Embracing Feminine Energy: The Key To Attract The Right Partner!

Embracing Feminine Energy:
The Key To Attract The Right Partner!
Shanza Elmore & Samia Bano

Ready for a healthy, #longtermrelationship, but struggling to find #TheRightPartner?

Listen now to this interview with Shanza Elmore, Dating and #RelationshipCoach, to learn how women can attract high-quality men by embracing #feminineenergy (and vice versa)!

One of the most important lessons Shanza highlights is the dangers of over-giving in relationships and how #ambitiouswomen can reclaim their power without compromising their worth.

Learn more and connect with Shanza now at:

https://linktr.ee/coachshanza

https://www.facebook.com/shanza.elmore

https://www.instagram.com/coachshanza

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#HealthyRelationships #SelfLoveJourney #RelationshipCoach #BreakFreeFromSacrifice #EmpoweredWomen #AmbitiousAndLoved #MasculineFeminineBalance #HealingFeminineEnergy #SetBoundariesLiveHappy #DivineFeminine #WoundedFeminine #HealingJourney #SelfLove #BalanceEnergy #TrustYourIntuition #BoundariesMatter #SelfCare #datingwithapurpose

Here's the audio version of this episode:

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Full Video Transcript

SAMIA: Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry! It's really, really good to be with you again. And I know you'll be so happy you're joining us because we have a very, very cool and special guest with us today. And it's Shanza Elmore, who is a Love and Dating coach. And I'm so happy to have you with us. Shanza, welcome…

SHANZA: Thank you so much, Samia. Thank you, love, for having me on your wonderful podcast. I'm very, very happy and grateful that I get to speak with you.

Thank you…

SAMIA: Me too. Me too... And Shanza, please, first of all, tell us more about who you are and what you do.

SHANZA: Well, I am a Dating, Love and Relationship Coach, and my expertise is helping single women go from single to married by discovering and reconnecting with their feminine energy, falling in love with themselves, and mastering the art of seduction. When it comes to attracting healthy, masculine energy, men who are providers, protectors, and family-oriented.

SAMIA: I love it. I love it. And, oh, gosh, there's just so much in what you shared. We need to break it down and dig into... So to start off, maybe we can talk a little bit about what is the main challenge that you see in your work when you're trying to help women find love and date…

SHANZA: And I think the biggest challenge is that it might sound crazy, but I think that women are brainwashed... Women are brainwashed to believe that they have to constantly give and give and give in order to receive love. And I feel that they're also brainwashed to believe that they have to be… they always have to be nice. And the idea of being a nice and generous woman has been taken out of context, because now, in order to be nice, women are actually becoming more and more self-sacrificing and disrespecting their own boundaries. Or unfortunately, some women don't even have boundaries to begin with. And as a result of that, and I'm talking about especially my ambitious single women, women who are killing it, women who are making six figures, the female entrepreneurs, or they're like top executives and their companies. These women have accomplished so much in life and career as far as success in education. Women will have PhDs. They're doing incredible. But when it comes to their romantic life or when it comes to their relationships, again, in order to have a relationship, they think they have to keep giving, giving and self-sacrificing, and being nice to men. And as a result, they're cooking for men, they're cleaning for men. They're letting men borrow their car, letting men borrow money from them, running errands for them, giving, like, all these offers, you know, getting physical with them, getting intimate with them. And they give so much that they actually end up being in their masculine energy. And as a result, they don't feel fulfilled... They don't feel that they're cherished by their partner. They don't feel that their man is providing for them or protecting them. They feel like they're actually raising a man child instead of feeling like they have a healthy, masculine man that they can count on and rely on, which again, equates to having an unfulfilling relationship because these are the women that are constantly in survival mode. Their nervous system is not relaxed. They're constantly just like, goal-oriented, getting on to the next goal... And they want to feel loved so bad. They want to feel cherished so bad. But because they're with men who are in their feminine, they're not getting that.

SAMIA: You’ll have to tell me more about this masculine and feminine as you understand it, you know, because for sure, for sure, I hear what you're saying. And I've seen so much of this kind of dynamic myself, where women are taught at, really, and sort of even sometimes beaten into living in a way where self-sacrifice is part of the way that we operate. You know, I know, like, for me... I've seen this happen in my family and among my friends so much. And, you know, like, I will say, you know... Especially, like, you know, when I think about my mom and how she has worked her whole life to teach me to be a good person but also to be a good woman, you know, this has come up again and again where, you know, I remember when we were younger and, you know, like, my mom did the cooking, and she's a fabulous cook, by the way. Yes. And, you know, when it came time for dinner and we're just talking now about, you know, everyday normal dinners where it was just my family, my mom, dad, brother, sister, and myself. And my mom always, you know, used to teach me, she was like, you're the older daughter, so you have to be like, the little mom of the house... And part of what that meant was you have to make sure everyone else eats first and everyone else gets the best of, like, if we, you know, because we were a middle-class family and so, you know, having meat, for example, was something like, we had meat, but it was an expensive thing, so it wasn't like, you could have whatever as much as you want. Especially this was true when we were living back in India. And, you know, and so, you know, usually we would get one, like, if it's a chicken with bone in it, you know, you'd get one piece. You'd get a leg or a piece of thigh or whatever. And so, point was that everyone else got to take the best pieces and you took what was left over... And my mom, by the way, was the very last person to choose something for herself. And in fact, she never actually chose anything for herself because she just took what was left over, you know, so…

