Awakening Your Fierce Feminine Fire: Women’s Empowerment for a Soulful, Purposeful Life

Do you long for this?

A Passionate Creative Spirit
Assertiveness and receptivity
Free expression
Compassion and gentleness
Strength and power
Feeling fully alive
Having your “Flame” mark your essence in the world
Excitement in living
Living Out Loud
Relating with Harmony, Unity and Mutual Respect
Having a spark in your eyes, love in your heart, and depth in your soul!
Experiencing Your True Self

Well, this is Your Fierce Feminine Fire, fully Awakened!

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAMS

Awakening Your Fierce Feminine Fire (AFFF) Programs Help Women to:
Increase Energy ~ Boost Creativity ~ Ignite Spirit ~ Nurture Soul

In a safe, joyful and supportive setting, we help women become:

~ stronger ~ more assertive ~ more compassionate ~ self-aware ~ self-confident ~ emotionally connected ~ spiritually fulfilled ~ creatively inspired ~ accomplished.

We do this through participation in a variety of programs that include “high, positive vibrational” activities. Being empowered in this way is knowing your True Self and living a life with spiritual meaning and purpose.

These are the AFFF Programs:

~ Women’s Retreats
Healing Relationships * Spirituality of Food and Rhythm * Fierce Feminine Fire in Harmony with
the Mighty Masculine Mantle * Embracing Our Creative Path
~ Workshops
~ Ceremonial Drum Making Classes
~ Drum Circle
~ Equine Encounters
~ Sound Clearing and Healing
~ Discovering Your Animal Spirit Guides
~ And, more programs are being developed all the time, as the need and interests arise

Women experience transformation through the specific “high vibrational activities” built into the Retreats, Workshops, Encounters, Classes, and Sessions

All activities are meditative, imaginative, inspiring and creative. Programs may include:

Nature Walks ~ Meditation ~ Drumming ~ Guided Imagery ~ Tapping ~ Equine Encounters ~ Art ~ Rituals

A Place to Awaken Your Fierce Feminine Fire

Women need a safe place, dynamic experiences, adventurous steps, encouragement and support to Awaken their Fierce Feminine Fire.

I have created this environment at Ridgeway Place, on a serene 200 acre horse farm and within the farmhouse, for women to gather in sacred community to grow, expand, stretch, express, discover, create, grieve, and heal and Come Home to Your True Self.

Who Can Benefit From AFFF?

ANY WOMAN CAN BENEFIT, from young adulthood to your Golden Years!

• If you desire a rich spiritual path that supports developing your True Self
• If you yearn to express your creative flow in a supportive, accepting community
• If you need a boost from over work, burnout, stress, physical illness, emotional drain
• If you are in transition and need guidance to find and stay on your new path
• If you need to discover what your new path is and what your purpose is on the path
• If you feel like you’ve lost your essence, your spirit, your spark and want it back
• If you think you never fully experienced your passionate creative spirit and long to
• If you need to recharge and balance your energy
• If you are grieving losses and want comfort, support and inspiration from a loving, accepting community of like-minded women
• If you are experiencing or have experienced depression, crippling anxiety, feeling stuck, unsure of who you are or what your true purpose is

Awakening Your Fierce Feminine Fire Programs help women to:

• Learn to trust your inner guidance and intuition
• Discover your inner compass to direct your life with focus and intention
• Deepen your spiritual connection with yourself, the Creator and other women in sacred community
• Learn to connect with your body’s natural rhythms and flow in movement and harmony to the music of life
• Learn to sing your own song and dance to your own rhythm “out loud” into the world
• Discover your creative, passionate spirit and manifest this into art objects you can cherish
• Connect in a deeper way to nature
• Encounter the power of horses to ground your strength, overcome fear and doubt, and cross the threshold into new possibilities
• Find Joy in solitude and in deepening relationship with one’s Self
• Strengthen your ability to affirm and soothe yourself and anchor your self-worth

INCEPTION

What Influenced Me?

First, I, personally, have been on the path of women’s empowerment and strengthening my psycho- spiritual development since the 80’s when I started my career as a Marriage and Family Therapist. It’s something I have a deep passion for.

The idea for the AFFF Program was awakened in 2016 after a trip to Sedona, AZ. Soon afterwards, I began studying Universal Shamanism, which is a spiritual path embracing the belief that all living beings are sacred, interconnected and connected to God, Our Creator, the Source of All That Is. This way of life upholds the belief that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience during our life on earth; and we are called to promote peace, harmony, unity, compassion, gratitude and to deeply honor Mother Earth and all her inhabitants. It felt natural to blend my background in psychotherapy with this emphasis on our spiritual preeminence. And the principles were in alignment with the need to bring more of the Feminine aspects of living into balance with the Masculine, something that was confirmed for me through my work.

As a marriage and family therapist, working with women, men, families and couples for 35 years, I recognized a huge need for women to step out and step up to claim their true voices in the world. To come into alignment with the longings of their heart and soul, what they speak to their therapists about but often lack the confidence to speak out loud for fear of rejection and dismissal. This feminine longing is for the integration of the Feminine and Masculine aspects of Self for optimum psycho-spiritual health, to build a more peaceful, sustainable world where men and women in intimate partnerships and people of all cultures and walks of life live in harmony and peace. I believe this effort starts with self, then spreads to marriage, family, friends, the workplace, community and the world.

In the early stages of developing AFFF, it was more an energy than a clear concept. Hence the name Fierce. It came from deep within my heart, soul, and yearnings. Hence the name Feminine. And it was truly a combustion of creativity! Hence the name Fire. And the concept is still somewhat elusive because Awakening Your Fierce Feminine Fire (AFFF) truly IS passion, creation, and energy IN MOTION. It is ART! It is an entity with a dynamic force all its own. And my soul really wants it to remain that way – an artistic experience, elusive, mysterious, magical, transformational.

I want women to be drawn to this because something stirs deep in their soul like it did in mine 2 years ago. And this has happened for women who have attended AFFF over the past 2 years. I’ve also learned that women who need this Program the most are coming because they need FUEL to ignite their heart and soul’s yearnings, their spark of excitement, their combustion of creativity. And that’s the very REASON I was inspired to CREATE this Program – to guide women and offer nourishment to develop their passionate creative spirit and shine it brightly and boldly into the world!

PHILOSOPHY

It’s been difficult to conceptualize something that I view primarily as an “art” form; but, here’s my best description to date of the philosophy behind the AFFF program.

Awakening Your Fierce Feminine Fire empowers women through psycho-spiritual development – blending healthy psychological functioning with a soulful, spiritual path. Developing psycho-spiritual health is a holistic path that tends to the needs of mind, body, emotions and spirit as these are all interconnected.

I believe that for any of us to reach optimum psycho-spiritual health, we need to find a balance between the Feminine and Masculine aspects of our personalities and ways of living. This idea in psychology that there is a feminine and masculine side to each of us was first proposed by psychiatrist Carl Jung, who coined the term “animus” to describe the “male” aspect in women, and “anima” to describe the female aspect in men. Jung was also influenced by ancient Eastern philosophies that talked about the Yin, or female energy, and the Yang, or male energy, where both halves complete the whole.

In my 35 years of practicing marriage/couples therapy, I have seen how helpful it is for long term marital success to recognize and develop these seemingly opposite energies that exist in both men and women. Balancing and harmonizing the feminine and masculine energies leads to optimal holistic health. And, we have research from the Gottman Institute on “Emotionally Intelligent Couples” that supports this. (www.gottman.com)

“Typically” what are the Feminine Aspects?

Compassion ~ Receptivity ~ Emotional Attunement, Awareness and Responsiveness ~ Creativity ~ Nurture ~ Present-Focused Mindfulness ~ Attentiveness ~ Patience ~ Love ~ Open
Heartedness ~ Open Mindedness ~ Acceptance ~ Forgiveness ~ Generosity ~ Gratitude ~ Letting Go ~ Cooperation ~ Collaboration ~ Reverence for all Life ~ Inclusiveness ~ Spiritual Connectedness with all Life ~ Balance of Mind, Body, Emotions and Spirit.

“Typically” what are the Masculine aspects?

Assertiveness * Mental clarity * Goal-directedness * Accomplished * Organized * Personally Powerful * Leadership * Strength * Courage * Persistence * Task oriented * Taking charge * Being in Control * Protecting * Teaching * Providing * Committing * Confronting * Decisiveness * Urgent * Purposeful * Exclusive * Creative * Enthusiastic

When reading these two lists, do you get a different feeling inside reading one compared to the other? I know I do. The Feminine aspects flow, like a cool mountain stream over smooth, round stones. The Masculine aspects excite, like a bold ray of sunlight leading you forward to your destination.

In today’s world, healthy adult women (and men) NEED TO DEVELOP BOTH the Feminine and Masculine!
We need to learn to flow and we need to live with decisiveness and excitement!

SUMMARY

In offering the AFFF programs, I am opening the pathway for women to identify and nurture their Fierce Feminine Fire, which is the blending of those aspects that create optimum psycho-spiritual health from both the Feminine and Masculine in ourselves. Awakening to these aspects allows us to relate to self, others and our world with passion, creativity and spirit. We come to know Our True Selves!

You express your Fierce Feminine Fire through your unique range of behaviors such as:

• compassion and love
• cooperation and community
• assertion and power
• fiercely standing your ground and standing up for yourself in adversity.

Note: Men, of course, also need this balance and harmony between the Masculine and Feminine aspects to achieve optimum psycho-spiritual health. At the present time, I’m focusing on programs for women. Developing programs for men is my next endeavor. Stay tuned!To learn even more about the AFFF Programs and to Register, Go to www.fiercefemininefire.com There’s a wealth of information, images and inspiration there!Please, let me hear from you by responding in the comments section below. I would love to have a dialogue with you.

I hope to see you soon in one of our AFFF programs!

Mary Ellen Connett, M.S., LMFT