Answering the Wild Call Within Her That Will Save Us All

There comes a time in a woman’s life

when her body won’t be tamed,

won’t lie down and play good,

won’t be appropriate and nice,

sit and be still

 

when her body wants to move and tantalize,

dance to the ancient drums of hearts beating

calling to her,

to dance, sway and moan –

the sounds that the world would squelch

and has been trying to keep down,

quiet, dutifully still.

 

There comes a time in a woman’s life

when she taps into her wild, untamed, sensual,

powerfully feminine self-expression

that scares a world that wants her to be

apologetically appropriate

and it may scare her, too…at first

because she will be called many names.

 

Yet she is beyond that now,

responding to a deeper truth.

Her feminine form knows the deep waters of emotions.

She flows in harmony with the elements.

She intimately remembers the earth from which she came

and the clay used to make her form.

 

She knows that familiar wild call within

to rise,

unbounded, unapologetic,

to sweat and dance,

move and make love

 

to herself,

her lover,

this world.

 

There comes a time in a woman’s life

when she hears the familiar drumbeats –

her heartbeat pulsing with the Divine’s –

and her body knows what to do.

She hears the wild music,

the call within,

to embody her destiny

that will surely save her.

 

Because she knows now that her own dance and poetry,

her swaying and speaking, praying and praising,

will call every woman to rise and remember her own path

to respond to the wild call within her heart begging her

to sweat and dance, move and embody her destiny

that will ignite the flames of change

and save

us all.

​- Lisa McCrohan, (c) 2021 Your Light is Rising

A few weeks ago, on a cold and snowy night in winter, my tween daughter and I were in the car coming back home from a night of skiing.  Usually my son is with us, too, but that night, it was just me and my daughter.  A few miles from our house, we were on the back country roads, with farmhouses in the distance, when I looked up at the clear night sky and saw the full moon.  It was gorgeous.  Spontaneously, a wild idea came to me, but I didn’t know if my tween daughter would be up for it.  She’s entering that phase of adolescence when you are self-conscious and can easily get embarrassed by anything your mom does.  I thought to myself, “Oh, she might not want to do this.”  But I took a soul risk and asked her anyhow.

“C.,” I said, “You see the full moon over there above that farmhouse?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Let’s howl at it!”

I waited for her response.  I could feel a slight hesitancy in her, and she was quiet for a moment, but I waited.  Then, to my surprise, she said, “Sure.  Let’s do it.”

I was already giddy!  So we put down the windows.  The cold night air rushed into our car — our warm “den” — but it felt refreshing and fabulous. We put down the windows as I drove on that back country road and we HOWLED.  And howled!  It was invigorating!

And what sound came next was one of the most awesome sounds I’ve ever heard: my daughter laughing.  I’ve heard her laugh plenty of times in her life.  But this laugh — I had never heard before  It was a laugh of glorious freedom and liberation.

It was a laugh of a young woman who is free and wild — and experiencing it in her whole body.  It was a laugh of such authenticity.  It was a laugh that I am determined to help her keep, embody, and experience often in her life as she grows up and comes to know more about the world and feels the societal expectations put on a woman to be quiet, good, and to not make such guttural and liberated sounds.

I spent way too many years holding back the sounds my body wants to make and faking the sounds that the world would want me to make.

• Like saying to the male colleague who is centering the meeting around how great he is: “Ohhh totally!” And laughing sheepishly (I share with my therapy and coaching clients that this is a self-protective response called fawning).
• Like saying, “Okay, sure” to a request on my time and energy that I sure has hell don’t want to do (in coaching and therapy, we call this “not honoring our sacred boundaries”).
• Like saying, “Oh excuse me, please” when I really would like to say, “What in the hell?!  No.  That is not going to work for me.”  (We call “staying small and non-threatening”).

Those days are gone.  While I still have my moments of fawning, moments of not honoring my boundaries, moments of playing small and non-threatening, I am muuuch more likely these days as a woman in midlife to make the sounds and say the things that honor my body, soul, and integrity.

