Dark Feminine Power

There is nothing wrong with your human heart, your body, your desires, your wants, the things that you are passionate about in this life, the things that you want more of. There is nothing wrong with those things. And what we have to understand is that this is one of the reasons why, as women, we always fall into the trap of self-depletion. And that's a huge red flag.

That's why when we talk about things like self-empowerment and take care of yourself and all of these things, a lot of women get uncomfortable because they feel like they can't. They feel selfish. If I take care of myself, I'm selfish. Because again, we're only seeing the micro of the macro.

And then we're getting into this place of only this or this. Why don't we allow the spectrum of existence to reside within us? The whole universe is embodied in us. Welcome.

Welcome to the Thrive Her Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sanders. I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, stepmom, second wife, and master certified life coach. I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create a thriving life you love.

Welcome back to the Thrive Her Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sanders. Guys, you know who I am. I say this every single week, like you don't know who I am.

But today, I have someone who I've wanted to be on our podcast for a long time. She's here with us, and we're talking about all things feminine. It's even better than that. It's like the dark feminine power that every single one of us has inside of us that sometimes we either don't know how to access or we're scared to access it.

And so Safra's with me. She is seriously a genius. Like, we've been in the same world now for months. I know she's what you are.

You're literally a genius. We've been in the same world for months, and we'll be on a call with a lot of women, probably 15, 20 plus women at a time every single week. And every time she starts to talk, I'm all, time to listen, guys. I call it Safra Church because that's what it is.

She is so good at walking you through how to access that power. And how to essentially be this, your own guide. I'm calling it your own guide. But really, Safra, I want you to introduce yourself.

Tell us a little bit about you, and then we're going to dive in. It's going to be so juicy. I'm so excited. Amy, I'm just so excited to be here, and I appreciate you.

Your words are making me blush, but in a very good way. A little bit about myself. So I'm a embodied sovereignty mentor. I'm also a priestess of the divine feminine.

And so I work with. Within the alchemical world. And if that means nothing to the people that are listening, I get it. So let me explain a little bit about me and the work that I do.

So on a very human level, I am just a person who cares a whole lot. I have a big heart. I always have always been very intuitive. And you're correct.

My space has always been very much that of guidance and receptivity and observation. And so I like to tap into what is showing up in that moment and feed into that. Because a lot of times. That's the space that we need most help in.

It's not that we are inherently broken or wrong and that there's something wrong with us or anything like that. It's that we really haven't given us ourselves the space to look at the broad picture. And we keep looking at the microscopic stuff. But maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself a little bit.

So the work that I do, it's so interesting. There's some similarities between you and I. So the work that I do, it started when in the way of healing my own heart, my own mind, my own body. And.

Moving away from an eating disorder that had been eating away at me since I was in middle school. What I discovered was a passion for self-care, but a passion for true falling in love with the self and a passion for personal empowerment. And then that took me in many different directions. At first I was teaching yoga and then I was doing nutrition consultations.

And the whole time, no matter who I was talking to, there was always something about the conversations I was having with the women that were sitting across. Whether it was on the mat, off the mat, that they just immediately started pouring of themselves. And I've always been that person. I was that person when I was six years old.

I'm that person now. I'll continue to be that person. And so what I was really most afraid of was expressing myself in this world and saying what I said at the beginning of this conversation. Which is like, who walks around saying that they're a personal sovereignty mentor or a priestess?

And let that sink in. And to be honest with you. It's only until this year that I've actually started using those words. So they still feel very new to me as well.

Because I was so shy and I was so scared and I was afraid to allow the fullness of what that means to be out in the world. Because most of us have a very difficult relationship with the empowered feminine. And a lot of us have a very difficult relationship with the dark feminine. And a lot of difficult relationship with what comes with the world of personal sovereignty.

We haven't been taught. We've been taught to self-dismiss. We've been taught to minimize. We've been taught that everyone else takes first priority ahead of us.

And so in a very long-winded, as per usual way, this is the realm that I inhabit. Which you can already hear, like, your passion behind your words. Which I love. Okay, so it's been just a year that you've actually stepped into that saying, okay, you've been doing this for a while.

But you're like, no, it's time to own it. So when you say it. When you say it even now, how does it feel to own it? It's still scary.

And you know what? I feel like that's actually one of the most beautiful parts about this. So just to give you a little bit of a further background on that. Like I said, I started with yoga first.

And so it was really easy that I was like, I'm the yoga teacher. And I say easy, but even that was a little bit scary because I was brought up religiously. So even that was breaking rules of things that should have been done or should not have been done. Or ways where I could have been possessed or things that people told me along the way.

And so I started as a yoga teacher that felt a little bit more accessible. Then I was doing nutrition consultations. And it was very easy to say, oh, I do nutrition. And then people immediately were like, I want to lose weight, blah, blah.

Then the first change happened when I changed my company, which was based off of nutrition. And my tagline was helping women change the relationship to food and self. Because obviously from my journey, that was the pipeline, so to speak. And that was like the realm I inhabited in.

But then when it changed to your soulful goddess, which is my current. The name of my company right now. That's when I first started calling myself an intuitive guide. And then eventually that turned into life coach because people couldn't understand.

