I was five years old when I learned my natural sexual impulses were shameful and bad. The little girl across the street and I got caught, as our society calls it, “playing doctor.” 

Our mothers sat us down at the kitchen table and admonished us that what we did was bad, wrong and dirty. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Good little girls didn’t do things like that.

We learned our natural impulses couldn’t be trusted. I needed to be suspicious of my impulses and curiosities. When my body felt pleasure, I couldn’t trust it. I should in fact notice the pleasure as a sign that I would disgust the one person whose love and nurture I needed the most. Those impulses and curiosities were a part of me, so they couldn’t go away. But they did go underground. (This is the origin of the heart-sex split.)

The prescriptions of Southern femininity, Southern Baptist doctrine, and all-American sexism colluded to further distance me from my authentic self. As an outwardly perfect preacher’s kid, Biblical doctrine shifted my spiritual life away from the sacred connections with nature and ancestral guides and into the patriarchal container of Christianity. My little girl was cut off from her body and life force as she distanced from nature and her place in the natural world.

For the next 35 years, my cut-off parts stayed underground, hollowing me out. I had sex without feeling ecstasy, connection or integration. The gap widened as I traveled down the road of ambition, looking out at the world from an increasingly armored, guarded place. I was not only my father’s daughter, I was a daughter of the Patriarchy.

INTERNALIZED PATRIARCHY

Growing up, too many of us learned to devalue and disconnect from our pleasure, sexuality, feelings, intuition and dreams. Pieces of our bodies, spirit and mind were cut off, exiled and buried, often by well-meaning family, friends, religious traditions and teachers.

We learned to value achievement and performance. We were praised when we pleased others and dismissed our own desires. We were taught to rely on reason and logic; to separate body from mind, sexuality from spirituality. 

As children of the patriarchy, our connection to the true wisdom that lives in both our bodies and the land was severed.

As a result, we experience the fallout of internalized patriarchy:

• Depression (repressed anger)
• Anxiety (energy that needs to move)
• An inability to let go of control and trust
• Disconnected from the creative fire within
• Unable to connect to both heart and sexuality which keeps us disconnected from ourselves and our partner(s)
• Feeling spiritually adrift, unfulfilled, severed from our culture, ancestry and the land

In order to heal and experience our full aliveness we need to unlearn this way of living and reconnect to our intuitive, eros, spirit-filled way of relating to ourselves and the world around us.

This is the Revolution.

EMBODY THE REVOLUTION

To become sovereign, we must unlearn the internalized patriarchy that has dominated us and strangled the life force from our relationships with ourselves, each other and the planet.

My own healing and unlearning required a descent into the underworld via my body to find and re-member my lost parts. I had a deep longing to expose and embrace all that I had resisted, all that I had hidden. I learned, over time, how to be safe in my body, thaw my frozenness and access my erotic, creative energy and potent, sexual life force. 

This is where the revolution begins: reconnecting with all of our exiled parts, our undesirables, the parts we have banished into the shadowlands of our existence.  

Unlearning internalized patriarchy requires us to let go of certainty and increase our capacity to live in the unknown where eros, creativity and aliveness pulse. The process is as messy as the dirt from which we come. It is nonlinear, chaotic and both unique and universal. 

Revolution is not a quick fix. It is the very opposite of the hacking culture. It takes the time it takes to unlearn a lifetime of living with defenses and guards up, disconnected from our full selves. 

Embodying the revolution is a journey of self-intimacy. It requires radical honesty. And as we heal the heart-sex split, we deepen into our relationship with ourselves and others. Healing this split allows us to connect with our inner wisdom and the wisdom of the planet. 

The revolution doesn’t stop with individual healing. Embodying the revolution is an interdependent movement that includes collective healing. 

On the sovereign path, we not only bring our gifts forward for ourselves. Our healing reveals our purpose, which is deeply connected and in tune with the needs of our generation. As we heal ourselves, we contribute to our cultural and collective liberation.

Embodying the Revolution is not for the faint of heart. It requires everything to step into this embodied evolutionary path. And this is precisely the level of embodied commitment that I believe is needed in these times on our planet. 

Drop a YES in the comments below if you know it’s time for YOU to EmBody the Revolution. It’s not about being ready…it’s about choosing to have ALL OF YOU, starting now.

This blog includes an excerpt from Melissa’s upcoming book, “Scarlet.” To be notified of its release, and how you can be one of the first readers, join our mailing list here.