Welcome to my old blog!
Below are writings from between 2016-2020. Enjoy!
Welcome!
In this blog, I post about feminine leadership, the feminine and the masculine, pleasure, juiciness and the jewel force, Tantra, trans-formation, meta-modernism/ integral, eros, experiential truth, embodiment, life and the juicy, but not always easy, inner journey home to and with our hearts.
Would love for you to join the conversation!
The Pleasure of Being You
Last week, I attended my bi-annual retreat in a national park in Germany. I returned wrung inside-out, feeling exhausted and excitingly new at the same time. The way this path works, a teaching that I've been part of now for seven years, is that it slowly polishes the pearl that is the essential you, by bringing the obstructions (and the less pretty sides of ourselves) into broad daylight so they can be seen, witnessed, and most of all felt and experienced. It's not in the category of "fun" fun, but it is in the category of pinching my arm at how extraordinary it is.
So as I'm reconstituting myself, I wanted to share some thoughts about the pleasure of being ourselves, wholesale, without fixing.
From Fixing to Allowing
Throughout my life, I've been in a fixing mode. First just by trying to understand myself enough to "get ahead", then wrestling with weight issues, and then focusing on fixing others, especially the world, the business world, the planet, fighting for women's issues, to then realize how much I needed to fix myself - and later on, to be "enlightened" or "realized". So essentially a life of efforting and fixing. What's slowly emerging, both through seeing and sensing more through the path I'm on, and due to holding these courses for turning on women, through the body, is that nothing needs fixing. If we give up the fight of changing ourselves (and others), not to resign, or give up, but just allowing what is here to be here, there is a tremendous lightness that shows up. Sometimes that is still hard to trust. What happens if I stop moving, and cease solving problems? Won't everything collapse around me then? (I'm an entrepreneur, for Goddess' sake). Who is then going to do the work? And if allow all of my non-prettiness to be seen, won't people be running for the hills then?
The Pleasure of Being Exquisitely Imperfectly You
Is it possible that we can take pleasure in being uniquely ourselves with our warts, wrinkles, and all our perceived imperfections/failings/shortcomings that we try to hide? So not allowing, accepting or even loving ourselves. But taking pleasure in our idiosyncratic uniqueness? Even laughing, with compassion, not at, but with our shortcomings? Which seems like a tall order. But when I'm less identified with whom I should be, whom I would hope to be, or whom I compare myself to others with, there is more space to take myself, and the weight of the world, less seriously. To give myself a loving pinch when I realize that I've collapsed in shame, am lost in comparison, or get depressed. To shake my boobs and laugh when I realize how my body is not behaving in the way I would like it to. Or to just sob when my heart is aching. There is something quite revolutionary, and at least to me, so relaxing, taking pleasure in the way things are, not in the way I would want them to be. It is the reminder that each breath is a gift, for the very short time we are here, and that while there is suffering, there is also so much light and joy. Hafiz asks us: "What love-mischief can we do for the world today?" Or in the words of Rumi: "If you knew yourself for even one moment, if you could just glimpse your most beautiful face, maybe you wouldn’t slumber so deeply in that house of clay. Why not move into your house of joy and shine into every crevice! For you are the secret Treasure-bearer, and always have been. Didn’t you know?"
From having dreamed about world domination, to then fervently wanting to change a.k.a. save something/someone/the planet, today I want to set seductive love-mischief upon the world. Not because it needs it, or, er, I still kind of think it needs it, haha, but mostly because it delights me.
What would it be like for you if you were able to take pleasure in being you, exactly as you are right now?
This leads me to the upcoming course in Awakening Feminine Leadership that starts February 19 - and the two events leading up to it this week - that I want to invite you to, or heck, I would like to seduce you to:)!
1. Juicy Webinar this Wednesday - If you still are on the fence of whether to join the course, then come and be seduced, tomorrow Wednesday, in a webinar and please let all your English-speaking friends know! Let's turn on together, learn more why pleasure, sacredness, seduction and pussy-power are such a powerful tool for self-leadership and home-coming. It's held in the evening Swedish time, which is morning for my US West Coast friends. It will be recorded. You can read more here.
2. Pussy Power at Yoga Games this Weekend, I will be teaching two events at Yogagames in Stockholm. Join me!!! Read more here and you can use my discount code, which is Lovisa, if you haven't signed up yet. It will give you a 15% discount. I can't wait to see you there!
With truth and a lot of juice,
Love,
Lovisa
A Year Of Truth, Heart & Seduction
A most glorious 2020 to you! And a heartfelt welcome to all new subscribers!
Last January, I wrote a blog post called A Year of Yes, which can be related to acceptance-based mindfulness, or ACT. Which is still so relevant. Yet this year I want more as the juicy feminine is sashaying herself into my life in a more stable form. That's why I'm inviting seduction as this year's theme. I want to seduce you. I want to seduce life. But most of all I want to seduce myself, be seduced by life and by a whole field of turned-on women.
What is seduction? Since seduction has a bad rap, and sometimes deservedly so, I want to clarify what I mean, and how I define seduction. If we seduce others with an agenda, i.e. I want that man/contract/deal and I strategize my feminine sexual vibe to get it, then that is the dark side of seduction, and it's used for manipulation. The seduction I refer to comes from an essential place and is related to the heart and a deeper felt truth. This form of seduction has innocence built into it, together with a big heap of playfulness; that precious twinkle in the eye, which is sexual energy connected to the heart without an agenda.
If I express what I want with innocence and that twinkle, and I'm also connected to my heart and my truth, then it's an invitation to play. It doesn't matter what the other person does. I'm showing up, and shaking my booty, metaphorically, while throwing you a glance over the shoulder, excited over the fact that we get to meet. Which is the name of the game in the cosmic play of life, Lila, as it is called in Sanskrit. It's a beckoning, an invitation to life, to join the party, to take that step, to come into being. But it's never demanding, reactive if it gets rejected, or having an attachment to the outcome. In the courses I hold, it is my intention to show up from that place. To be as truthful and heart-oriented as I can, while I also flirt with you so you can flirt yourself into a larger sense of being. Which, btw, is contagious, so when you are in contact with this essential place, I get invited by you right back, and that is in turn impacting the entire field. Which then impacts others again. There is a reason why I love teaching this:).
How does this land with you? Have you experienced both kinds of seduction aimed at yourself? How did each feel? Have you "used" seduction in a way to get something? And have you had the pleasure of being filled up on the inside with this irresistible flirt with the Universe?
During the spring, I will come back to this theme of seduction and flirtation, mostly because I'm in a discovery process of how to go deeper in this field myself. And to my knowledge, there is no instruction booklet of how to do this with being and through the heart, so I hope that we together can explore how this works. If you have any thoughts or comments, please reach out.
With truth, heart and eros, Love, Lovisa
The Call - Why Awakening Feminine Leadership - Pleasure, Power & Presence - is the next step for moving into the new organizational paradigm on a large scale
This article is co-authored with Fanny Norlin.
We would like to start out by saying that explaining our version of feminine leadership - pleasure, power and presence, and why it’s so important in the new organizational paradigm - can’t really be done. It has to be a felt experience in the body and through the senses. Yet, we will still give it our best shot, using e.g. theories from complexity thinking, metamodern/integral philosophy and vertical development to explain why, while giving a more practical explanation of the what, again as an approximation of the felt experience. Ultimately, though, if we manage to make you curious, and perhaps even a bit turned-on, we would see this article as a successful endeavor:).
You see, our version of feminine leadership starts with a turn-on. More specifically. A call from the feminine desire inviting the masculine manifestation to respond. A case of life’s mating dance, you might summarize it with. Which we contend is what is needed for the emerging paradigm. But let’s start at the beginning...
Call and Response
Our existence is based on two polarities; call and response. The call is the signal for life, something that wants to come into being, may that be through the Big Bang, a desire turning inertia into a cataclysmic creative process of an entire Universe, the seed of a desert flower that is given a few drops of rain and then sprouts into exquisite colorful vibrancy, or through a human egg that signals to a particular sperm cell that it wants to be fertilized, which then switches on the baby-making process. So there is a signal, a call, the feminine, which then pulls, or seduces, the response, the masculine, into change. Into being.
In the recent paradigm, companies were created when someone identified a need, a problem to be solved, with the potential for a market niche, and then responded to that need. A call was initially needed to identify the market need, but once that was done, to succeed in penetrating the market, success came down to execution and grit. Today, as we enter the network economy, that equation is shifting. As internet interconnects the world globally, the dynamics are shifting away from one-way communication and from large corporations pushing products to their customers - to interconnected networks where everyone can communicate and collaborate with each other. The winners in the emerging game become those who manage to build a business model that enables this enormous new resource of interaction and collaboration between employees, partners and customers. In other words; the ones who create the platforms and networks on which customers are pulled into becoming co-creative partners. In the networked society and the information-overloaded attention economy, creating a push-business out of perceived need will be impossible. If you can’t create a strong, or even seductive, pull, no customers will line up.
With the new ruling currency of engagement and attention determining your bottom line, success becomes dependent on a strong feminine leadership; a bona-fide belly-dance aimed at making you weak in your toes and loins, igniting the life force, that will make your customers, employees and partners turned-on missionaries.
If you now are thinking; “Hell yes, sister! Tell me more about what this feminine leadership is”, you can skip the coming paragraphs and jump straight to The next level feminine leadership is juicy, empowered and inner directed.
Or, come along on a deeper dive into understanding how the dynamics between feminine and masculine leadership work in relation to this call and respond.
The pattern of emergence - from biology to leadership and organizations
Using complexity thinking we can describe the call and the response phenomenon as emergence, or self-organization. When a system is successful in reproducing itself, it gives birth to more and more belonging units, becoming increasingly complex. Eventually it may run into a state of high energy chaos, from which a pattern on a higher level may become visible; out of ‘nothing’ (no structure) becomes ‘something’ (a new structure). A new more complex stable system, at a higher level of the systematic hierarchy has emerged.
The development of all organisms follows this process - whether we are looking at a single organism or entire civilisations. When it comes to the global shift from one stage of societal and organizational complexity to the next, it is therefore this process of emergence we need to understand and make sure that our leadership and organisations support. To achieve this understanding we will look at how this pattern shows up in developmental models ranging from motivational psychology, adult and organizational development to syntheology.
If we look at self-determination theory, a motivational psychology framework, it explains the drivers of human development as autonomy, relatedness and competence. These three drivers are aligned with what is needed to create emergence. The state of no structure is created by the drive for autonomy; the drive for differentiation from a former structure. The drive for relatedness is what creates a “new structure”, the drive for union into a new structure. Competence represents the “meta-drive” to develop from one structure to another.
In Kegan’s models of Adult Development we also see this drive for oscillation between autonomy and relatedness or differentiation and union; moving from self-focused mind (differentiation) to socialized mind (union) to self-authoring mind (differentiation). The same pendulum can be found in Laloux’s stages of organizational development in his Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Consciousness; from red (differentiation), to amber (union), to orange (differentiation) to green (union).
We see the same drivers and patterns in Riceour’s model on how our subconscious drives behaviour; first a source is required (energy that is created in the drive for differentiation from old structure), then pressure (created by the drive for union into a new structure), then direction of this pressure into an object (in other words into the new structure; the components of manifestation - direction and creation).
In Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age, Bard and Söderqvist, present the four gods we worship that determine human behavior in the following order; atheos; the nothing or the void (differentiation), pantheos: the everything (union), entheos; change (direction) and syntheos; manifestation (creation).
Looking at the overarching pattern we can see that the source of all human drivers (individual and collective) are part of an emergence to a higher level of complexity. And that in this development there seems to be two different dimensions of drivers (with two sub-drivers each): the “fuel” of development - differentiation that is followed by union, and the “process” of development - change/direction and consistency/creation.
Feminine and Masculine leadership
So what roles do feminine and masculine leadership play in this process of development? It is when we add a Tantric perspective (Tantra here representing a philosophy of non-rejection or inclusion of everything, and of an understanding of the need for life-force, i.e. sexual energy) that we start seeing the connection between how emergence works, what is needed for the next paradigm of organizational development and the sexual life-creating play of the feminine call and the masculine response. According to Tantric philosophy, the feminine is the energy, or the source of life force, which then is directed by the masculine into manifestation. Applying this to organizational development and our understanding of emergence, the roles of feminine and masculine leadership become clear. Feminine Leadership creates energy by differentiation from the old structure followed by uniting into a new one and Masculine Leadership serves this process by directing this energy and using it to build new organizational structure. The feminine fuel of differentiation and union is followed by masculine process of direction and manifestation.
Here we want to shine light upon a common misconception, which can be found both within leadership theories and in the more shallow interpretation of Tantra. This misconception is to see the feminine as yin and the masculine as yang - when in reality they are both yin and both yang. They are both order and chaos, both stability and change, both pleasure and truth, both nurturing and powerful. However, they represent different dimensions of the two polarities. The feminine is the essence or energy of yang (differentiation) and yin (union) and the masculine is the manifesting movement between yang (change/direction) and yin (consistency/creation). The feminine is the wave while the masculine is the particle. They are opposite in perception but in reality different dimensions of the same thing. And they both play crucial, co-empowered, roles in developing to higher levels of complexity. Both are needed, and different polarities are needed more in different phases of emergence. Differentiation is followed by union and direction is followed by creation. Development into a higher stage is always initiated from the feminine differentiation of old structures creating the energy, the chaos or the pull required for new ones to be manifested by the masculine.
Which brings us back to the current paradigm shift in society and in business. As with all emergence, each new paradigm, or level of systemic complexity, requires a significant increase in differentiation energy to emerge. Without the next level Feminine Leadership, we will not be able to create the differentiation from the current structure; the chaos, the energy, the pull, the life force that is needed from which a sufficiently complex business fit for the emerging paradigm can be manifested. In short; to create the next level of life on this planet and the next level of masculine response - we first need the next level of feminine call.
Differentiation before union
If you are now thinking ”this isn’t an issue in our organization; we talk about the need for more feminine all the time”. Our question back would be; “Which of the feminine polarities are you inviting and encouraging?” Yes, there is a lot of talk about how we need more of the feminine, but we most commonly refer to the uniting feminine, not the differentiating! The yin of feminine, not the yang. The soft, listening, caring feminine, not the wild, powerful and sexual feminine. Speaking in Jungian archetypes most likely you are inviting the maiden, the innocent girl or the nurturing mother, but what we’re suggesting is that we first need to invite the juicy, sexually alive woman; the wild woman, the witch and the seductress. Archetypes most of us are not entirely comfortable with because we have seen so few conscious examples of such.