SHANZA: Absolutely. And I will say that's very much what I'm getting at when I say that women have been brainwashed, because I can very much relate with this. My mom, whenever, like, we would sit down to eat as well, like, it was always, like, she made sure everyone else had their, like, first. My dad's plate was always number one, the best, you know, the best meats and the best, like the vegetables and everything. And then it was. And then it was my brothers and then everyone else. And she was always last if it meant that she would go, which I don't remember this exactly happening, but she was to that point where if she could go hungry and we would all eat, she would... And the idea of that is that us women get taught that in order to be a good mom, or in order to be a good wife, you have to be self-sacrificing. And if you don't self-sacrifice, then you're selfish. And selfish women are not good. That's the idea that is spoon-fed into us. It's like, it's a generational thing. And it's also something that society kind of expects out of all women all over the world at this point, whether you're from the eastern part of the world, whether you're from the western part of the world, that is what most. What is expected out of women. And even with men, I have seen men who have moms, right. Men who have moms that were self-sacrificing. These are the men that also, once they get married or once they're in a romantic relationship, the phrase of he's looking for his mom and his wife is a way of him looking for a woman who, again, is going to repeat, keep that pattern of self-sacrificing. In other words, as far as, you know, with masculine feminine energies, this is basically a lot of women with wounded feminine energy. It's basically where... And I feel that in my experience, you know, I feel like there was a lot of pressure for women to kind of prove themselves. We had to prove that we were all rounded. You had to know how to cook, clean, be a traditional woman, but you also had to be intelligent in the world as far as getting your education. You had to be smart. You couldn't just be a stupid housewife who just sits at home. You had to be a smart housewife who can now educate the children as well... So there were, like, so many expectations growing up. And I feel that when we have expectations, we're basically told that you are not worthy of love as you are, and you have to change your colors and adapt to meeting the expectations of other people so that you could be lovable. And I feel that as women take that, and when we go into the romantic world and we're looking for a partner, we try to kind of gauge what, like, let's say you're on a date, you're gauging. What does he like? Is he, does he like women? Does he like smart women? Does he like independent women? And then so you try to embody the identity and show up as the type of woman that you think he would like. And we're so used to doing that, the people pleasing, we do that from a young age, trying to impress our parents, trying to impress everyone, like our teachers, our professors, our pastors or our imams. We're always trying so hard to be, like, the teacher's pet and like, the best favorite child and all of these things and into our romantic life that all in all, we're not being authentic... We're not being who we really are, because we don't think our true self is worthy of love because we were never felt that we were worthy of love. And again, that kind of contributes to that wounded feminine energy that we bring.

SAMIA: Yes. Yes... So yes. To tell me more, because, you know, again, I absolutely relate to what you're saying. That bears out, for sure a lot in my experience. And the thing that I find interesting and what you're sharing is that on the one hand, you are encouraging us to lean into our feminine. And it seems to me like you are defining feminine in a different way than we normally understand. And so the part that you've been talking about as wounded feminine, I think, is what we're is feminine because, you know, like, I know for me, when I started to become more assertive and lay boundaries in my relationships because I was on my way to becoming the happiness expert that I am. And I really was my value, my top value. And my top need, for that matter, became that I wanted to be happy…

Yes. So, you know, when I started to challenge the norms in, for example, my culture, in my household, like, the example that I was giving of the kind of situation that would happen in my family, and things have switched. So now I'm actually still living with my family, with my parents, and my brother, and my sister. And now, you know, sometimes I will eat before anyone else has eaten, like, if I'm hungry, because, you know, I'm like, okay, I want to honor my body, and if everyone's schedule is not matching whatever I'm going to eat when I feel hungry, I choose whatever piece of chicken I want without thinking about, oh, this... Someone else might want this. You know, like that kind of a thing, but also, you know... Yeah. You know, just little things like that, but also in other ways, like, big things where if there's something that I really, truly don't want to do, I'll just say no. Like, I didn't think of hundreds of examples of me just saying no. And I do it not to be difficult or disrespectful, but because I don't want to do something half-heartedly or do something with a bad attitude of, you know, doing something to please someone, but doing it with a bad feeling where, you know, I'm like, thinking that it's something, oh, I don't really want to do it. I don't like doing it. And, you know, like, just... But still doing it... And so, you know, all of that negativity, I just don't want that. And so I'm just like, no. If there's something I really don't want to do, you can trust me to say no. But for so I personally love the way I do things now and the boundaries that I have, but I get so much pushback where it's like, oh, no, Samia, you're being rude. You're being inconsiderate, you know, and you're not being a proper daughter. You're not being a proper woman, right. And so I would love to have you tell us more about when you talk about being in your feminine and leaning into your feminine energy. What are you talking about? Because it sounds like what I have been exposed to as this is a proper way to be a woman is actually wounded feminine…

SHANZA: I love that question. I think that this is actually... I'm so happy you brought up this question because this clarification is so important, right. I agree with you.

