10. What do we actually mean by The Feminine?

In this episode we explore what we actually mean by the Feminine

What if the soft, the intuitive, the receptive and perhaps the very thing we've been taught to dismiss - is exactly what is needed?

In this conversation, we explore our own complicated relationship with the Feminine, what we've rejected and what we're reclaiming, and why older women may be the very ones to restore the balance.

About this podcast

We believe the voice of the older woman is medicine for the world.

Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott are two women post-55 with a combined century of living, loving and learning. Although opposites in personality, pace and lifestyle, we share a deep passion for inside-out transformation. Our individual career journeys have led us to inspire, coach and teach people to reconnect to their own inner wisdom in business and community settings.

In The Wild, Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen and hold the line for love.

Whether you're navigating the territory beyond menopause yourself, or simply curious about the wild wisdom that emerges when women start trusting what they know - we'd love you to pull up a chair.

If you want to get in touch - contact us at:  lizscottcoaching@me.com

For more about and how to work with Elizabeth Lovius www.elizabethlovius.com 

For more about and how to work with Liz Scott www.lizscott.co.uk

Transcript

Liz Scott 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Wild, Wise Feminine.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

We believe the voice of the feminine elder is medicine for the world. We are Elizabeth Lobius and Liz Scott. Two women with the combined century of living, loving, and learning.

Liz Scott 0:26

In the Wild Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen, and hold the line for love.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

We'd love you to pull up a chair.

Liz Scott 0:50

In this episode, we explore what we actually mean by the feminine.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

What if the soft, the intuitive, the receptive, and perhaps the very thing we've been taught to dismiss is exactly what is needed.

Liz Scott 1:07

In this conversation, we explore our own complicated relationship with the feminine. What we projected and what we're reclaiming. And why older women may be the very ones to restore the balance. You know, I am very British and English, and I am going to just talk about the weather because we've had some beautiful weather. It's like we've gone from spring, we had summer for one day, and we're back in autumn again.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Grey and rainy, but it's not like that where you are. Where I am, it is beautiful sunshine. It's dappled with light. I love it.

Liz Scott 2:00

Oh, Elizabeth, I know our conversation today is all around the feminine. I really want to hear your take on this. I think you've probably done a little bit more reflection than I have. I guess for me, when I talk about the feminine or people talk about the feminine, I have a little bit of a jolt in me. They're sort of like, oh, I don't quite like that word. To me, it feels a little bit along the lines of male and female, like, you know, men versus women, women versus men, and patriarchy and the matriarchy and all of that stuff. So for me, when someone talks about the feminine, I think I get that initial jolt of like that doesn't feel like the right word. And yet I do know that there's there is something here that I would love to explore with you, which is around a different kind of energy. That's what I'm seeing it as. And I want to know your take on it. So I kind of see this sense of there is an energy which is very rational and thinking and analytical and planning. That's one kind of energy, and we're I'm very used to that. And there seems to be another energy, a more of a nurturing, quieter, compassionate energy that feels like it's not seen as much. But that's where as far as I've got really in this uh uh exploration, and and I just know this is an area that you have reflected on so much.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

So where are you with it all? So one of my favorite topics of conversation, and the reason it is, is because I would say for the first 50 years of my life, whilst I was very feminine dressing and looking, and I had sisters and aunties, and you know, I I adored my girlfriends, you know, there were lots of positive experiences of being a woman, I would say I would have rejected the feminine. That's what I see now. So I'd like to speak to that, and that it's the rejection and then the reclamation that I would I'm gonna say has changed my life. So let me just start with the rejection. First of all, I've got to say, what was feminine though? What did you reject? What were you rejecting? My notions of feminine. Which were what then? Inherited notions weak, scatty, unreliable, ungrounded, manipulative, flaky. There are other positive ones, but the it was my negative ones I'd rejected. Soft. In business, soft it soft figures are not a good thing. If your figures are soft, your numbers are soft, that's bad. So the word soft, even in business, has got a you know negative connotation. And I was working in the world of business. I I didn't have a fulsome understanding of the feminine. I was just rejecting what I perceived as its negative side. Does that answer it for you?

