Woman's Way Home: Navigating Your Path to Embodied Power

By Leela Francis

Come Home ~ Body, Self and Soul

In this engaging, empowering and honest book, inspirational speaker and facilitator of womens spiritual awakening Leela Francis shares the forests, peaks, and valleys of her wild and wonderful way home. Youll also be moved by the wisdom and stories of her clients who dared to touch deeply into their own rich life tapestries to emerge stronger, more vibrant, and more vividly their true selves.
If youre ready to midwife your own rebirth, release the chains of self-judgment, be in authentic dialogue with your body, and find delight in who you are, the Vividly Woman Embodiment System will map out a clear and traceable odyssey for your personal expansion.
You will learn how to
access your embodied wisdom as you claim your Sensual, Emotional, and Intuitive power;
ignite and sustain energy radiance through the five Vividly Woman textures; and
discover the gift of the three Vividly Woman lenses as tools of personal inquiry to weave your glorious way back home.

Welcome Home! Leela Francis and her story are the fuel that will launch a thousand stories. Women are hungry, longing, for authenticity. Leela provides this rare commodity in a world lacking feminine power. She will lead you home.
Caroline Muir, founder of the Divine Feminine Institute for Men and Women and coauthor of the best-selling Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452574059

Leela Francis

Leela Francis is the founder of Vividly Woman Embodied Leader Tools and Training. She’s circled with and facilitated thousands internationally to find their way home to the power and wisdom of living in a body. A skilled and compassionate coach, teacher, and trainer, she makes her home in the Pacific Northwest and the Mexican Riviera, where she lives, dances, and inspires embodied power, vividly!

Book preview

Woman’s

Way Home

Navigating Your Path to Embodied Power

LEELA FRANCIS

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Copyright © 2013 Leela Francis.

Author Credits: Amazon Best Selling Author, International Speaker

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7404-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7406-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7405-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013908231

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/3/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

1.   Centers, Textures, and Lenses

The Dimensions of Living Vividly

POWER CENTERS

The Wisdom that Lives in Your Body

2.   Sensual Power

Remembering your Body as a Temple

3.   Emotional Power

Mastering the Rich World of Your Emotions

4.   Intuitive Power

Dancing Your Higher-Self

TEXTURES

Mature Energy Management

5.   Sense

Awareness is the Foundation of Your Journey

6.   Ground

Cultivate Presence and Your Earth Body

7.   Mobilize

Meaning that Motivates and Ignites Your Life

8.   Harness

Sustain Expansion: Make More Out of Less

9.   Express

Celebrate Truth and the Key to Intimacy

LENSES

Portals to Wisdom

10.   Lenses

How We Look Determines What We See

11.   Somatic Lens

Resource Your Body’s Truth

12.   Creative Lens

Discover the Gift

13.   Spiritual Lens

Awaken Transpersonal Power

14.   Dancing the Solar System

Explore with Your Body

CONCLUSION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THE VIVIDLY WOMAN EXPERIENCE

SUGGESTED READING

SUPPORT RESOURCES

PREFACE

Sacred Homecoming

Welcome, Sister. You’ve found your way to the first pages of a book called Woman’s Way Home. I have to assume this means home is something that’s been evading you, that you’re aware enough to know that a sense of home within yourself is sorely lacking, and that you crave a safe and secure route back there. Most likely, you’re longing to know where home is and how to find it again if you lose your way in the future.

I wouldn’t doubt that you’re feeling alone, and lost, and awfully homesick for your true soul—essence. That you’ve arrived at the conclusion that if you’re ever going to find home—the truth of who you really are—you have to be willing to set out on the journey to get there. I am devoted to you and your journey. I’ve seen that while we must each navigate our own inner terrain to find our way home and get comfortable being there, sisterhood along the way is very helpful.

This book is an invitation to get you home. It promises to aid you in releasing the chains of self-judgment, fear, and self-hate, to help you midwife your own rebirth, to assist you to be in authentic dialogue with your body, to discover the light and the shadow of your inner being, and to make love to your life on a daily basis. But first, you have to be willing to acknowledge your pain, the feelings of being lost, and the value in having support and guidance. Congratulations, by finding this book you’ve made it over that first big hurdle and from here on in you can expect to discover the tools that will help make your way more accessible, intriguing, and fruitful.

I first heard the expression divine homesickness many years ago from my therapist and teacher, Mary Pinnager. Mary and I worked together on and off over a period of about sixteen years. It was with her that I discovered what it meant to attend to my soul’s longing to be truly cared for and to value the journey home to my soul-essence. It was only in vividly tasting a homesickness of my soul that I could honor that there was a road I would need to tread in order to truly come home.

During those years of abundant psycho-spiritual anguish, interspersed with scant periods of relief from the suffering, accompanied by spurts of awakening and expansion, I received much of the personal training and soul awakening that has come to be the accumulated wisdom found in the Vividly Woman body of work that is the Embodied Leader Training. There were other teachers and trainings along the way, but it was mainly with the help of my teacher, therapist, and friend (for Mary and her longtime partner at the time were also dear friends) that I had the blessing to devote myself to my own healing, with Mary serving as a constant and a rudder to my chaotic flailing and colorful, dramatic dance of life.

