As The Heart Heals

"Mommy, can I do your nails?"

My six year old daughter comes out, holding her package of nail polish in her hands. Her brown eyes are alight with hope and “please”-yet there is a hesitancy that resides within me. The inner girl in me wants to say yes, the outer woman in me tries to wall out the wound and say no.

Most moms would be full of joy to have a spa day with their daughters. Hair and nails done-makeup, snazzy clothes and a day of shopping with Starbucks. Coming home to their partners in full mode of enticement, like fresh spring flowers. They flow with an air of summer dresses and magic-stepping fully into the power of Feminine. As it should be.

I grew up in a masculine household. Dad is a tough man, solid and strong, an example of masculine-leadership and alpha all in one. Yet so was my mother, full masculine alpha with a record of abuse hardly ever talked about. Two alphas trying to run the household were ripe for fighting, arguing and things being thrown around.

My mother was a woman made of iron. She hated nearly everything that was feminine-I remember asking if she would do my hair, her refusal leaving my father to be the one to braid my hair for track meets I ran. When I was little, I remember trying to bake with Mom and having her hate every minute of it.

I grew up in Wrangler jeans and t-shirts, hair always up in a ponytail. I didn’t really touch make up till I was about 17, and places like the Buckle and Old Navy were out of the question. I barely wore dresses, and was very much bullied for being a girl in men's clothes.

When I hit my twenties, I started exploring that feminine side only to be called the most sexist words one can imagine and even more so falsely accused of taking men home every night, especially if I refused to go home with one. It was this coupled with a sexual assault that finally shut down my feminine side for what I thought would be eternity.

The Universe works in ways that are sometimes strange, and I found myself blessed with a daughter in 2014. She brought out the feminine side of me that I tried to hold in for so long. I began to picture mommy and me dresses, hair, nails-make up. All the things I missed out on growing up, I wanted to give her. What I didn’t realize, was in the process of this, I would heal my feminine side. That somehow as I granted my daughter the things that I missed, the little feminine girl would come to play, excited just to step into magic that wasn’t all masculine.

I protect my feminine side with the ferocity of an Alpha. To be frank, I don’t like being an alpha all the time. It is good to be the leader of one's own life, to be able to stand on your own two feet-but as a single mom, there are days where I want to come home and collapse into that of a woman-bubble bath included.

I discovered most recently that if I reveal my feminine side, it is only because I feel entirely safe. Safe to release that feminine magic, safe to be free in the art of being a woman complete with dancing in front of the mirror as I do make up and braid my own hair. The safety in which "Feminine Nicole" comes out varies-and she normally comes out when she is alone or within the safety of a masculine who can revel in this show of power without intimidation or fear.

I gently take the nail polish pack from her hands, gazing at the shifting colors in each glass bottle winking up at me. My eyes raise to my daughters, all dressed up-I relent. The wall that withholds my feminine opens and I say softly:

“Sure. What colors would you like?”

Her smile is as bright as the sun as she dances off to get paper towels to place underneath my hands. Her smile excites me, and I gaze up at the candles that are lit on the mantel. Epiphany hits me-everywhere I seem to look now, my feminine side makes herself take shape. She is in the candles on the mantel, she is the creation of my ideas that I type out.

She is in the homemade soaps I make, in the essential oils and herbs, I use to heal. She is buried in my journal and in my notebook full of dreams about an entire center for Massage. She is there in what I cook, and the cozy sweaters I wear. She is in the tears I pour out on a Sunday morning, and in the laughter of the realms I visit each night.

My daughter comes back, humming as she splays out my hand and begins to place pink colors over my nails. If I can give her one thing it will be the memory of “Mom and I used to do..” that will forever rest in her DNA code. But my biggest hope is that I can give her balance-to show her how her own masculine side can protect her femininity so that she may be safe to dance inside her own skin.

May my daughter and all the women of the world, revel in the beauty of the Feminine in whatever way she decides to reveal herself. And so it is.