Empowerment through Embodiment: From Shades of Beige to Bright Colors, with Femme! Founder Bernadette Pleasant

How much do you enjoy your body?

If you’re anything like me… Even the question itself would make me shut down and want to crawl under the covers.

What do you mean, how much I enjoy my body? If I lost 10 lbs, I would enjoy it more.

For years, my love for my body… Ahem… Not “love” — my tolerating of my body was completely conditional on whether that said body complied with and conformed to the expectations that I had of it.

Which were really, really simple.

Staying at the same constant “ideal” weight.

And not aging.

Really, is that too much to ask?

It took me some time — and awareness of what I now call Patriarchy Stress Disorder — the trauma of 1000s of years of oppression and how it has shaped our relationships with ourselves, our bodies — among other things… To ask that question.

My relationship with my body. My expectations of my body. Were they really… MINE… or were they issued by Patriarchy Press?

You can probably guess the answer.

Can you relate?

Asking that question and confronting the truth of the answer was hugely liberating for me. It liberated me from the constant war against my body. It put me on the path of healing my relationship with her.

No longer an IT, but a HER.

And she — she has been so grateful. She’s been waiting for my to truly see her and truly love her, unconditionally, just the way she is — for close to 40 years.

No matter how many years it’s been for you and her, your body, it’s never too late.

Our brilliant guest Bernadette Pleasant shares on this episode of Her Success Radio some deep wisdom of embodiment and healing through authentic movement.

She’s glorious and gorgeous.

But she wasn’t always this free, this confident, this comfortable in her own skin.

It’s hard to believe, looking at her now.

So don’t take my word for it.

Listen to Bernadette share her story on this episode.

And please leave us a comment: What stayed with you from our conversation?

 

The first question I asked Bernadette was,

“When you first read the words, Patriarchy Stress Disorder, what did you feel and what did you think?”

Bernadette Pleasant: “It just felt so incredibly aligned. I’ve read that and I’ve thought, ‘Whoa, it’s certainly a condition.’ So, how brilliant of you to call it that… I personally saw that and I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I get that. I see that every day.’

I personally have experienced it and I see it in so many people. How they’re shut down and how they are reacting. There are just so many ways of how this disorder affects our lives and how there’s a need to heal.

So quite honestly, it just felt so aligned and clear. A sad truth, but naming something — you know how important it is to name something — because then you can do something about it… It’s an awareness of something that exist, and therefore — what can we do about it?”

We talked about how Patriarchy Stress Disorder manifests in it feeling unsafe for us to show up in our full authentic expression of our emotions, feel connected with ourselves and others, feel confident and comfortable in our own skin, and live bright, shiny lives — as the bright, shiny beings we came into this world as.

We talked about Bernadette’s personal journey and how she created Femme! — her brilliant body of work — out of her own need to liberate.

How a repressed emotional range leads to disempowerment and under-living, under-enjoying all areas of live — or, as Bernadette calls it, half-assing your emotions and your life.

May our conversation serve as validation of your experience of feeling under-expressed, under-powered in this patriarchal culture and inspiration for re-powering yourself by getting in touch with your body, your emotions — and reclaiming them.

Please tune in and give your precious body the gift of your unconditional love for her.