Like I said, I am from a Pakistani, very conservative, very strict Muslim background. And I am 100%... Like, I, well, not 100% rebel, but I definitely have, like, a big rebellious spirit in me. I always had... And, okay, so that I would say that with my culture and the way that I was brought up, it was definitely a lot of, like, double standards. Like, you know, in the desi culture, like, the woman is always catering to the man. Everything is like. It's like the world revolves around the man. Like, the man is the earth, and then he's like, whatever, you know, like, he's, like, revolving. And the thing is, there's a difference between being a woman who embodies her divine femininity and a doormat. I believe that in most cultures, a woman is like, it's not feminine, but they will give it the name of, oh, she's a feminine woman. When she is a doormat. When she is insecure, when she doesn't know her worth and value, when she has a lot of fear of abandon, fear of rejection, which is the cause for why she won't speak up and say, no, I don't want to do. For example, like you said, if you don't want to do something, it's something that you wouldn't do in the past, but now you're able to say, no. When it's time to eat and you're hungry, the old you would have been like, no, I have to wait for the family because it's the right thing to do. And what will everyone say about me? And now you're like, no, I have to honor my body, and I'm going to choose the favorite piece of meat out of the pot that I want for me because I deserve it. And it's coming because I'm sure that you have done the inner work where you worked past those fears, right? Like, oh, my God, they're going to judge me. They're going to say I'm not a good woman, or they're going to think that I'm not nice enough, that I'm not considerate enough, that I'm not a good older sister. And especially for my older sisters, I feel like that's the thing we end up, not we, because I'm not an older sister, but I have definitely worked with a lot of ambitious women, usually, they are. The most ambitious women are usually usually the oldest sister. And it's because there's so much responsibility placed on an older sister's shoulders from a young age that she masters the art of self-sacrificing and taking care of everyone else. And basically, like you said, like, you're little mama, you're taking care of everyone. Like, I mean, and I've seen it in my family. Like, my older sister, for example, I have caught myself saying this to her where I'm like, after mom, you're my mom. Because, like, I know that I can, like, go to her whenever I have my big conflicts. I would feel more comfortable speaking to her than my actual mom. And it's just, it's not just that they see culture. I have worked with women all over the globe. In the African culture, in the Mexican culture, for example, the Hispanic culture, it's we get taught to cater to men, and that's what's considered a good woman. And a good woman is a doormat. She doesn't speak up. She can't have opinions. She needs to hush up and take the backseat. Now, the real feminine, the healthy feminine, is a woman who she does. So here's what I would say... The real feminine, the healthy feminine, is a woman who takes a step back and leans back, knowing that she has masculine support. So, for example, she trusts the leadership, the decision making skills, the problem solving skills of whoever the masculine energy is. So in a marriage, for example, that would be your husband. If you're not in a marriage, for example, if you have parents, you would like your father or your brother. Now, in the event that, excuse me. A woman doesn't have that healthy, male, masculine energy figure, that's when. And again, this is where ambitious women, they are their own masculine and they are their own feminine. But to answer the question, the difference is that we get taught or the concept of femininity is you have to be submissive. But a lot of the times, submission is, you know, they want you to be a doormat in that sense. And that's abuse. That's little girl energy. But a grown woman, a queen, goddess energy, is when you are not afraid to say no because you're not afraid of being abandoned or rejected. You have worked through your fears, your, your deep rooted limiting beliefs, your insecurities. So you no longer are afraid of people going, oh, you're not a good woman. I'm gonna go, like, I'm gonna abandon you because you, especially for ambitious women in the romantic sense. If a man is saying that, oh, you know, you're not someone that I can see myself marrying, because, let's say your standards are too high for me, you are more... You are far better off letting that man go and take himself out of the door for you than to change your colors and try to be with him, because you are going to be unfulfilled in that aspect for the rest of your life if you do decide to stay with a man like that and marry him. So we get taught that we need to be submissive, but at the same time, the feminine, the healthy feminine is like, okay, what am I submitting to? Because feminine energy is actually not self-sacrificing. It is actually self-centered. My needs come first. And the siren mentality that I often talk about with the embodiment of feminine energy is me first... My needs come first... So my sole purpose of life is to make sure that, like, throughout life, my perspective now, it wasn't like this before, but now it's that my needs need to be met. And I don't care who is meeting my needs as long as my needs are met. So, for example, if you're, like, in the middle of a desert and you're extremely thirsty, does it really matter where the water is coming from? Right? So it's kind of like that. As long as your needs are met, then I'm happy to submit, right. So, for example, if my husband is meeting my needs, and then he tells me that, okay, here's the solution to this problem. Yes, whatever you say, you solve it, right. If there's... I mean, we just had a plumbing issue recently, and the wounded feminine often mimics itself in masculine energy, which means that we end up kind of trying to fix a problem. So. And obviously, you know, none of us is 100% healed. So I tend to fall into my old patterns. But I guess healing is when you can catch yourself and shift yourself. So I remember with the plumbing issue happen, I definitely, like, fell into my old pattern where I was like, it's a problem. I need to fix it. Because that's what, you know, my inner child is used to, right, to trying to fix the problem. But fixing problem, solving, decision-making, leading, initiating, all of these are masculine traits... I tapped into that, and when I realized that, what am I doing? I have a man that can handle it. So I took that step back and I said, you know what? I'm feeling very stressed out about this situation. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I'm just a girl... I don't know what to do. And that in my perspective now, that's healthy feminine. Because I allowed him the space, I allowed the masculine to fix it, allowed the masculine to make the decision, allowed the masculine to provide and protect. But say he was doing something that I didn't like, right... Let's say he was like, you know what? I'm deciding to remodel the whole bathroom. That would have been something that if I didn't want it, then I would express that healthy femininity is being able to express what you truly desire, what you will and will not tolerate, having boundaries, and being okay with expressing your fear feelings, right. But little girl energy, the doormat energy is basically when you're afraid to speak up and speak your mind. So I would say that the difference is being able to overcome your blocks. When you overcome your blocks, and you're not afraid that someone's going to leave you or someone's going to judge you or that someone's not going to love you because you love yourself. You no longer... You're, like, you're content, so you're not seeking that external validation. And so you're no longer trying to be at someone's doormat or being submissive. Does that..?