Liz Scott 4:59

Yeah, it it certainly does. And and I guess that kind of resonates in a way because I think when I reflect on the feminine, I think I've got all these cultural, this cultural baggage, a bit like you've just talked about there, which is it's the person that puts everybody else first, that's it's the one that looks after everybody else's needs, that is downtrodden and a bit of a martyr and doesn't speak up and doesn't know how to have a voice, so finds other ways of gossip or you know, manipulation in order to be heard. So so yes, I kind of understand that completely, which is probably why it jars a bit, that sort of sense of the feminine. And I know that's not what you mean. So what did you see then, I guess, about the feminine that had you reclaim it?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah. Uh I'm just gonna call all the things we've just said that that we don't like. I'm gonna call that the shadow feminine, and I'm gonna come back to that. So I'm not gonna, it's it is true, those things are there. But I I wanna I wanna say that my relationship with the feminine was with the shadow feminine, and I didn't want it. And that's where I was. So we live in a world where achievement, achieving goals, having clarity of thought, confidently pursuing the direction of our dreams, having a voice, taking a stand. These are all what I would call masculine values, very nice, very good, nothing wrong with them. But we live in a world where that is valued more. And so I grew up in IBM, which is the ultimate blue-suited patriarchal. Beautiful. Patriarch is not bad. It's beautiful, they looked after you in a very masculine way, and that's where I grew up in my business world. You know, I remember saying, I I remember this coming out of my mouth so many times. Well, it's all about the bottom line. That's that's it. That's the world of the formula of the masculine, the bottom line, what you can measure. And so I had adapted myself and and pointed myself in that direction and became really, really good at it in business. And then I worked with leaders who were also interested in those things. And I was the main breadwinner. So my numbers couldn't be soft, they had to be delivered to serve the family. I stepped into a provision role. I valued that. And then I'd notice I would also have friends who didn't operate like that. Artists, duelers, creatives of various different forms, spiritual people, they weren't valuing that in the same way, and that looked a little ungrounded to me. But there was something in it that kept I I love being around them. So there was something in that way of being that was balancing something for me. And then it was time to move from Spain to London, and I knew that I was going to be up against a change that was beyond that was going to destabilize my normal on a on a level I hadn't done before. And I won't go into all the details of it, but I'll just say I knew that I needed some external support to help me navigate this, and I knew that I was exhausted because all the doing. I chose a coach whose hallmark was about reclamation of the feminine, especially for women in my situation, and that was an intuitive choice. And she started teaching me about the feminine, masculine energies, and I really want to be clear. I'm talking about energy, not gender, these these qualities of being, which we all have both. We have them in different degrees, but we all have both. And she started teaching me about the feminine, and I saw how much I'd rejected it, and what I and I rejected the light of the feminine, and that is this flowing energy, this resting, deeply resting and resourcing and nourishing oneself and others, taking time for the the things that are that are not you can't put in a wheelbarrow, those moments of connection, prioritizing relationships, not because of what they would give you or you would get, but just because to connect. Creating without purpose, just because something wants to be created through you, flowing, having an intuitive or spiritual sense of a formless world and honoring it. And this is the biggest word that I can see was my challenge being receptive to receiving versus being active and providing because the world values active and providing, but receiving others, receiving, not controlling, but allowing and just desiring, allowing one's heart's desires, even if they're not practical, to let those flow. These were things that I started to realize I hadn't done and hadn't prioritized rest and renewal. That felt like a luxury. And these were all things that became visible to me as I worked with my feminine embodiment coach. And the body, my body, I'll just say thank you to my husband for he he took care of my body. He was the one who said, Oh darling, you know, why don't you get your nails done? He had a very feminine mother, so he really respected the the beauty and magic of the feminine, and he he would encourage me, he would give me permission, funnily enough. And I realized I had cut my head off from my body. I overwrote it in service of the goal. And that is what hunters do. They go out and they will not come home and they will not sleep until they bring home the food. That's a beautiful quality. Thank you, masculine energy. But you can't live there as you know, especially as a woman. If you live there, you're you're you're compromising something else to do that. And I saw it, and it it was a shock, and I resisted it because until then I hadn't seen the light of the feminine, I'd focused on the shadow.

Liz Scott 11:49

I I think it's really interesting what you're saying, and I guess I'm gonna reflect, particularly as an older woman, sort of moving through my 50s, and what I've noticed in what you've said and some of the language you've been using kind of really resonates in a way that I maybe didn't have an articulation for. So I don't know that I particularly rejected the feminine. I mean, there were elements like you said, there are elements I would have rejected. But certainly as I've shifted and transitioned into this phase of life, I've absolutely noticed something within me, I was gonna say flourish or take shape or grow. It's almost like there is a season for this in me where this is started to shoot up. And and the language you use, and I made a couple of notes as you were saying it, it's this sense of intuition, like this this realization of trusting the intuition. It's not just some sort of weird little word that some people use their intuition. It's like, no, I can absolutely see this as the guiding principle now of my life, this sense of being in the flow and recognizing not through um an analytical mind, but through a kind of feeling sense of when I'm in the flow and when I'm not in the flow. You looked uh talked about creativity, like what creativity looks like. You didn't mention slowing down, but for me, this sense of slowing down, you use the word connection, being with people. I was talking to a friend the other day, she's uh a recent grandmother, and she just felt this. She just said, I really feel my role is looking after the next generation, is looking after my children and their children. It feels so good. She was a a businesswoman, so it's always but she's embracing something that feels absolutely right. That's that's what I'm seeing for myself, is that it feels as though to deny that now would feel like I were not being honest with myself or trying to fool myself to deceive myself. So, yes, I think for me moving into this phase of life as an older woman, that energy, like you say, it's it's an energy. Does feel like it's taking form in my life so much more. And I think I don't see this, or it's not explicitly talked about in a way that I can see other women around me that have taken this on board. And I think, oh yeah, I'm like them. There are some, and I gravitate towards them in my life for sure. But I don't think they're held up in society in the same way as the businessman or the businesswoman who's, you know, got like you say, hit the figures, got the bottom line, it's all good. Um, they're outwardly successful, drive nice cars, live a good lifestyle. That is valued. And yet all these other qualities that I've felt rise within me feel like they don't have the same kind of value. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

