The Buck Stops Here: Let’s Put and End to Sexual Shame

According to archeologists, it’s been about 5 000 years now – 5 millennia of patriarchy during we as women have subconsciously believed that our sexuality is shameful. We bit the apple, we listened to the snake, and somehow our desires got everybody thrown out of the Garden of Eden to earn their bread amongst thorns and thistles.

We live out the virgin-whore split in ourselves on a daily basis. And we reinforce this split in others. In addition, a shocking amount of women in this world have experienced sexual violation and have – almost without exception – been convinced by the perpetrators that they should be ashamed for what happened, that it was somehow their fault.

Not sure if you carry shame for being a sexual woman? Then answer these questions for yourself:

• Do you believe that being sexual results in a loss of innocence?
• Do you override the purity of your sexuality through constant sexual compromise?
• Do you sell yourself out sexually?
• Do you have negative feelings about your sexual body (your breasts or Yoni/vagina?)
• Do you believe that your body is not sexy enough?
• Are you ashamed of not having orgasms, or not having the right kind?
• Does your family find sexuality shameful or taboo to talk about?
• Are there sexual secrets in your family?
• Do you have secret sexual habits?

1. The first step is to admit, and to see, that we carry this shame.
2. The next step is to start asking yourself: What are the beliefs you carry that hook your sexuality into shame?
3. Finally, make a distinction: What are the ways in which you betray your sexuality? That will lead to some healthy shame. And then, what are the ways in which you simply shame your sexuality or your desire? This shame has to stop. Find in yourself the clarity that this has to happen.

In my upcoming course Awakening Your Feminine Sexual Essence I guide women through a systematic process to come to recognize the ways we have put together this body of shame, and how we can end this, now.

For more info:  http://www.shaktimalan.com/

Entering the Wisdom of Woman’s Sexual Cycles

With Keriesa Botha and Shakti Malan

2 – 7 November 2014

Temenos Retreat Center, Mc Gregor, South Africa

Perhaps the best-kept secret for opening to your sexual essence as woman is this: Our sexuality is cyclical. If you listen to your cycle and live according to its rhythms, your sexuality will open into its true blossoming.

This 5-day retreat offers a small group of women a profound and exclusive space to enter deeper into our sexuality and to tap the wisdom of our cyclical sexual nature under the guidance of two highly experienced facilitators.

As women we are cyclical beings – we wax and wane like the moon, we have high tides and low tides like the sea. The mystery of woman’s sexuality is that it is cyclical in nature and intimately influenced by the ebb and flow of our menstrual cycles.

During each cycle of the moon, our sexual body transforms through 4 different phases. Each of these four phases is a doorway into a deeper communing with our sexuality, with the essence of who we are, and with life.

In order to enter through these doorways, we are invited to listen to the wisdom of our sexual bodies and get in tune with the knowing that each phase brings. The pre-menstrual phase brings the opportunity to clarify our needs and roots us in our intuition. Menstruation is a time for opening, softening and listening, deep into the knowing of our bodies. The follicular and ovulation phases are times to engage in our creativity, feed our imagination and move into the fullest expression of ourselves in the world.

Embracing and engaging our feminine cyclical nature skillfully, empowers us to manage our energy and our daily lives with ease and nourishes our sexual expression with joy and consciousness.

Imagine listening to your sexual cycle as the inner guidance which keeps your life in balance and in harmony with the rhythms of life. Imagine learning the skills of nourishing and restoring yourself during each phase of your cycle. Imagine exploring breath practices that open the sexual body of woman. Imagine experiencing all of this through the rich medium of process art, free writing, dance, storytelling and embodied practices in the beautiful, nurturing setting of the garden of Temenos Retreat Centre. Imagine having two experienced and dedicated guides initiating you into the wisdom of each gateway in your sexual cycle as woman. This is what this retreat offers you.

During the retreat, we will:

Learn about the sexual cycles of women
Understand how to nourish each phase of your cycle
Be guided in subtle movement and breath practices that open the sexual body of woman
Explore our own experience through art, free writing, dance and story telling
Learn from each other’s life experiences through sharing in sisterhood circles
Be nourished by the exquisite garden of Temenos

Q&A about the event:

Will working with my cycle improve my relationship with my sexuality? Most definitely! By starting to live in harmony with your sexual cycles, you will begin to feel your sexual body from the inside out, open to her exquisite flowering, learn to listen to her, and discover the profound wisdom she has to offer you.

I hate menstruating. Why should I put myself through a retreat like this? We understand. Many women feel like you. By bringing consciousness and love to your cycle, you can transform your menstruation into a time of mystical opening and deep self-loving.

What if I am peri-menopausal? Attending the retreat will give you the perfect opportunity to come in harmony with the cycles of your sexual body as they begin to change. This will give you the foundation to enter into the wisdom cycle of menopause, which is its own unique sexual gateway for us as women.