SAMIA: Yes. You know, like, from my perspective and the work that I do, we also talk about it in the context of sort of leaning into your strengths, doing the things that you love to do that make you feel happy when you do it. And so there are certain kinds of problems that I love to work on, that I love to solve. And for sure, I'm not giving those problems to anyone else because they're my thing. I love to do it, but there are lots of other things where, yes, it gets really stressful to have to figure it out, to take it on, and so to learn to be okay, to receive help, oh, that has indeed been one of the biggest challenges, I must say, that I have worked on in my life personally as well. And just like you were saying, Shanza, actually, every time I find myself feeling stressed, like, I would say 80, 90% of the time, the moment I become aware of that stress, I'm like, what's going on here? It's that I've not reached out for the help that I need, and I've been trying to do something all by myself, figure things out by myself. And it definitely, like, for me, was historically always coming from a very wounded place. Because, you know, as a survivor of child sexual abuse, I learned to not trust other people. And I learned that I didn't want to let anyone see me being vulnerable. And so for me, letting someone see that I needed help was being very vulnerable, and I could not allow myself to be vulnerable... And so I would try to figure everything out myself. And, you know, I just made life very difficult for myself when I did that, because there was, like, so much that was way beyond my capacity to actually be able to figure out myself. And even when I could figure things out, it just created a lot of stress for me in the process. It was a lot slower than if I could reach out for help and have someone help me. Yes. I definitely see what you're saying about coming from that wounded energy when we have this hesitance to ask for help.