At the time, I had no idea what all those years might one day amount to. When in the midst of personal struggle, it’s hard to imagine there will actually be a light at the end of the tunnel. I thrashed about, trying desperately to get my footing in a life that seemed to serve me up a relentless helping of challenges and dark nights, especially around my primary relationships, infertility, a failed adoption, and career hurdles. When I look back, I can see that while I was learning important self-awareness tools to guide others and myself home, I was also learning how to reverently acknowledge my own inner turmoil. It was her quality of empathy that Mary modeled for me that I have been most grateful to be the recipient of. Mary affirmed for me that my suffering was not wrong or bad or indulgent. She helped me take my first steps as a woman who was honoring her way home and would one day be able to midwife many others on that path.

Were it not for Mary’s loving and sacred container those sixteen years, I would likely have believed that my challenges were unusual and unique. I would have suffered in silence and been armored against the pain. I would have hidden further and further away from the truth of my soul and I would have built more and more of a façade to hide the shame of my inner struggles. Mary’s wisdom and devoted heart helped me to witness all of the above tendencies in myself but not be consumed by them.

Today, I’m blessed to carry the sensitivity, insight, and awareness that allows me to sense other women who are aching in similar ways, and to help them along their path home. I’m keenly attuned to that shrinking back into oneself, of the fear of being seen in one’s pain, at being judged for weakness and the shame of inner emotional insanity. I see it in the eyes, the belly, the shoulders, and the knees; I hear it in their words and silence. I have gathered in enough sacred safe circles to know that no one’s story is unique and no one’s suffering is wrong, and yet women are still prisoners of the belief that they are all alone and no one will understand and accept them if they know the truth.

My heart aches for the lengths to which we’ve strived not to be found out. The fear of not being loved has pushed us so far away from our authentic truth that there is little left of the true self in our relationships anyway! Who do I need to be so that x will love me? This question has become the background music to our lives so that we barely hear it at all anymore.

On my way to a Vividly Woman training a while back I had the good fortune of bumping into Mary in the supermarket. It had been several years since we had last met. It was an auspicious and meaningful time to see her. It was hard to reconcile the reality that so many years of inner struggle could now have me running my own training program for women’s emotional healing and spiritual growth. At our chance meeting in the fresh produce section, I felt a profoundly sentimental appreciation for who Mary had been on my path and I told her so. After we spent a few moments catching up we were each on our way. Later in the day, still deeply touched by this encounter, I recalled that many of those sixteen years, and still today, I judged myself for how fucked up my life used to be and wondered what the hell she must have thought of me. Then I got it; she was your therapist, Leela, of course she was intimately privy to the tossing and turning of your life just as I am now to those I work with. And do I think them fucked up? No, I just hold the space for whatever presents itself, trusting the perfection of the dance that each of us choreographs for ourselves so we can heal, learn, expand and then eventually serve as a way—shower for others on their glorious and meaningful woman’s way home.

FOREWORD

All women of the world – survivors of violence in destitute slums, victims of genocide in the desolate displacement camps, suburban moms, every woman stranded in poverty, the women-in-training at high schools and colleges and those privileged with a life of luxuries – all of us face the same life-defining questions:

How do we think about the life we have been given, a life blessed or cursed by timing, place and family, none of which we chose?

What is the purpose of our presence here and now?

How do we embrace and manifest our unique gifts?

Where do we turn for the hand up that enables our shift from confusion and despair to devotion and hope?

What is our contribution to the upwelling sisterhood of women?

For each of us, the answers arrive at different times, sometimes after pain and sorrow, hopefully accompanied by relief and a sense of greater freedom. For our life to have meaning and direction, the questions – and the answers – form the essence of our link with the rest of humanity.

Our lives are shorter, of more urgent mandate, than we usually care to admit. It is never too late to begin, or deepen, an honest investigation of the big questions – especially when important opportunities present themselves.

This book is one such opportunity. I recommend you immerse yourself in the wisdom offered here and allow it to open your mind, heart and soul. Leela Francis models a devotion and service to women that in and of itself inspires us to wake up to our inherent wisdom and the gifts of our life journey so that we can be a light for each other.

The power of a woman fully, vibrantly on her path, imbued with richness, is the power needed to transform the world, day by day, into the nurturing habitat we want it to be.

I wish you joyful success on your journey.

Susan Burgess-Lent

Author, Journalist, Speaker,

Warrior for Women’s Rights

Executive Director, Women’s Centers International.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have all my teachers to thank for helping me compile the wisdom I offer in this book. For the courage to share my stories and find the right words and organization of those I feel great gratitude for my editor, Lynne Blackman.

