to fulfill the needs of others in order to get love.

  When a Caretaker goes to the center of her story, she finds a love that is so vibrant and fulfilling that she ceases to be afraid that she is unloved. She falls in love with the girl in the story. She discovers that it was her fear that told
her that she was unwanted and needed to be “the giving one.” She realizes that she can feel the humility of having needs, as others do.

  She regains the Feminine Power of humility by feeling connected to the abundant love from within, seeing herself as equally deserving as others.

  The Achiever

  Enneagram Type Three

  Passion/Vice Deceit

  Virtue Veracity

  To achieve at the cost of her own truth.

  Expressing the true self, rather than one’s image, becomes acceptable and appealing.