SHANZA: Absolutely. I will say, you know, a lot of women experience this whole kind of, like, this shutdown where you don't want to ask for help, you need the help. It's like, you know, you need the help. And it would make things a lot faster if you ask for help. But that whole asking for help part makes us feel weak. It makes us feel like, why can't I do it myself? And that's coming from wounded feminine energy, because it's like we have something to prove to someone oftentimes. It's, you know, with my clients, it's oftentimes they're trying to prove it to a certain uncle that maybe once made a comment while you were young or a certain grandpa. And obviously, like, that's the, you know, we do that deep inner work, and you figure out why you're trying. Like, what are you proving into who? But we tend to try to prove to other people that I am capable. And we kind of carry that through our whole life. And especially when we go through traumatic experiences. Like you described yourself, our brain likes to shut down, especially with vulnerability, because now we're afraid... Right? We were vulnerable once, and we saw what happened, so now we don't want... Obviously, it's like, you know, once you get burned once, you're not going to play with fire again. So you're like, okay, I was vulnerable, and someone used that to their advantage, and now I'm just not going to be vulnerable. So what we end up doing is putting these brick walls, you know, guarding our heart. Very tall walls. But unfortunately, what we think is protecting our heart, it's actually keeping our heart from the very thing we want, which is pure love. Obviously, what can't go one way is nothing's coming in either. So as a result of that, our heart yearns for love, but we have these walls around it just because something happened. And I know it's such a harsh way to say it, but it's just because something happened once. You don't want to let that keep you from the love that you truly want and deserve. That is meant for you, right? So just like there's horrible people in the world, there are amazing people in the world as well. And it's all about perspective. But, yes, I call it the art of receiving love. And this is something that I also struggled with. I used to feel so incompetent when I would ask for help, especially from men, because I was, I, again, coming from the background of, I was not allowed to work. I was not allowed to. You know, my sisters, for example, they got immediately arranged married as soon as they graduated high school. They didn't even get to go to college. And it was like, what do you need to educate for? You're just worth, you know, all you need to do is be a good wife and mom. Again, the self-sacrificing thing. And I was like, I'm not doing that... I was, like, the biggest rebel as far as that. So the same way that I snuck around and dated behind my family's back is the same way that I used to. Literally, I would, like, have my bag with me, and I would sneak around, watch the stairs. Is my brother there? Is my dad there? Okay, it's clear no one's here. Okay. Run out the door and go to work. And, you know, this is something that I feel like with me trying so hard to prove that I am just as capable of being successful, just as capable of being intelligent as my brothers, as men in this world, if I felt so incompetent asking for help from men, especially if I was, like, attracted to them in a romantic sense, but that's something that obviously, it's kind of like ripping off a band-aid. I know it sounds crazy, but you just got to do it. Even if it feels uncomfortable, you just do it, right. So I started with what I tell my clients to do now. And to all the single ladies that are listening to this, I highly encourage you to start small baby steps, right. So the next time, for example, let's say you're at a grocery store and you're picking out something from the top shelf and see if there's a man around you. And if there is a man, just, you know, even if you can reach it. Even if you can reach it, ask him for help. Say, hey, excuse me, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I really can't reach this X, Y, Z product on this top shelf. Are you able to grab it for me, please? That's it... And then when he gives it to you, when he does it, you say, thank you so much. A big smile on your face and you go about your day. Or if something is heavy like a big crate of water, I know you can pick it up yourself, but don't, ask someone to help you even... And that's the thing. Like I said, for example, with the plumbing issue, I very much could have handled it on my own. I could have called the plumber. I could have handled it, but that's the femininity that I learned now. But I didn't know it back then. To take that step back, to ask for help and to receive. To be able to say, you know what? I don't know what to do. I'm feeling very stressed, but I don't have a solution. What do you think we should do? Or what..? How do you think we can solve this? And then letting the masculine, you know, do the work, do the action while you just receive. And it's something that took me a while to get comfortable with again, because when you're in your feminine, you are not proving to anyone that you're smart and you're strong. You're actually telling someone else to be smart and strong. And it feels very triggering. And that's why it's so important to heal that wounded feminine within us so that we can be okay with tapping into our healthy divine feminine…

SAMIA: Tell me more about this idea of the divine feminine. Because the moment that you use that language, actually even earlier, like, for me, it triggered a lot... The idea of divine feminine. You know, for example, one of the very first aspects of the divine feminine that popped up is the creative power. You know, there is, in the Muslim tradition, there are like 99 names that we associate with God. And each name reveals or points to a different aspect or characteristic of the divine. And one of the most frequently mentioned and remembered names or aspects of the divine that Muslims remember is Ar Rahman, the compassionate... And actually, when you look at the root of the word and the meaning of the word, it's actually one of the root meanings of it is the womb. And so it's actually a feminine, divine feminine characteristic.... And it's related to the creative energy. And it's very interesting that it also manifests as the most compassionate. And I mean, when you're talking about the creative power, I mean, that's like... I mean, to be able to create that in some ways is the ultimate power, you know, I mean, it's certainly an extremely, powerful power to have. And so to think that, wow, I mean, that's a feminine quality. And we as women have that in so much abundance. And, you know, so, so clearly, if we are talking about, you know, learning to be comfortable with asking for help, it's not that we don't have power. I mean, because we do, we have it in so much abundance... Really, asking for help is just asking for help when you know you need it.