If I had conversations, you'll get this. And I think your listeners will understand this. What is very interesting about the way in which we have been brought up in this world is that the words that we utilize on a regular basis sometimes don't exactly describe what it is that we want them to describe. And when it comes to entrepreneurship.

It almost feels like there's only so far we can go. Like we can either say we're a business coach, a life coach, a relationship coach, or a weight loss coach. But we really can't quote unquote. And I mean that like it's not serious, but in our mind, into our egos, it feels this way.

Can't say anything else because it won't be understood. And interestingly enough, in working with some business coaches and stuff, that was one of our conversations is that they saw my Instagram tag. And at the time it was like intuitive life coach. And they were like, what the fuck does that mean?

Oh, my. Am I allowed to curse? I fly by the seat of my pants. I love it.

Own it. It's fine. But so they were like, what is this? No one is going to understand what.

And so it starts feeding into these loops. Right. It starts feeding into the information of the shoulds and shouldn'ts. And it just goes into a whole slew of things.

And for me, what was difficult about that was that because I tend to be very verbose and very bright and passionate. And. Expressive my entire life, I heard be less my entire life. I was told you are too much like the whole you're too dramatic.

You're too expert. Why are you so angry? Like it was always like as if everything that I was experiencing and sharing with the world was so monumentally big and wrong that it couldn't be allowed to exist. So when I moved into entrepreneurship by that point, I'd already healed a lot of internal stuff around my own.

Self-worth, the way that I chose to feed into myself, the way that I chose to fall in love with myself. But I it's so interesting that when you go into entrepreneurship, you get thrown even further into shadow work. And I hadn't thought about what that would be like when I said I want to express myself with my priestess training, with my priestess heart within the realm of the dark feminine and say that I am and I do these things. And I've evolved my title several times over the last six years because not only has it been.

What the hell is this and how do we explain this to people but it's also been it's so vulnerable and I think that's where I'm at right now this last iteration it feels so vulnerable and it feels so out in the open that it's still feels really scary but in this is part of the dark feminine conversation that we get to have today is that one thing that I have learned is a warrior goes to battle scared. That doesn't mean that. They pull away or that it's over the second it started you go through it and you show up and so yes it's scary like it's monumentally terrifying there are mornings where I still wake up and I just go maybe I should just go back to saying I'm a life coach but it's just I'm so determined and so devoted to the process of truthfulness within my own life that's one of the tenants of the priestess is that we don't lie but least of all to ourselves so I'm just so determined to saying that while it feels scary. It also feels very empowering it also feels very liberating it also feels like a huge act of rebellion and there's a part of me to that very much resides within the realm of the dark feminine which is a lot more rebellious that really likes that I like the fact that I get to say I'm something that no one else is saying.

No yeah when I was like you've been reading your bio because yes I know the work that you do and not even the depth that you do it but like I have an understanding of the work that you do and I love it every single time time you talk I'm like yes. It's like oh she is owning that so it's cool to hear that you're still like oh I'm a little scared that this is vulnerable but it's true like even with the work that I do it's so hard to label it I've really struggled with that there's so much more to me than life coach there's so much more to me than business coach and it is hard to it's it is hard to just put it into words so for those people who don't really know much about we talk about the feminine energy and then you're saying. Guess what dark feminine energy which is not bad probably people like oh is that bad is that bad right so is it black is it like what does that mean can you give us an overview of wherever you want to take it really yeah for sure so I think that the first thing I'll say is. One of the most important things about this human existence at least in my opinion is that we get to understand we are the ones that are at the helm.

Of our lives meaning we're the ones that get to lean in and choose and observe and ask questions so the work that I do with women we do by means of a process that I call mindful self-seduction and I'll go more into that in a minute but the reason I bring this up is because when we hear words like dark or shadow. What in my opinion would be the most beneficial thing for us to do before we jump into the fear and the shut off and the cut off and the. Vigidity in this scarcity of all of the response that sometimes can happen is that we check in and that we check in with what's going on internally and I say this because again I was brought up religiously. And I understand what that intrinsic fear and almost like panic can be around some of these concepts for people the first time I heard not even about the dark feminine that's very deep but the first time I heard about shadow work within the realm of Jungian psychology I was scared I just was like I don't know.

What does dark energy mean that's what it means to me exactly yeah it doesn't mean that like I'm going to turn into a bad person like it just was a very interesting thing in there with the dark feminine much more because and this is something that I'm going to address a little bit in my talk at the women's thrive summit is the relationship that we have with feminine power women centric power is so frayed it is so. Damaged and it is so tainted by ideas that have nothing to do with the true core of what that power actually is in this lived existence that our first thoughts are going to be of wordy witches out in the woods praying to the devil sacrificing children and eating men for dinner you know that that's unfortunate it sounds funny but it's unfortunately our first thought. And so there's so much. Subconscious wounding around this there is so much generational trauma that sits heavy within our hearts when we hear terms like these that the first thing we want to do is bolt and what I always tell people is like I said start with self what is this response is that a complete shutdown and where is it coming from and tell me the story about that shutdown tell me what it is that's making you feel this way and we can go deeper.

