This episode is a compilation of me asking past and future guests the question: What is your favorite part about being a woman?

In this blog post, it’s easier to know who’s speaking and  how to find them online. Reach out to who you resonate with and be sure to share a screen shot of you listening to this episode on instagram and tag @selfexpressedbabe so I can repost you!

Laura Rickard, marulawellness.com

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Oh, there’s so much. Two things are my womb and heart connection and that fullness of leaning into and really being led by our heart. And I know this is available to anyone.

And with my womb there’s so many elements there. But the picture I’m getting…my ovaries are just covered in flowers and releasing seeds into the womb spaces. Just this gorgeous garden and whether that gets, you know, whatever that looks like, whether that seed gets fertilized or not just the aliveness of that.

Cilia: I have a friend who posted a picture of her baby once and she put in the caption “this is my womb fruit”

Laura: So cool.

Cilia: What you said made me think of that.

Phoenix Amara – Instagram: @thephoenixamara

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

I think my favorite part about being a woman is just the luscious sensuality that is available to me.

It’s like tapping into the primal, tapping into the deeply sensual, tapping into this silky softness, you know? It’s like an energetic cream that you just wanna like, put on your finger and lick. I just, I love feeling that and being the embodiment of that and being able to embrace that.

It’s been something I’ve really explored in the last five years especially. The Warrior always felt more comfortable for me growing up, you know, being like a fighter and me against the world and like that kind of energy.

So embracing my softness has been… it’s been a new edge in my archetypal understanding and that it’s okay to be soft and it’s okay to be like luscious and silky. And that as a woman I get to experience like, I mean, heck, we get to have multiple orgasms.

Easier than our divine counterparts, you know? And it’s just, it’s built into our biology. So being able to be an embodiment of that and then share that with others is been really fun and beautiful.

Ashley Whelan – Instagram: @ashleykwhelan

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

My favorite part about being a woman is honestly the process of learning how to… I wanna say, be more feminine? Like coming into or having a balance between my masculine and feminine sides and energies behind it.

But definitely the process of learning how to be more in my feminine essence and how to be more open and receptive and nurturing. Really leaning into like the softness in me.

Michelle M-  Instagram: @karmic_nutrition

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Cilia: What is your favorite part about being a woman?

Michelle: How inherently sensitive and intuitive we are. You know, it’s just such a natural, like part of our true nature. And you know, for a long time I didn’t like my feminine. Or I felt such discomfort or I felt like it was… like it equated to “weakness” or just people preying on me and taking advantage of me.

And so I really resented my feminine for a long time and now it’s kind of been the last few years have been this journey to kind of reconnect with that side of myself and integrate that side. I’m really just finding so much appreciation and beauty too.

And like the feminine body is so soft and like really like a work of art…

Cilia: that’s beautiful

Kelsey M- website- cosmickelsey.com

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

I think my favorite part about being a woman is movement. And I’m not sure if that translates, but the way that I move my body that I’ve like really been coming into recently has been so expressive for me. So I guess I would say expressing through my body is one of my favorite parts about being a woman.

Cause I think we are just like naturally very expressive through our bodies.

Anna Cantwell- Instagram: @iamannacantwell

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Oh my God, I love this question. My favorite part about being a woman is the wildness. Like just the un unfettered, creative, wild sensual flow that just like courses through our veins.

I love the wild woman archetype that we all have.

And like, of course the nature gal loves being the wild woman. I’m just like, mm-hmm… I just wanna like ride a horse on my like thousand acre ranch.

Cilia: Oh, that sounds awesome. I always tell my, my husband that I would love to live somewhere where I can like just ride a horse to the grocery store and to do my errands because it’s like a small town or something

Anna: Yes, it feels beautiful. See you there

Cilia: Yeah. I’ll let you know when I discover this place, for sure.

Anna: I’m trying to create that place, honestly, that is the vision.

Cilia: I’m in. Let me know where I can apply for membership or where, however it works.

Austin Armstrong- Instagram: @aus_armstrong

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Gosh, there’s so many juicy things that I love about being a woman at this point in my life, which I never thought I would say. I used to always try and be the guys girl.