Amongst the memorable and life influencing teachers I’ve been blessed to know and study with are Debbie Rosas, Zeta Gaudet, Mary Pinnager, Carol Brophie, Judith and Jerry Fewster, Liz Faller, Jaime Ewen, Sandra Samartino, Ann Mortiphee, Richard and Donna Dryer, Emilie Conrad, Susan Harper, Marion Rosen, Toni Bergins, Wilbert Alix, Andrea Juhan, Banafshe Sayad, Belisa Amaro, Regine, Shakti Mai, Jean Bolen, Yuki Rioux, Mrs. Paul, Mary Beetles, Hadia, and Mrs. Shapiro, my nursery school teacher who wore white patent leather go-go boots

There are many whose lives have impacted the meaning and depth of my own. Besides the formal teachers that I listed above, these women effortlessly shared their life wisdom and introduced me to many important places in myself, without which this book would never have been written.

Judith, thank you for your years of devotion to your own healing and sanity and the risks you took to empower yourself. Pammy, thank you for opening my eyes to a depth of human honesty that helped carve my evolution. Betty, you introduced me to sacred space and constantly provided it for me when I most needed a soft place to land. Dhyana, your life dance and autonomy gave me a role model of what a woman can be and still have a profoundly deep heart. Joyce and Judy, the reality of life and relationships was birthed for me through you. Kara and Randi, your sisterhood and devotion to the path of Vividly Woman have buoyed me immeasurably, thank you for answering my call. Diana, thank you for standing by my side behind the scenes and working your butt off to make it all look just right, and Greg, thank you for showing me another way, for loving me, and always encouraging me to follow my true heart. Nancy, thank you for modeling and nourishing me with love and affection. Alan, thank you for being an amazing big brother, for literally saving my life, and for always being there for me when I need you. Mum, for loving me from the womb and being a mother I ached to make proud.

Thank you to the soul and essence of Lallashwari, whose naked dance has been with me in every circle, whose passionate longing for truth is in the heart of every woman I meet, and whose reverent light shines on all of my days.

INTRODUCTION

Embodiment is something I started out facilitating before I knew myself what it truly was. While I knew what it felt and looked like to be embodied (truly inhabiting my body instead of just dragging it around with me by default) and what it felt and looked like to not be embodied, I really didn’t have the understanding to be able to speak about it or tell anyone how they could be more embodied themselves.

I was however bestowed with a natural ability to inspire embodied presence, through the way that I naturally lived in my own body. My love and passion and indulgence in dance and movement, and even the way I carried myself in my everyday life, attracted to me individuals who wanted what I seemed to have. I in turn was inspired to help them find it in themselves.

What a gift! All I had to do was show up and dance, and I would be serving others. How sweet is that?

That did seem like a fortunate set of circumstances, since I loved to dance, and practically lived for it. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be enough for the inquiring minded, embodied soul that I am. I yearned to understand, with my mind, what it is that constitutes embodied living, how I could improve my transmission of that gift and wisdom to be of even greater service, and why it was even important? Put simply, I wanted to become conscious. Along with raising my own consciousness, I longed to support others on that road as well. My challenge became to substantiate and justify the healing work of dance, movement, and embodied psycho-spirituality so that doubting minds would feel inclined to take part, to drink the Kool-Aid so to speak, that was bringing so much deliciousness to my own existence.

Serving women to awaken them to the power and pleasure of their sensual bodies through dance, nature and ritual was a passion that seemed unquenchable for me. Spurred by firsthand physical abuse I’d experienced by my own partner, I trained and worked as a volunteer rape-line crisis worker, and then as a counselor for battered and abused women and children in a women’s shelter. I’d touched these issues in my own life and held space for others to heal in theirs. I didn’t think I could become even more smitten with promoting women’s embodied power until an issue of global importance grabbed my attention. The issue that I speak of is women, our sisters, who are victims of horrific sexual violence as a consequence of war. I began to learn about places like Rwanda and Bosnia and where it’s still happening today, women’s bodies and souls being attacked, raped, and tortured in places like Darfur and the Congo.

Along with my tremendous grief, I felt great confusion because while these women, who have little means, education, and opportunity are brutally victimized, and tortured, the sacredness of their sensuality violated, we women of the developed world, living in our privileged wealthy culture, commit a similarly debilitating violence and betrayal against ourselves by ignoring and dishonoring our own sacred sensuality, day after day, in how we organize and design our lives and priorities.

My compulsion to guide and inspire my sisters locally largely grew out of the pain I felt for my less advantaged sisters who were suffering globally. I knew in my own heart and soul that the greatest difference we can make on this planet is to come home to the blessing and the wisdom of our own bodies. Then came the need to carve out the path to get there and make it conceptual enough so that I could convey it to elicit curiosity and credibility. That is when my passion and service became activism, and I claimed my power to effect change.

In my quest to support women, I trusted that the theoretical wisdom would come in time. There were many seasons of doubt along the way, but fortunately I gradually became more and more clear. After years of dedication to this field of study and my own personal expansion and conscious embodiment the moving parts clicked into place, opening the space for more aha moments that allow for ever greater insights and understandings.

The beauty of the Vividly Woman System laid out, discussed, and explored in these pages, is that long after you have attended a Vividly Woman Training, or even if you never attend, or hope to one day, you will have the seeds of what it takes to begin living more intimately in your own skin, and become the midwife of your own soul-body, which is ultimately my greatest wish for each and every woman on this planet.

We have spent so much time living up to other people’s and society’s standards that we’ve