And then it's a lot more likely that you'll be open to hearing otherwise. You'll hear me sit here and talk about things and you're just going to be like this is too esoteric it's too up in the air it's and I'm never going to understand it and it's stupid and that's fine you have a right to do that but what again it's an encouraging for you to claim yourself sovereign and to observe and so from that point of view the realm of the dark feminine and here's the other thing I'll say you heard me say earlier that I'm very rebellious and I don't like that I like that I can say that I'm something that no one else is saying one of the things that my internal. Like parts. Like little Safa teenage Safa 20 year old Safa all of these parts get to really rattled up about is when something becomes hyper popularized and watered down and so for me one of the things that I've been really observing within the realm of the conversation around polarity energetics and then specifically the dark feminine is that it's become this trendy thing that has become anesthetic so a lot of times people will hear dark feminine think oh like.

And dark like black cat theory and all of this other stuff and not there's anything inherently wrong with any of these ideas but we have to again we have to go back to sovereignty and ask why and where this is coming from because this isn't about anesthetic. The dark feminine realm in it's not about evil it's not the opposite of light feminine it's not against light feminine it is the other side of the coin it's like looking at. The underside of the iceberg a lot of times what we consider the light feminine is the things that we have been exposed to the things that have received light in our lives the things that we can talk about the generosity the kindness the nurturing the connection all of these and the intimacy all of these things but as we start getting deeper. As we start peeling back the layers and as we start finding depth within the self as we start understanding more.

Palatable but also a bit more challenging to digest concepts of self hood we start entering the realm of the dark feminine so the dark feminine is not anesthetic it's not just a look that we can put on it's not there's another thing that I've been seeing a lot lately is this concept of dark feminine for manipulate manipulative purposes for getting the man. And so it's driving you nuts oh it's not it the fact that I'm talking about it now clearly speaks to how nuts it drives me like it's just it. It just makes my blood boil and one of the reasons why is because it's actually it's a call to the complete opposite the call of the dark feminine is a remembrance of self worth self value self introspection it's a call for us to you've heard me say the word sovereignty like five or six times already and again I do embodied sovereignty work right but the reason why is because that is the pinnacle and the foundation upon which the dark feminine is erected. What the dark feminine is all about is you are the queen of your life you are the one that has the choosing you are the one that has the power to allow into your life to create to make a life in this world you are the one no one else is at the helm life isn't beating you up just because I don't know you're unfortunate and everything bad happens to you you are not at the effect you are the one that is creating and that doesn't mean.