Yet, however challenging, in order to reach the next level of complexity, the differentiation phase must come before the union phase. Otherwise we will end up longing and striving for an evolved union without first creating the energy and power that comes from differentiation, which gets us stuck, and often-times burned out, at a lower level of complexity. This attempt to create a more evolved union, but where we avoid and miss out on the differentiation phase, is one of the root causes behind not being able to successfully implement "teal"/self-organizing/metamodern leadership and instead getting stuck in the postmodern “green”. To create a potent enough call for a complex enough response, we need to learn how to create sufficient differentiation before we can bring in a more evolved union.
So, in the emerging network paradigm, the billion dollar question (literally) becomes “what does this differentiating feminine leadership look like and how do we support its emergence”? How does a call look like that can bring this new level of complexity into being? This is where things get really exciting. We have discovered a leadership method and practice that create this differentiation energy in a more potent way than even close to anything we have seen in our combined 20+ years of leadership development work. What we have discovered is that feminine leadership is what will create a potent enough source needed to succeed in the emerging paradigm and that it will come from women who, in a self-aware, present and heart-connected manner, are sexually alive. Intrigued? Let us dive into the sexual core of the matter.
The difference between sex and sexual energy
Our relationship with sex and sexual energy has been repressed for hundreds, if not the last couple of thousand years, throughout the vast majority of the world. There has been a strong correlation to religious practices that aimed to control sexual urges in both genders, and where men, and women, tried to reign in, especially female sexuality, which we still see expressed in different parts of the world today. This repression is due both to the fact that sex and sexual energy are direct portals to what’s most holy and most sacred - and to the enormous power that lies within female sexuality. Hence it is precisely this sacred source that we now need to tap into and use in our leadership and organizations.
So at first we would like to distinguish between sex and sexual energy. Sex can be said to be a collective name for a number of activities humans and all other species engage in to express their sexuality and at its most basic level to be oriented around reproduction. Sex can be done with or without sexual energy present. Without it, sex is mechanistic. With sexual energy, it has a transformative, numinous, and playful quality.
So what is sexual energy? Sexual energy, according to Tantra, Daoism and within the world of yoga, is plain and simple the creative life-force. It can be felt on a subtle level when doing yoga or pursuing something creative, like creating art or making music. More potently, it can be experienced through different Tantric practices, using breath, awareness, movement. Sexual energy can be experienced subtly, or powerfully, as a sensation of strength, capacity/capability, confidence, but also joy, playfulness and a form of happiness.
Another way of describing sexual energy is by calling it Eros, which stems from ancient Greece, where eros was considered a specific form of love. Whichever way we use to describe sexual energy/life force or eros is that it is that it can be felt like an irresistible desire to make love to life itself AND that it comes from an interior sense of self. It is not outside us, it is within us that we experience this incredible feeling of aliveness. When we start activating our senses, when we become more sensual, we can feel the presence of eros, e.g. when we are slowly stroking velvet with the backside of our hand, or smelling a fragrant rose.
For women the most potent way to activate our sexual energy is by getting acquainted with our genitals, in this case specifically our vagina/pussy, or as we call it, our jewel. It is a reclamation, going from shame and disgust, to appreciation and eventually, to a deep felt sense of love. For this article’s purpose, our focus in on sexual energy, and more specifically, how women’s sexual energy is sourced from our vaginas/pussies/jewels. It is from this place that the power of feminine leadership originates.
The next level feminine leadership consists of pleasure, power and presence - the foundation for the call
When we as women lead from a playful, conscious and sacred sexual energy with a heart-connection, it connects us with our inner strength, allowing us to desire, create and call in what we want, which creates movement AND clear delineation and differentiation. We are then able to call, or even seduce, anything and everything into being without effort. If this sounds like it might be too good to be true, we encourage you to try it yourself. We, as two intellectuals who mainly used to live in our heads, keep discovering the surprising power that comes from being turned on. And how it exponentially increases the more women that connect to it. It is like a super-power we never even knew existed.
The power that is liberated through an embodied turn-on creates a powerful hereness - a particular form of mindfulness - in contrast to a leaning-forward motion of performance, of wanting to merge, or save someone/something. When we as women are turned-inward and connected to our life-force, our turn-on, we can stand in our integrity with a deep sense of self - which together creates the call and shows us how our jobs can go from disconnect and meaninglessness to a true meaningful homecoming and a sense of joy and aliveness.
Let’s go deeper - and get more explicit; the three components of Feminine Leadership:
Pleasure - With pleasure, we mean everything that makes life pleasurable, with a focus on our desires, our longings. It is the heart together with pussy power or the jewel force that holds the seat to our sacred life-force, as previously mentioned. It is, after all, in all mythology, the origin of creation itself. More recently, we’ve learned neurologically, that the clitoris has a mini-brain and is the only organ in the body that has 8000 nerve endings exclusively there to experience pleasure.
When we are connected to our pleasure, we become conduits for the call, for allurement and for seduction. Not because we are trying to convince anyone, but because we become irresistible. It is an invitation to an awakening; to more life, to that which creates life. It is the foundation of desire and play. When our pussy power/jewel force is activated, by focusing on what we desire and what turns us on in life, we come from our place of aliveness. It enables us to use our sexual energy as a power source, instead of having to live off the adrenaline and our increasingly taxed adrenal glands. This juiciness is the most fundamental aspect of the call. Without juiciness, which invites the masculine to respond, there is no alchemy. Nothing happens. Yet with it, we can with very little effort, or play, create enormous attraction and action. This is the next level source, needed for the next level emergence.
Power - Our power comes from awakening our wild and holy woman in our bodies and it is a felt interior experience. It involves not only our jewels, but the lower belly as well as the heart, and as we recognize our sacredness, we become strong, without victimhood, aggression or passive-aggression. We become lion-hearted. It is also a clean and clear delineating of assertion of our will and direction-setting and it supports our individuation. We can then easily handle push-back, since there is an underlying wildness that is not easily intimidated, nor reactive. This is the powerful and playful feminine who holds her ground, stands in her truth, and has fun while doing it. This creates the active, differentiating aspect of the call. It gives the needed oomph.
Presence - The third element of feminine leadership is an inner-directed, felt intelligent presence, like golden honey. The mindful feminine leader who is “one unto herself’, the Jungian definition of virgin. It is the movement from the outside and the externals, where we strive to be a good girl, to the inside, to the self-reflective, self-aware interior experience, connected with a deeper felt truth and a connection to our holiness. It is also our inner journey home; a place of deep surrender and non-doing, which allows for an efficient, yet effortless doing. This is the third vital piece of the call because we are then no longer looking to to get things from the outside. There is a self-sufficiency present. Which is what makes the call so seductive.
In order to create the engine of the call that takes us to the next level, it is the three afore-mentioned components of Feminine Leadership that collectively create the power of transformation. A transformation which we keep seeing within and around the women who experience this power- to the extent that it sometimes feels like magic.
If you feel seduced enough now, and want more, skip down to the section below where we invite you to join us - or do it yourself! We can’t wait to be turned-on with you. However, if you feel that there must be some shadow-side to all of this goodness, or at least that it’s bound to create complications, then here are two caveats:
Two Caveats
The first caveat that usually is brought up when we talk about pleasure and the pursuit of desires is that mindlessly pursuing pleasure turn us all into superficial addicts, constantly looking for our next high. When sexual energy is added to the mix, that’s when it’s also considered dangerous, with the fear that we become either prey or predators - where heartless and reckless instincts end up ruling our existence. Which is probably one of the reasons why companies, especially in the wake of MeToo, are trying to sanitize away every speck of sexual energy in workplaces today. Yet, we claim that we can’t afford to turn off this incredible power-source, especially if we want to evolve into the next paradigm. So how do we do this then? Well. For starters. Just so we are very explicit. We are not advocating sex at work, nor any sexual advances from anyone. We are advocating the reclamation of sexual energy as sacred. What we are advocating is that we as self-aware, heart-connected and turned-on women use our life-force, the sexual energy, consciously to activate the call through our desires and our self-seduction so that we can come home to our own bodies. Which in turns enables us to show up at work in a more soulful and holistic way, bringing more life into the work-place. We also believe that this can only be done when it is us women who set the terms of bringing sexual energy into the workplace; women who stand in their feminine leadership. Finally, we are also advocating that organizations who would like to attempt this, also utilize deep self-reflection as a tool for bringing in presence and for increasingly making unconscious drivers, behaviors and actions through the organization conscious. It is then, and only then, we can make the call consciously.
Moving on to the second caveat, we want to address our definition of gender and biological sex, as used in this article, and why this often is considered problematic. According to our definition, both women and men have both the feminine and the masculine within - and furthermore, as we have delineated in the article, we also have the two sub-poles of the feminine and the masculine within us. Thus we acknowledge the definition of gender as a social construct.
At the same time, we also acknowledge that we are biologically different; a difference driven primarily by genitals and hormones, and that it does wire us differently (on an aggregate level, not necessarily on an individual level where the individual differences are multifold). Which is important. We want to honor our jewels/pussies/vaginas and not put her back in the bag where she was locked up and shamed for the last couple of thousand years. We also love the polarities that rise between women and men biologically. Whatever our sexual preferences are. So this caveat can be summarized by saying; yes, it is complicated AND the way forward is to bring in the integral and meta-modern perspective of being able to hold both the social construct and the biological differences to be true at the same time.
Overall we understand that our approach to organizational development and personal growth as a whole might sound bonkers, dangerous, or that it is triggering. Even five years ago, both of us would have been suspicious of anyone presenting such a weird case:). One of the main reasons is that this is new (and oldest of old, and the reason why even the universe exists), and very few of us have experienced meeting a woman who can stand in these powers - in presence and integrity. This is the reason why we want more women to join us. We want to strengthen the field of collective and sacred feminine turn-on! Which is how we all, the collective human species, can embark on this undulating, playful and truly transformative ride together.
From words to experience
We started out with the disclaimer that we can’t describe in words what you have to experience for yourself. Yet, we still have made an attempt to describe why the next emerging paradigm needs to be called in by feminine leadership that is juicy, empowered and inner-directed. But not until you actually have experienced it not only by meeting turned-on women, but also seen the principles applied to your business, will you know what we are so excited about.
That is why we are inviting you to join us in an experience-based exploration. How can we seduce ourselves and others into our own higher state of pleasurable, connected and sacred state of being? Trust your jewel to guide you, and if you want support from us and/or do it together, here are some coming opportunities to explore and be seduced by:
Experiential events
To enable women to get a felt sense of what we are talking about we are hosting two turned on webinars on the 15th (sign up) and the 5th of February 2020 (sign up). We will also host a live event in Stockholm on the 31st of January (sign up). And just added. You can also join us in Berlin on January 17, 2020.
Online Initiation Course
Once a year Lovisa Alsén leads the participatory and juicy online course in Awakening Feminine Leadership, which is the foundational work for this deep level of turned-on awakening, marinating you in the juiciness and empowerment that comes from within AND together with other women on the same journey. The next course starts Wednesday, February 19, 2020. You can read more here and here is the application.
Apart from courses and events, we are exploring how to awaken Feminine Leadership in the business world together with companies and universities. If you feel that your context is ready to explore the next level call and want support, reach out and we’ll do our best to make room for additional partners in play during next year.
A summary, how it all started and an invitation
Thank you for joining us on this explorative ride traversing complexity, pussy power/the jewel force and the call! We love to share what we have discovered - and keep discovering.
To sum up our discoveries so far, what we are realizing more and more is how paramount this version of feminine leadership is in order to create the energy, creativity, integrity and the level of call/pull needed to meet the ever-increasing speed, force of change and complexity that comes with the network economy. Which in turn is what will enable us to attract customers, employees and partners. Simply summarized; the juicy, empowered and inner-directed feminine leadership when met by the next level of masculine response and manifestation (which deserves an article of its own) is what will be the key to success in the emerging society.
When Lovisa created the course in Awakening Feminine Leadership in 2016, it was not with the intention of what we currently see unfolding. The main reason was that Lovisa loved bringing together the different insights she had had in the past 15 years teaching leadership and human development, primarily for women - but now from a different place; a place that felt holy and juicy at the same time - in particular for Lovisa herself. She had had a deep spiritual and sexual awakening through a heart-opening relationship with a man, and it was from this burst of power the course Awakening Feminine Leadership was called forth. And to no surprise, the call came from another woman who had taken previous courses with Lovisa, whom asked Lovisa to create a new program that would explore these topics. After a transformative start with seven women in business, academia, and the entrepreneurial world, Lovisa continued to hold these courses, feeling both the turn-on and the holiness, which in turn kept attracting more women. The call kept widening. When Fanny Norlin took the course in 2017, she felt the effects, initially in herself, but then also profoundly in her leadership and her organization. Which made her realize that this aspect was the missing link, and she could see the power of building a field for other women around feminine leadership and bringing it into the business world. Since both Lovisa and Fanny are systems-thinkers, with a deep interest in integral/meta-modern thinking, and with Fanny having worked for seven years with implementing self-organizing governance in organizations, the insights presented in this article are an attempt to understand what actually is unfolding. Thus we are trying to back-track how these visceral changes in women can be understood and applied on a meta-cognitive level.
Knowing what we know today, it’s almost incomprehensible that the power of the feminine call is not more well-known, and that not more attempts have been made to harness the sexually alive, present and heart-connected power in women. We feel like we are on a life-long scrumptious, yet at times also lonely and challenging journey, which is why we are inviting more women, and men, to join us. So if you feel called, we’d love to hear from you - together we can build the fountational nodes of a truly inspiring network society.
