Most of us are culturally programmed to slip into the trance of unworthiness at some point in our lives, and for many of us, we can stay stuck there, believing the lies we were taught about our value or worthiness in a patriarchal world.

I define this as living in a disembodied and disassociated state where we are often disconnected from our true feelings, emotions, intuition, and inspiration. In other words, we are surviving rather than thriving and have forgotten that our birthright is to feel alive, tuned in, and turned on about this wild journey of life!

From the time we are young, we are micro-dosed messages that degrade the feminine and teach us to conform to the rules of a patriarchal world. To do this, we must cast the feminine parts of ourselves out, and deny her as part of our human experience. By suppressing and denying the most vital aspects of ourselves, our emotions, sensuality, intuition, and erotic power, we feel isolated, exhausted, and even alienated from ourselves and others. Editing and minimizing our needs to avoid appearing needy or undesirable.

I spent most of my life trying to live up to a distorted version of womanhood dictated by patriarchal culture. To make things more confusing, I couldn’t see, nor did I even know what patriarchy was, nor was I aware of the intergenerational trauma it causes.

Like a fish in water, I was unaware of the systemic ability of this system of patriarchy to “hide in plain sight” because it’s the air we breathe and the waters we swim in.

As a woman born into a female body, I had been brainwashed from girlhood to believe lies about what it meant to be a “girl” in the world. My upbringing in the Catholic Church didn’t help, keeping me perpetually confused by the contradictions and hypocrisies. I was frustrated and often profoundly unsettled by the blatant and unjust imbalance of power and a hierarchy that favored one type of person over another.

The constant but steady indoctrination was subtle and sometimes blatant. Through media, school, history books, movies, my home, and through my church, I felt blamed, shamed, shunned, and rejected due to my gender, which continued to erode my sense of self-worth. By age ten, I began distancing myself from all things feminine. I cut my hair short, refused to wear dresses, and made myself toughen up, so I wouldn’t cry, move, or run “like a girl.” I wanted no part of the feminine.

So began the “trance of unworthiness” as I gradually disassociated from my developing female body, deferring my agency to those I believed were “the experts.” So too, did I begin an unconscious practice of self-loathing, self-criticism, and self-doubt.

My way of coping with life was to shut down my empathic, emotional, intuitive, erotic self to be what they wanted me to be, which was “pretty, pleasing, and polite. By the time I was an adult, I had mastered the act of self-abandonment. I no longer knew who I was and was almost entirely unaware of how disconnected I had become. I had learned how to perform my life instead of living it.

After years of pushing and striving to prove myself, I had reached the pinnacle of so-called success.

From the outside looking in, I appeared to have it all, and yet my insides were hollow, empty, and void of any vitality or passion for life. I had become chronically tense, exhausted, and lonely, even around wonderful people.

The exterior of my life was a pretty picture. I had a lovely home, a handsome husband, two beautiful children, and a successful award-winning business that appeared in magazines, and even on The Today Show! Outwardly I was presenting as a wildly successful female entrepreneur, and all-around “good wife,” “good daughter,” “good mother,” and “good friend.”

On the other side of that pretty picture, I was falling apart. For years I had pretended not to know that I was unhappy, unfulfilled, and exhausted. My marriage was failing and getting harder to manage by the day, and my children suffered.

My nervous system was constantly dysregulated, so I doubled down, thinking that if I worked harder or loved them better, I could get through it. I ignored the signals my distressed body gave me until my health, marriage, and business finally collapsed. At that point, I experienced a dark night of the soul- a state of personal crisis that nearly cost me my life as I spiraled into extreme dis-ease, culminating in divorce, debt, depression, isolation, tremendous and overwhelming grief, and debilitating shame and guilt.

How had this happened? I had followed my parents, elders, friends, and culture's directives - so why did everything feel so wrong?

This epic crisis became the crack where the light gets in. Instead of this being the end as I surely thought it was, it became my journey back home to my true self. As I started taking steps toward healing from unrealized childhood trauma, and a lifetime of self-damaging behavior by conforming to what my culture told me at the expense of myself, a new world opened up for me to show me the path forward.

This was the beginning of my “Revelation Project.” As part of this process, I began to see how I had internalized the damaging messages of our culture and its systemic degradation of the feminine through religion, education, media, and more, leading me to blame myself instead of the toxic system of abuse that was designed to degrade my spirit, and keep me in a trance.

Over my years of recovery, I began unbecoming.

Unbecoming who everyone wanted me to be to discover my authentic voice and self-expression while healing the fractures of my mind, body, and spirit as I re-membered.

Each layer that was not me was removed, inviting me into revelations of reclamation, healing, and wholeness as my vitality, joy, creativity, and laughter slowly returned for the first time in a very long time. I was coming back to life, and it was beautiful!

In hindsight, I can see the conditioning that caused me to disassociate and disown the many parts of myself that I believed would be shunned and rejected. I know now that the trance helped me to survive, and I’ve found this is true for most of my clients, and yet, if we don’t disrupt it and save ourselves, no one else will come.

We must take the first steps to be willing to take a chance on ourselves, to see that life is not what we have been conditioned to think it is.

My life’s work and research are now dedicated to helping others identify and deconstruct internalized patriarchy, and to break the spells of oppression that keep us in the trance of unworthiness- the common denominator that slowly erodes us from the inside out, draining us and dimming our light.

This is why it’s so important that we see the systems of oppression that hide in plain sight because, as we reveal, we heal, and remember who we are as powerful, creative, vital human beings here to make a difference in the world because each of us contains a unique element of what the world needs, and without us, the world will not be transformed into a new vision and version for our next evolution.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

It’s my honor to assist my clients in 1X1 coaching sessions or through group coaching in the following ways:

• Remember their brilliance and help them see it too.

• Recognize and deconstruct internalized patriarchy and its intersecting systems through customized teachings, tools, and practices of the sacred feminine, which also rebalances and includes the masculine aspects of self.

• Unbecome from years of social conditioning to re-inhabit our bodies so we can reclaim our innate intelligence.

• Transform our lives from surviving to thriving, while rewiring neural pathways to encourage a healthy and happy nervous system.

• Guide women back home to their wild, intuitive, and erotic selves to reclaim the parts of Self we may have unconsciously abandoned, suppressed, or exiled in exchange for love and belonging.

• Thrive in circles of sisterhood that invite us back to the mystery and magic of the sacred feminine.

• Celebrate the breakdowns and honor the breakthroughs on the path to radical self-approval.

• Embrace the messy truths that surface when we do our inner work. These confusing and magnificent moments open the portal into new realms of understanding, higher consciousness, and profound joy.

• To stop hiding and suppressing our voices, stories, and truth. When we hide our true selves, we do so at the cost of ourselves and the world.