And I think we have to be careful with this because there's a lot of really interesting speak in the world of self help and self development and in the spiritual world where we'll hear things like we attract the things that we attracted this into our lives and things like those sound very blame filled and that's not at all with the realm of the dark feminine is either I'm not saying because you are sovereign of your life if something happened to you that was traumatic or awful it is your fault I'm not saying that I'm never going to say you attracted a person or a situation. Into your life is something I'm very clear about when I do work with people it's not about that it's that because there are parts of yourself that you haven't quite seduced yet understood loved cherished developed and integrated there are going to be things and patterns within your life and systems that you are going to continue to replicate and play on loop just because they feel normal to you and in that normalcy sometimes we would rather as human beings remain somewhere where we are absolutely dying then to step out of the comfort zone and put that toxic system away because one we don't know there's anything better to we're afraid and three we believe we deserve it and so this is the conversation we have is the dark feminine realm is the realm of depth it's about okay yes surface level I can say I love myself but if I wake up in the morning and I jiggle my arms and I go my arms are jiggly I hate this fat then I'm not really loving myself then the depth of the dark feminine is let's have a conversation let's really find love for every part of who we are and understand that love is not conditional earlier before we even got started with the show we were talking about our pets right and so I'd really do believe that is one of the most beautiful gifts that we are ever given as human beings is that we get to experience true unconditional love. unconditional meaning it's not the same as I'm forgiving of everything and I'm allowing of everything so unconditional and allowing of everything are not the same thing but unconditional means dude I love you not because of not in spite of but just period end of story there is no explanation needed and that's the kind of relationship that we get to have with ourselves when we lean into the realm of the dark feminine the realm of the dark feminine. is also one of speak up don't just sit there and take it speak up for what's right understand your values remember what your integrity is like and stand on it stand on business be about your ownership be diligent about accountability in a world and understand that because you are going to start doing those things you're going to start holding yourself to a higher standard which will feel really harsh to the world around you because from then on you have to and I say that lightly the word half is heavy but like you get to hold the world around you to a higher standard too and that is exceedingly inconvenient and it's extremely scary and that is where we get all of these stupid stories about how like empowered women are really evil and they're coming for your men and blah blah blah like all these things they're coming for you so much you just said so much which I'm like amazing guys do you see where I'm like yeah we're going to church we just took you there I actually love the dark feminine because it says dark so you're like oh is what does that mean like that film but really it's beautiful it's going down toward the you see the tip of the iceberg but underneath doing that kind of work that is life-changing for yourself but ultimately yes some people will push back when you start owning that power I know that has happened in my life but what has happened for me also is the relationship between me and my husband and the relationships that just it did not jive anymore they fell away and nothing tragic happened it was fine but the other ones who maybe went away for a little while because they didn't like the change every relationship that truly mattered has come back and then respected the change yeah and so i love what you're saying that going into the dark feminine it's like we're standing in our power and it's from a place of goodness it's your value system it's the love you have with yourself which i'm assuming like you talked that you had this eating disorder for you to be this far down along your journey standing in this power that you have owning even your title that is very different from where you were and so i would say like anyone that's tuning in right now that's gosh yeah shit that's a really big leap it's very different and of course this has been your journey you've had ups and downs but how do you i know know that you love yourself unconditionally but how does that look different now versus where you were like you're just anything you want to share around it there are so many things especially as we were making our way there so first and give me a minute because like I also have ADD brain and bounces back and forth let's just I connect everything beautifully I just threw stuff at you and I'm excited to see where you come it's both the ADD and then anyway but whatever the point is one of the things that you said and I think it's just worth reframing as well is whenever we look at the things that like dark right we've been told that there's only this or that humans we feel very comfortable our egos which are meant to protect us they're not meant to be like oh I'm better than everybody like your ego is just there to protect you and how it does this is it tells stories so what it does is it likes to put things in tiny neat little boxes as this is good this is bad this is this is dark and so it starts assuming that it's either this or that and then we start living our lives from that either or place and the thing is that is so rigid it's the kind of rigidity that actually engenders breakage if you are that rigid you are going to break to pieces there's a space for fluidity which is a huge element of the feminine in general but especially of the dark feminine that is so important and so crucial for us to really get a taste for and maneuver more cleverly in our worlds because there is such a thing as dark feminine that is so important and so crucial there is such a thing as space there is such a thing as differentiation and yes there is right or wrong yes and there's more and so we want to start looking at things a little bit more nuanced like understanding it's not light or dark it's let's take a look at what we are talking about what is being encompassed and then feed from there so light because the thing about this is light could be so blinding if you try looking at the sun you know what's going to happen you're going to go blind light can be so blinding that it could be harmful am i going to then say that all light is evil no i'm just going to say hey light is there to guide us and it behooves us not to go so far into the deep end that we're trying to stare daggers at the sun for five hours right so things like those and so it's the same with dark dark isn't there to deceive it's not there to tear down it's not there to be evil dark is there to give depth and one of the things that we're trying to do is we're trying to give depth to the sun that was a weird way of saying depth but one of the things that i love about this idea is and i'll anchor it back to the imagery of the feminine is i wrote a post a couple of days ago that said in the beginning there was dark and it just stopped for a second because if you think about that it's that womb-like space when we are in the womb there is this complete darkness there is complete fluidity there is a floating and there is a connection there is a connection activity and there is life and there is light in there but it feels like it's a completely all encompassing dark it's the same with a seedling being planted in the earth it's encompassed and dark and from that space there is creation and that's one of the other things about the dark feminine that is so important and that is what i'm going to tie back to the question that you asked it's this it's because i was able to give myself the permission to observe the spots of dark around me and to under understand them