“When a sincere woman begins to dance,
the seven heavens, the earth, and all of creatures begin to dance”
Rumi
In eros, love and truth,
Lovisa Alsén and Fanny Norlin
About us:
Lovisa Alsén
I’m the founder of the concept of Awakening Feminine Leadership - Pleasure, Power and Presence, and I’ve worked with transformative leadership development focused on women for 15 years, primarily in San Francisco and Los Angeles. I have a MSc in International Economics, and have held a number of leadership roles and created companies and organization. During the past 20 years I have explored integral thinking and has co-authored a book about complexity and the emerging flow society. I’m also a Tantrica, yoga- and mindfulness teacher and I use and teach inquiry to facilitate a deeper level of inner truth and heart connection.
Fanny Norlin
I’m the Chief Communications Officer at a global tech-company, where I practice feminine leadership in the management team, especially related to strategy development. I have a background in management consulting, where I’ve specialized in agile strategy and governance as well as culture transformation. I have a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and Management and I wrote my masters thesis on facilitating consciousness development.
You can read more about what we do here and contact us here.
Love and Gratitude
feel like I'm coming down with a cold, but I wanted to send a note on love and gratitude + a tip on Thanksgiving day, my favorite US Holiday.
As I keep delving deeper into the Tantric world of desire, pleasure and truth, having the privilege to collaborate with and support so many extraordinary women, who in turn support me even more, I keep feeling the expansion of my heart. It is also my heart that keeps flirting with me, encouraging me to open up more, be more vulnerable, and it is my heart in cohort with my jewel that are verifiable mischief-makers:). After years of self-rejection and disassociated alienation, it feels strange to feel such a strong sense of love and belonging. I have a profound gratitude to everyone in my life and to all of you, dear readers.
I wanted to share a modified tip for inviting more self-love and embodied connection into your life, courtesy of Tara Brach, a psychologist and meditation teacher. The tip is to start every morning, just as you get out of bed and put your feet on the floor, with a hand on your heart and your jewel (or your "package" if you are a man reading this) - and say "Hi", your first name, "I love you." And if this sounds undoable, say "Hi", your first name and then "I'm here". (The modification being that Tara only mentions the heart:)). This simple act is a lot more than an affirmation because it helps you rewire your neural network, and it supports the shift from your head into your body, connecting two embodied power centers. Try it for 30 days and see what happens. And if you do take it on, I would love to hear if and how it affects you.
With so much love and gratitude!
Love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
Pleasure & Saving the World
I'm feeling so deeply grateful, touched and turned on after the live reunion for the intro-course Awakening Feminine Leadership in Stockholm last night. I'm amazed to feel the presence, the truth, and the turn-on together with other women. And how that also leads to heart openings and a reminder of the preciousness to be alive in this body, at this time, just right here - separately and together, which feels like grace.
Today, I'm also announcing the launch for the course for men, Recognizing Masculine Leadership. It will start November 21 here in Stockholm, and while it's close in time, it feels right and several men are already interested. Here'smore info in Swedish. Please forward the event info to men you think could benefit from partaking. It's about self leadership through inquiry, embodiment, sexual energy and exploring masculinity in a conscious way.
Pleasure & Saving the World
Sometimes I get comments and questions about putting pleasure first. It often sounds something like this: "Isn't that selfish, childish, or just plainly irresponsible?" Or "How can you focus on pleasure when the world is on fire?" And "Isn't that just a way to avoid the reality, putting the id-principle first, instead of pulling your individual and collective weight?"
The shift towards pleasure has been a long process for me, having wanting to change/save the world most of my life. And I've felt the urgency almost like a physical weight in the belly and heart; an urgency that also gave me a sense of power; I was a fighter. Yet the more I've embraced the feminine, the jewel, the heart and presence, being here in my body, not leaning forward, the more I've blossomed. Sometimes I feel like a different person. So many women come to my courses being close to burn-out, or having been there for some time, and yearn for something different. They want to enjoy life, not only endure it. Or even more, they want to be vibrant, shimmering with joy, maybe even ecstatic, to enjoy the preciousness of life in this body, with this body, through the body, for the brief time we are here on this earth in this form. And not carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Going from being a burned-out idealist to becoming a turned-on pragmatic
I call this 'going from 'being a burned-out idealist to becoming a turned-on pragmatic'. It doesn't mean that we can't be a part of change, or even be turned-on by it, but that the energy isn't coming from fear nor anxiety. Jack Kornfield, a psychologist and mindfulness teacher, said at Wisdom 2.0 in 2015 - an event filled with conscious change-makers, which I called myself as well at that time -: "Don't try to save the environment because it needs saving. Save it because you love it." His words deeply impacted me, and together with having been a student in the Diamond Approach for seven years, where the process is steadily going inwards, staying in the experiential truth of the body, instead of leaning forward, I realized that so many of my actions had been fueled by fear, anger, or that prickly area in my chest that feels like anxiety.
In the World of Lovers
In an episode on OnBeing, a podcast by Krista Tippett, called "Tending Joy and Practicing Delight". Krista talks with author Ross Gay on the importance of being joyful no matter what. She says: “How can we be joyful in a moment like this?” To which writer Ross Gay responds: “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this? I'm with Ross. Increasingly I believe that being turned-on, and sparkly, especially in a world filled with fear, is one of the most revolutionary AND healing acts that we can partake in. We become lovers instead of warriors, bona-fide seductresses inviting the world into more presence, more playful juiciness, where we all get to tango with Eros. It is also, from what I've experienced and witnessed, one of the most transformative forces there is. Hafiz says: “In the house of lovers, the music never stops, the walls are made of songs & the floor dances”. That is the house I want to live in, and maybe, just maybe, that is the way we also save the world, without even trying to?
Curious to hear how this lands with you!
In eros, love and truth,
Lovisa
The Power of Erotic Friction
I'm slowly coming down from an all-time high from last week, both with the ending of the initiation course and the physical event for the advanced group participants, where men were present, which was very powerful. Hence today's theme.
The Power of Erotic Friction
Erotic friction is one of the most transformative, and fun, ways of relating we as adults can engage in. Erotic friction, sometimes referred to as polarity, increases the charge of everything and it helps us become more embodied and more alive. We don't even have to be attracted to a person to be able to relate to them through erotic friction; we can experience it virtually with everyone, if we see it as a practice. In fact, it's so deeply ingrained that it remains with us until we die. One of my teachers, shared how her mother, a Southern Belle, who in her 90's with an advanced dementia, still came alive when she met my teacher's husband and started flirting with him. Esther Perel, whom I've mentioned before, a couple's therapist in New York, most known for her book, Mating in Captivity, keeps reiterating the importance for long-term couples to increase erotic friction between them in order to save the relationship.
Last Wednesday, for the first time, I organized a live workshop where the women who take my advanced course were able to meet men who held space so that the women could dance their innocence, their seductiveness, their sacred slut and express their wild Kali-side. The men stood in a ring and held space for the women, no touching allowed. Women could touch the upper bodies of the men, if the men consented. Everyone was wearing clothes. The healing that took place when all of us could show up in our sexuality from a conscious place, being met with consciousness, without acting on it, was extraordinary. Many of the participants were married or coupled, and even for the singles it was not that type of event. It was just an invitation to feel your own strength, and to recognize the power that can unfold, if we unleash erotic friction consciously. I was deeply touched by the sharing at the end; how both the women and the men were longing for this, just like I do, on a daily basis. What if we could harness this incredible power, instead of suppressing it?
Marc Gafni, a philosopher, and one of the world's foremost experts on Eros, writes in his book A Return to Eros: “When Eros is not realized, pseudo-Eros always comes in its place...He continues...Eros is the strongest force there is. It can either transform and uplift or degrade and destroy. Not only do we need eros in general, it is after all the basis for our creativity at large, we also need to recognize the force of erotic friction and learn how to use it consciously. Increasingly I believe erotic friction might even be a pre-requisite for vertical development and human evolution. However, it can only happen if the holding is safe, if there is presence and consciousness in the field and in the participants, AND, most importantly, if women are in control of the interaction - it does not work the other way around.
Maybe the 1960's hippies were onto something, chanting "make love not war" as a recipe for societal growth? Yet at this stage we don't even need to make love, we can just feel the energy of it in our relationships, and use it consciously as a channel for transformation.
How much erotic friction do you have in your life? Would you like more, and if so, how would you go about that that? And how much intensity can you handle before you shut it down?
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
Call and Response - Feminine and Masculine
Tonight was the ending of this fall's course and I don't know how it's possible, but it gets juicier and holier each time. In awe, and filled with deep gratitude for turned on women and the field that is co-created and that keeps on building.
Call and Response - Feminine and Masculine
Earlier today I had a meeting with a guy who's passionate about saving the planet, and he has an interesting plan for how to make it happen. What was missing, according to him and the indigenous elders that support him, is feminine leadership. Hence his suggestion for a meet-up. Six-seven years ago, I would have jumped on-board in a heart-beat, rolled up my sleeves, being committed to making a positive difference.
Today, I no longer feel called to such an idea. It doesn't turn me on, which is what I told him, and also it's not how the turned-on feminine works. The turned-on feminine is built on attraction and seduction, leaning back instead of leaning forward or in, allowing rather than "making" things happen. So yes, if enough women were turned on by that idea, not doing it because it's good for the planet, but because it lights up their eyes - and their jewels - then turned-on women would galvanize the concept and bring the needed life-force. An even better solution would be for women to do something themselves that turn them on - and then inviting the men and the masculine from which the co-creation, led by the feminine, begins. Because this is the thing; the feminine is the call and the masculine is the response.
The Power of Turned-On Women
In nature this is obvious. It's the female that indicates that she's ready to mate - and the male that tries to make her choose him, e.g. through a nice set of shiny feathers or an extra oomph in the strength department - yet it is she that makes the choice, she makes the call - to which he responds. What we've forgotten that this is how black holes are made (life force has a desire and teams up with empty vastness) and how it works in human relationships. And just to clarify speaking about humans. Both women and men have the feminine and the masculine within, yet women usually carry more of the feminine and men usually more of the masculine - and that it is women* that are able to turn on, especially in a group of other women.
Juicy Co-Creative Play?
So is it even possible for something created by a guy to be a vehicle for turn-on in women, where she becomes the call to which he responds? I don't know. He is curious and wants to explore. And I believe many of us are exploring this today. How do we do this? If we believe that turned-on women is a presence and a force that the world longs for, and that she is the one that calls something into being through her turn-on, how does that relate to masculine structures and the males initiating them? How do we find ways to co-create juicy play?
Would love to hear your thoughts, ideas and reflections. I feel like this is a truly exciting conversation that just is starting...
In eros, love and truth,
Lovisa
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*Since turn-on is related to the jewel, or the pussy, men can't turn-on in the same way. Having that said, I'm sure there are some men who identify as women who can connect in a similar way, even though they don't have the biological connection.
Pleasure & Migraines
So filled with the love I have for the women who take my courses, and the space we co-create. It is such a privilege to explore what's true, what's joyful and what's difficult. All of it. And to be this close to life.
Pleasure & Migraines
This past weekend I ended up with a migraine, maybe as a response to the last few weeks of intensity and highs. My brain was filled with cotton and needles, my vision was impaired, I felt nauseous and the pills weren't working. For the first time in my life, though, I tried sitting with it. To accept that the migraine had to take its course, and that there was nothing I could do to remove it. So I surrendered, put on soulful and spiritual music, lit many candles, took a bath, canceled all plans for the next day and stopped trying to get rid of the migraine. I didn't experience pleasure, but what was present was a delicate and somewhat sensual acceptance.
The Pleasure Beneath
When learning about the "turned-on feminine" or "juicy feminine leadership", many of us use our performance-driven thinking to turn pleasure into another thing to check off on our to-do-list. And when we aren't turned on, we believe we made a mistake or failed the class. But the Tantric path, which is also the basis of the Diamond Approach of which I am a student, teaches that to be present to whatever is through and with our bodies and our sensual selves, is a form of pleasure itself. It is the rejection of what we are experiencing that creates the biggest pain. So with a deeper acceptance and surrender, we open ourselves up to a more expanded form of pleasure. Leonard Cohen wrote in his song "Come Healing" that 'the heart beneath is teaching to the broken heart above'. Maybe there is a pleasure beneath our pain that teaches us about true pleasure?
How does this land with you and your experiences of pleasure and suffering? Have you followed your pleasure AND your pain to its roots - and if yes, what happened? Would love to hear your reflections.
In eros, love and truth,
Lovisa
Why Feminine Leadership Needs Power
Last week was crazy fun. Thursday I went down to Malmö, in the south of Sweden, for a pre-book dinner with a group of amazing international women. At the end we talked about the importance of eros in the housing industry, as well as a global turn-on for women. I then stayed with another friend for the weekend and we both got our photos taken by a Danish woman photographer who supports women to show up for themselves through boudoir-photos. My photos were mostly for branding, but a few naked shots in the sand dunes, at almost zero degrees, were added as well. Exhilarating, profound, scary and bone-chillingly cold - and so worth it:)!
Why Feminine Leadership Needs Power
Without the power of sexual energy, turn-on and being around other turned-on women, I wouldn't have dared to take that leap. I would have chosen to stay hidden.
Feminine leadership is often believed to be soft, motherly, nurturing. All of which are wonderful and an important part of just that, but without the unleashing of our juicy power, where we are connected to our bodies and our sexual energy, we don't have enough strength to individuate. To separate from our competing needs of being liked and approved of. Mark Nepo writes in his excellent book of Awakening about what happens in Dante's Divine Comedy, where 'the only difference between the lovers who find themselves enduring Hell and the lovers working their way through Paradise is that those in Hell have no individual center, and so they spin in endless identification with each other.' Being soft and loving are aspects of the feminine, but there is tendency is to move towards merging and co-dependency, as well as wanting to save something/someone. Or change something/someone. The more we are in our individual center, being inner-directed, and have the juicy embodied power, we can offer our biggest gift to the world; our true selves. And from there our action stems from a deeper place of non-efforting, where desire and longing from the core of our hearts and jewels seduce and magnetize whatever is ready to be created into existence. Not through force, but through feminine power. When applied at an organizational and societal level, we create a vehicle of profound transformation.
What is your relationship to power, the feminine and your individual center?
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
What Do Women Want?
I love my job - and I love all the women who take my courses - and the group field that is created. Each course-week I remember why I'm so passionate about turning women on, and being true together, even if that truth is the opposite of turn-on. It feels like we are building a field that helps us all expand, and that it ultimately bring us home.
What do women want?