Cilia: Oh, same .

Austin: Yeah. I mean, to me, I love how intuitive women are. You know, the way that you and I are connecting through this conversation, I’m part of a women’s group that I was in circle with them this morning, and it just feels so good.

I feel like the way that we’re able to connect from our heart and our intuition and our body… there’s just so much power in that. I feel like women are just truly so gifted in that way because we are this channel of new life. We like literally birthed new life onto the planet. And so yeah, I think I just love the feeling, the emotion, the compassion, the intuition. There’s so much there that I love that.

Lauren T- Instagram: @laurentamayo

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Ooh, favorite part about being a woman… This answer has probably changed a lot in the last couple years, but I think now my favorite part of being a woman, especially today, is doing things unconventionally and breaking the glass ceiling.

Because I think a lot of times, you know, we have examples of like “what it is to be a woman” that have been a little bit outdated. But now I think being a woman has changed so much and you know, we’re seeing women be breadwinners and, you know, be CEOs of massive companies. And I don’t know, I think it’s just so incredible to be a woman today, and I just love being a part of that.

Violane Fisset- Instagram: @violainefiset

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Wow, that’s a big one! Probably, it’s something that I haven’t experienced yet, but I’d say that we can create life.

Sabrina Patricia- Instagram: @sabrinapatricia.sp

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

My favorite part of being a woman is that we get to be all of it. We get to be the soft and tender, but we also get to be like the lions. We get to be the sensual, the beautiful, but we also get to be the messy and the chaotic one. We get to be all of it and I love it.

I love that there is so much to us that we’re not to be put in a box. It’s impossible to put a woman in a box. It’s impossible. And that’s what I love about it.

Marijke De Jong- Instagram: @myrumia

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Oh, wow. I love that one. Mmm oof, I can already feel like almost some tears because it’s been a really, really long journey to actually love that, and it’s still in process. But I would say…

My body. My body because I hated her for so long. So many parts of her, like everything was wrong with her so much. And yeah, literally it can still bring tears to my eyes, both for myself as well as all of us, how much we hate our bodies.

But learning to love her, to find pleasure through her, to find my intuition, through her to find, you know, my answer to my last questions through her. It’s huge.

I’m super grateful to, to her, to my body that she’s still with me. In spite of all the harsh words I’ve told her. And in spite of all the, like burning her out, literally, like ignoring her for so long that I burnt her out.

In my burnout I said, “I’m gonna listen to you.” It might not be easy, and I might not feel it sometimes, but that’s for me is that gateway to awakened living. To listen to the wisdom of your body and step by step, everything is gonna flow from there.

She’s not our enemy, she’s just here to lead us to our, our highest path, our biggest potential. And it’s a journey that I’m still on and I’m learning so much every single day, but I’m grateful for the ride.

Lavina D’Anjolell- Instagram: @lavina.embodied

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

The first thing that came through was about Radiance. Just welcoming and embracing my radiance and my emotionality, my bigness, my expression. These feel are qualities of the divine feminine that I’ve done a lot of work to really step into. To land in confidence and empowerment.

The ability to be my fullest self and allow that radiance to be magnetic, you know, to trust, in my essence and for that to be enough, you know?

Shlee Grumman- Instagram: @theinsightfulsage

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

I just felt like a huge opening in my belly when you said that. Oh, there’s so many things. But the first thing that’s coming up for me is this like creative force that we have. I think like being a woman is so connected our cycles and the moon cycle, right?

And carrying a womb, which, you know, in some sort of way, it’s the absence, it’s that space in the body. It physically, it’s space in the body.

Cilia: Yeah, and it’s empty most of our lives

Shlee: Yes

Cilia: We’re not pumping out babies all the time.

Shlee: Exactly. And it’s empty most of our lives. And, yeah it’s the void. It’s the void in which all things are created. And, and that is just such a beautiful aspect of the feminine. Also that being a woman or a womb carrier, that we are innately, um I’m speaking generalizations, that we are generally innately called to being that creative energy or being the void in which creativity comes from.

