3 Things that I have learnt about toxic femininity.

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When I began this (now) successful blog and magazine, I had no idea how well it would be received. Three years ago, after I went through something traumatic in my life, I decided to do the real work and as I did the work, I would document it and tell others how I had healed or was still healing from something that I had gone through in my life. 

I made a decision to be as authentic as possible and it has been difficult to be this vulnerable but very necessary. I believe that we need to be honest with one another to move forward in our lives. Whether that honesty shows up with a smile, a bitter rant or an apology. Not saying that we should be mean but being honest won’t always be pretty and nice. 

I would be lying to you if I told you that I have always been surrounded by supportive females and people who genuinely wanted the best for me. It would be an even bigger lie if I told you that I haven’t fallen into the trap of female toxicity where (as a collective) women have been raised to compete with one another, be mean to each other and gossip about each other in front or behind our backs. 

Even though I have hurtful memories of many females doing this to me, I have also had my fair share of being unkind and mean to others. And, for that, I apologize. It is only until recently that I fully understood what it means to be a productive and healthy female representative in The World. 

Here are 3 things that I have learnt about female toxicity:

1. We have to change it. 

When I think of the word toxic, I often think of ingesting something into my body that is poisonous- forgetting about my mind and actions. Female toxicity may not be ingested but it is a culture we have developed where we put each other down and are too afraid to see another women shine. Examples of this are all around: Reality shows, family dynamics even school&work dynamics also. 

Like with anything else, it won’t change unless we do the work. I can tell you from experience that being a healthy and supportive woman is way better than being one who is manipulative, cunning and insecure. I have been one of those and have done (and am still doing) the work of finding out what it really means to be happy and healthy- it didn’t come from looking at others, being mean to others and judging others. It came from me looking at myself and admitting that I was not happy with how I behaved and contributed to The World. 

2. It’s toxic for a reason.

The term masculine toxicity has been thrown around a lot lately and, I believe, it to be overused. Although we are comfortable speaking about how men can be mean, intimidating and abuse their power, as women we are afraid to look at how we can also be the same way. 

The meanest things that have ever been done to me have been done so by a woman. I am not saying that all women are mean; however, we have developed a culture of bonding in negativity. I have had deep secrets told in High School, been called fat and, friends (until recently) constantly berate me for me being who I am. 

You might ask why I was so comfortable accepting this kind of behaviour? The plain and simple answer (if I had to only choose one) is that, as a whole, we do not have role models of women being kind to each other. I accepted that I might never have friends who were kind and loving. In the past few years, I have proven that to be untrue and will never accept mean and catty behaviour in my life moving forward. But, it has taught me that unless we change something, it can be so toxic that it embeds a culture at all levels in society. 

3. We will never be at our best if we are tearing one another down. 

In the past year, I made a decision to only have people in my life who support me and are kind to me. Yes, we will have our arguments but I would rather hear things said to me than find them out about me. As I have set clear boundaries for the kind of people that I want in my life, I have heard my supportive and loving friends tell me stories of how they trusted another female who backstabbed them and did something unmentionable to them too. 

The irony is that we are in the post- ‘me too’ era where we constantly speak about how men have stopped us from reaching our full potential. But, what about the females? Yes, some men have been mean and unkind to me but the amount of women who have portrayed similar actions probably doubles that. We need to look at how we are bonding with one another and ask ourselves if we should congregate over gossip and negativity, or out of love and support. 

Calling out our male counterparts is important, yes! But, true healing starts with us. We will never elevate the energetic female consciousness until we acknowledge how we have hurt other females and what actions we need to take moving forward to not do so in the future. 

*This is dedicated to any female who has gossiped about me, berated me and tried to tear me down. I know that you did it from a place of insecurity. As I have done with others. 

12 Affirmations pour vous protéger contre les vampires énergétiques, les narcissiques et les personnalités abusives.

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C’est une belle période de l’année et alors que beaucoup d’entre nous célèbrent, certains d’entre nous traînent peut-être plus avec leurs proches. Se réunir avec des êtres chers peut être amusant, mais parfois, cela peut être épuisant.

Dans chaque groupe de personnes, il y a des gens qui ont de bonnes intentions et ceux qui n'en ont pas. Si vous êtes quelqu'un qui apporte la vie et la lumière, vous remarquerez peut-être des gens qui viennent vous voir pour votre temps parce que vous le donnerez. Cependant, ce n'est pas parce que vous êtes léger que vous devez toujours le partager. Vous pouvez en garder pour vous et vous protéger des personnes qui veulent votre lumière.