One thing that keeps coming up, not only in the courses, but so often in myself, is the importance of understanding what we want. Not only when writing desire lists, in a negotiation, a conflict, or even when just being asked a simple question. It came up Monday night with my inquiry partner where I had shut down and she asked me what I wanted/needed, which helped me come online again.
Freud asked what do women want in the early 1900s, and the question is still relevant. (We can be crystal clear in many areas in life, but where it gets sensitive or emotional, and often in interaction with others, many of us self-forget). Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a Jungian psychologist, had a recording a while back where she taught men how to be a great lover of and with women, and the advice she gave to men was that men should always ask a woman what she wants twice. For example if he asked her: "What movie do you want to see?". She would often respond with "Oh, pick something good, it doesn't matter to me." But that he then should ask her again. "What do you really want to see". Only then would she be able to truly check in with herself and sense what she really wanted. That when answering the first question she was still outer-directed, more attuned to his needs, and not in touch with herself, and it was only by being prompted a second time, she could feel herself and her desires on the inside.
What is even more important than encouraging men to ask women twice, is teaching ourselves the same procedure. So whenever we notice something is off, we can come home to ourselves by asking that question. "What do I want right now?" Which sometimes can be replaced with "What do I need right now", or "What does my heart want/need now?" Or "what does my jewel want/need right now". So a form of self-inquiry where we keep coming home to ourselves.
What is your experience in knowing what you want? Do you always know? Or if not, when and with who(m) do you forget?
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
Our Need For Deep Mirroring
During this second week of the course, and the ongoing continuation course, both of which make me happy and very grateful, I keep reflecting on relationships and what it means to be mirrored and seen.
Our Need for Deep Mirroring
Some people go to India to find their guru. Someone who can see the light in them and then wake them up to their own inner light. I tried that, but found mostly fakes, except for a wise Siddhi doctor who did see me as I was violently ill. With a compassionate smile he told me to get out of India since I was done with India and India was done with me.
Instead, which I knew already as a child, I would need to move to the US in order to be mirrored at the depth I was hungry for. Which turned out to be right. It was only after being mirrored by different teachers and later on friends and lovers, that I could be open for direction. Only then was it safe to soften and surrender - and to expand. When I joined the Diamond Approach, a Tantric path, I felt a new level of mirroring, both because I resonated with the ground-level unpretentiousness and realness of the students and the teachers, but also because I kept being asked to reflect on what was true for me, while also sensing the underlying presence of the teachings. I believe the biggest sadness of leaving the US came from the belief that the mirroring would end. Thankfully, technology keeps us connected, but even more relevant that because I had been sufficiently mirrored, I could find new mirrors, and be a better mirror myself.
In the end, I think love is mirroring. And I'm not only talking about romantic love or even human love. But that universe begets itself through mirroring (and orgasms). It is how we come into being and belonging. Without the necessary deep mirroring, which often has little to do with secure attachment (we can be securely attached and still not be seen from the depth of our souls), we never get to be fully realized. But when we do get mirrored, holy molasses, that's when the desert-flower comes into bloom and paints the world.
Holding these courses for women, where I can combine my deep love for play and juiciness with truth and soul and hold up that mirror, while being mirrored right back, becomes a co-creative immersion into realization - and play. Which maybe, at the end, is the very same thing?
How have you been mirrored in your life? What mattered most, and who came to see you at your depth? And in which areas are you still longing for mirroring?
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
A Striptease from the Heart
Tonight the course kicked off, the biggest group so far, and it is was such a lovely, connected and juicy start. Feeling groovy and grateful.
A Striptease From The Heart
The deeper I delve into the feminine as a state or as a presence rather than a concept, the more I believe it by definition is turned-on. It is the creative life-force that wants to nudge you to come alive. Yes, it can be soft, motherly and nurturing as well as ferocious, wild and chaotic, but that it at a higher level just wants to seduce you. And that women have a neural connection between the heart and the jewel, as well as an emotional, energetic and existential one*, which supports this turn-on. In this past week, I've started having somewhat embarrassing experiences of my heart doing a striptease for me in my partner-based inquiries. "What are you doing", I keep hissing at my heart, while secretly loving it. "This is highly inappropriate". Haha. And if this sounds totally weird and bonkers, welcome to my world of deep embodiment. You never know what or whom will show up. Kabir says something similar, more poetic, albeit a bit less sexy:): "Lift the veil that obscures the heart and there you will find what you are looking for - or more playful - "dance my heart, dance today with joy."
This doesn't mean that there isn't pain or suffering, individually or collectively, perhaps even a pending global disaster. But that we are invited to hold who we take ourselves to be more lightly and see the turn-on operating at an existential level. That to be alive is to partake in the great cosmic orgasm.
What is your relationship with your heart today? And what inspires you to come more alive?
*I believe there is a connection for men with their hearts and genitals too, but that it works differently. As I learn more, I will report back to you:).
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
Hot & Holy
My heart has continued to melt this week. Sometimes it makes me feel skinless, and other times, it makes me feel like super-woman. We also had our monthly session for the women who take the continuation course, this time going deeper with the good girl detox, which is about how to recognize and work with the soul-eating qualities of shame, guilt and perfection. What has kept coming up is how liberating it is to talk about our shortcomings, real and perceived ones, in a deep way. I believe that if we could have truth-telling sessions built in into our daily lives, where our sharing would be witnessed without judgement, the world would look very different.
When we apply this type of truth-telling to our sexuality, and our jewels, we reclaim our holiness and our joy of being close to our bodies, being IN our bodies. We connect with what is innocent within us. And with innocent, I don't mean naive, but more like the zen perspective of beginner's mind. When we feel our own holiness - we cannot avoid being turned-on. It gets hot! And when we allow ourselves to see and recognize this preciousness in others, it's like a big ol' love-fest:)!
I believe that is the power of the course Awakening Feminine Leadership, and why I love to hold them. They feel hot AND holy.
The course that starts next Tuesday is going to be record-breaking big and there are only two spots left. If hot and holy appeals to you, you can read more about the course and sign up here.
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
Softening
Last week was intense and lovely. Fanny and I I organized an AW-event at the co-working space Ekskäret Klustret in Stockholm to turn on women, which was wonderful. I felt such joy and presence - and it was so powerful to support one another in that field of play and deep connection.
Tonight I had a beautiful Tantra meeting, preceded by inquiry* followed by another inquiry with my partner in Seattle, and I feel like I want to kiss the ground for true and deep relationships - which also happen to be a source of a major turn-on for me.
Each time I dare to express something that feels deeply vulnerable, difficult or shameful, with an open heart (sometimes the heart is stone-cold at the start, and then I share that), the world turns and I can breathe more easily. My shoulders relax. My jaw doesn't clench as much, and my headaches lessen. Sometimes it gets mirrored back to me. Sometimes not. But each time I soften. It is a path of surrender. Or a path of vulnerability as Brené Brown puts it.
If you want to explore how you can soften, live more from a place of pleasure, pussy-power and turn-on - and know your depth, please join me in the upcoming course of Awakening Feminine Leadership - Initiation - starting September 17. It will be one of the final courses that I offer in Swedish.
How do you soften?
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
*Inquiry is a full-bodied experiential process and tool of exploring what is here, to help us discover our own felt sense of truth. In the coming weeks, I'll come back to this process and explain more.
How to live an erotic life
This week has been intense, and powerful. It felt so good to start sharing these emails with you, without the inner conflict. I also showed up for myself in a deep-seated drama this weekend, and the headaches that came back after I returned to Sweden, are subsiding. I feel ready to play, and to seduce the world:). I chose today's theme in order to portray why I'm so passionate about teaching what I do. The erotic is not ONLY something 'fun'; at its core it is about survival and meaning-making.
In a recent podcast, the couples-therapist Esther Perel, spoke about the erotic as an antidote to death - which gets very clear when faced with trauma. Speaking of the holocaust, she said: "There were people who did not die and there were the people who came back to life". And she also said: "It is about how people connect to this quality of aliveness, of vibrancy, of vitality, of renewal. And that is way beyond the description of sexuality. It is mystical." Audre Lorde, an activist and poet, wrote this: "For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing."
I see this in all the women I work with; the hunger and thirst for becoming alive. To be juicy. To live from a state of playfulness and turn-on. And to lead from that place. Because only when we are fully bodied are we truly powerful. Or as Tantric teacher Isadora Psalm said. "You cannot be a powerful woman if you are afraid of your pussy." And I believe it's similar for men. Today most of us are living in our heads, far removed from what makes us come alive, which creates a huge amount of stress, and it disconnects us from our instinctual life-force and our deeper felt truth.
Here are three things I do daily to help me stay connected to the erotic:
1) I connect with my body through yoga, through dancing naked in the mornings, and by keeping the line to my heart - and jewel - open.
2) I inquire* daily on on my own, and several times a week with others - to be able to reflect on what's happening, especially on issues that come up, caused by myself or in relationship with others. I also do a daily sitting practice and keep a reflections-based journal for the same purpose.
3) I move slowly, sensuously and sensually at least a few times a day. Connected sex obviously helps, but taking a slow and present stroll with swinging hips in a park at lunch can by itself change the trajectory of a whole day.
The bonus version is to connect with other women who are also turned on - and who are connected to their inner truth. There is nothing that is as powerful as that:)!
If you want to experience what is possible, come to our after-work event on Thursday, or sign up for my upcoming course, starting September 17.
In love, eros and truth,
Lovisa
Celebrating Men & The Conscious Masculine
This blog post chronicles my own somewhat unlikely journey of a deep longing to celebrate and support men. Which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been working with women and teaching them, and myself, to turn on…
A Selfless Act of Kindness
At the end of January, leaving the German in depth-retreat that I attend twice a year with the same group, I forgot one of my beloved red warm leather gloves and I had resigned to get a new pair when returning to Sweden. Suddenly, while waiting on the train platform to take me from Bremen to Hamburg, a Dutch man from the retreat came running. He had managed to retrieve my glove from the bus that we were all on, and then he had sprinted to see if he could give it to me before the train left the station. This man is married and I hardly know him so it wasn’t a romantic gesture. But it was a manly gesture of the very best kind. I was so moved by his willingness to go through all that trouble for me, to provide that kindness, that I started crying. And in the course of the last year, I’ve encountered other amazing men who have given me such hope for the future, not only personally, but globally, that I’ve almost had to pinch my arm. Is it possible? Were these men so lovely all the time, and I missed them in my rejection of men, or did men change when I was looking elsewhere? Or is it I that has changed that I’m now able to welcome and receive what men love to provide?
Team “Rejecting Men”
It’s a long tale to retell my own history of men and the masculine, but suffice to say, it has been complicated. Most of my 20s and 30s, especially after I switched teams (from being on team ‘make me as similar to a man as possible and wanting to prove myself that I’m as good, or better than you are ‘ to team ‘women – let’s create something much better than what the men are doing, and let’s crush the patriarchy’). I was against men. Since I believed that women and the feminine were inferior to men, being a woman, I felt powerless in my engagement with men. If you add sexual attraction to that mix, where I often was on the receiving end, yet not feeling the same, I was frightened by men’s interest. On occasion I felt sexual attraction too, but most of the time, what was important to me was to be seen or acknowledged by men I admired, like a peer. When that didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, I felt rejected. So I either tried to hide or got angry and rejected them right back. Not all men. I’ve had lovely relationships with men too, but there was an underlying overall negative assumption about men.
Getting lost in the masculine
So while I had issues with men, I myself was totally focused on being like a man, rejecting the feminine and other women. I was a smart, driven, entrepreneurial ideas person who was intent on coming as far up the ladder as I could, and I would create a thousand ladders if that was necessary. I was all about doing and knew nothing about the preciousness of being, despite having a strong spiritual longing. Most of the women I work with are high-performers who realize that something got lost in translation and in our attempts to become equal, we became great attackers of the feminine ourselves. The late Jungian psychologist Marion Woodman spoke about the big loss of the feminine in a society that only venerates the doing, the achieving, and the cost of perfection, which on a deeper level all contribute to a loss of soul.
Are men a hairy less evolved version of a woman or did we misunderstand it all?
After I started working with women, connecting women’s sexuality and their jewels (i.e. pussies) with their inner path and their leadership, which resulted from a deep union with a man that healed wounds and re-awakened my sexuality, I’ve felt so blessed and enriched. It is absolutely amazing to be around – and to support, women who want to be turned on and to live from their sexual feminine power. It’s one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Through embracing the feminine, the jewel, and the preciousness of a turned-on sisterhood, which has been a healing process in itself, I’ve started noticing the suffering of men, especially in Sweden where men, generally speaking, are considered sub-par. But the evidence of the emerging shift in power dynamics is present globally as well where boys are falling behind in schools and men are expected to be heading towards a major future job casualty. Using Alison Armstrong’s words, most women and society at large, treat men as a hairy and slightly less evolved version of women instead of understanding that we are quite different from a biological standpoint. A treatment that I’ve now come to see as both unfair and destabilizing for society.
Fear and misunderstandings
What we fear, and whom we don’t understand, we will reject. Or at least we would like to change them to be more like us. And if we feel like a victim, we will collapse, collude with whom we see as oppressor or objectify the same and make them wrong. Many of the women I’ve met and worked with over the years have been wounded by men, including sexual abuse, which I’ve carried as well. But I also got lost in my rejection of men, which meant that I discounted the wonderful men I met over the years. In addition, I was unable to see the incredible value men and the masculine are providing, not only in my life, but globally. And the fact that it’s not only women who are evolving, which we hear a lot about, but that men are too, which men rarely get credit for.
Realizing all of this, I can feel a profound sadness in my heart over what we do to one another, based on our misconceptions and fears. Examples are, one the one side, the systemic abuse of women e.g. in Saudi and Afghanistan, the violence women globally are subjected to by men, or the realizations of MeToo, the necessary, the transformative and the troublesome. Which are examples of an unconscious patriarchy that still depreciates the value of women and the feminine and still sees women as objects instead of equal subjects. On the other side we have the modern systemic shaming of men and treating masculinity as a disease, telling boys to behave more like girls, the lack of soul many men experience as a result of not being connected to the feminine (with no one being able to show men how to reconnect in a way that works for them – not surprisingly often through conscious sexuality), and making men and boys wrong for even existing, which points to an emerging unconscious matriarchy.
