I wanted to be a boy when I grew up

/ Pelagia Pais - Women'S Empowerment Coach/
I wanted to be a boy when I grew up

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a boy. You see, in my house being a boy meant that you were more intelligent, stronger, taken more seriously and you did not have to be emotional because boys don’t cry. There were a whole lot of other reasons. I was told at some point how this scientific study showed that women were not able to be good at maths. I believed it, I accepted I was not good at maths, and never tried to be any better.

This might not sound like an obvious start for a post on Feminine Power, but read on. It will make sense in the end.

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'I am fat'

/ Pelagia Pais - Women's Empowerment Coach/
'I am fat'

There you go, I can finally say (or write) this in a way that brings no strong reaction or emotion within me. I see it as a simple neutral statement that describes my body. My body is fat. I am fat.

This has not always been like this. Not so long ago, I would have cringed, felt deep shame, denied it, or chosen whatever other words I could think of, that felt more soothing to my self-perception.

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'Shallow'

/ Pelagia Pais - Women's Empowerment Coach/
'Shallow'

I started watching ‘A Star is Born’ the other day. I haven’t even finished watching the whole movie and the song ‘Shallow’ keeps coming to my head. I looked at the lyrics and they spoke to me and they spoke to what I offer in my Women’s Empowerment Coaching sessions.

So much so, that here I am writing about this song.

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A smile, a word - How to Make a Difference

/ Pelagia Pais - Women's Empowerment Coach/
A smile, a word - How to Make a Difference

I have no idea of what you think of angels, and I didn’t use to think much about them, but it is events like this that make me believe that there are some angels on this earth and Tom was one of them.

This whole conversation took only a couple of minutes, but at the end of it, I had a massive smile on my face and I was so so grateful. I was pulled out of a series of negative and low type of thoughts. I was lifted by this man’s openness and bright spirit.

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She held me in her arms

/ Pelagia Pais/
She held me in her arms

She beckoned me to her, showed me how my body could easily lean into her and inspired a poem. 

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'What about me?' The Before - part I

/ Pelagia Pais/
'What about me?' The Before - part I

‘What about me?’ This question popped into my mind several times in my life.

I am giver. I spent a lifetime giving my love, attention, energy, to work and people. I gave, again and again, and there would be times, when I would somehow stop and ask myself: ‘What about me?’

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This is the first part of a two part post. A before and after account of what has changed in me. How I became aware of the many aspects of being me and what it means in practice to become aware, the transformation and the benefits.

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SheSpeaks SheListens

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SheSpeaks SheListens

A few months ago, a friend of mine got int touch saying ‘You have to listen to this podcast!’ with a link to an episode of the ‘Feel Better, Live More’ episode of Dr. Rangan Chaterjee and Johan Hari on ‘Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression’ link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/55Rq6GthFzVByDXsTR1BUb?si=yWwRKgmJT_OHf5KW4uxJdQ. I must admit that my first reaction was, oh another thing talking about depression, I’m not sure I want to listen to it. Yet, a voice within me and an impulse led me to listen. The conversation went for so long that there are two episodes, and I have now listened to both episodes three times. There is so much interesting content in there, and for me personally, there were a few parts of the conversation that really touched me to the point of tears.

Listening to how there is a lack in listening, connecting in real life and a sense of community. I was moved to take action. An idea started to take shape within me. I wanted to take part in helping others to feel heard. I felt I had limited resources to making this happen in person, and so I put my thinking hat on and started coming up with ideas of how to go about doing this. The idea has had a few shifts and changes but I have for now settled with a name and an idea of how I can make this happen online. As my work is mainly focused on guiding women, I thought it was only natural that I made this offer for women.

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My energy, my mood and the Moon

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My energy, my mood and the Moon

This post will be a mixture of the ‘Books that changed my life’ posts I have shared on my social media (check Instagram or Facebook) and a longer reflection on this subject and my experience.

I read ‘Code Red: Know your flow, unlock your monthly super powers and create a bloody amazing life. Period’ by Lisa Lister back in 2017. I don’t quite remember how the book came to me but when I read it, it changed my view of my menstrual cycle quite dramatically. What I once saw as a painful and uncomfortable monthly nuisance, I could now see as something different. I could see that by understanding my cycle I could understand myself better. My moods, my energy and how to harness this knowing into making time to honour the different stages of the cycle.

As I read the book, for the first time in my life, I actually had the time and disposition to observe my body better and try and identify all the phases of my menstrual cycle. As time went on, I started getting confused and then frustrated, because my cycle seemed to not conform to the descriptions in the book.