SHANZA: I actually love talking about religion and spirituality when I talk about the feminine, because it is very powerful. Feminine energy is the ultimate power, especially for women. And we often hear it. So if we're talking about, for example, let's say really successful businessmen and like the millionaires, for example, the billionaires, when you ask them, okay, so what is your daily life look like? And they always say, you know, we try to incorporate basically the masculine and the feminine, and that's what creates a really powerful business and success and wealth. I do believe that both masculine and feminine, and that's the thing, each individual, regardless of their gender, their sexual preference, however they identify themselves, all people have both masculine and feminine energies. Now, majority of men feel their most fulfilled and happiest when they are masculine. Majority of women feel their most fulfilled and happiest when they're feminine. And the beauty of feminine is, we are known for creativity. Women are known for being creative in general. Men are as well, of course. But the feminine energy, again, regardless of gender, it is, creativity is one of the most powerful aspects because we create life in our womb, right? We are creative. We are the multipliers. And often this is the thing... Oftentimes, even for me, if I'm feeling distorted and I'm feeling in that chaotic energy and I just want to feel more grounded in my feminine, I will just grab my paintbrushes and just paint, right. Or I will hop in the kitchen and try to come up with a new recipe, or I will experiment with my makeup, or I will with my outfits or something like just putting. Because that's what creativity is. You take nothing and you make it into something. So whether that's a bunch of different ingredients and then you make a dish or whether it's, you know, just taking a sperm and an egg and then making a whole baby out of it, right. So vast... There's so many examples of the feminine creative power, but yes, it is divine. I actually, I love saying that. So God created a man, but then he also created a woman. And in Islam, we believe that the woman is created out of the man's rib. And, you know, it's like he was taller than us, he was made more stronger than us, he was made with more stable hormones with like higher levels of testosterone so that he could provide for her, so that he could protect her. And, you know, with the kind of like the story of, you know, Adam _____________ ... Adam and Eve. You know, she was truly in her feminine. She wanted the apple, even though it was the wrong thing to do. You know, she just went with what she felt like doing, although there were consequences. And I don't want to get too into the religion part of this, but yes, I feel that the feminine was supposed to be free-flowing, was supposed to not have any rules and restrictions and obligations. I feel that obviously both energies complement each other and both in a marriage, a man and a woman, they both complement each, both partners complement each other, they both face consequences of each other. But it's far as the creative power of the feminine, it is divine. It comes from our, it's the divinity within us, right... It comes from our Higher Power, from the Source, the creator Himself. And the thing is, I feel that us women are so gifted because we have this divine femininity. Because I was just talking about this actually on my live this morning... I was talking about how our intuition is literally divine guidance, right. Even if it logically doesn't make sense. Our intuition is nine times out of ten it's correct. And it's always telling us, you know, giving us messages that, hey, for dating aspect, like, give this guy another chance or don't give this guy another chance and block him. He's not good for you. You know, these are messages that are coming from our higher sense of knowing things that we don't understand on a conscious level. It is Divine, right? It is coming from the creator Himself. And I do believe that in relationships, men will really understand how powerful feminine energy is, how divine feminine energy is. Those are the men that really cherish their women. Because the more happier you keep a woman, the more that she's grounded in her feminine, the clearer her intuition is. And when the intuition is clear, that's when, you know, you hear stories about, oh, all my success is because of my wife, because she guided me or she gave me insights that motivated me. And it's... And again, it's her intuition that I mean, for in my personal experience my husband, the amount of money he makes now, the success that he has now, he did not have it when we first met, only after. And I'm not saying it's all because of me. Obviously, he put in the footwork, right. But having that divine intuitive power that is all-knowing, all-wise, it's very, very powerful... We really do create... And that's the thing from our womb. It's not just that we're creating children, right. That's where femininity resides in our womb. So oftentimes, you know, when a baby kicks, the mom is like, I can feel it in my guts, right. The same way when we have intuition, we can feel it in the guts. I call it like, your intuition is kicking inside your, right. So, absolutely... Femininity is extremely powerful. So powerful.

SAMIA: Yeah. You just actually reminded me of when I was going through self defense training. And actually this was training... Well, I did self-defense training in a number of different contexts and programs, but this particular training I was going through was through sexual assault and domestic violence agency. And so they were specializing in providing self-defense training for women by women. And one of the most critical aspects of the training was to teach us to trust our intuition more, because it's happened so much that, you know, we know on the inside that there's something wrong, that we're not safe, that... Yeah, that there's something wrong. And we don't listen to that because at a conscious level and what we have been habituated into is the people pleasing and the self-sacrificing and so on and so forth. And so we literally kill that intuitive voice and we don't listen to it, we don't follow it, and then we end up in so much trouble. And when we think about, okay, well, how can I defend myself? How can I get myself out of trouble? Well, the best solutions are to go back to that intuitive guidance and that intuitive voice. So both from a prevention aspect, but also from a defense, when you need it aspect, intuition. Listening to our intuition is absolutely key. And, you know, they did talk about, like, it's not that men don't have intuition, but it's for us, it comes so much easier, and it's, if we just will trust it like, it's there for us a lot stronger, a lot more clearly, and it just comes to us so much easier.

SHANZA: Yeah, no, absolutely... You know, that's one thing with my clients I talk about a lot is, you know, the question is, okay, like, because I'm a huge advocate for women, circular dating or rotational dating, basically dating at least three or five men all at the same time. And when I say that, you know, the women are like, well, how am I going to know, you know, if he's good for me or not? How do I know if he's a red flag or if he's a potential good partner? And intuition is the number one thing. When you first, like, let's say, when you're first in, like, sitting across from him, right. Even walking up to him or walking up to that date, before you even have a conversation, you will know... You will know if he is safe for you or not. And I do feel that our intuition, sometimes when we don't listen to intuition, I think that our intuition will kind of give us sensations in the body with our emotions, that kind of signal that, hey, this is not good. For example, red flags are, well, butterflies are a red flag. When we feel that butterfly feeling, which is so romanticized in the media, and everyone is like, oh, I got butterflies when I was with him. It's actually a red flag. That's actually your nervous system. Your body is physically telling you, danger, danger, right. It's the same feeling you get when you're on top of a roller coaster about to drop, and that's your body going, danger, danger... This is not safe. So when you get butterflies around a man, for example, that's actually a red flag. And it's so romanticized, a lot of people think it's a good thing, and they think it's so beautiful, but it's, if you get butterflies, by the way, like, run, that's not a good man for you. Your body is telling you that. Your intuition and your body is picking up on signs that tell you that this is not a good man for you. But, yes, intuition is a really, really good way to know if a man would be good for you or if you should... Like I said before, like, if you'd move forward or not move forward. Intuition tells you if a friend has good intentions for you or not, right. Sometimes we have energy vampires, and we don't even realize it. Well, we know, but we kind of tend to talk it, talk ourselves out of it because it doesn't logically make sense. And that's the thing about intuition, is once you feel your intuition, once, when you get an intuitive message, know that it's from the divine, right. So you can't argue with that there. Everything is there for a reason, and you logically try to argue with it, you, again, you end up ignoring the red flags. You end up talking yourself out of it. And next thing you know, the guy either ghosts you or he, like, plays with your feelings, breaks your heart, wastes your time... He cheats... He ends up being a feminine energy man who's depending on you, like a man child, or he's an energy vampire, draining your energy. Like, there's so much, you know, a man is just not good for you in that sense. So, yes, listening to your intuitive messages is extremely important in all aspects of life, not just dating, for sure.