Annelene Mellen-Instagram: @freetobe_anelene

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Oh wow. This is such a good question. There’s so many answers to this question. What is my favorite part about being a woman? Hmm…

Well, first of all, just having like a pussy and like a yoni and a womb space, that’s fucking badass. I love it. It’s literally the portal to God, to the universe, to life. Like it literally, I’m like, well, we just carry that in us all the time. I love that and I love being a woman.

And I was just actually reflecting on this over the weekend, which I was touching with you earlier, we went on this retreat in Boulder for this dojo immersed program that I’m in. It’s a sisterhood with like, I think there was like nine or 10 of us. And the power and honor that it is to be a woman is incredible and also that like… The magic that happens when a bunch of women come together is just absolutely mind blowing to me.

And when we can come together with our own prayers and our own intentions, but then also a collective prayer and collective intentions and the power of our pure hearts and presence and deep care like I see you. I mean, that is such. A gift. So like sisterhood has been such a gift to me and like being surrounded by other powerful women has been such a gift and it’s definitely been triggering as well.

And like there’s some wounds there. But through being in it, cause it’s only while you’re in it that you can see it, you can really start to heal it and transmute it and transform. And I’m just blown away by the pure, unconditional love that I get to be met with by these other incredible women. And like women like you, and like I really feel like you deeply care about me and my success and my wellbeing and my joy and my creativity.

Like I care about you like and all of us rising in that, not just for women, like I care about that for men too. But there’s something about…there’s something about woman and other woman and just knowing that we’re both woman and it’s just like, YAS. Like I see there’s something about, it I don’t know how to put words to it. But my body feels it.

And it feels so good, it’s such a gift and I feel like we are just so intuitive. And like, really creative and juicy and loving and infinite and limitless. It’s such a gift to be a woman here and to feel, and to invite ourselves and other people into deeper and deeper love.

Mm. I mean, anybody can do that, but I really feel that strongly as a woman. Like I feel that in me and I’m a woman, so I love that about, about myself and about being a woman.

Dayna Lisa – Instagram: @youareintuit

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Ah, I got chills with the question. My favorite part about being a woman is the magic and the mystery. We’re so magical. We’re portals of creation, we’re vessels for creation, and we don’t need to do anything to create.

The ultimate metaphor is being a mother, you know? We’re capable of creation, not because we do something, like it’s not like we’re like, “okay, and now let’s connect the semen to the egg” it just happens.

Cilia: Yeah and we literally receive the semen 😂

Dayna: Exactly. Exactly. And then our body creates life, right? That to me is one of the ultimate metaphors for how the magic and the mystery of being a woman is the fact that we don’t need to do something to be these magical portals of creation. We just simply are through our existence.

Alice D’Olive – Instagram: @itsaliceolive

what is your favorite part about being a woman?

My emotions. It a paradox. Most people can be like, “ah, my emotions are really crazy.” And yeah, indeed they are. But being able to feel them with the intensity that we can, it’s just amazing.

Lucie Alice Laticia – Instagram: @callme.lucie

We are in the in… in the most, like I know it’s going to probably be weird to say that, but it’s never been… We’ve never been so free. As women or as human in the world.

And I’m not saying everywhere in the world is the same, but it’s a golden era for being a human because most of us, I’m not saying all of us, have food on the table, have water or clean water to drink, and we have enough time to think of like, okay, my basic needs are met, what’s next?

Climbing the ladder of empowerment, of self-fulfillment. But at the time, even making dinner took five hours. It wasn’t like, oh,I have time to… I’m going to listen to an audible. 😂 There were no audible . There were, there were no access to that.

People were modeling from other modeling, so it was just like, it was skewed from the beginning. And it was not just because of men. It was, it was the whole society saying “that should be the way.”

Cilia: And then what is your favorite part about being a woman?

Lucie: I heard my yoni. That’s why I’m going to say that, like the reception part. And also the leading movement that’s happening in the world and not the feminist way, you know? The future is female, but future is female is like… the sexual power of women is rising. Mm. So we can actually own the place that we have always been designed to have in the most nurturing, loving, and caring way, which is going to shape, shift the world entirely differently.