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She shows herself

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She shows herself

Art Expression. A moment of inspiration. Drawing as a holistic experience where healing, art and words come together at the same time. 

These are the words that came out from the inspiration moment of creating a piece of art that was already hovering in my perception.  

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How to be a Scientist of the Self - an example

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How to be a Scientist of the Self - an example

 ‘Being a Scientist of the Self, means that you take a separate role within yourself and become an observer of your own living experience. After all, you are the most absolute expert at being you. No one else has a clue of what it truly means to be you. You do you in a way that no one else can.’ Pelagia Pais

This piece is an example of how I use this concept for my own self-inquiry and growth. The better I know myself, what motivates my actions and reactions in daily life, the easier it gets for me and for those around me, ultimately, having a bigger impact through ripples into the bigger world. 

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Breath

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Breath

I’m focusing a lot on energy this year, and in particular increasing my levels of energy. Part of this focus has lead me to understand that breathing is indeed a good way of charging the body, pretty essential. However, if you are like me, and have anxiety, the tendency is to hold the breath and tense the body. As a way of increasing my energy, among other ways I may share in the future, I have decided to, every time I remember during the day, breathe more consciously and deeper than my normal unconscious breathing.

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From Noticing to Change

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From Noticing to Change

Some months, on the first day of my period, just like today, all I feel like doing is this:

Recline

Read a book

Watch something light on TV

Knit

Listen to an audiobook

Nap

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Remembering Trauma - my story

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Remembering Trauma - my story

The following text is a post on my experience of remembering trauma and I share something that feels very sensitive. The path for me to actually press the publish button, has felt long and painful. The more I felt the push to publish, the more fears came up, the fear is still here, right now, as I write, and I am still going to press the publish button.

The push eventually subsided and now I have a sense that these words need to be said so that I can carry on exploring my authentic self in all it’s colours, variations and emotions. It feels like I can no longer write about anything without sharing this first.

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Agony

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Agony

At the beginning of the year I spent a couple of months back in Portugal, where I come from. During that time a lot happened. It was intense and there has been a memory from the past, that keeps wanting to be released and shared here. During this particular time in Portugal, this desire to share that story was intensified, to a point where it felt suffocating not to and there was an intense urgency for doing it. Eventually the urgency disappeared and now I am just waiting for a time that feels right, inside of me.

I wrote something about that memory. I will be sharing it soon. For now, I want to share a poem I wrote about how that agony felt inside of me then and in a much lower intensity, is still felt now.

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Old me, new me – deep in the process of transformation

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Old me, new me – deep in the process of transformation

I have been quiet for what feels like a very long time. This morning, a friend encouraged me to share this part of my process even though I feel a little bit stuck and slightly uncomfortable. There is a lot to share from the last month and a half but I don’t feel ready to share everything just now. All in due time.

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I walk in beauty

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I walk in beauty

I was walking back from the seaside, noticing how light and relaxed my body felt when suddenly this line came to my head: ‘I walk in beauty’. It made so much sense and that sentence fitted perfectly with how I felt in that moment.

I felt beautiful because I could sense my body walking following its natural relaxed movement, I felt super soft inside, my legs had a relaxed certainty about them, my arms were dangling in what felt like the perfect movement, I was standing tall without any conscious effort, I had a smile on my face and I felt beautiful.

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Coming up for air

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Coming up for air

Since about October last year, I have been feeling that something deep and big is coming up to the surface within me. It is very unpleasant. I have possibly been running away from confronting this thing and it seems that the time feels right now.

The last few weeks, I have felt like I have been stuck in a dark place where the feelings of rejection, being a fraud and intense fear have surrounded me every day. It has been very scary and overwhelming. Affecting the energy in my body, meaning that I have mostly felt depleted and like I have been running on empty.

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Back to work feeling

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Back to work feeling

I still remember what it felt like to return to work after only finally getting used to being off during the Christmas and New Year break. I also remember how in 2015 in particular, returning to work felt worst than ever. In the previous months I had been meeting and socialising with quite a few people who worked for themselves and did not have a particular fixed daily schedule. I remember really wanting this for me too. To be my own boss and have the flexibility to choose what I did with each day.

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Season Greetings

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Season Greetings

I had prepared a nice graphic with the 'normal' and expected Merry Christmas and Happy New Year message and was about to write something but nothing felt honest and authentic within me. So here is what came up…

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He - Masculine | She - Feminine

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He - Masculine | She - Feminine

The first two chapters of this story were inspired by a dream a friend of mine shared with me. The dream had a specific meaning for her. When I heard it I heard something else and all of a sudden this story started to unfold in my head.

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