as part of my journey my cyclical journey as understanding this is my life death rebirth cycle i was able to little by little heal the parts of me that believed for so long there was only either or there was only i'm either skinny or i'm not worth anything there was only i'm either a good girl or i'm not valuable there was only i'm going to be submissive or i'm not going to be able to contribute anything to existence there was only i'm going to marry the person that i was not properly matched to because i had already done the deed and i was scared and i was like tied to that forever or i'm going to be a scarlet letter walking around this world and being called a prostitute for the rest of my life that that rigidity because i was allowing myself to see it little by little it's not even cracks but it's the seed keeps coming back maybe it's because it's springtime but think about it little by little you're breaking out of the husk little by little roots are setting in and as the roots set in then there's space for growth so how it was for me was the change wasn't immediate it's never been immediate and it hasn't finished the thing about this is that this evolution is ever going yes i just for example just to tie it back to the title i just changed my title i'm sure i'm going to do it again and again and again like it's just going to keep happening and so it's the same with my life yes i was able to start seeing myself as someone who was worthy of love despite the fact that i was no longer a size zero and i still wake up in the morning sometimes and go oh my gosh like my perimenopausal like body is very strange to me now and it has fat and it's like all these things and i get to have conversations with myself on a consistent basis to allow myself the space to keep growing and that's what i mean when i talk about mindful self-seduction the realm of the dark is very sensual is very sensuous is very much tied to pleasure and desire and just lusciousness right that is the realm of who she is and one of the reasons why this is important is because to me we go back to the idea of the iceberg self-love so far has been taught to us from top up you can learn to love yourself because okay sure you may not be a size zero but your arms can hold your children and that's what you need to focus on and while i love that idea we are not going to go deeper we also need to go deeper than well yes i love myself because i eat lean clean and green and because i work out every day and because i go out for a run and because there are all of these caveats that isn't unconditional love unconditional love allows us the possibility of rediscovery every single morning you get to get to know a new version and part of yourself in a new way that's seduction seduction isn't just let me like bat my eyes and get you to bed like seduction is a whole freaking dance man seduction is this is how i'm going to move this is how i'm going to want to try to explore you the seduction is the way i talk to you it's how i hold your gaze when we are having a conversation it's how i'm starting to build intimacy by asking you certain questions getting curious about like where you grew up what you what textures do you like what food do you enjoy hey does this touch feel good but we don't do those things with ourselves and so when we don't do those things with ourselves we lack the opportunity to intimacy with self and because of that we develop an enmity with the self and so in order to find that that how quote unquote of transformation how do i transform right how do i go from being stuck and feeling unseen and unloved and unlovable and horrible and wrong and monstrous to all of a sudden changing my life and relishing in the dark feminine and being feminine and powerful and like a badass and all these things you it doesn't happen overnight and it's a process of you being willing to date yourself being willing to seduce yourself being willing to talk to yourself daily and consistently and to be honest with yourself because there are going to be times that you are not going to like the answers that you get sometimes you're going to tap into shadow aspects of self that are harsh and pointed there are going to be things that you find along the way that you're like oh wow this is dense this is heavy and you still get to show up for yourself from a place of love and caring and empathy and compassion and love and love and love and love and compassion and understanding and integration and through that process you start learning that there's still room to grow i firmly believe and this is something i learned from like teaching yoga as well like for so many years i think it's been like 20 decades or something 20 decades oh my god 20 years decades oh that's hilarious i would love if that was the case can you imagine if i was like a highlander but you get to you which is that you keep a beginner mind you don't just assume that because you've been practicing yoga for 30 40 50 60 years you know everything there is to know about yoga you're a practicer a practitioner of yoga you're practicing and it's the same of you you are in the way of practicing interconnectivity intimacy and love with self and that is where we actually start seeing the changes that's a lot of times why when we feel like we've done everything i remember feeling this so clearly and this is the point where i always tell people if you're here this is when you should come to me if you're like i've done the meditations i've done the eft i've gone to therapy i've done yoga i've done every i've read every self-help book there is out there and i just still feel stuck and i can't change and i don't understand what's wrong with me there's nothing wrong with you you sometimes just need a little bit of a breath in between the in between is also the realm of the dark feminine you need a breath in between to make your way through the underworld again the realm of the dark feminine so that you can come out a whole new person you don't just rise from the underworld you can come out of the dark feminine and you can come out of the ashes because and it's not that you're always not that just because when things are going great that's when you're great it's that when you are living this lived experience you show up for yourself and in that way in that showing up you get to finally feel unstuck and sometimes what it takes and this is another aspect of the dark feminine is a crone aspect and the reason why it's a crone it's the crone takes so many different shapes and forms in so many different narratives and stories and oh my gosh this would take us like five hours for me to explain everything so i'm trying to be as as i possibly can here but so we think of crone we think of like snow white's old doddering like witch right so that's again it's a misconception and it's a tool that has been utilized to keep the feminine trapped because the truth about the crone is she may not be as effervescent as the maiden but she carries with her the wisdom of the ages and she understands the power of life and the death and resurrection and she knows what it is to care for the self from a place of true empowered action she is a sovereign she is a queen she is not going to take crap she is actually going to step up and take action and be mobile and move and what she does very well as as well in some stories is this transformation aspect she transmutes she becomes a bird she becomes a crow like the morrigan so she becomes a crow and she observes things from that broader point of view you heard me say at the very beginning of the podcast that one of the things that works most potently for us is the out of the mic take ourselves out of the micro when we live our lives everything that we're looking at feels very microscopic because we're staring directly at it i and this is for everybody i also need my own crones around me to help me because i'm looking at this and all i can see is the thing that's in front of me i have no idea what else there is around me if i have a guide if i have a person who has an outside view who's able to ask a question it's not even about that's why i'm not a coach because i'm not really coaching coaching is like this step one you do this step two you do this no i'm mentoring