If it’s leaded by a woman, the world will be definitely different. It’s not, not even a question, unless she’s wounded and she, she leads from the masculine.

Cilia: What’s interesting about that is like when a baby is born, their leader is mom, you know?

Lucie: Mm-hmm.

Cilia: like you have kids, you know, I don’t have kids yet, but I’ve done a lot of babysitting and I used to work in a daycare, and when dad is there, it’s like, yeah, okay. But most babies, they want mom, you know, mom is-

Lucie: oh yeah, I have three. Yeah. Sometimes it’s like “go to dad’s” That’s tiring, I love my kids. It’s just like sometimes the moms can be said five times in less than a minute. So it’s a lot. Oh, And it’s a beautiful analogy. You’re right.

Beatriz Soto- Instagram: @iambeatrizsoto

What is your favorite part about being a woman?

I love the variety in which I get to express myself as a woman. I love the possibility to play around with makeup and clothes and the way I can move my body. There’s no shame in the game, you know? Like, just try it all on. I love that ability and that possibility to merge and transform and shift.

And that you get to be everything. I love the possibility of expressing myself in many ways and everything gets to be and be received and it’s just so f*cking sexy.

Cilia: I never realized that until you said that, that like, men don’t get that same variety. Like if a man wants to wear a dress to work, everyone’s gonna be like, ummm…You okay? Like, they make it mean something when it’s just, it’s just fabric. It’s just fabric. It’s very interesting what we make things mean and again goes back to why being a human is so silly and hilarious.

Beatriz: Yeah, it really is. But I love that we evolved and that we were able to heal that and allow and created that possibility for us to be able to wear pants and be able to dress however we want and be like, that’s cool.

Naomi Sarah- Instagram.com: @naomisarah

What is your favorite part about being a woman?

Although I’m not a mother yet, I find it very amazing that we can create life. I saw something really cool on Twitter the other day actually, where it was like we bring souls into bodies. and I was like-

Cilia: Ooh, whoa..

Naomi: that’s deep. I was like, yeah, that’s amazing and it’s so true. Because you’re the first safe place, you’re the first home for a child. And even in having a child, there’s so much responsibility in that. Of course you need two people to make one. But we’re the ones who are really offering up our bodies as that place for them to grow.

And I think that’s really cool and that we have moon cycles and we’re so connected to the moon. And you know, right now my period is like totally synced with the moon. It’s really, really funny but I think that’s really cool too.

Cilia: Yeah, I wonder too, if you’ve always felt that way about your cycle?

Naomi: No

Cilia: Yeah, same. That was one of the things, how I mentioned that there was no communication in my household… I never gotta talk about what was gonna happen to my body

Naomi: you didn’t?

Cilia: I got, no, I just learned from a video at school

Naomi: For me, it wasn’t much better. I got my period really, really early I was either like eight or nine. And my mom was saying,” well, now you can get pregnant, so don’t let any boys touch you.” And I was like, okay…

Cilia: And then a boy touches your shoulder and you’re like, I’m pregnant!! 😂

Naomi: Exactly

Hayley Winter- Instagram: @alchemyandarchetype

What is your favorite part about being a woman?

I think this answer probably changes a lot depending on when you would ask me, but right now I would say reclaiming.

Reclaiming so much of what has been used against me as a woman and kind of reclaiming aspects that have been demonized or made to seem dirty or bad.

Like really leaning into menstrual cycles, for example, and like the power of the period and things like that. I’ve just loved that whole journey of learning my body’s natural energy cycles and how to harness the creative cycles of energy that my body goes through in conjunction with those cycles.

And you know, [shattering] things I was taught that my period was an “inconvenience”. It was “embarrassing”. It was “shameful”. It was something that I was “supposed to hide” and preferably “get rid” of by taking a pill or, you know, implanting something within me. And I’ve done both of those things.

And so taking that back has just been so liberating and I loved that. And I think healing the witch wound is another one. And that kind of came hand in hand with coming out of the broom closet, like the tarot closet, you know, like sharing with the world that I use tarot cards, even though I don’t use them in the traditional way that some people might call witchy.