Voici 12 affirmations pour vous protéger des personnes qui veulent voler votre lumière:

1. Je suis une bonne personne.

2. Je peux parfois dire «non».

3. J'ai de bonnes intentions.

4. L'opinion de quelqu'un sur moi est une opinion.

5. Je donne à ceux qui me rendent.

6. Je suis ma propre source d'énergie.

7. Je me remplis d'amour et d'affection.

8. J'en ai assez.

9. Je me valide.

10. Je peux en influencer un autre mais je ne peux pas en sauver un autre.

11. Je donne du respect aux autres et je retrouve le respect.

12. La vérité est ma fondation.

The biggest lesson that I learnt when my mentor made sexual advances on me.

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In light of the new Bikram documentary on Netflix, I feel that it is my duty to share this story. I promised that I would never tell this story (out of shame); however, the more that I learn about sexual predators and the nature of how they operate, the more that I come to understand how little it has to do with the prey and more with the person who does the preying.This is a contradiction to what I had known before this incident happened to me.

Every and any industry is filled with predators; my story is one of a mentor that I had when I wanted to become a yoga teacher. As I start to write these words, I can feel a gulp in my throat and my eyes heat up as I get emotional but I promised to tell this story- no matter how difficult it is and the backlash that I will receive for doing so.

Approximately 7 years ago, I became a yoga teacher and I had been assigned different teachers to be my mentors during the process. It was an intense time in my life. Prior to my decision to become a yoga teacher, I was a waitress and had discovered the benefits of a consistent hot yoga practice. I was dead-set on becoming a yoga teacher and the person who asked me was one of my teachers, I looked up to him.

Although I have never believed in admiring any one person, I was passionate about the way that he taught, what he had to offer and his authenticity to the practice. As a practitioner, I was definitely influenced by him. One day, after class, he approached me and asked me if I was going to become a teacher because he believed in me. Words cannot describe how I felt when he said that to me. But, if I had to choose one, I would choose flattered.

By sheer coincidence, I ended up taking his class often after that. The studio that he taught at (and I practiced at) didn’t have a schedule so every class you took, you were surprised by who was teaching you. I had always (and still have) been fond of this idea because I became detached from who was teaching and focused on my practice.

As a result of our coinciding schedules, I would take his class 3-4 times a week and noticed that he would place extra effort and energy on me during class. On one of my birthdays, he wished me happy birthday and put his hand down my bra while I was in savasana (dead-corpse pose).I was in utter and complete shock. I started crying. I cried for the rest of class because one of my biggest fears had come true: an older man who was mentoring me only did so because of what I looked like as opposed to truly believing in me, my strength as a practitioner and my potential as a teacher.

I contemplated not going through with the teacher-training but I had already put down my non-refundable deposit. For days, I would think about it and become heartbroken and upset about this teacher. Even though, he did this to me, I went back to practice. I told myself that there were other teachers that I could learn from. I decided to do what most women do regularly, I shut off a part of my self-worth/esteem and I decided to continue to practice there and go through with the teacher-training.

I made a decision to set some boundaries, like not speaking to him, focus on the yoga when he was teaching and distance myself for making any solid connections with male teachers and practitioners. In retrospect, what I had to do was unfair and unjust but I felt so isolated in my decision-making. I knew that if I told my friends and family, they would wonder about my sanity and question why I was so obsessed with this yoga studio? Honestly, I did wonder about my sanity but I saw the big picture of being a teacher more than this issue with my mentor.

My plan to distance myself from him failed. My 23 year-old self didn’t understand that predators thrive off of attention and notice when their prey is not falling into their trap anymore. So, they usually try to breakdown the boundaries that you create when you distance yourself from them. One day, I was in a backbend on the floor and he placed his genitals in front of my face. I looked away from them. He pretended to give me an adjustment (still while I was in this backbend) but instead, pushed my head to look at them. I was so flustered and frozen that I broke down crying again. I proceeded to act like nothing had happened and after class, he came up to me while I was putting on my shoes and asked me why I was crying. I became enraged and stormed out.