Inviting the Conscious Masculine and the Conscious Feminine
In the quest for making men and boys more “humane”, we’ve forgotten that both women and men have the feminine and the masculine within them. Depending on whether we have estrogen-bodies or testosterone-bodies, the feminine will most of the time be stronger in estrogen-bodies and vice versa. However, since we live in a performance-driven culture, we can also say that both women and men are constantly acting out the masculine, which leads to an excess of the masculine. At the same time, especially in highly post-modern countries like Sweden, there is a premium on empathy, often associated with the feminine, which while vital for human evolution, also can go unconscious and become super-charged, i.e. we feel too much, or we wield it as a weapon. The former might lead to burn-out, while the latter can lead to mobs proclaiming their moral superiority using shaming and ‘borrowed anger’ quoting a wise woman I know. The conscious feminine invites compassion instead, meaning to be able to sit with what’s painful with an open heart, without judgment or needing to immediately fix it and from that place get clear of what action, if any, that needs to be taken.
Falling in Love with our Rejected Selves
True growth and maturity always happens from within. We need to make peace with, and eventually fall in love with, the part of us that we have the poorest connection to. For many women and men, we need to cultivate our connection to the conscious feminine, here in the definition of an appreciation for being and receiving. For the soul. And for the incredible life-force that is the source of all creation. But we also need to befriend our conscious masculine, the doer and the manifester, which is the heroic, holding and protective part of ourselves. Since men increasingly reject themselves as men, and the masculine, men need to be supported by women and society in allowing themselves to celebrate the beauty that comes from being a man, standing in his glorious and conscious masculine. There is also something deeply and profoundly nourishing about the masculine and about men, with the core of men’s love of, and need of, women, and their amazing desire to be providers.
Turned On Women Celebrate Men or a Cosmic Orgasmic Union
I see a two-pronged path forward. The first one is for women to reclaim their bodies, their sexuality, their femininity and lead from that place, because it makes life so much more fun and effortless – and because a woman who is connected to her sexuality and femininity is a natural leader who is inherently strong, sets clear boundaries, doesn’t accept bs – yet can handle banter, and recognizes the value of the men and the masculine. The second is for men to recognize the value they inherently bring to the table in the form of conscious masculine leadership – the heroic, the lion-hearted and the holding – and to own that in an embodied way. Since men want to provide, especially for women they feel valued and celebrated by, men will increasingly start adoring and cherishing women. Which women will feel and direct even more appreciation and celebration towards men. And so the mutual appreciation grows until we are all cosmically orgasmically united:)!
Celebrating Men
So to all of you amazing and extraordinary men out there, and you are the absolute exquisite majority, this is for you. We need you, we love you and above all, we celebrate you. For being you.
In love and truth,
Lovisa Alsén
The Magic of Letting Go
Last week, at a bi-yearly training retreat in the German country-side, I was out walking an early morning in the forest when snow-pelted rain started pouring down into my boots, the wind was tearing at my face, and I was feeling miserable. I was caught in my structure, trying to figure out how to deal with a guy with whom it was over a long time ago, but my heart (really, my mind) was still holding on to. I was also feeling overwhelmed by the many commitments I had back in Sweden and I felt I was in over my head. Suddenly, a question rose: “What if I’m not the doer?” “What if I’m not responsible?” After a few minutes of these questions repeating themselves, everything shifted. From having felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders, I started laughing, embracing the rain, and my entire being was soaring. Life was a banquet. The forest, intensely alive, like me, was orgasmic and turned-on. I just couldn’t see it before. The experience didn’t last and I contracted again, but slowly throughout the week, the questions kept returning and gradually, the space that opened has kept expanding. If I’m not the doer, then what?
The spiritual path and coming home to ourselves
In all spiritual traditions it is said that the journey home to ourselves is about learning how to let go. By surrendering. By not holding on so tightly to what we think is the right way or the right outcome – or the right opinion. By being present to what is rather than what we think it should be. Which is easy to say, intellectually, and friggin’ difficult to practice. Because we so very easily get attached. And we want things to go our way. Darnit!:)
Moving into the unknown
Surrendering is also about moving into the feminine, whether you are a woman or a man (and both men and women need to learn how to cultivate the art of surrendering). It is the non-linear and non-logical winding road. It is about giving up our knowing and moving into the unknown. Again. A lot easier said than done. Yet, looking back at my life, all “bad” decisions that I’ve made, have come from premature action and most of my anguish stems from that place. I couldn’t stand the helplessness of not-knowing, so I took action before I was ready. I often still do.
Staying with ourselves
Equally clear is that in order to move deeper into our turn-on, and to mature in our sexuality, we have to practice the art of letting go, the art of surrendering. We learn how to stay with ourselves and not to give up on our needs, while also staying open and being present to what is, here and now. We rejoice in our desires, and cultivate that fire, and practice the art of letting go of the object of our desires. It takes training and it is possible.
On a surface level this would not work in the corporate world or at a board level. Yet so often in organizations we make the same mistakes of taking premature action. It just feels better to be occupied, to do ‘something’, rather than allowing for things to unfold. It is also a fine balance. Sometimes we hide, procrastinate or avoid doing what needs to be done, which is good to notice, and some things might require immediate action. Yet most of the time, deep results stem from allowing things to reveal themselves. Sometimes, even allowing one hour of surrendered not-knowing can clear the path to a clear and aligned decision.
For me the difference is deeply felt in my body. When I let go of being the doer, being in charge of life, the stress I feel between my shoulders dissipate. The headaches clear up. I soften. And paradoxically, I become highly creative and productive. When I’m ready.
What is your experience of surrendering, of not-knowing and of letting go? If you have allowed it, how has it affected you?
To the magic of letting go and a surrendered spring.
Love and truth,
Lovisa
2019 - A Year of Yes
I wanted to share my intention for 2019, which is to resist less and say yes to more. BOOM! Which is a tad more easy to say than to do. So how do we get there?
1. Saying YES to what we are resisting
Whenever we meddle with life, which we do all the time, we are coming from a place of resistance. It might be feedback on a project that was negative, or missing the bus, the weather, entering the subway and being caught between two sneezers, or having difficulty sleeping. Or on a more subtle level, we are in resistance when we critisize ourselves and others and when we worry about where the world is heading. Essentially, we are in resistance 95%, if not 99% of our lives. If we can start leaning into what is happening, to experientially understand that ‘what is in the way is the way’, quoting Mary O’Malley, a contemporary somatic mystic, something deep within shifts. We are no longer at war with life, we are aligned with it and us. For me, as a former futurist and visionary, this is so intriguing, so difficult and so transformative. Using Tara Brach’s example of a YES-meditation, Tara is a mindfulness teacher and psychologist, we can practice it like this: We say YES! to the negative feedback, we say YES! when we miss the bus, we say YES! to getting the flu, we say YES! when we can’t sleep. After having said yes, we can find more ways to deal with what is going on, but in this very moment there is more space. We can also become “tightness dectives ” coined by Mary O’Malley and start getting curious whenever we experience any form of tension to inquire into what life is trying to tell us. So that is my first intention of saying YES!
2. Saying YES to our desires and our longing!
The second way of saying YES comes from the Tantric perspective where we look at what we want instead of what we don’t want. We say YES to our desires. Subconsciously, we often give up and shut down when we perceive that we can’t have something. Be it a fulfilling relationship, a dream job, comfortable finances, a good health, or for that matter, that gorgeous new coat we just saw. It can also be to say no to events or people, since then we are saying yes to our own needs. When we follow the Tantric path, we allow ourselves to feel our desires and acknowledge our needs. Say it is the desire for a deep and fulfilling relationship. How would that make us feel? Maybe we can sense that it would make us light-hearted and joyful and our hearts would open. Or the relaxation a good health would afford us. If we can stay with our desires and our longing, and feel the emotional effect of the end result, we learn that it’s not having what we want that is what is most important, but to allow ourselves to fully experience our desires and our longing. One of the easiest ways to faciliatate this second step, besides embodied inquiry, is to masturbate with loving presence. Yep. Had to get it in there, because it is one of the best ways to move out of our heads and into our bodies.
So 2019 I will be practicing both. Saying YES to what I’m resisting (and getting curious about what life is trying to teach me) and saying even more YES to my desires and my longing.
What are you resisting in your life and what are you willing to desire?
To a gloriously juicy and YES-filled 2019!
Love and Truth
How to come alive
In the past ten days, I’ve witnessed over a hundred women becoming turned-on, leaving the conference venue with a smile on their lips, a sway in their hips, looking blissed out – a transformation that takes place in 60 minutes. What I love about this “work”, besides the relevant fact that I get turned on myself, is that I get to experience women who are alive, connected to their inner truth AND their sexual energy. Which is magnetic – and yes, sexy. I wish the entire world could experience this.
So how do we come alive? Two components are needed. The first one is life-force, or sexual energy. The more connected we are to it – and turned on by it – the stronger it and we are. The second one is our ability to connect with what is true within us from a place of presence and be able to share these truths with another within a safe container. When the life-force, the feminine, Shakti, is paired with the contemplative tradition that is based on awareness, the masculine, Shiva, we have a hieros gamos, a sacred marriage. We get turned on AND get to know ourselves and others on a deeply true level. Which is when the heart can open up. We become holy and juicy. I also call it mindfulness with benefits:).
While this might not solve all the world’s problems, I also know that I’ve never witnessed anything more powerful in the many years I’ve worked with self-leadership and spirituality in the US and Sweden. Sometimes I have to pinch my arm when I realize that ‘holy molasses – magic happened this time too’. It’s deceptively simple, yet it won’t work without a holding environment that encapsulates both. So far my – and increasingly our – focus has been on women, which is a necessary first step. Women need to know and own their sexual embodied power before anything else happens. They are the keepers of the fire. But already now a lovely second step is emerging that connects men to their sexual energy through and with inquiry too. When this sensibility is brought to the work place – it’s the birth of something entirely new.
Hafiz whispers “stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive”. David Whyte warns us “anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you” and Mary Oliver nourishes by telling us “you do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
What does your body love and how can you come alive today?
Love and Truth,
Lovisa
A Turned-On Sisterhood
I’m an invidualist, introvert and mystic who walks my own path, and need a lot of alone-time. At the same time, I prefer to lead vs being led, since I’d rather set the energy of the environment I’m in. I also enjoy being on stage, if I have something I want to share, either through words or through singing. But then I go back to my own world again, and I’ve never been a big fan of groups, group-think or traditional social settings. Having that said, I’ve developed deep, close and vital friendships with other women over the years.
But in order to enjoy being in a group-setting, I need to find my tribe. Then I shape-shift and turn into the mischief-maker, the instigator, the flirt, the seductress, and the willing missionary. I become alive, help others find their own juice and get more juice in return.
For this to happen three conditions must be fulfilled:
The presence of play, openness and curiosity
The presence of presence and soul, depth and truth
The presence of sexual energy
The first time I went to Burning Man, I was lyrical, because it was the the first group I wanted to belong to that loved play and goofiness as much as I do. I’ve also felt an affinity for curious nerds and intellectuals, entrepreneurs, yogis, mystics, Diamond Approach-students and shamans, and the world of creatives, especially writers.
But no other group has been as fun to be around as other juicy, empowered and inner-directed women. It feels holy, creative, embodied, sexual, playful and true. Women who get turned-on together, through inquiry, especially embodied such, is a special form of sisterhood that join together not against anything or anyone, but instead to revel in each other’s inner and outer beauty, support one another to stand in their truth and savor the feminine power. And celebrate each other’s turn-on and delicious sauciness. Which is a power that grows exponentially.
The more women I teach, and encounter through other settings who recognize the same elements, the more I believe this is the answer to so many of society’s struggles. Sexual energy, holiness, play and truth are intrinsically linked and if women hold this power, individually and together, everything changes. The growing gender polarity vanishes, most men love to be around turned-on women. Indeed any polarity or one-sidedness has a tendency to vanish, because juicy, holy sexual energy – with truth – help us both to differentiate, where we learn to celebrate our differences while also uniting us, helping us own our higher selves.
Lately, I’ve started exploring what happens if men get to explore their own turn-on (being present, true and owning their sexual energy) together with turned-on and present women which has been so much fun, and it makes me hopeful for the future of humanity. The only caveat is that women need to hold the space, especially if sexual energy is involved. Otherwise, I and most of the women I encounter, don’t feel safe enough, and without the sense of sexual holiness that only a woman can bring, many of us can’t turn on. With that in place, the possibilities are endless!
So, this week, here’s to the celebration of the sisterhood of turned-on women! May you grow and prosper in your juiciness together with your turned-on sisters, thereby enabling everyone else to do the same. It’s delightfully contagious!
Love and truth,
Lovisa
The Eros Paradigm or Time for a Global Turn-On?
“Eros Is The Driving Force Of Life Itself, And The Erotic Is That Quality In Reality That Makes It Lively, Juicy, And Alluring. Cosmic Desire Brings The Universe Into Being, And The World Is, In One Sense, An Out Flowing Of The Cosmic Erotic Impulse. In These Various Traditions, Sexual Desire And Connection Can Be An Expression Of Love For Another Person, For God Alone, Or The Very Basis Of The Existence Of The Universe Itself.” (Sally Kempton From Her Book Awakenng Shakti)
Writing about the Eros Paradigm could be said to be an oxymoron. Eros is already here, and has always been here. It is the fabric of our existence, as Sally Kempton writes “the very basis of the existence of the universe itself.”
At the same time, all over the world we are becoming more conscious of consciousness itself and we are able to reflect and experience on a collective level over what is unfolding. For the first time in history we are becoming more cognitvely aware of not only the feminine, but of that particular juicy expression of the feminine (which both women and men have access to) that Eros is. For those of us who have tasted it, we want more, a lot more. So what is it, why does it matter - and how do we get more of it?
What is Eros and why does it matter?