Hell yes, there comes a time in a woman’s life when she “won’t lie down and play good, won’t be appropriate and nice,sit and be still…”

And it may surprise, piss off, and turn people off.  It doesn’t have to be in a “brash, I’m disregarding everyone” way.  When we are deeply regarding ourselves and honoring our bodies and souls, we aren’t putting others down and using toxic patriarchal ways of having power over.  Instead, we are claiming and embodying our internal power saying “I am here, too.”  In a world that would like to keep women apologetically quiet, that will ruffle some feathers.AND it’s time for that.

I am growing more okay with honoring and expressing my authentic self.  Micro choice by micro choice.  Micro moment by micro moment.  I hear from older woman I know that this will become what the next half of life is. I look forward to it.

Dear One,

There comes a time in a woman’s life…

Maybe there has come a time in YOUR life when your body won’t be tame, you won’t remain quiet, you are done playing nice, and you are done holding back.

Maybe you daydream about rocking the boat.  Maybe you belt it out when you are alone in the car.  Maybe you feel an agitation — a rage — building up within you that wants to be harnessed, channeled, and authentically expressed.

Ohhhh woman, it’s time.

If you even have a GLIMMER that it’s time – it’s time.

I work with so many women in integrative coaching who come to me and in some way share with me that they are done with the societal pressures of being quiet, “good,” not rocking the boat, and patiently taking care of everyone else’s needs. They are done being “nice” and appropriate.

Sometimes in our coaching session, I encourage women to go ahead and make the sounds that they want to make. Yes, sounds. Sounds that aren’t planned out. Sounds that arise from deep within (this is not your typical “life coaching,” for sure! No cookie-cutter B.S. here.  It’s all about YOU and what YOUR body and soul need).

Yes – it feels strange at first to make sounds — because we are all socialized to NOT make these sounds. A client might giggle or make a joke at first. But I encourage the women i work with to just PLAYING with it.

It might feel strange AT FIRST. And then, when we play with sighing, growling, or any other spontaneous sound, something happens: it begins to feel LIBERATING. It feels like self-honoring. It feels like decades of B.S., holding back, and playing small dissolving.

You might even try it right now — to play with making authentic (liberating) sounds.

Pause for a moment.

Drop into the present moment.

Feel the wave of the inhale and exhale of your breath.

Feel your body sitting or standing on the earth.

And then just make a sound…

Maybe it’s a yawn or a sigh…

Maybe it’s a growl or cry…

Just play and allow.

Get out of your head and into you intuition and body. And just play.

 

Practice this for a few minutes.

And then notice: how do you feel?  In your body?  Your energy?

Lighter, tingly, feisty, sad, freer, angry, liberated, more authentic??

 

There is a desire within every human being for authentic expression.  To be our most authentic self.  To let go of whatever holds us back and be our true self.  To howl at the moon – day or night.

Authenticity isn’t something we achieve.  It’s not some linear process.  It’s something sacred we drop into — again and again.  It’s something sacred we connect to within us again and again.  And by doing so, our outside expression matches our inside essence.

If the time has come for you to drop into your authentic self….I have a meditation for you: Your Authentic Self.  This is a guided meditation to recall a time when you felt most like yourself.  That might be from last week or from when you were a child.  Whatever it is, I guide you through a meditation to remember IN YOUR BODY and through your senses and emotions how it feels to be your authentic self so you bring those embodied qualities to this moment in your life.   It’s a lovely exploration that nourishes and liberates us.

If you are looking for a daily read — a soulful guide — check out my second book, Your Light is Rising.  It’s filled with soulful poetry and feminine embodiment practices written to help you connect to YOU and honor the Divine within you.

If it is time to work with me 1:1, I have a few initial consults open for integrative coaching.  I’d be delighted to hold sacred space for you. Grab a consult and see how it can feel to work together.

You matter.  Your voice matters.  Your body matters.  Your dreams and authentic expression matter.  I see you.  I am with you.  Your liberation is tied to mine, and mine to yours.  When we embody and express our authentic selves, our lives and presence give permission for others to do the same.

 

Blessings,