SAMIA: Yeah... Wow. There's two separate lines of thought that I would love to follow with you. We'll see if we get to both, I think... Well, one of the things that's coming up for me, actually, is you reminded me of a friend of mine, a girlfriend, who actually got engaged to this person. And they were to the point where, like, you know, they were wedding dress shopping and, you know, like, getting really close to the point of actually the wedding. And but the it didn't actually go through. It broke up. And one of the issues that came up was this actually energy vampire thing where he was... So the way she described it to me was that he gives me a lot. But he also takes up a lot from me in terms of, you know, just, he had, like, so many issues and so many challenges that he was going through at multiple levels, especially in his really other relationships with his family, friends, etcetera. And she was constantly trying to, you know, prop him up and give him positive feedback and help him manage this and that. And it was just taking up a lot of her own energy. And, you know, at some point, you know... You know, and the thing is that this person, my friend, she is a really excellent, you know, like, she's a people's person. Like, she really loves people, and she actually really is very compassionate and loves to help people, etcetera. And so on the one hand, it was like when someone comes into her life who is struggling, you know, she loves to help them, but on the other hand, you know, this is your life partner, like your husband. And I think so, actually, in one of our conversations, I was like, it sounds like you were actually... He's like, your patient. She's actually a coach. And I was like, sounds like he is basically being, like, one of your clients. And is that what you want in your husband? Do you want your husband to be your client? And, you know, I think, you know, that question when I asked her, well, she gave me feedback later that that was a very important question because it really shifted something in her thinking about what was going on in the relationship and what she really wanted. And, you know, I'm not by any means claiming that this realization was the reason that she eventually, ultimately broke things off with them. But this was one of the key realizations of, yeah, I want a partner... I truly want a partner, not someone that I'm taking care of, you know, or even if, like, I do this work professionally in terms of helping people manage their relationships, their emotions, etcetera. I don't want to be doing that work with my partner. I don't want to be their coach. I don't want to be their healer. I don't want to be, you know, I want a true partner.