because what i'm doing is asking a question it's like saying amy you said this word tell me about that like where did that come from what does that feel like oh it didn't mean anything no let's like let's explore it you used it how come like it just it that external point of view to also say hey right now you're looking at this and you can only see barely even the tip of your nose there's more to this let's give it breath let's give it depth because we're when we're in that in between space it's harsh and we need those things so that's the very long way of telling you about how what my development has been like it's been one thing after another and i don't mean that as though i'm just getting punched though sometimes it felt that way but it i've had to go through evolutions man like not only was it overcoming my eating disorder it was walking away from a toxic relationship that lasted 12 years and then it was falling in love again when i didn't want to and then it was moving to a whole different state and starting my life over again it was establishing healthy relationships with women and it was speaking up when at a time when and as an entrepreneur you will understand this and your listeners will too is showing up at a time when nothing is selling showing up at a time when no one is buying showing up at a time where i feel like everything i'm doing is useless and i want to quit but i'm not done and so that is the power of the dark feminine and that is where that evolution has led me and how like the how i've gotten here yeah again so good with what you said there's a couple things that came up for me that i was just like curious so yes you your journey has been long you've gone through like multiple evolutions you came from a religious background and obviously you're a very spiritual person which is why you're with what you're doing and i know a lot of people connect spirituality with religion i think it's the same thing it's very different for me it's like religion can be a like a different thing it's like a different thing it's like a different thing it's like a place where you practice but spirituality is very personal and different they're separate but as you talk about like seduction when religious like religion was your background how was that for you and also how could you help the person tuning in being like okay to be seductive to myself sounds really scary and oh that can also just feel almost like it's wrong like it's not okay so yeah i asked you like a bunch of things again all in one i love it that's how i ask questions too but no it's a complete turnoff it's a complete that's the funny thing it's a complete turnoff for most people and i'll tie it this way so most of us have been taught to self-depreciate self-abandon self-dismiss and not learn how to self-regulate and this is the thing that has been inherently thrust upon womenhood because this way we are very easy to control and we are very easy to manipulate because then from there the next step is guilt and shame i want you we talked about earlier it's personal sovereignty always observe always observe in your life the things that you are feeling most guilted and shamed by and explore the reasons why why is this sitting so heavy in your body in your system what story is this story is this story is this story is this story are you telling yourself about this what narratives are tied to this and where is there a conflict with your values with your sense of integrity tell it all tell it all really be honest that there's no right or wrong answers but when you start doing that you notice i have always said that guilt and shame are utilized to enslave and i firmly believe it so really be mindful yes we have a conscious and when we do something that we're not supposed to do or something that goes against our values or belief systems or ethics then we're going to feel guilty that makes sense but to have someone else's idea of morality of ethics of good or bad thrust upon us and then be told that we should feel guilty for that that's a red flag because then we're trying to be manipulated and i say this as someone who experienced toxicity in a relationship that was very manipulative but also in an environment that was very manipulative i've done a lot of deconstructive work around religion and so it's important for us to look at that i will never ever say people should not have a relationship with god or goddess or god x i've been lately saying god x because i don't you like how do we gender something that we don't understand and something that is so much bigger broader vaster than any of us could possibly understand human words cannot possibly encompass that's me personally you could disagree with me and that's fine but i'm saying you your relationship to god and to divinity and to sacredness is great and if it doesn't include you it's not going to be you as part of that divinity and of that sacredness there's a problem and that feels very scary too and so we're getting into themes here that are very woven into our subconscious that are difficult to manage and difficult to sit with and my urging to people is ask just ask get curious if you if nothing else pardon me just get curious curiosity is the biggest medicine that you will ever gift yourself because that curiosity will allow you to self-seduce in the way that i'm talking about it will allow you to sit with yourself one day wake up in the morning and say hey okay my heart feels really heavy i've been noticing that there's a lot of content for this person i'm noticing there's a lot of like fighting and there's a lot of things that don't feel well with me maybe i'm feeling envious maybe i'm feeling jealous maybe i'm feeling like i'm comparing myself i want to know what that root of that is tell me and you're asking yourself tell me tell me what is going on the narratives that we get to uncover from doing that is self-seduction is the getting to know yourself is the real falling in love with yourself fall in love with yourself so hard that you truly understand that you are the one true love of your life and that you understand that this life gets to feel like a romance for the ages not because someone came in and like knight in shining armor and rescued you but because you gave yourself the possibility to understand yourself better and that's the thing is listen if it makes you feel uncomfortable when i was like growing up oh my gosh i first of all i was super judgmental of anybody who looked even a little bit sensual or sexual or liberated in any kind of way so like the fact that i am the person that i am today is so funny to me sometimes because if i look back at my younger self she sometimes is appalled and i have to hold her hand and be like it's okay i know that we were told this was demonic this was evil this was wrong we are women are the cause for the downfall of men okay i'll get that we've done that but let's again let's sit down and take a look at why who is this guilt benefiting who is this shame benefiting and then we can take a look at that let's open the door for the conversation to something deeper and let's re-understand the self and through re-understanding the self what's funny is one aspect of shadow work that i love is the things that we judge more most harshly in other people people usually are the things that we're judging most harshly in ourselves i judged yeah and i said this in carol's podcast the other day but i judged britney spears before because listen i'm aging myself but because at that time she was everything right i judged her because i was like how dare she and she's dancing with snakes and that's evil and all of this stuff but i judged her harshly because that was inside of me dude i wanted to feel and i call everybody dude sorry it's one of those things but i called everybody but i wanted to be so liberated that i could enjoy myself i've always been a very sensual very sexual creature and i couldn't it was so stifled and i was so afraid of it and i was so terrified of going to hell that i thought that i just must be the worst monster in this entire world to have these feelings to have these feelings to have these thoughts there must be something wrong with me and there freaking wasn't like there is nothing wrong with