Woman, Uncorrupted Part 3: Dance Your Way To Freedom
Woman, Uncorrupted Part 3: Dance Your Way To Freedom
Throw a party for your feelings with this 5-Minute Practice from Mama Gena!
Welcome! Woman, Uncorrupted is a three-part collaboration with fellow Somatic practitioner
of Fully Expressed and me. This is part three!Woman, Uncorrupted is about quieting the noise from society about how you are supposed to be, and attuning to your unique beauty and brilliance, so you can return to your essence. 💗
Note: Since our hearts are filled with generosity, this is a longer piece. We recommend reading it in on the browser or the Substack app so that you don’t miss any goodness that was meant for you!
If you haven’t met Sarina yet, the first thing you’ll notice about her is her exquisite, loving presence. She wears her heart on her sleeve and naturally exudes the kind of intimate vulnerability that immediately puts you at ease. Oh — we can be ourselves here? Cue the collective exhale. 😌
Since she is a fellow somatic practitioner, we have compatible styles and magic to share.
In case you missed Woman, Uncorrupted Part 1 and Part 2, find them here!
This is a longer post, so we recommend reading it on the app or browser so you don’t miss any juicy goodness!
Last fall in Las Vegas, the iconic Mama Gena led us in her transformative practice live. (Proof that what happens in Vegas doesn’t just stay in Vegas.)
If you aren’t familiar with Mama Gena, aka Regena Thomashaur, allow me to introduce her. This tour de force of a woman wrote Pussy: A Reclamation which was published in 2019.
When I saw her speak live in Las Vegas at the Arkadia Music Festival, she quipped that she was maybe the only woman who benefitted from Donald Trump being elected as US President in 2019, since it coincided with the release of her book, Pussy.
Mama Gena also trained my teacher Layla Martin at her School of Womanly Arts, so she is part of my liberation lineage.
Invitation: Have you ever considered what women were influential in your sexual liberation? Take a moment to make a list! Mine include:
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Esther Perel
Carolyn Myss
Marianne Williamson
Melissa Febos
Audre Lorde
Mama Gena
Layla Martin
Jaiya
Tricia HerseyLucky number 13! That’s a goddess number, which is why the patriarchy is hell bent on making us believe 13 to be unlucky.
Back to Mama Gena.
She created a simple practice that you can engage in that will help you to feel and move your emotions through your system. Think of it as a way to digest the emotions that you have in your queue. She says:
We are in times we have never experienced before. We may not know how to handle the flood and flow of emotions we are feeling. And we do not have much experience with staying in true emotional connection on the daily.
Women have a vast, elegant range of emotional expression.
Every single emotion is true and right and relevant.Each of us have 88 magnificent keys to play the full range of our inner emotional piano. But all we are encouraged to play is middle “C” over and over and over again. When someone says “How are you?” we say “Fine”.
But are we? Are we ever just “fine”? No!
Let’s rewind the clock back to when you were young.
When you exercised a boundary, for example saying something like, “I don’t want to hug Uncle George,” did your parents honor your body autonomy? Or did they encourage you to override your intuition?
When you had big emotions come up as a child, did your parents celebrate your connection to your anger or sadness or overwhelm? Or were you told, “You’re fine!”, only to have your feelings swept under a rug.
These foundational experiences are powerful teachers. If your emotions weren’t held and honored by influential authority figures like your parents, then you may not have learned to make space for them inside of you.
Let me say that again:
If your emotions weren’t held and honored by influential authority figures like your parents, then you may not have learned to make space for them inside of you.
So pause for a moment to consider your emotional landscape today as an adult. When you have big emotions come up, what do you do with them? Do you make space to sit with them to listen and learn? Or do you stuff them back down?
It may be tempting to mute your rage – since it’s less socially acceptable for women to be angry than it is to be sad. But we’re playing a dangerous game here. When we mute one emotion, we mute all of them.
Mama Gena developed a brilliant somatic practice called Swamping. Now the term “Swamping” might make you think of the creature rising from the bog. (It is Spooky Season, after all!)
Let’s unpack swamping.