SHANZA: Absolutely. So I, you know, I'm glad that you brought that up because that ties in with that women being in their masculine energy so much. Another misconception of feminine energy is that a good woman has mothering energy, right. Because we're supposed to be the nurturers. We have that warmth. And similar to your friend's situation where she was taking on so much of his emotional baggage and trying to heal him and work through it with him, that it to the point where it drained her energy, that is definitely where, like, what a lot of, again, ambitious women who have high levels of masculine energy and hyper independence tend to fall into they... And because it's all about polarity, opposite energies attract each other, right. That's the law of polarity. So if you're feminine, if you show up as a feminine energy woman in your romantic life, you're going to attract a healthy masculine man. If you show up with wounded feminine, or again, aka masculine energy, you're gonna attract a feminine energy man. And kind of is similar to what my clients go through and kind of what the situation with your friend where you end up attracting a man that's like depending on you in a sense. If he's not depending on you financially, then he's absolutely depending on you emotionally. And that's, I mean, similar to like my bottle of water. Like, if I… It's like filling up your own cup, right. If I just keep filling up yours, I'm not gonna have anything left in mine, then who's going to fill up mine, right? And that's not a healthy relationship at all. If you're like the source of his... I mean, absolutely in relationships, you provide each other emotional security. You do, you know, you're like, you are the shoulder that your partner can cry on. Absolutely, but to an extent. And again, that's where those personal boundaries come into play. That's why it's so important for women to understand that feminine energy is a me-first mentality. The siren mentality is like, my needs come first. I cannot kind of fill your cup unless I'm overflowing myself. That's the only way. But if I have to give you my energy, like, out of my cup, then I'm draining myself. And the moment... And that's the thing. When we are out of our feminine, right. We are. Well, if we're not in feminine, we're masculine. When we are in masculine energy, basically, we have high levels of stress. So our cortisol levels are high. We are affecting our bodies, right. This is where a lot of women end up having eating disorders. This is something I personally experienced as well, having eating disorders affecting our skin. Our skin isn't glowy anymore. We end up breaking out or having all these skin conditions. There are people, if you look up, hives, for example, they will get hives when they have high levels of stress all over their face or all over their bodies. So being in masculine energy, I strongly believe, is a downfall of women... I feel that when we are our happiest, most fulfilled, we have, you know, a flat belly and clear skin and long hair and long nails. When we really, really, really tap into that divine feminine. And we're grounded and we're calm and we feel cherished and we feel protected and we feel provided for by healthy masculine energy. And again, in romantic terms, that that would be a male partner. But for women, for example, for single women, especially in our culture, right, we live at home with our parents. So that would be a male figure such as our father or our brothers or our uncles and grandparents or grandpas, right. But unfortunately, when we don't respect, receive that healthy masculine energy from our male providers or male figures in the family growing up, we tend to take it on to ourselves because if no one's going to take care of you, you take care of yourself... But that's the thing. If you are no longer a child, if you are a woman who is grown, then it is absolutely your responsibility to overcome your own limitations, your blocks, your fears, your deep-rooted beliefs, your insecurities that hold you back so that we can break that pattern and that generational trauma that's been passed on from my grandmother to my mom to me, right... So, yes, when a man like similar to what you shared about your friend. When a man is depending on us, then even if it's. That's the thing a lot of people think that, oh, the feminine masculine dynamic is that the man has to be the provider and pay all the bills, which is something that's been trending lately. So everyone's been saying that, oh, I want him to pay my bills. A man can pay the bills, but a woman will still be in masculine energy if she doesn't heal her wounded feminine. Where, for example, and I've seen this in my own family, I've seen this with a few of my clients, where the man will, she will not work. She's not working. A man is providing, right? He's like providing financially, but she is exhausted. Her stress levels are high. She is not relaxed. And it's because, again, it's a self-sacrificing. So just because a man is financially providing, I think I want to make that point too, is that's not, that's not just money, is not providing. A man himself has to take on that responsibility of fully providing and protecting in all areas of life. So he has to add value and ease to a woman's life in, I always say five ways. Financially, emotionally, physically, intellectually and religiously. Or spiritually, right. If he's not doing that, then if, like, let's say he's covered the financial, then she is still stressed emotionally and intellectually and religiously or spiritually, sexually, physically, right... So he, that's the importance of when you are single and you have the opportunity of, you know, starting from scratch and choosing your partner, that you make sure you're vetting the guy, but also taking personal responsibility and making sure you're showing up in health, feminine energy rather than with the wounds…

SAMIA: You know, I think we're going to have to do a whole other episode with Shanza, because you're bringing up so much I want to dig into with you. And, you know, I think we've talked some about the difference between wounded feminine and healthy feminine. And I think what you are sharing right now is bringing up for me that we really need to do some exploration into what does the wounded masculine versus a healthy masculine look like. Because, wow, the example that you just gave of, you know, even if the man is financially providing. But there, I mean, honestly, in some ways, I mean, that's such a superficial level of provision. Because, you know, I see this so much where just like you were saying that, yes, there is financial provision happening, but the relationship's not healthy for either person. And because, you know, you're not thinking about, okay, well, you know, the fact that we have all these unmet needs and other aspects of our lives and where is the balance there and who is really providing there and how, you know, and so... But oh my gosh, we have been talking for like an hour or so. So I don't want to keep you too much longer for right now, but thank you so much for sharing everything that you've shared... I really, really enjoyed our conversation. Do you have any last thoughts that you want to share right now?

SHANZA: I mean, if we keep going, then I would not shut up in the time... So I would love to do kind of like another interview where we can kind of dive deeper, more into this. I think that, like I said, this is something I can talk about for hours and hours and we probably should like end it here and then do another part. But yeah, I think the final part of if you know anything for all, like everyone that would be listening to this podcast, I would say is if you're a woman, whether you're in a relationship, whether you are single, whatever your relationship status is, it's not the relationship status that would bring you happiness. It would be most definitely when you overcome your own limitations, your own fears, beliefs and insecurities and you realize your own worth. Because only then will you stand up for yourself and you're not going to be afraid of who will and will not be in your life. Naturally, you only want people in your life that uplift you and you know they have a positive impact in your life. Otherwise, you naturally will feel turned off. So I think the number one thing is when it comes to relationships, any relationships, romantic, family, friends, co-workers, whatever boundaries are extremely important because they allow you to self-reflect on your own, self-love, and your own level of self-worth. So that would be the one thing I would say is to always put yourself first, have a siren mentality, a self-centered perspective about any situation that you go through so that you can really, truly embody your true happiness.

SAMIA: Thank you. That's a wonderful message for us to wrap up on. And for my last reminder, I will only remind you, our listener, to please make sure you check the show notes because I will be dropping Shanza's links in there so you can connect with her and continue to learn with her and get some help and support whenever you're ready for it. And until we connect next time, I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy... :)