your human heart your body your desires your wants the things that you are passionate about in this life the things that you want more of the things that you salivate over there is nothing wrong with those things and what we have to understand is that this is one of the reasons why as women we always fall into the trap of self-depletion i would rather myself in a position of basically killing myself and letting my body die at the expense of myself because in order to let you live your best life and that's a huge red flag that's why when we talk about things like self-empowerment and take care of yourself and all of these things a lot of women get uncomfortable because they feel like they can't they feel selfish if i take care of myself i'm selfish if i put aside just a little bit of extra money every month for me to go to the spa like every six months or something i'm a horrible mom i'm a horrible spouse i'm the reason why we can't pay the bills and we take it to such extremes because again we're only seeing the micro of the macro and then we're we're getting into this place of only this or this it's either this or this it's either i'm a whore or i'm a saint and it's like why don't we allow the spectrum of existence to reside within us the whole universe is embodied in us everything every pulse of life that's the thing about the dark feminine and just the feminine in general that's so true she represents life and that's i think a lot of reasons why she's been quieted for so long too because it's scary if you want life to be represented to be felt to be seen then that rigidity cannot stand and that's what's scary because the rigidity is what has given so much power to so many people who do not deserve it who utilize that to belittle who utilize that to make us basically objects who utilize that to exploit women and enough is enough so it's like i get it it's a turnoff i get it it scares people i've actually had conversations with with past clients before who have said i was so intimidated by you or recently i had someone tell me i sent your information to but she's really scared she's very like intimidated by you i get it i don't i can hold that and i'm glad that's a sense that happens because we need more of that we need more of that it's not even inspiration i think it's weird though right yeah i'm looking at it it's a mirror and i always tell people i'm like if you're getting really triggered by this person maybe you need to hire them when it comes to a coach or when it comes to if you're really frustrated that she has all of the success or whatever and you're starting to judge her you need to look at that and maybe she's your person yeah and i don't know if you can like what you're like people are scared to work with you but then they're like oh but i feel like i need to work with you and i'm like i need to work with you yeah it's a mirror of some of their things that they need to heal yeah and i get it and it's so beautiful a social reflection you know you're right it is a mirror it's a that's what i mean it gets to be this i want to be powerful enough to feel like i can step up on that freaking stage and own it and i mean that in every area of your life and i think that's what scares us most and so we want to yeah self-seduce but it's easier to not my husband and i were just talking this is totally i guess it's still on topic but last night he's had one of his one of the kids in his life or one of his kids one of my stepkids she their relationship she's been told things not necessarily true in fact they're not true but she's been told things from other people and so her perspective for her dad has changed but they had such a close relationship so i really believe that she knows what's true but she's been so scared that it's easier to hide which is what my point is so like even stepping into the dark feminine and really owning who you are all the different parts of you and realizing that yeah we are all goddesses we are all like and if we are then we are so incredibly powerful but it is easier to hide especially you've been told certain things if you have been if you don't want to face the truth or face some of that scary like that some of the parts about you that maybe you're holding fear around of course it's easier to hide it's of course it's easier to be status quo and to fit in but in order you and i were talking about this is in order for this work to move on we have to be trailblazers and stand in our power and learn what that power is learn what that power is so i grew up in a very religious background as well and it's interesting to me as i've done this work you're talking about guilt and shame energetically they're the lowest vibration yeah but a lot of people who and i'm not okay by the way i'm not saying anything bad about religion i'm just saying the people within the religion can hold a lot of guilt and shame which i'm like is that actually godly because it's a very low vibration and so if you're hanging out in that like you're saying get super super curious because energetically that's a very that's misaligned with who you are that's very far from being a goddess and so if you get curious and you're able to release it and i like you am a very sexual being and i thought that it was bad i was told it was i thought it was really bad and i love to dress sexy and a lot of my friends especially in like where i live in utah oh yeah yeah i live in utah guys and like when i put on something sexy like i love it i love to wear something sexy and go dance and it's not just all about sexy that's not we're talking about that's not all the no all what that is but that feeling i thought was bad and now i learned that it's really just a part of me that's super powerful and i love that part of me yeah but it used to be that i had shame around it and so i just love what you're saying that's get curious own it it's part of you and if we're in that place of being that goddess tapping into that dark feminine it's beautiful it's not anything to be shamed of it's not anything to fear it's actually just you becoming an even like more potent amazing version of you which then helps you essentially serve other people and connect to other people even if like you say that some people are a little triggered or a little scared to work with you great yeah there's nothing wrong with that it's actually really great it just means that you're being an example and a trailblazer for them and they're like oh i want to but i don't uh okay fine and that's a great place to be and not to be repetitive but we're here to talk about the dark feminine but that is part of the feminine like that is part of the dark feminine it's like i said is it's about there there's so many thoughts in my head okay so the first one is it there's this concept of charnel grounds so because so in and i'm probably going to get the location wrong please bear with me and if you know what i'm talking about and i'm saying this it's not the right location yell at me but understand that it's also coming from a place that my brain doesn't always remember certain things but so i think it's like in the mountains of tibet was like really cold and like up right the ground is frozen so you cannot bury bodies in the earth because you can't dig it's like just frozen solid so what they'll do is they'll have a space where they basically just take the and they dump them so it's a charnel ground so what a lot of people will do is they'll actually go and sit there and meditate there and you have to understand this is not like i'm saying it as if it was like another sunday but it's it's you are surrounded by corpses this is probably the scariest most feral like most in the body like scary place to be i can't think i can think of very few other places this way i'm sure warriors understand this and soldiers understand this my husband is a veteran so i'm sure he understands that kind of concept but imagine sitting there and just meditating and learning to be and that concept is very much tied to the realm of the dark feminine because what she asks us to do is number one she asks us to do is to be a sovereign of our lives but also she invites us to sit with the wholeness of this lived experience one of the things that i always tell