The Presenters

Shakti Malan has a profound passion for the feminine, and she believes that the awakening of female sexual energy is a key to the spiritual awakening of the world in our day. She has been facilitating the discovery of female sexual energy to hundreds of women across the world over the last decade. Her book Sexual Awakening for Women and the courses she teaches based on the book create a space for women to discover the deep feminine and to open to their true magnificence in deep resonance with the masculine. Shakti holds a Ph.D. (UCT) in Social Anthropology.

Keriesa Botha has been one of Shakti’s mentors in the mysteries of the Feminine, and has many years of experience running workshops on the menstrual cycle and menopause. Keriesa has a post-graduate diploma in Psychophonetics Counselling and a Master’s Degree in Leadership and Change Management.

Temenos, the venue

With its cottages and sacred spaces nestled amongst the Gardens of the Beloved, Temenos is the ideal venue for this women’s retreat. See temenos.org.za.

Cost and booking:

R6 000 facilitation fee for bookings before 30 September. R6 800 facilitation fee for bookings after.
Accommodation is R310 pppn (R1550 in Total) sharing and R330 pppn (R1650 in Total) single.

Catering: 3 x simple vegetarian meals per day @ R250/day. Total R1250.

Full payment of accommodation & R1000 deposit is required to reserve your place – Temenos only has accommodation for 17 participants.

For bookings and inquiries contact Rhianne van der Linde – rhiannevdl@gmail.com

For more info: http://www.shaktimalan.com/event/entering-the-wisdom-of-womans-sexual-cycles/

Awakening Your Feminine Essence – 7 Week Online Course for Women

Discover how to release your old sexual patterning, come home to your body of bliss and live your full power as embodiment of the Feminine.

                                   
The seven course teaching sessions calendar is as follows:
October 28
November 4, 11, 18 & 25
December 2, 9

                              October 28 - December 9 | $297

It is time for the sexual essence of women to wake up on the planet. SHE is calling you. And you are feeling it.

Like so many women I have met across the world, you probably have a knowing that there is more to your sexuality as woman — so much more — than what you have accessed thus far.

You feel under your skin that there is so much bliss that wants to wake up in your body, so much love that wants to radiate from you.

You realize somewhere deep that sex is more than gratification of your need or someone else’s.

You know it is a powerful force of awakening. And you sense that there is something awesomely unique about feminine sexual essence.

However, the essence of female sexuality is not much understood in our world. We have forgotten how our sexuality expresses our spiritual essence as the Feminine.

As successful women in the world, we have become more focused on achieving — even in the bedroom — than on feeling. Many women are confused about what it even means to be a woman.

Underneath the confusion is a secret fear of the immense power you sense in your sexuality — and a frustration about how to access that power in a healthy way.

You may be feeling this conflict in you: on the one hand, sex can feel so awkward and exposing that we prefer not to bring too much awareness to it. And on the other hand, you yearn for the pulsating aliveness that perhaps you may have tasted in moments of exquisite lovemaking. You yearn to let your life be infused by that quality of bliss.

The good news is:

your confusion about your sexuality as a woman is not as personal to you as you think.

You have been raised with an outdated masculine model of sexuality that is focused on performance in bed.

Furthermore, our patriarchal heritage has left us with the virgin-whore split in our sexuality as women: you fear your potent passionate sexuality because you don’t want to be seen as a whore but you yearn to express the freedom that is your birthright as woman.

Or perhaps in rebellion, you wildly express your sexuality and find that you have somewhere lost touch with the sacred essence of who SHE really is in you — SHE, the sacred Feminine.

You compromise sexually and make do with what you know is not the real thing. You feel driven to have or give orgasms, and frankly, sex can be exhausting. You know that there is more to feel in our bodies, you know you are more – magnificently more than what you are currently accessing.

Our sexuality as women is asleep.

But SHE, the pure sexual Feminine, is waking up. She is ready to give birth, through you, to a new evolution of humanity.

You can be part of this awakening.

The way through our limited perception of feminine sexuality is to go within. The way of the Feminine is the way of feeling, from deep inside. From deep inside our bodies and our hearts, we start to feel again the sacred essence of the Feminine.

• Imagine being deeply in touch with your body with every breath…


• Imagine feeling an undulating aliveness through your body all through the day…


• Imagine resting into your own sexuality with deep contentment while being radiantly open to the world around you…


• Imagine being able to taste the nectar of life in your intimate relating…

These are states that this journey with me could open for you.

This work is a collective healing. And it is deeply personal as well. This experience will help you in letting go of that which no longer serves you sexually.

It initiates the opening of your true sexual flowering — your Beautiful Body of bliss.

Discovering this feminine sexual energy can set every moment of your day alight with bursting creative spark, inspiration and luscious enjoyment of life.

When a woman’s sexual energy flowers, she radiates an irresistible inner beauty which turns her into a profound muse and inspiration for her love partner.

Energetically, her sex center is the same as her creative center, and thus an opening in the flow of her sexuality can reveal a fountain of spontaneous creativity that can transform her world.

In the workplace, she radiates inner power coming from her heart’s knowing and her deep intuition. Reality begins to magically transform into higher possibility when we walk the walk of the Feminine instead of trying to be like men.

For more info: https://www.shaktimalan.com/awakening-your-feminine-essence/