Your dark feminine: the part of our femininity that is home to anger. The unfairness, unrighteous innermost part of us that wants to lash out, seek justice, and stop feeling confined to our own limits. There is beauty in being untamed, and I welcome you to join me as we explore the gift known as your dark feminine.
While the dark feminine may be a newer term rising, it’s not a new concept. In yoga, there is a Hindu goddess named Kali. She’s known for destruction, transformation, and fierce love. More importantly, she doesn’t just destroy for the fun of it – she destroys evil – creating room for love and life.
We can embrace Kali and our dark feminine energy to remove shame, pain, and anger from our traumas and create power, acceptance, and radical self love.
I welcome you to do a quick search of Kali, the Hindu goddess, and you might be taken aback. She’s not exactly a friendly face, perhaps even appearing evil. This isn’t because she’s evil, but because she rids the world of evil. To rid ourselves of injustices from our past, we can embrace Kali’s nature and destroy the pain in our hearts. It doesn’t have to be graceful, pretty, or nice. There is a time and place for our more gentle, light feminine side, but there is also a place for our fiercely dark feminine side.
Kali and her dark feminine energy teach us there is no shame in anger.
It fuels us, ignites us, creates. Anger led me to create this studio. Anger led me to show more empathy to people who receive little or none. To end judgments of others – and of myself. Anger is a sign that we love ourselves. If we truly didn’t care about our own wellbeing, we wouldn’t feel anger.
It’s frustrating in the moment – sometimes leading to tears of grief. But when we harness our dark feminine, we can give our “light feminine” aka our nurturing, creative side, more space to be free. We embody the truth that we have a right to feel all emotions, get mad at society, frustrated with those who question if our traumas “count,” instead of being present with us.
It’s okay to be frustrated – even infuriated. It’s led me to create some of my best classes, blog posts, and other creative works outside the studio. Out of tears of uncertainty, anger, and overwhelming feelings of injustice, we have the power to transform dark into light.
There’s a time and place for grace and kindness, and a time and place for our dark feminine.
Many of my offerings and blog posts are about offering kindness, grace, and patience to yourself. I will always welcome this idea. We can’t heal from a place of judgment. However, this is a time and place to take our frustrations and limiting beliefs and figuratively, or maybe even literally, (safely, of course) set fire to them.
I like to think of the dark feminine and Kali energy as a mother bear. We don’t shame mother bears for protecting their cubs – we respect it. We understand the rage that comes from a protective mother bear isn’t out of hatred, meaning to harm others for no reason, or because mother bears must be crazy. It’s because of their overwhelming love of their young.
We can become fierce in our love of ourselves – our past selves who didn’t know what to do or how to survive. We protect our younger version, destroying the beliefs that we deserved it somehow, or that we should’ve known better.
We can transform our fear and anger into love, acceptance, and empathy. It doesn’t mean what happened was a positive experience or that we’re thankful it happened. We’re just creating room for allowing our feelings to process and leave us in a better place. A place where we realize all our tears and rage came from the same place as a mother bears – love.
How to embody Kali and your dark feminine energy
Embracing your dark feminine is not about ruthless, violent revenge. It’s about a fierce passion for protecting ourselves through boundaries and care. This doesn’t just mean reporting or seeking justice through a legal system. That is your decision to make and is supported either way. What feels best for you and your healing is always the right choice. But beyond legal justice, we can awaken Kali and our dark feminine in other ways.
She welcomes us to tap into our boundaries. It’s okay to be disliked and rock the boat when protecting yourself. When I was new to setting boundaries, I went a bit overboard and felt like a wounded animal lashing out. I learned how to harness this and be more assertive (instead of aggressive.) It was liberating.
It’s okay to make mistakes when learning how to ignite your dark feminine. For many survivors, especially survivors with sensitive souls, we may not have much practice with this. With time, it becomes easier to discover the boundaries that feel right and how to voice them.
Related Post: Why Having A Sensitive Soul Is A Gift While Healing Sexual Trauma
Kali also teaches us it’s 100% okay to be full of rage. Sometimes, we might feel like we’re doing something wrong by being angry. Like maybe our healing took a turn we weren’t expecting. But, our dark feminine isn’t about being graceful – it’s actually quite chaotic.
It’s the untamed parts of us that are often shut down by society – as survivors, we are often expected to heal from our traumas quietly without making too much noise. I don’t think there are words to describe just how much of an injustice sexual trauma really is. It’s infuriating to experience, and even more so if we experience blame from others.
Sometimes, we need more than to take a deep breath. We need to be angry – even furious. This allows us to face the emotion tugging at us – to acknowledge it all. We confront our feelings and learn to nurture our emotions as if it were a small child begging for acknowledgement.
This is when we can awaken our lighter, nurturing feminine side and give the kindness to our wounded parts. Our dark feminine is the voice that says, “look over here, enough is enough.” Our lighter feminine side is the voice that says, “it’s alright, I’m here now.”
How Medusa shows the danger and necessity of dark feminine energy.
You may have heard of Medusa, the former priestess known for her head of snakes. The myth is that she was originally beautiful and innocent, but was sexually assaulted by Poseidon, blamed, then cast out to a deserted island. Athena, out of misunderstanding and rage, turned her into the monster we know her as today, turning anyone who looked at her into stone.
Some say it’s a valiant story of how she can now protect herself against men. Others say it’s a punishment. I say it’s both. We knew her as angry, but never tried to understand why – thinking she always was a monster. I actually love her anger – it’s absolutely justified. Unfortunately, she is confined to a life that is ruled by her dark feminine, perhaps even revenge.
Through Medusa’s tragic story, we can explore how our dark feminine is a necessity for our protection. She wouldn’t have survived if she didn’t embrace her powerful defenses. On the flip side, too much of our dark feminine might lead us on a road of revenge, never fully satisfied, and turning ourselves into the monster.
Unrelated, but I’d love to see a current day depiction of Medusa’s story – there’s so much more depth to her than a head full of snakes.
We can be both dark and light.
My favorite phrase I learned in therapy is this: Two things can be true at once. We can have feelings for someone, but then also be full of rage after they crossed a line. We can miss unhealthy relationships or friendships but also be glad they’re over. Survivors can make room for both the dark, feminine side and the nurturing, lighter side.
I think a lot of us go through this strange phase of feeling like we’re a villain for setting boundaries. Like this all or nothing: I must now be Maleficent and storm the castle, ready for revenge. Or, we feel like we need to be a graceful, gentle soul who releases pain into the air while surrounded by butterflies.
We can be both (maybe not as exaggerated). We can be gentle, but also firm. It’s okay to be confused as we find our balance of light and dark. Noone gets it right from day one.
Parting words
Kali’s dark feminine energy can inspire us to turn our shame into understanding, transforming our pain into acceptance and confidence. She is not about being evil, but about realizing we have so much power within us.
In the aftermath of sexual trauma, we can feel shattered. Our dark feminine is there to pick us up, accept our anger, and be unapologetic about rediscovering our love for ourselves. Just like the mother bear protecting her cubs, we’re not crazy for lashing out when someone crosses a line – we’re deserving of protecting and loving ourselves with a gentle hand and fierce love.
Take good care on your healing journey.
