In the last years - hard to say how many - I had forgotten who I was! Theoretically, of course, it was clear enough. I was a woman, a divorced mother, an eternal student, a traveler and, most of the times, someone’s partner. My life was full, or so I thought, of many things, may be too many…

It was my last relationship which, by causing me a lot of pain, brought me one day to say aloud: “ I am no longer a woman! I am more like a man!” I, then, had begged my boy friend, a very well domesticated, unemployed and charming ‘house-husband’ to work out together a solution, because I was a suffocating. He answered that to go out to work and to be the ‘man’ of the house was not in his plans. He had ice in his eyes: no discussion! As no one else could rally to pay the bills, I thought I had no choice: I continued as if I had not heard my inner voice shouting for the liberation of my femininity. Besides, how could I chuck him out and, a least, regain the freedom of being quite in my own space, as he had not even one penny to survive?! I was trapped!!! I found myself in front of a brick wall….!!! I felt strangled and kept captive in a home, which was no longer a home, but a slave dump!!!

For many more years, unable to see a solution, whilst carrying in my whole being the pain of seeing myself growing older and wither as a leaf in late autumn,  lost to laughter and even to false happiness and optimism, I carried on, hoping that a miracle that could free me from this prison would happen. With ‘miracle’ I was more thinking of some kind of illness, which could solve the problem…’naturally’!

A miracle, indeed, happened, but rather than being a deadly illness, it came as a spiritual school with lots of different paths of search.

Although I had seen in the program that it offered classes for women, for a long time I stayed away from it, or rather, to be hoest, I put a lot of effort into carefully avoiding it as much as possible. What could I do there? I was no longer eighteen and certainly reconnecting with my feminine principle and materializing it in real life, would be hard work, too close to the bone, to this incredible old pain which stagnated in my cells and made me not even want to have a full length mirror in my house. To see what, after all? The feminine ‘I’?  Forget it! This had to stay …past history! Besides, it was too late, I was too old for this kind of things!

As I carried on studying at the school and became more committed to the development of my essential being and, naturally, of its feminine reality, I started to feel more at ease with it: firstly by observing more and more how it could be, then by playing occasionally with more feminine clothes, underwear and make up….feeling sometimes amused and sometimes utterly ridiculous.

Yet, the seed had been sawn and, even without my cooperation, it started reclaiming my attention, as well as its right to grow, to exist, to come to maturity….

So? So what now???

It was a seminar I went to at Christmas that, finally, made a real impact on me.

There, together with the women who had taken part in it, I dressed up, made up my face, set my hair, wrapped up in colorful scarves, meditated, performed women rituals …and danced, danced and danced, celebrating femininity and sensuality: mine, thoroughly enjoying every moment of it.

Of course, not everything was easy, there were times when I run away from confronting myself and from my pain, when I felt truly horrible, exposed, naked to the bone, vulnerable, lost and angry with myself for having allowed things to go so far in my life, for having allowed this loss, this sacrifice, this amputation!

It took me a few days - well past the end of the seminar - to realize that it was precisely this anger, joint to the experience of fun and softness that my rediscovered femininity had given me in the seminar’s days, which acted as a strong catalyst for change. The changes may be imperceptible, tiny, and I like it to belike this: I call myself, the woman hidden deeply inside of my being, and tell her softly that she can come out from her hiding and prison, that she is not expected to be like a star, but that she is welcome to be herself, to celebrate her body, her heart, her full self, to discover her beauty, whatever that means, with patience and kindness. I tell her that she has the right to reclaim her existence as a woman in this world as well as her femininity, as an essential ingredient of her spiritual dimension.

No longer scared of or sorry for him, I have announced to my ‘house-husband’ that I am leaving: and I know with the whole of myself that this is happening, because I am more free in my heart and mind.

Now I look forward to any initiative for women that the school of the two enlightened Teachers organizes: if with one seminar the damaged caused in so many years has begun to be healed, with just a little bit more effort, perseverance and courage, and  the help of my spiritual guides, I am now certain that I can finally free myself from the bondages of years and years of captivity.

With this in mind, I have welcomed with immense joy the announcement of the next seminar - this time international - for women, which will be held in Montenegro at the end of February. I have already changed my work plans and started to prepare myself for this event. I know that I am only one step away from becoming the woman I should have always been; I know that it is time that the ‘ugly duckling’ is transformed into a swan able to fly. I know, also, that there I shall meat many women: some who, like me, are still searching and others who have already regained their feminine expression and are, now, happy and fulfilled both spiritually and emotionally, having met the partner they deserved, their ideal…

After so many years of going from one, so called, ‘spiritual school’ to another, I know that I have now come to the only place where I can become ‘who I am’ and ‘who I was always meant to be’. It is already happening…..