In Mama Gena’s words:
It’s a practice where you are deliberately choosing to feel every drop of emotion.
You are not pretending that everything is ok or fine.
You are actually throwing a party for your feelings.
Inviting them in.
Choosing to feel, instead of going numb, is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
What we feel, we can heal.
Swamping is like a dramatization of your emotions. Think of it like a theatrical experience: see if you can turn up your emotions all the way. Really let yourself feel and experience the catharsis that comes from this kind of expressive embodiment.
So for our last Woman, Uncorrupted collaboration, Sarina and I are inviting you to throw a party for your feels! This is something that you can do solo, or invite your besties over and have a dance party together.
Here’s the steps to follow to Swamp:
Slip into something a little more comfortable.
Cue up our curated Swamping playlist. (Sarina and I have gathered some great songs for you to feel and move to below!)
Turn on the tunes and dance your feelings! Let yourself be taken over by the music. Give it everything you’ve got! Let the emotions flow freely through you!
Use your voice! Laugh, cry, howl, make guttural sounds. This can heighten your experience and allow you to really move those deep emotions. Plus, when you sound, your body knows it’s safe.
Below you’ll find the categories that Mama Gena leads, and recommended songs for each.
This is a chance for you to choose your own adventure!
Option 1: These songs are 5ish minutes in length, so if you are short on time, choose the category that feels most resonant for you and do the swamping practice in one area
Option 2: If you have more flexibility, set aside 20-30 minutes to go through an entire swamping session and feel the gamut of your emotions
Anger, Rage, Frustration
Turn it on, turn it up, tap into your feels, stretch outside your comfort zone. Could you punch a pillow? Could you kick, snarl, scream into a pillow? Connect to your anger.
Sadness and Grief
Tap into your heartbreak and heaviness. Even if you don’t have current sadness, there’s a memory or experience that you can channel. If tears come, let them.
Pleasure and Sensuality
Feel the deliciousness of being in a human body that feels pleasure. Touch your skin, move your hips, undulate your gorgeous spine. Sigh or moan your pleasure.
Play
Reclaim the lightness and childlike impulse to play, to dance, to spin and twirl. Jump up and down, laugh, take up space.
I know we’re asking you to be wild.
To tap into your primal. All of this couldn’t be further from our everyday life, where we’re given gold stars for keeping our emotions in check.
This is your chance to really feel. See if you can challenge yourself to move 10% more, to sound 10% more, to release 10% more. Make these small shifts and see what happens!
When I swamp, I feel so fucking free. There’s a cathartic release. There’s a softening in the body. She gets to be her animal self, instead of being proper and put together. This is your chance to let that shit go. Will you rise to the occasion?
We get that you’re probably reading this in a place where you don’t necessarily have the time and space to fully drop in. No pasa nada! Bookmark this for future use!
Be a Women, Uncorrupted
Being a woman, uncorrupted is a woman who allows all of yourself to be here. A woman, uncorrupted is the great permission giver. Instead of just being a nice girl, you have access to your full emotional range. You play all 88 keys on your proverbial piano.
It’s reclaiming your NO so that you can really trust your YES.
It’s casting off the suffocating, cultural voices that would tell you what a woman is, and returning to your organic wild self, where your liberation is found in your full expression. In your expression, you’ll uncork more possibility than you’ve imagined.
It’s turning the dial up on your brilliance and beauty and shamelessly inhabiting it all. When you claim your truth, you give other women permission to do the same.
How was it for you?
We would love to hear your experience with this practice, if you feel called to share how it was for you.
You can either leave a comment, or, join the Chat using the button below where we can share our experiences more intimately.
If you have any questions that come up, please comment below or in the chat. We would be happy to support and witness you.
This is a conversation space exclusively for subscribers—kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post updates, and you can jump into the discussion.
Sarina has a beautiful new poetry project that she’ll be rolling out in the coming months. Subscribe to Fully Expressed to hear when it drops!
Recommended reading from Sarina’s work:
I’ll be facilitating a women's container called The Pleasure Collective. Get on the waitlist to be the first to know when registration opens!
Related posts from my work:
