Guard Your Light
Energy Protection & the feminine psyche
There is something deeply important about learning to protect your energy, particularly as women. So much of the feminine experience is so deeply connected to receptivity. For many of us, we naturally tend to absorb, perceive and attune to what is happening around us. We notice changes in mood, subtle shifts in someone's behaviour, the unspoken tension in a room, what another person might need before they have even asked for it. This sensitivity can be one of the most beautiful aspects of the feminine psyche. It allows for depth, intuition, empathy, connection and emotional intelligence. But without boundaries, the same sensitivity that allows us to feel so deeply can also leave us feeling overwhelmed, depleted and disconnected from ourselves. Over time, this can create a subtle form of self-abandonment. Our attention becomes constantly directed outward, towards what other people are feeling, needing and expecting, while our own inner world becomes something we attend to later.
It’s for this reason that energy protection is so important for the feminine psyche. But I think for many of us, it can feel very challenging to truly know and understand what that means. It’s not always about putting the walls up and securing in your inner fortress so no one can get in. It is often about developing enough self-awareness to recognise what belongs to you and what does not. There is a difference between being present with someone else's emotions and taking them into your own body. There is a difference between caring for someone and carrying them. Sometimes, it can mean making the challenging decision to step away but there is often so much nuance that we can explore before this point.
For many of us, part of this can mean truly allowing ourself to take up space within our relationships and emotional landscapes. Your need for quiet, space, privacy, rest and emotional safety matters. Protecting your energy begins with allowing these things to matter without feeling that you need to justify them. This is where our boundaries become essential. It can be tempting to rely on those around us to be as receptive and attuned to what we need without us ever needing to make it explicit. In truth, having firm boundaries is often the most loving thing we can do for ourselves and in a strange way, those around us too. Boundaries allow us to guard our softness and sensitivity without feelings of resentment and emotional burnout creeping in.
Questions to ask yourself when you might need to set a boundary
Is this mine? Is this emotion mine, or am I picking up on someone else's?
Is this responsibility actually mine?
Do I genuinely want to do this, or am I afraid of disappointing someone?
Am I offering from a place of love and abundance, or am I giving because I feel I should?
Do I feel more like myself after spending time with this person, or less like myself?
With this being said, I think it is often overlooked how hard this can feel in practice. For those of us whose worth has been measured against how open, kind or giving we are, this can feel deeply uncomfortable. Along the way, it becomes a lesson of meeting our shadow and detaching our worth from how much we can give.
You do not need to be good
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Wild Geese - a poem by Mary OliverThe poem above has resonated deeply with me throughout my own journey of setting boundaries. In truth, the process has been one of deeply severing myself from the label of being a “good girl”—a role thrust upon so many of us from an early age.
There is a silent yet deafening expectation placed upon women throughout their lives to be good, kind, polite, helpful, agreeable, easy to manage, and considerate of everyone else’s feelings. So much so that a level of self-abandonment can become an expectation of love. Anything less can feel shameful, selfish, and bad.
The selfish woman is often portrayed as villainous and uncomfortable to sit with. We subconsciously self-audit ourselves in comparison to her, constantly proving our own goodness and worthiness. We can come to believe that putting ourselves above others, or making decisions that serve our own deepest desires first, is inherently selfish, shameful, or even wrong.
I find this such a deeply saddening reality to sit with. When it comes to male characters, we are often willing to hold space for an element of goodness or humanity within them, even when it is not immediately obvious. We read novels filled with morally grey male characters who are deeply flawed and yet undeniably lovable.
Yet female characters are so often held to a standard of angelic excellence in order to be considered lovable or relatable. What a strange contradiction it is that we find perfection relatable and aspirational in women when it is entirely false to the human experience. And yet, when female characters are anything but angelic, endlessly receptive, or easy to love, we crucify them in our minds.
For any fans of ACOTAR by Sarah J. Maas, we see this play out on a huge scale through Nesta’s story. She is a character who has a long and difficult journey with her own darkness, and as a result, many readers despise or hate her character (even once they understand her) because the story is raw enough to feel real.
It is uncomfortable to experience a female lead who contains anything other than light.
I think this speaks on a much larger scale to why so many women are uncomfortable meeting their own darkness, and to how deeply we deny and suppress its existence. We have been taught, consciously and unconsciously, that certain parts of ourselves make us unworthy of love.
And perhaps this is also why setting boundaries can feel so difficult. A boundary can be perceived as bad, mean, selfish, or unkind. It asks us to step outside of the role of the endlessly accommodating woman and into the uncomfortable territory of choosing ourselves.
Perhaps part of the journey is learning that meeting our own darkness does not make us bad. Having needs does not make us selfish. Saying no does not make us unkind.
It simply makes us human.
The process of setting boundaries can often trigger a deep unraveling of the self - a step away from the light feminine and a full journey into our own depth. It is not an easy experience and can feel difficult to put into words. This can feel especially challenging when those who may have benefited from your lack of boundaries are the ones who resist them the most.
For a woman who has received approval for being accommodating, boundaries can initially feel almost like wrongdoing. Saying no may bring guilt. Taking space may feel selfish. Choosing yourself may feel uncomfortable. You may even find yourself wanting to over-explain your decisions, as though you need to build a convincing case for why you are allowed to have a limit.
It is so important that we reach a point where we allow the “good girl” version of ourselves to be put to rest and to consciously acknowledge that she no longer serves us. From here, the feminine experience can broaden vastly. We are allowed to meet ourselves without the labels of good or bad, and to set boundaries with our own needs and desires at the forefront.
Some people in our lives will meet us halfway. They will see and acknowledge that our needs are just as important as their own. Others may not. However, deep within ourselves, these boundaries create an opportunity for profound self-trust and inner contentment.
A theme on Soul Shala: Guard your light
With all of this being said, our new offerings on Soul Shala in September have been created to gently support you in this process of setting boundaries and learning how to protect your energy.
This month's Soul Session - Guard Your Light explores the importance of protecting your energy and setting healthy boundaries, particularly for feminine souls who are often deeply attuned to the needs and energies of others. Our new Energy Protection Meditation is designed to become a grounding practice for creating energetic boundaries and returning to yourself when the outside world feels overwhelming. For those craving a deeply nourishing movement practice, we've also added Refill Your Cup - Restorative Yoga Flow, an invitation to slow down, soften and replenish the places where your energy has been depleted. Alongside these, you'll find our Live Energy Healing sessions, offering a beautiful opportunity to receive, restore and reconnect with your own energetic balance.
If you've been curious about Soul Shala, this month is a beautiful time to begin. You're warmly invited to enjoy our 7-day free trial and explore everything the studio has to offer. We would love to welcome you into the space and support you as you learn to protect your light, honour your energy and remember that you don't have to give from an empty cup.