That, and just now, thank you for giving them my soapbox because I'm just gonna step on it. That right there is the biggest thing I've seen. We have got something the wrong way around. We need yin and yang, masculine and feminine. We can't a bird cannot fly with one wing. So we need the and. And what we've done is we've overemphasized in the world of business, politics, organizations, and general society, certainly the Western one, we value one more than the other. And the return is the domain of the older woman to stand for what is the balance here. And this is the balance. Masculine energy achieves the goal to provide active and providing, feminine energy serves the whole, is receptive to the whole and desiring of something better that will serve everyone. That has to go first. If we allow the feminine energy to rise up and envision a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, that comes from connection and creation, the feminine values, the feminine energy will naturally only want what will work for everyone. And then we invite the masculine to provide it and achieve the goals that will serve the whole. And if we can create that kind of balance, we have a balanced world where we value everything equally. And I I honestly believe it's the domain of the older woman to have her voice heard in what will serve the whole. So thank you for letting me say that and getting myself.

Liz Scott 16:57

I I I absolutely love what you've just said because it just it just resonates so deeply with me. It's like um a bell sort of being rung, like ding, ding, like yes, yes, yes. Uh, I really, really see that. This sense of wanting to contribute to be part of a bigger picture, to see the whole ecosystem rather than one element of it, to understand that in order for one element to be healthy, the whole of the system needs to be healthy. That's what I deeply, deeply see as an older woman. And only really in the last few years has it come clearer. So I feel that there might be more for us to talk about this, but I would like to ask you one question before we wrap up today. How do we balance this? Like, I know that you and I are finding our voices and speaking, but in a world that seems so lopsided and listening to one side, how do how do we balance this? And and you might not have the answer, but I would be so interested in what your reflections are.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

I I've got my answer. Oh, go on. Value the feminine yourself. Go first. Look at your own ones that my look I looked at my relationship with the feminine, and I only saw the shadow side, the dark side, and I hadn't honored the light side. And I started to truly look to see what I can value about the feminine energy. And I started to see it, I started to see it in a new way. And I started to see is not only was it crucial, it needed to lead. Not with follow me, with with a beautiful vision that considers everyone. And to to say, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could have a park? I remember Beth Midler talking in a stuff in um New York, she created gardens. She had a vision and she said, We should have gardens where people can grow their own food. That's what I'm talking about. That is exactly the feminine, having a vision for something that doesn't exist, that's going to serve everyone and require connection and creation to make it happen. So we need to value what the feminine brings as profoundly important ourselves. And then we need to give voice to our own expression of it if we're an older woman. In our family, in our community, in our businesses, wherever we are have a voice or we are sitting at the table, we need to have our voice heard and we need to take a stand for what our hearts know is possible. And I feel like that's the way the balance comes back because we are mature, we are not seeking a mate, we are not trying to have children, we have gone through the menopause, so we have we have integrated our feminine energy, estrogen has dropped the accommodation hormone, we're more balanced ourselves, and we are willing to speak the truth if we have come into our own as a woman at this age, and we will be heard. So that's my view.

Liz Scott 20:23

Yeah, and I think what I'd love to just to finish on for me is to say that if someone is listening to this and feels a spark within them of a yes, this a knowing spark. Don't try and think about it or analyze it or work it out. But if there's a spark in you that feels yes, there's something here, don't dismiss it. And I would love to connect with women who may be listening to this, who really want to find a way of expressing themselves, expressing that energy in the world. It's like for me, it feels as though they're as we come together, uh, we find a way of being our authentic selves in the world. We find a way of taking up our space in the world rather than shrinking back. So, yes, if anybody's listening and wants to just sort of drop us a line. I mean, we'd love to hear from you and your experiences. It's always good just to hear what resonates for you. So I just wanted to finish with that.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Posley. I feel a container percolating here that we might co-create, Liz, but more on that in the future. Uh, thank you so much. That's been a gorgeous conversation. Thank you.

Liz Scott 22:00

You've been listening to the Wild Wise Feminine Podcast with Liz Scott and Elizabeth Lobius.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

And if you want to get in touch, take a look at the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.

Liz Scott 22:13

You can find us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.