Eros is the generative life principle. Without Eros life is dead. Compare the experience of American cubicles, made out of nightmares, and a entering a house designed by Gaudí or walking into a life-less office building with looking out over the orgy of flowers on a summer meadow. On a more subtle level, Eros is what makes life worth living. Any dystopian sci-fi novel or movie will showcase a world where Eros, and the planet, are dead. It’s hopeless, grey and we are all replaced by robots, who usually display more humanity than the simpleton humans. Very rarely do we see a different vision where Eros is reigning, where there is juiciness, flirtation, and a celebration of life, sex, the jewel, dance, music, beauty, candles and where soul, our interior space, are hailed - and where that is translated into how we build housing, infrastructure, transportion, or businesses and organizations. What do you imagine an Eros-filled society would look like?
So how do we create a juice futuristic vision with the help of Eros?
It all starts with turned-on women, women who have awakened to their feminine leadership, who are in contact with their jewels, who feel the power of sexual energy, are empowered and inner-directed. Not that it doesn’t exist elsewhere. Each creative expression is an expression of Eros and it can be expressed by women and men. But the power of women being turned-on is what is needed to get that extra oomph that is needed to juice the joint up. Now it’s important to mention here that for each step towards juiciness, there will be an equal, if not bigger push-back towards its opposite, which is oppression and deadness. Looking at the rise of authoritarianism that is happening across the globe, which always tries to reign in Eros, sex and women, we see that clearly. But paraphrasing Martin Luther King, the arc of the feminine universe is long, but it bends towards Eros. And for each day our turned-on numbers are growing - and grooving, and when the juicy sisterhood comes into town, she can’t be stopped. She is life itself.
The Eros Paradigm or the Global Turn-On
A life-time ago, meaning 2002, I wrote a book in Swedish about the Flow Paradigm with Troed Troedson, built on complexity science and it was titled ‘Don’t Panic’. The book aimed to showcase where we were heading individually and as a society and many of the things we wrote about have come to fruition, such as the renting and sharing economy.
The Eros Paradigm is different, since it both emerges right now and yet always was here. I can give you a number of examples to showcase how the Eros Paradigm is gradually making its way into our lives, like the explosion of music globally, our interest in design and fashion, our yearning for felt experiences, our growing interest in the body, as well as in our longing to know ourselves experientially. So the Eros Paradigm can be said to be growing in strength. It is also at a tipping point. For the Eros Paradigm or The Global Turn-On to manifest and not get stamped down, it is dependent on us women becoming turned-on in big numbers. Not that it is such grueling labor:). Most can attest to its joyful affects. But it does require an embodied and juicy connection and to be around other turned-on women coupled with the capacity to be empowered and to be able to find our inner soverignty and authority.
While I no longer need to change the world, or to make the Eros Paradigm or the Global Turn-On happen, I would love to be a part of it. Because it turns me on. The ending of the sixth course last week with ten amazing Awakened Feminine Leaders followed by the first deeply connected - and turned-on event with women and men and yesterday’s business breakfast with women who learned to turn-on, make me so happy and yes, it does feel like She cannot be contained. The Eros Paradigm and the Global Turn-On are rising and together we can co-create a sparkling juicy future. Do you care to join us?
In love and truth,
Lovisa Alsén
The Art of Turning On
After a necessary Summer break, I’m back and there are so many juicy things unfolding. Three weeks ago, I started the sixth course of Awakening Feminine Leadership, and it turns me on to no end to hold these courses. Sometimes I believe I derive an equal amount of pleasure, if not more:), as the participants’. I love seeing how desire, turn-on, eros, and the jewel power grow in each and every one. I love seeing how the feminine awakens together with an inner turn, with becoming more true, while the participants take up more space, asking for what they want and setting clear boundaries. I also love working with women individually, helping them go into their bodies and into their depth and be curious about their emotional universe being expressed through the body. I also love what my colleagues and I are creating in the area of women turning on in the business world, and how the power of feminine leadership and turn-on is spreading!
The Art Of Turning On
The participants, and I:), connect with Eros, go inside and we find our turn-on. It’s as simple as that. Even though most of us need help to get going, there is no better way than to do it with other women who also are turning on. It’s highly contagious and it comes with many pleasurable benefits!
So what is a turn-on?
What it is not
- It is not about looking sexy or sensual according to an observer.
- It is not the same as being happy, even though when you are turned-on, you usually are. A turn-on doesn’t mean that the rest of our lives is hunky-dory. Few of us live in a reality where that is true, but we see our lives through a different lens and we are capable of being more present to what is there.
- A turn-on is not related to having sex either, which many believe, even when it does coincide, it ups the game and adds much more sparkle and depth. Many women have sex without being turned-on just to be “nice” or “taking one for the team”, because there is trauma or because many of us didn’t learn how to ask for what we want and take a stand for our needs (and for many, the first step is identifying those needs).
- A turn-on isn’t about being horny in the traditional sense either, even though it feels similar.
- A turn-on is related to activating the sexual energy, and it is an inside job. However, people will know when you are turned on because they sense that particular form of aliveness. If you dislike or even hate yourself, are sad, or depressed, it’s a longer path, but with practice and by being around other turned-on women, the journey can be cut short.
What it is
- A turn-on is about being juicy, alive, having that twinkle in your eye and it’s about being lit up on the inside, like a sparkler, where the sexual energy is activated.
The easiest way to learn how to turn on is by being around other turned-on women.
- It is also essential to be connected to your jewel (aka yoni, aka vagina). Connected neurologically, but mostly it’s about having struck up a friendship and an appreciation with and for her, and that you learn how your jewel prefers to experience pleasure.
- A turn-on, when activated can come from dancing naked to your favorite music, taking a bath, with presence, seeing the water drops on your skin, or dancing, clothes optional. Even your scratchy elbow can be part of your turn-on.
- The closer we are to our bodies and our senses, with an appreciation, and that there is a spark of sexual energy, we get turned on. Which includes how we show up in a boardroom.
Turn-on as an essential aspect of our soul
Another way of describing what a turn-on is, is that it is an essential aspect of our soul that gets activated and that it is in fact on a different frequency, which is connected to the jewel. It makes life easier, and more pleasurable, which then supports us in being more capable of accepting things as they are. While we also need a connection with our belly-center, our heart, and soul, being turned-on, especially with other turned-on women, makes life sparkly. It’s like moving from rain to sunshine, or from a black-and-white film to one in technicolor, or from a bare light-bulb to an ocean of candles, or like being in love, where you are the significant other. Finally, a turn-on is also directly connected to Eros, or an expression of Eros, which I’ll write about next.
I’ve lived most of my life being turned off, since I’ve lived in my head, was forward-oriented instead of being present and either hated my body or just disliked it. Even now I can lose my turn-on completely, like this Summer when I felt depleted. A turn-on isn’t there all the time either, even when I’m more present, but there are ways how to create a practice around it. I’m sharing this, because I believe it’s important to understand that we can lose our turn-on - and we can find our way back. It doesn’t matter how many times we forget. She is always there. Ready for us to wake up.
So turning-on is an art-form, but when we know how to turn-on, especially in the company of other turned-on women, we can find our way back home.
What turns you on? What celebratory, presence- and pleasure-filled sensual activities can you do to support your turn-on this weekend?
Love and truth,
Lovisa
Going inwards + Summer Break
Last week, I didn't post a weekly blog here, because I had caught a Summer cold that made me slow and low. Yet, unexpectedly both the sluggishness and some days of anxiety, turned out to be a gateway to deep realizations, and while I'm still not fully restored, I'm feeling a whole new level of power rise in me. It reminded me that I usually get sick when I need to process something, and don't feel I have the "right" to do it when I "should" be working. Old conditioning dies hard.
The power of doing nothing
We all need time to go inwards. A Swedish Physics Professor, Bodil Jönsson, wrote a book about time, where she popularized a word which in Swedish is called "ställtid", meaning the time it takes to get things in order, also internally. I would translate "ställtid to "re-configuration time". It also reminds me of a Polish cartoon I watched as a kid, which was called Professor Balthazar. Balthazar was a kind and crazy looking inventor who had a giant machine into which he put his ideas. The machine was very slow, processing, processing, processing until suddenly, the machine created an elixir in a tube, based on those ideas. What made the cartoon so exciting was that waiting time, a necessary gap of seeming nothingness, where true magic happened.
Going deep and becoming inner-directed
The need for re-configuration time and going deep are supported by science. We need to loiter in order to create at any level of relevance, and it's impossible to be inner-directed without having time to connect inwards. Yet even with that knowledge, it's difficult for most of us to allow ourselves to dawdle; the pressure to do is always on, but in my experience, it's still more challenging for women to allow themselves this necessary diving-deep time. Yet in order to access a deeper level of feminine leadership, it's paramount that we take the time to do nothing, feeling whatever is there, even if it is painful, which allows for being and presence to fill every cell with juicy aliveness. A pathway to do nothing is to reconnect with your sensing ability. As in the photo above, test stroking the skin of your upper hand with your other hand, infinitely slowly, while breathing with your belly and see if you can stay with the sensation for a minute or two. Notice what happens in your body.
Taking my own advice, I'm going to my bi-yearly retreat soon and will thereafter take a Summer break. I'll be back mid August with lots of juicy tips and share some of the very exciting things that are unfolding.
I'm wishing you a lovely, juicy and being-oriented Summer!
Love and truth,
Lovisa
Shame-Less & The Good Girl Detox
Carl Jung wrote " Shame is a soul-eating emotion". Brene Brown shares this perspective: “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change." And Rumi pontificates: “Soul, if you want to learn secrets, your heart must forget about shame and dignity. You are God's lover, yet you worry what people are saying.”
Is Shame Necessary?
To be clear, shame is a human emotion, a necessary neurological trait?, that guided us as children, teaching us the underpinnings of morality and of right and wrong. Yet as grown-ups, being hounded by shame is like carrying around a Marine-Corps-extra-heavy-duty-backpack inherited from generations past infused with additional weights borrowed from our social contexts, bringing us to our hands and knees with notions of our insufficiency and inherent badness. If we believe we are "bad to the bone", we will either turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy or we will almost kill ourselves trying to obliterate the badness in ourselves while trying to let others know of theirs'. In either case, it will kill our spirit and our life-force. It will cut us off from our true potential.
Are there differences in Gender and Shame?
Yet, I believe it shows up differently in women and men (and as always - deep generalizations here, but still relevant). As women we often turn the shame back onto ourselves, becoming afraid of making mistakes, turning into perfectionists, and constantly second-guessing ourselves. We become good girls. For men, shame often turns to self-hatred, which then in turn, more often than not is turned outwards. It's that a-hole's fault, not mine, or I'm going to show the bastards. Either way, shame can give us an endless amount of fuel to perform well or to build empires. Neither of the the strategies, though is based on joy or having fun.
How do we become Shame-Less?
There are essentially two routes. The first and longer route is the one where we through mindfulness become clear on that we in fact are attacking ourselves and when we meet ourselves with compassion. We learn to recognize the "shoulds" in our language, and we eventually delight in catching ourselves in the act. It doesn't mean that our inner critic goes dormant, but we have a deeper understanding of the playing field. It's a pretty long route, but so worth it! Every time we reclaim ourselves from inner and outer shame, we are reclaiming a part of our soul.
The shorter route, for women, is what I call the Good Girl Detox, where we liberate ourselves through pleasure. We will still need the first route, if we want to metabolize our shame on a deeper level, but pleasure can truly be an amazing short-cut. Because when we reclaim our bodies and how we operate, and it is based on a deeper truth located in our bellies and in our jewels, we shift. We become powerful and the inner critic loses its choke-hold on us.
I teach tools on how we can learn to disidentify from our inner critic in my more advanced courses Eventually, I might do a whole separate course on shame just to deal with this emotion, since it is so pervasive, today more than ever. Yet there are some ways we can started here and now:
Here's this week's tip:
Write down ten 'bad things' you tell yourself about yourself, the things you suspect, or hard-core believe, are "truths" and weave in some shoulds. For example. "I'm a loser". "I should save more money", "I'm never going to lose this extra weight". "I should have made it by now". "I should be a better leader/mom/partner/sprinter...". "I'm never going to meet someone". Go deep, find where the inner critic hurts you. And then learn how to disidentify with these "truths". Judgements usually have a kernel of truth, but they come served with a huge side-order of viciousness, which makes them debilitating if taken at face value. And then find ways to cut the endless inner call to arms. Say Shhhhh.... when you hear the voice inside, or if it's coming through a partner or friend (And it's not our partners'/friend's/children's/parents' faults either. They will of course know how to press our buttons, but if someone said, "you have such ugly green hair," and you have either dark hair or no hair, the comment would just breeze by, you might even laugh at the person saying it, they only impact us because a part of us believe what is being said is true) increase in intensity until we are able to ask these voices to go and f-k themselves. As an alternative, or try both, put a hand on your heart, take a breath and then say, I've got you, or I love you, or You are ok. And then breathe again.
And then do at least three things this week that are pleasurable. Things that fill your heart with joy and put a smile in your eye and in your walk. 3 things that turn you on. The best antidote ever to shame. Pleasure, if allowed, trumps shame all days of the week!
Have a shameless and a good girl-detoxed week!
Love and truth,
Lovisa
“I enjoy being a girl” (woman) – How owning our femininity and sexuality changes how we lead ourselves and others
“I enjoy being a girl” is a Broadway tune from 1958 in the US. When I started working with my life and leadership coach, Barbara, in San Francisco in 2004, she quickly realized that I had some deep-seated issues about my femininity, and gave me that song as an assignment to sing and perform for her. It took me until last year, however, before I could feel the truth of those words in my body. How is even possible that I could have rejected the form I came in almost my entire life?
From woman as inferior...
I believe that one of the main reasons is that I saw woman as inferior. Since power used to be a big thing for me, even as a child, I automatically rejected anything I deemed as less powerful. I also prouded myself for being smart, driven and innovative, all qualities that I felt women didn't have an equal amount of. It makes me cringe to even write this, but it is what I was brought up to believe. The only way to handle the tiny problem that I was, in fact, a woman, was to become a "person", a "professional", to draw as little attention to my female form as possible and stay away from anything that I considered feminine. In addition, or maybe as a result, I’ve carried a lot of shame around my body (weight issues, rejecting my big breasts, feeling disgust about my jewel and having major issues even acknowledging that I had a period and that it effected me hormonally). I'm sharing these sad prejudices about how I used to think and feel, which, btw, subconsciously continued long after I switched "teams" and started empowering women in my late 20s. I mentally made the switch, became a woman's warrior and advocate, but it was not a truth in my body. The rejection of the feminine is not strange in itself, though. It follows the script from the Bible, the Quoran and the Torah, coupled with what even Buddhists and Hinduists saw as gospel, namely that the body itself is impure, and that women's bodies are especially unclean and sexually dangerous, coupled with the notion that women were inferior. What the big 5 taught has then influenced philosphy, civics, and every human-made structure we have, and this programming still runs deep in virtually all women and men on the planet, despite all the progress that has been made.