people it's so curious one of the reasons why i was resisting the idea of telling people i was a priestess one because i didn't want them to think i was religious this isn't about religion two because the word priestess then makes them think that i have to act a certain way and in social media it's become a little bit of a sore point for me because i'm like i don't want to show up and be like in this flowy gown and like walking through the woods and being ethereal that's cool i like it i dig it and i'm like i don't want to show up and it's not my lived embodied experience though as a priestess one of the first things that i learned was that she's not found in temples she's not found in an altar she's found in life and so life means every moment like this moment that is so painful this thing that feels like it's going to take me over this grief this raw vulnerability this pain this is sacred this is divine and i get to sit with it and hold it and i get to sit with it and i get to sit with it and it's the same with the discomfort and we said like earlier a lot of times we would rather dig our own graves so to speak or stay where we are because we don't know any better my husband always uses the example of you don't know that you're missing out on a great michelin star restaurant when you've eaten mcdonald's your entire life like how do you how would you know there's nothing to compare it to but that's one aspect of it the other aspect of it is it's true we are it's better the devil than the devil you don't you're you believe that this like hell that you're moving through is what it should be and it's not what it should be and it's not what it should be because you deserve it it's what exists and it's what you know and you think it's going to be worse at the other side is it like it's your call you're the one who's sovereign of your life you're the one who gets to make the decision and yes a lot of times that decision is hard one of the things that's most challenging and it's so interesting to me i when i was moving through my divorce that was a decision that i never thought i would make i promised i wouldn't because i came from a set of divorced parents and i felt that like i knew what that had done to me i didn't have children or didn't want children don't want children still to this day but i still felt that burden on me to not do this and when i finally said i want to call it quits i felt like a monster because i thought that i was doing the most ruinous despicable thing in the world possible to another human being but really truly i was saving both of us and the thing is that it required for me to go through the most painful most uncomfortable thing up to that point experience i'd gone through it was a lot of pain and i felt like i was doing the most uncomfortable thing up to that point it was a complete breaking it was a tear down it was an unearthing you know a lot of times we think about tilling the soil and reaping what we sow as this pleasant experience and it's not always like a lot of times that abundance we're seeking a lot of times that reward we're looking for that love the love of our lives the career we want whatever it is that we're like yearning for longing for desiring wishing manifesting a lot of times that actually comes through some pain and through some a lot of discomfort and a lot of fear and we get to just move through it and and that's part of the power of the feminine because she says this is living this is what we do we live through it we move through it and we keep going and it just keeps showing up and we keep showing up for ourselves and the other thing that was interesting to me that you mentioned i'll wrap up real quick because i know we're running out of time but the other thing that you said that was so interesting is look i i just again be curious it's about your relationship with god right it's about your relationship with the divine it's about your relationship with the sacred you are part of that and i know that's blasphemous for a lot of people and i understand why and i'm not making light and i get it because i was there i just want you to be curious about it because that is one of the deepest messages that we could possibly understand as true and one of the reasons why that is important is because to give your authority away to someone outside of you like especially a human being who is outside of you who is interpreting something a certain way for reasons is not the best way to develop your intimate relationship with god and so we want to contemplate these things and we want to start asking questions like i get it like we all have our own values and our own set of like systems and things that work for us and they're important and i will say fight for them right i just want you to be clear on how they operate for you like are you at the effect of that or are you working within that to expand to something greater and that's an important question to ask and the thing is as again as women look just be willing to ask who this is serving because that whole idea that making yourself less for others is only serving others and that whole idea where you only are defined by the things that you can provide for others do for others the labels like the mother label the wife label the daughter label like all of those things are not going to serve you and one day you're going to wake up and you're going to be able to say i'm not going to and i've heard this from people in so many different ages at so many different times in their life you're going to wake up one day and say i don't know who i am i have no idea and that is one of the deepest pains that you will ever sit with you can move beyond it and grow from it if you're willing to sit with the self and go into the dark spaces and understand and reflect and it's important and it's powerful and it's valuable and wouldn't it be nice to give yourself the permission to not let it get to that point so these are all things that that i was thinking about as you were talking yeah so many things that we can take away it's like i could spend i don't know how much time like a lot of we could have an entire series i'm sure yeah because there's just so much but ultimately cliff notes version to wrap up is just don't be as scary don't be afraid of the dark feminine that's actually a beautiful part of you and as you tap into it like she has said and as you get curious your life will blossom your life will become that which you like keep dreaming of and keep wanting because the parts of you that need to be healed will be able to come forward which anyway thank you so for everyone who is tuning in what is the best way for them to get a hold of you best way to get a hold of me is through instagram or email i actually really love when people email me so if you want to and if you're brave info at your soulful goddess.

com and then my handle on instagram is your soulful goddess i've also got a podcast if you want to listen to it's called mindfully sovereign for reasons that are pretty obvious and if you're ever just curious to learn more about the dark feminine on instagram have you heard about channels like this whole thing called channels so i've got a channel on instagram that's specifically around the dark feminine so if you are interested in that there's like a whole there's like hours of like conversations in there around the dark feminine so if you're interested in that there's like a whole there's around the dark feminine so these are ways that we can connect yeah so awesome okay i'll also have her information below in the show notes but safa thank you so much for being on the podcast it's been such an honor to have you i've been looking forward to this conversation so thank you thank you and everyone else we'll be back next week with another episode we'll see you later bye hey if you enjoyed listening to this podcast you've got to come check out my signature program thrive her academy this is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation i teach you how to apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can create that life and business that you love for more information go to www. amysanders. co forward slash services again that is amysanders. co forward slash services amysansers.