But I’ve had that term used against me when people learn that I use it and I’m like, thank you. Please, please call me that again. You know, I’ll embrace that term. If that’s what you want to call me. Because I’ve done a lot of deep historical digging as part of my own reclamation journey on, what is the witch thing about?

Like, if I’m delving in the world of tarot and talking with people who are in this world… I wanna be educated on, you know, what does it mean? And witches… we’re healers. And powerful women. Intuitive women. Medicine women. If you wanna call me a witch, I will say thank you.

There’s some rage in there too. This is a whole other can of worms, but it almost feels ancient. Like it doesn’t come from me, like it comes from people before me or past versions of me. Really almost, not spitefully, but very, assertively/aggressively owning that kind of mysticism and mystery that comes with being a woman.

Kalei Correll- Instagram: @expandedflow

What is your favorite part about being a woman?

The ability to access, softness and vulnerability and leading with that. Learning what it means to lead with that and feel like I belong in a room, in my softness, in my vulnerability. That’s what I love about being a woman.

Phebe Brako-Owusu- Instagram: @phebebrakolmft

My favorite part about being a woman is that I am multifaceted, I’m multi-dimensional, and I can show up how I want to.

Sarah Turino- Instagram: @sarah_turino

My initial reaction was my vagina 😂 , but my secondary reaction is my womb space. I’m grateful for all that comes with being able to hold all of the things that a womb does. Including birthing my two children.

But it doesn’t define me. And I guess what I mean by that is… oh, I’m gonna mangle this….

I don’t think that you need a womb space to be a woman

Cilia: Mm. Yeah, for sure. I agree with you.

Sarah: And so I guess what I’m trying to say is, is that for me it’s the idea of the womb space. That it’s my power center. And I’m still working with it and learning a lot about it. And boobs are cool 😂

Cilia: 😂 right? They’re the best. [Shameless plug for breast connection course]

Sarah: Oh my, if you’ve taught me nothing else, Cilia

Carrie Baquie- Instagram: @carriebaquie

What is your favorite part about being a woman?

You know, we were talking about the divine feminine, and I think women have easier access to that divine feminine. I was talking about how we’re disconnected from it, but I think our ability to reconnect and to tap into that is easier.

And when we do, it sounds super cheesy, but we connect in with our power and our glory and all that we can do to support and love and, and be who we are and SHINE, right? To shine. I think that’s the key for all of us for shining is as women is tapping into that divine feminine.

Cilia: Yeah. And I know both of us don’t serve men with our work, but I’ve realized lately that men need this connection with divine feminine as well. Because a big piece of feminine energy is being able to emote and being able to cry. And we have these messages in the world that are like, “boys don’t cry” and we have, you know, oppression for them.

As women we get that space to cry to our friends without our friend being like, “oh, whoa”, you know? Men don’t normally have that same space in our society. And I think that’s slowly shifting as women are able to connect more with a divine feminine because we’re becoming more powerful to be able to hold space. And I think, I feel like I’m like all…all the words are like coming to me as I speak.

Carrie: I love it

Cilia: I think that as more women start to really ground and embody this divine feminine, that men will start to feel safe to connect with their feminine side. And I think that will lead to a whole layer of collective awakening and a pivot in how society is.

Carrie: Yeah, I think you speak to what I was nuancing with my words when I said women have it easier. It’s easier path for us to tap into the divine feminine because of the cultural structures for all of us, but particularly for men that keep them feeling safe and from tapping into that.

Whitney B- Instagram: @sol_ascension

What’s your favorite part about being a woman?

For me, it’s the ability to be a mother. Because I feel like without that I wouldn’t have had the transformation that I had. The perspective that it gave me, and more recently finding out all of the inner workings of how our bodies are connected to like other realms, you know?

I know that, men have their own thing, but for us, we literally have the ability to bring other lives into this world. And I don’t know that it gets, it gets better than that. But I know there’s plenty of people and I honor people’s decisions to not have children, you know? But for me personally, that’s it for me.