I was stubborn about my plan of becoming a teacher that I decided to ignore what he was doing and keep my conversations with him minimal. This time, my plan worked until I was about to graduate from my teacher-training and I was assigned him as the teacher that I was meant to teach with, in order to pass graduation. To this day, I am not sure if this was purposeful or by accident. However, my nerves were out of control when I found out that I would be co-teaching my pre-graduation class with him.

Before I graduated from teacher-training, I was meant to give dialogue to a full class with a teacher and he was the teacher that I was meant to teach the class with. I found out just before I was meant to teach the class. I decided to breathe and get through it. Before we started, we were meant to have a ‘pow wow’ where we spoke about what I would teach and how he would interject. He said that I should teach the class and if he thinks that I am doing ‘badly’, he will start teaching. He told me that he had faith in me and that I would do great.

As the class commenced, I taught the first two postures and when I was in mid-sentence, he cut me off. He abruptly interrupted me and told me that he would take it from there. For the rest of the class, he acted like I wasn’t there and I had to stand in the class and not say a word. I felt mortified and had to leave so halfway throughout class, I left and lied to the front desk. I said that I had a headache and had to leave. It seemed like she knew what was going on and wanted to be on my side. In a nutshell, she implied knowing about his character and encouraged me to finish because I had spent so much money on becoming a teacher. I listened to her and went back in. I sat in a corner and I held back my tears till the class was done .

After it was done, I wrote a long e-mail to the teacher-trainer co-ordinator about what happened and she called me. I didn’t fill her in about how I had felt inappropriate behaviour from my mentor but I let her know what had happened when I was meant to teach the class. The conversation ended with her basically telling me that I need to work on my self confidence, let go of my issues with men and learn how to deal with males who will push my boundaries. After I got off the phone, I clearly knew that I couldn’t trust them.

I proceeded to teach for them and take my mentor issue into my own hands. The following time that he came up to me and touched me during class, I went up to him after class and I told him to never touch me again because it made me feel uncomfortable. He responded to me with shock and tried to make it seem like it was me who had the issue. However, at that point, I was so fed up with him that I didn’t care what he thought of me and what would happen to me after that.

As a result of this encounter, I made a promise to myself that I would always speak up if I felt compromised or violated. If not for me, then for the other women and girls who are behind me because it could happen to them, too.

This experience taught me that some people are messengers and nobody deserves to be idolized. He is human. He was a big piece of my path to becoming a teacher but I did the work, I literally fought against obstacles to become a teacher and no one can take that from me- not even the person who claims that they are the reason why I became a teacher in the first place.

Everyone is a teacher. Sometimes, our best teachers are people who are examples of how we shouldn’t behave and that it is up to every single one of us to hold one another accountable when respect, kindness and morality is being threatened.

To my high school bullies, this is why I forgive you.

I  hated school. I absolutely hated it. I hated getting up five mornings of the week to hear a bell, to learn some things that I mostly wasn't interested in and to hear a few teachers tell me that I wasn't going to succeed at anything in my life. 

I did have some wonderful teachers and, for the most part, a healthy school environment. However, I found that having to see some of the people who bullied me- including some teachers- everyday angered me. 

I spent a lot of time actively being angry because when I voiced my opinions, it wasn't always received well. 

Well, bullies, this one is for you. These are the reasons why I forgive you and I send you love:

1. My life doesn't belong to you. 

The past has been left in the past and, it is important to acknowledge that. If I held on to what has been done to me, I would never progress. My life is in my (and the creator's) hands- not yours. I can't keep repeating how you have treated me in my head because my life is mine- not yours. You don't get that much power over me. 

2. I understand you. 

Now that I am an adult, I can see that only hurt people can hurt others. I understand that to have continuously hurt another, you were not well. In order to heal this world, I cannot hold any resentments against you because you didn't know the outcome of your behaviour and so I forgive you. 

3. Any hate that I feel for you is wasted. 

Like Ghandi said, 'An eye for an eye leaves the world blind.' If I plot and scheme against you, I contribute to the problem not the solution. It is challenging to send you love because of our past but sending love always feels better than hating. 

4. You helped me and I am grateful. 

I spent many years wishing that you didn't exist but the truth is that you do. And, your behaviour toward me has strengthened me. So instead of wishing you ill and regretting the day that you were born, I am grateful because you helped me deal with the many critics that I have encountered in my life after you. Because if I could deal with you, when I was the most vulnerable, the critics are merely ashes compared to your fire.

 

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