To woman as precious gift...
Now when I AM enjoying being a woman, (I recently started wearing dresses, and it’s a game-changer! Ha. Wearing a dress was a no-no for most of my life and now I feel like I've struck gold:)) and I support other women making the same journey, coupled with a growing sisterhood around feminine leadership (I also used to reject sisterhood, isn't life marvelous:)), I’m finding being a woman a precious gift. I also see how my former, almost entirely linear mind, carefully sculpted, couldn't appreciate my intuitive and story-telling capacity, nor my yearning for the divine, nor my big heart, which meant that those parts had to be cut off and ripped out. Now, while I still appreciate intellectual discourse at times, it is presence and being turned-on (which I believe are versions of the same) that truly fills me with joy.
What are your own experiences of being a woman, your femininity and being proud of who you are? Have you given it some thought, or taken the perspective, as I did, that we are all 'persons', except for some minor biological differences? If you are a man reading this, what is coming up for you?
So how is body and gential ownership related to our leadership, or feminine leadership as I choose to define it, and what changes when we own our femininity and our sexuality?
1. We become grounded and powerful. When we start liking, heck, even celebrating the very fact that we are women with a base in our bodies and in our jewels, we move from feeling inferior (again, this is usually a subconscious sentiment in both women and men), and the shame disappears (or at least lessens - shame is deep-seated in both women and men for many other reasons too). We stop being as reactive, aggressive/passive aggressive or victim-oriented, and we start appreciating men more. We are more in connection with flow. This translates to the very fact that everything we do, whether it’s a negotiation, a missed deadline, or a creative project, gets easier and lighter. According to some depth psychologists, it's impossible to have access to our full power if we don't own our "genitals".
2. We become happier and have more energy. When we start running our sexual energy, which is vital for our well-being, and turn on our jewels, we are flooded with Dopamine, Oxytocin and the light in our eyes is lit. We become more creative, have almost an endless energy supply, which is the opposite from being sucked dry by living of our adrenaline and the glass becomes half-full. Incidentally, we also end up having more fun.
3. We become inner-directed. When we are connected with ourselves at our most basic and instinctual level, we become inner-directed and care less of what others think. Instead of living out of our heads, often driven by idealism and the search for purpose, we are more present, we live closer to presence and essence, and we find that our connection to spirit is no longer found outside of ourselves, but at the very core of our being.
If this resonates with you, notice during the upcoming week all your associations of the feminine, of women, and in particular your body, your breasts and your jewel, and your sexuality. What comes up for you? If there is a rejection, is it possible to hold it with some kindness, and just breathe into it?
Have a juicy and woman-proud week!
Love and truth,
Lotta Lovisa
"You must ask for what you really want"...
Rumi's famous words still touch me because of their truth, and because it's still difficult to own our desires fully, especially as women. We happen to have an extra chunk of estrogen that we've been marinated in since the womb, which makes us exquisitely attuned to others, but often surprisingly clueless of what we want ourselves, which is compounded with our cultural upbringing. (Even though the latter is slowly changing. It seems, at least in some instances, that younger women know more what they want). Furthermore, as I wrote in the post two weeks ago, we are very good at accomodating to others, which in itself is a psychological construct affecting women and men alike.
Ask me twice
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the Jungian psycho-analyst, said in audio-book that a man needs to ask a woman twice to find out what she really wants. For example: He might ask her: "What movie do you want to see?" She responds: "It doesn't matter. Pick whatever." Then comes the crucial step of asking her again. "What movie do you really want to see". Which is when she will share her true preference, which most likely wasn't even known to herself before being asked a second time. Without the second ask, she would, most likely, have been mad as hell at his poor movie-selection ability.
Yet, while it's great if men learn to ask women twice, we ultimately have to learn this for ourselves. Not in the least when it comes to how we want to be touched, made love to, and what we need in terms of adoration and support. But also when it comes to work and career. For example, say that you are highly attactive on the labor market and get tons of offers, which is a bit similar to being popular on the dating market with many suitors. Do you pick what is being offered, at the conditions stated, or do you choose what you want yourself, the way you want it? Or do you redefine a project to better suit your needs instead of accepting the offered set-up?
Do you know what you want?
In order for that to happen, we need to make the journey of discovering of what we truly want. I remember when I started my life over in my early 30s, having moved to San Francisco from Sweden. I was a workaholic with no preferences about anything except for work, books and global concepts. It took so much effort to learn, for example, which music I preferred to listen to, which was topped only by the gargantuan task of figuring out which men I was attracted to, especially in a new country. At that time, I was almost completely linear, so I made lists and tried for everything, which included men, music and other areas of interest. Today I can hug myself for my cluelessness and clumsiness in my discovery process, yet also salute myself for trying to bring light to my unknown desires.
In which areas do you know what you prefer and in which areas do your eyes glaze over? How much do you follow what your partner prefers, for example, because you haven't researched your desires, or felt that they weren't important enough? Or if you followed the latest trend because everyone else was doing it, without really feeling if that is in line with your desires. When I was living in Venice Beach it was astonishing to see all the reported injuries of everyone doing cross-fit 5 times a week, just because it was the latest fad (in Sweden everyone now needs to have at least a marathon and a "Vasalopp", a cross-country skiing race, and preferably an Iron Man too - leading to similar injuries).
Now, what are your needs? And how do we ask for them?
Having spoken mostly from the woman's perspective, men might have an equally difficult task in a different way. If we look at the teachings of NVC, Non-Violent Communication, Many men struggle with a different level of asking for what they want - this being related to their needs (even though most women fall into this category too). Marshall B. Rosenberg shares an example from his book Non-Violent Communication, when he ends up being surrounded by a group of gang-members, who are very close to attacking him. They feel disrespected and not heard, and they aren't aware of that feeling respected is what they truly need. Marshall Rosenberg shares in his book how he patiently, and courageously, my comment, keeps validating what they feel, essentially helping them voice their needs, until their animosity disappears. So many conflicts are about us not feeling heard, and not knowing how to ask for what we really need.
Desire as a practice
When I started teaching the practice of writing desire-lists to the women I worked with (and several men too), it felt a bit frivolous. What's the point of doing a wish-list like children write for Santa? Wishing for the flashiest things and luxurious travels? Isn't that just another example of a materialistic world-view? Today, I believe that each desire is an entry-point to something very powerful - especially if we can follow the desire to its deepest roots, without shame or trying to censor ourselves - and without the attachment of making it happen. Which is also a core tenet of Tantra. Each spoken, or stronger, written, desire, affirms our life-force. It ignites something inside us. It turns us on to life. If we can follow our desires down the rabbit-hole, we might find enlightenment, or at least a spiritual practice at the very bottom of it.
Taking our time
One more reflection on learning how to ask for what we really want is to allow for things to unfold in the way that it takes for us to become clear. I've learned myself that especially in high-charge situations, or when I'm around people I don't feel I can be truly me, I benefit highly from asking for a reprieve. Even if it is for an hour, a good night's sleep, or getting back in a couple of weeks. While it's getting easier, in some situations, I'm still fascinated by how much time I need to get clear on where I stand when being asked about something. What is your experience with taking your time?
Circumventing our negativity bias
Adding a final perspective on the importance of asking for what we really want is that it's only then we can counter our negativity bias, which I've written about before. It's so much easier to complain about all the things that aren't to our liking, and what we don't have. When we start focusing on what our hearts and jewels want, we circumvent the negative neural pathways. We become solution-oriented, activating our frontal cortex, and feel much more empowered.
A desire-focused practice
For this week, if there is desire for it:), practice writing a list of desires, 20 each day, and see how that affects you. The most important recommendation is to be specific and search for the underlying feelings. If you want a new sofa, what type of sofa, color, sensation, brand and how do you want it make you feel? If you want multiple orgasms, detail what that means to you. If you want to be seen and heard, what does that mean to you and from whom do you need it? Describe it vividly.
See if you can be your own desire-detective, be curious, without shame and see what comes up for you. What happens if you allow all of these desires? Your longing? If you can feel your desires in your body without trying to make them come true. How does it feel to desire fully in your chest? In your belly? And in your jewel?
With a practice of asking for what we really want, we can reach our soul's longing. Which will keep waking us up to the fact that our 'one and precious life' is breath-takingly short and just longs to explored in all its juiciness.
Have a desire-soaked week,
Love and truth,
Lotta Lovisa
3-Year Anniversary of Moving Back to Sweden - Grace, Fate and Destiny
On May 31, 2015, I immigrated back to Sweden from the US, so I've almost reached my 3-year anniversary. Nothing could have prepared me for how difficult it would be, nor how blessed I would feel today.
Moving to the US was connected with so much joy, hope and expansion. It was a life-long dream come true and I never thought I would come back. After 15 years in California, Sweden was something from my faded past that I didn't relate to. Thus moving back became like a prison sentence. All my misgivings about Sweden and of being a Swede had to be faced down. All the things I had been running away from had to be reckoned with. And then there were alI the countless minute differences in the everday aspects of life that make Sweden and the US (California) like two separate galaxies. Like how you walk. How you smile. Or cross a street.
I never believed it would be so grace-filled, guided and amazing either. Don't take me wrong. Several of the misgivings are still here. Yet, and it's a big yet, I feel an immense gratitude for being able to be here, for all the support I've been given and for all the amazing people I know and have gotten to know. I still keep my options open in terms of where I will end up long-erm, but for now, I can just see how essential it has been for me to return. Without it, I wouldn't have become real or true.
That makes me reflect on grace, fate and destiny. And how mysterious it all is. We resist something that we don't want, and yet that turns around and becomes our biggest gift. I never planned to do the courses working with women, sexuality, soul/spirit and leadership that now have changed my life. I never expected that I would find myself as a woman, in Sweden, of all places. And I never believed that it was in Sweden where I would get to that point where presence, truth and pleasure are the bright beacons of grace that keep guiding me forward.
So what is it that guides us? What is the fabric of grace, fate and destiny? Is guidance always there, and we just fail to recognize it because we resist it or deny it? Are we following a grace-guided maze of fate and destiny that is non-negotiable, but we take it to be free will? I don't know. What I do know is that I know very little, and that the more I trust the present moment, and that the experience I'm having is here for a reason, I can surrender, and the better life gets. Increasingly I sense that I'm not the only player on the chess-board called my life.
What comes up for you when you read this? What is your relationship with the big events that have shaped your life - that you have labeled good and bad? Do you feel yourself to be the map-maker or the one following an already plotted path? How have you experienced grace? Please share in the comments below.
Have a mysterious- and grace-filled week,
Love and Truth,
Lovisa
Standing In Our Truth & The Spiritual Journey
The first year I came to Burning Man (2004) in the Nevada desert, I was in awe. Of everything and everyone. To see and experience everyone's weirdness and uniqueness, which opened up a deep longing to express my own weird and to be true, all of which came to have a major impact on my life. In 2006, my third year at Burning Man, the patina had worn a bit thin. I could see that despite the beliefs and proclamations of radical self-expression, everyone looked the same.
One truth about us human beings is that despite our longing to be different, we also have a deep biological yearning to accommodate. Even "burners" accommodate to be radically self-expressed, 'the Burning-Man way'. If we enter the business world, we discover that everyone dresses the same, even though there are subcultures with slightly different dress codes. It takes a lot to break the norm and to follow what's true for us.
The Spiritual Journey
Some say that the spiritual journey is increasingly about surrendering ourselves and our ego structures. While that resonates deeply with me, I would say that the spiritual journey is to an equal amount the deepening process to stand in our truth. Which is multi-layered in itself, since our ability to handle difficult truths, especially about ourselves, unfolds, at a frustratingly slow pace.
Ending accommodation
A pre-requisite for any truth-traction to take place is to stop accommodating. Which is WAY easier to write and say than to do. Despite being more aware of how I do it, I would say that I accommodate at least 100 times a day when in social settings. It's the small stuff. I smile back because someone smiles at me. The neurological mirroring knee-jerk reflex. I see someone walking towards me on the pavement engulfed by the parallel dimension that is our i-Phones, and I move slightly aside to avoid a head-on collision. Someone says something nice to me when entering the office doors and I feel compelled to answer in kind. Etc. While you could call all of these small accommodations social lubrication or just plain old courtesy and not a big deal, it adds up, and these actions are to 99% unconscious.
We start seeing how our accommodation affects our ability to express our opinions at a meeting, to have a different view-point, or world-view, political opinion, religious or spiritual expression, and maybe the most difficult of all, to be emotionally true. To be able to say to a colleague that we don't feel safe in their presence, or to express to our boss that we get a knot in our bellies when she or he walks into the room, or to tell our partner that we no longer are turned on by him or her, which makes our hearts pump so fast that we can't breathe. Yet it's only when we become aware of our accommodation that we can start connecting with our bodies and and sense the the toll it takes on us to accommodate.
Even conscious bullshit is bullshit
Yet, someone now might protest, how can we even function in society if we don't accommodate? It's part of being human, right? Maybe. Or maybe not? Maybe we are reaching a place and time in history, at least for us who live in a privileged democratic setting with people who are conscious, where we need to start being more truthful? If for no other reason then that our bodies ALWAYS know when we bullshit. We can override our feelings and sensations, but the body records everything. Like the infinite naughty or nice-list that Disney taught us was held at Santa's place. The difference being that the body actually does register everything.
Truth and the Spiritual Journey
Each truth we express, each time we don't accommodate automatically, each painful and pleasure-filled emotional truth that we acknowledge, especially to ourselves, starts cracking us open. From that rises more of our infinite capacity. Our extraordinary potential starts to blossom. We begin the journey of coming home to ourselves. To our highest selves.
We become radically truthful, which on a clothing-level might look like a Burner, a suit, or a sexy dress, or all at the same time:), yet since we live from the inside out, it's not about following external cues. Instead we dress in whatever feels true to us, and that we are fully owning and enjoying our expression of this truth. There is nothing that spells healing for the world than people who own their stuff and strut it good. Real good.
Have a truth-saturated, expansive and non-accommodating week,
Love and Truth,
Lovisa
5 Steps To Awaken Your Feminine Leadership
Hi Gorgeous!
This week, I wanted to share how you can awaken your feminine leadership in five steps.
First I need to define what I mean by Awakening Feminine Leadership. The way I summarize a whole school of teaching is to call it juicy, empowered and inner-directed. I will go into a detailed description down the road, but for now, you can read a quick intro here. There are currently many offerings teaching women how to step into leadership, raise their voices, and build businesses, which I believe are deeply important. There are also a growing bounty of programs for women wanting to step into their feminine power, often defined as softer and less thrusting, many times connected to the divine feminine. Which is wonderful and sorely needed as well.
What is at the core of what I'm offering is that feminine leadership awakens at the body level, more specifically, between your legs and that eros plays an essential lead. Your jewel is your seat of power and when this part of you is activated, when "she" is turned on, it will change how you relate to the world, how you lead yourself, how you create and how you engage with and lead others.. This is not only about a different perception of yourself, it is a physiologically, neurologically, psychologically and even on a soul-level different state. I will write more about this further on as well, but for now, let's focus on the five steps:
1. Become a BFF with your jewel. Use a hand-mirror, say hello to your jewel, praise her and learn how to pleasure yourself with presence and with all your senses. The more you recognize her holiness and hotness, the more you will see that mirrored back to you, even in a complicated negotiation at work.
2. Sway your hips - a moving meditationon with perks:). Sway your hips on your way to work or to meetings (in order for this to happen you need to walk more slowly and with awareness. You can see it as a form of walking meditation with benefits). See if you can be fully present while swaying your hips and enjoy the sensation in each step you take. It's a great way to get embodied and access your femininity and it's equally beneficial for releasing tension in your lower back and hips.
3. Take regular dance breaks. Take a wild dance break, in the morning, at noon, and before an important meeting. It's good for your brain, it destresses you, and it helps you move into your feminine empowerment, while adding more pleasure into your life.
4. Initiate a 'good-girl detox'. Go through your to-do list that is filled with shoulds and musts, like being the one taking on all the extra projects at work, offering to organize the outing at school (unless, of course, you really love it) and overall, see if you can cut down at least 30% of your current undertakings, so you can free up more time for being.
5. Prioritize going inwards and creating alone-time. Cultivate presence through a sensing practice, you can download my honey-filled version here for free (scroll down and sign up), through a daily meditation practice and by spending 30 minutes alone each day, if possible at least a few minutes in nature.
These are all simple steps, but they will make a big difference if you practice them daily. More and more research shows (which the spiritual masters always have known and taught) that the way we transform our existence is not by the grand gestures, or by moving to a mountain top in Tibet, but what we practice on a daily basis.
Have a juicy, empowered and inner-directed week!
In love and truth,
Lovisa
The Pressure Path vs The Pleasure Path
Most of us have been schooled in the path of pressure. We've learned how get adrenalized close to a deadline, and when a project is completed, we jump into the next one, create to-do-lists that never get shorter, no matter how much we accomplish, and the pressure is always on.
However, most of us have not been taught in school, or elsewhere, in the ways of the pleasure path. Frankly, for most of my life, I couldn't even conceive there 1) was such a path 2) what it had to do with me 3) how on earth I could get anything done through pleasure.
It's still a discovery each day, and I find myself reverting to pressure, even when writing about pleasure, which I find such a lovely irony. It is also a reminder that years of conditioning, especially at the level of the nervous system, don't change that easily.
CARLI JEEN UNSPLASH
Here are the three things that I've learned, and teach, on how to switch gears:
1) Get out of the head. Take a break and move away from the war-zone that is our heads, and move into our bodies. First by taking a couple of deep breaths, and then by putting on some music and taking a dance-break or skip the music and just shake out the body. Like animals do when they've been in a stressful situation. Essentially, we need to end the contraction and move into a physical and neurological state of ease. Oh, and connecting with the jewel on a conscious level helps too:)!
2) Surrender. So let's say we have a deadline and we realize that we can stay up the coming two nights and get it done, but that it will cost us dearly, and that there is a new deadline around the corner after that. The first step is to surrender to the fact that it is too demanding and start questioning and negotiating deadlines that often are arbitrary in the first place. What is possible and reasonable? If it is a hard deadline that can't be changed, we can lower our own ambitions, see step 3. Another great way of dealing with pressure is to start creating much more space in our calendar and not let any new assignments in.
3) Letting go of perfection. Pleasure and perfection are at direct crossroads. Perfection, according to Jungian psychoanalyst Marion Woodman is an addiction that needs to be treated as such. Perfection eats life for breakfast. Another way of looking at perfection is to see that our inner judge is at work, the one that is terrified that we will make a wrong move, so we better check that writing ten more times before we let it go (looking at me:)). Letting go of our inner judge is a process too, but just to recognize that it is at work, is a great start. One of the best ways to discover that our inner judge is running the show is to recognize the use of the world "should". "I should have gotten that revision done last week". "I should have done a better job". "Someone else should have done their job right."
So checking in with ourselves, after our dance break, and seeing that we will do what we can, and that that will be good enough is a great way to get started on the pleasure path. It is also a reminder to not treat "life as a problem to be solved, but rather as a reality to be experienced" according to Kirkegaard or according to Osho, as "a mystery to be lived".
Choosing the pleasure path instead of the pressure path is a choice we will need to keep coming back to. A choice to be taken again and again. If we truly believe that it is possible to live from a place of juiciness, empowerment and inner-direction, we need to make pleasure a priority. Pleasure will have to trump pressure in our own inner world, and be something we really want in our lives. Imagine if life could be lived from that place of play? And to see life as a mystery to be lived?
Have a lovely and juicy week!
Love and truth,
Lovisa
How to choose pleasure even when life sucks
How To Choose Pleasure Even When Life Sucks
Increasingly, I recognize that not only joy, but pleasure in itself, are states of awareness, of presence that function at a higher level of existence. Our brains are wired to focus on the negative; a survival skill, which usually goes under the name of negativity bias. In short, it is absolutely natural to dwell on our fears, worries, judgments and to compare ourselves to others, feeling like we are missing out, a.k.a. FOMO. Tara Brach, a lovely and wise Buddhist mindfulness teacher and psychogist, talks about that we keep being in a trance when we lean forward instead of being here. Which is what I wrote about last week, and that I'm super-duper good at.
Presence
The solution lies in getting out of our trance, and to move into a state of presence. It has to be a choice of being here, rather than getting stuck in our minds of wanting to be somewhere else. Tara Brach, in one of her latest talks, quotes a passage from the book The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathieson when we he meets a Lama who is crippled, can't move and hence is stationary in the Himalayan mountains. When he is asked how he can be so happy, being so crippled, living a very small life, he laughs wildly and responds. "Of course I'm happy. It's wonderful. Especially when I have no choice". Peter Mathieson is astonished at the whole-hearted acceptance - and so am I, and it also makes me happy.
Pleasure as a shortcut
Even if we aren't practiced Lamas, we can get there through mindfulness, remembering that we are in a trance. There is also is a shortcut to get out of trance, especially when life sucks: embodied pleasure. More specifically, and now I'm referring to us ladies again, the pleasure point that is located beneath our belt:) (I have a feeling a lot can be applied to men too, but I'm speaking to what I know). Mama Gena speaks and writes about her experience when she was learning the art of pleasure and asked to turn on her pleasure, even when she is not feeling it, as a practice. Which, to her astonishment, she realizes that she can. I'm learning it slowly as well, even though it's so easy to forget to practice it. Here's how I broke out of my trance of blues today:
1. I realized that I had a sleep deficit that was weeks overdue - so I went to bed early, which was a first way of reconnecting and of showing kindness towards myself and my body.
2. This morning I was still a bit sluggish, so before I did my regular practices, I took two minutes stroking her, my jewel, only for the sake of getting out of trance, which helped me remember that I indeed have a body.
3. Then I talked with a friend who is also part of the pleasure club, and the heaviness that comes out of being in trance (being stuck in our minds) dissipated.
Over the day, I recognized that writing helps me out of my trance too, as well as coaching. A wild dance in the living room adds an additional flavor. But it all starts with a recognition that I am stuck in trance - and that I can do something about it.
For women, in particular, we have also been given two other tools that are linked to one another - pleasure - and sisterhood - where the former is always available if we practice it, and the latter is something we can learn how to cultivate.
Sometimes I'm so astonished by this power, the power of the feminine, the power of presence and the power of the jewel - helping us to recognize pleasure, especially when we don't have a choice - that I feel like it should be yelled at from the rooftops, or patented:), or both.
To a highly pleasurable week.
In love and truth,
Lovisa
Savoring the World
One core tenet of Tantra is to Savor the World. Exactly as it is. Instead of saving it or trying to make it different. I spent most of my life working on the latter, with the slightly ambitious goal of changing the world. (I even had a blog with that name - and I gave myself 365 days - haha. Aging has its absolute perks). Now I'm in a different relationship with the world. Instead of treating it as fixer-upper, the world and I are, for most of the time in the friendship category (even though I must admit that ice-lined pavements mid March is putting a bit of a strain in our relationship:)), which at times turn straight into a full-fledged love affair.
So Is Wanting To Save The World Wrong?
It depends. Jack Kornfield, a meditation teacher and psychologist, put it like this:
"If you want to save the environment, save it because you love it, not because it needs saving".
Which is what I believe to be true today as well. If we are in the present moment, and start or get involved with something that we love for its own sake, which then happens to have a positive impact on people, or the planet, right now (it's impossible to know the impact of our actions 100 years from now) then that's paradise, free from cause or outcome-orientation. The motivation is coming from a savoring energy instead of a saving one.
The way the savoring energy can show up in our bodies is when we are joyfully relaxed, connected to all our senses and our hearts, and in my case, it makes me want to throw a dance party, blow a kiss and pull out my pink boa:).
If we contrast that with the saving energy in our bodies, connected to the cause we are passionate about, we can detect it as a leaning-forward energy, with intensity, stealiness and tension focused on the problem that we want to solve, which also can show up as a burning sensation of frustration.
An Alternative To Contraction
I never knew there was an alternative to to contraction and forcing my will upon the world. I didn't know that savoring the world is about seeing how the world desires me right back (how trippy is that!). Now I feel like I struck gold:) and I love to share this juicy feminine way of relating to the world, which is what I offer through my courses and my coaching.
What is your relationship with savoring vs saving? How does it show up in your body? And how can you invite more a sense of savoring in your own life? And how would that impact how you live, lead and create?
Next week, I'm offering a limited number of free exploration sessions if you are curious about exploring working with me, and/or want to address an issue that you are dealing with - or is just longing for more savoring:). Sign up here!
To a savory-filled week!
Love and Truth,
Lovisa
Holding Life Lightly
There is a fascinating correlation between courtesans, Tantrikas, Dervishes and other enlightened beings, such as Dalai Lama. They all hold life lightly. Dalai Lama is frequently caught jumping up and down on his sitting pillow with glee. Osho, a Tantrika, was known for his laughter and clarity. One of my Tantric yoga teachers said that you can easily see when a Daoist, Tantrica or a Darvish enters a room versus a Buddhist or an Ashtanga Yoga follower or teacher (I started out in the Ashtanga Path and also became a teacher in that tradition - the yoga-tradtion of A-type personalities, as someone quipped to me). The latters are heavier, more solemn, and the former, more serene and vibrant. Which also can be found in many courtesans of the past.
When we hold life lightly, we stand with one foot in our regular life and one foot in what's bigger than us. As what I learn in the path that I'm following, the Diamond Approach, being in the world but not of the world. We can hold ourselves, and our egos, with compassion, almost like being bemused by watching a child's dramatic displays. We don't get stuck in it. And that is also what is true if we follow a path that is pleasure-focused, where we are connected to our jewels. Because it's easy, especially in a world of suffering, to give pleasure a bad rap, or that alternately it becomes shallow and more about instant gratification instead of the life-force that it is. Increasingly, I see these two paths as deeply interconnected or maybe even one and the same.
In what situations do you feel weighed down or contracted? How does it feel in your body? And in what situations can you hold yourself lightly? And watch yourself with compassion? How does that affect your body?
My course about the above and the importance of awakening to the feminine is starting March 13. Check it out here.
Love and Truth,
Lovisa
Becoming Visible
Writing my first post here on this new blog, I wanted to speak to the power - and the issues with - becoming visible.
Ever since I got back to Sweden 2,5 years ago after 15 years in the Golden State, I've struggled with my identity, and how to be fully authentic in who I am now. After so many years away, where I had changed into a very different person than the one who left Sweden, I met my old self or rather old selves upon reentering Sweden. Which caused a lot of anxiety. Since I also had to figure out how to make a living, it was so easy going back to the "business-me", which was the Lotta I left behind. But she had so little to do with the person I am today. My fantasy-writing was one aspect of me that needed to get expressed. Yet what came to be the most important part of me, for now, to express, is my love for working with women, and this time, connecting women's "jewels" (a.k.a. yonis or vaginas) with women's strong connection to pleasure, creation and eros, which is very different than solely relying on our often well-equipped brains to make things happen. When we are connected to this force-field, which also helps us connect with something bigger than ourselves, we blossom - and the world blossoms. Owning this fully, however, speaking publicly about it, has been a journey in itself, and before I could fully own it, I couldn't be visible either.
And that is the crux of becoming visible. The more we reveal of our deepest selves, whether it's through our music, our writing, our speaking, our art, the more "dangerous" it feels. And quite frankly. It is perilous. Especially for women. Yet, the price for staying silent and being hidden is so much higher. Life was never meant to be safe. The more we contract in fear, the more diminished our lives get, and as a result, we end up withholding our gifts and our essence from the world. As Zola wrote, "We are here to live out loud".Which I'm, finally! ready for. How about you?
In the coming weeks and months, I'll slowly but surely reveal me, with all my imperfections, even on video-camera, phew:), but it's a process that I'm also excited about. My hope is to inspire you to do the same.
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In Love and Truth,
Lovisa