As I return from a 7-day trip to Bali focused on the embodiment of feminine energies, I’m sharing about my incredibly nourishing experience and how necessary it is to listen to and take care of yourself.
What does it mean to be a fully awakened and expressed feminine goddess? I am recapping my experience from a 7-day Bali retreat hosted by Vonetta Taylor, mystic and founder of Crowned & Throned, a Modern Mystery School, which includes new insights I’m excited to share around “temple time.” I also detail the importance of receiving tender care, compassion, and generosity before we can give.
Bali touched my heart in a unique way and it’s been a long time since I have witnessed my worthiness solely for my humanity — this includes dancing, femininity, and setting intentions in a beautiful lush garden setting.
Listen in to learn the first insight from my experience in Bali, and the relevance it may have for you.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture, and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Hi, everybody. I'm Dana Frost, your host of the Vitally You podcast and I am home this week from two weeks in Bali, Indonesia. Ha big breath. So today's episode is going to be short. But I really wanted to come to you today and check in. And honestly, I've been trying to pull together a conversation for us. And I'm just still a little bit unsure of exactly how I wanted to share my experience with you. So what I decided is that I'm going to trickle insights over a few episodes, I think that's going to be the best strategy. Okay, so I'm going to ask you a question. And it's sincere. I'm not asking this question as a Passover nicety, for the start of the show. So I want you to hear me as I ask you, how are you? And how is this season treating you? And by season? I mean, it could be the season in your work life, it could be the actual season of summer or winter, depending upon where you are. It could be your stage in life. It could be the season in parenting, the season of friendship. How are you? And do you feel nourished? And what was the last thing you did to nourish yourself? Now, have you ever gone on a retreat for the sole purpose of nourishing yourself? I will tell you it had been a long time since I had been on the receiving end of a retreat. Because normally over the past, let's say 15 years, I've been hosting retreats and have to say it felt totally nourishing to be tended to by a caring practitioner who lovingly created a safe guided container. Now I knew I needed this time away. I knew that I needed to have I knew I needed to receive and to be cared for. But I really didn't know how much. And for the six weeks leading up to the retreat I was sprinting so that I could be away for three weeks. And I know the other women felt the same and I was exhausted by the time I arrived. And that wasn't lost on me. Because what I know is that we women usually wait until it's too late. And we are already in crisis mode. Now I wasn't in a crisis mode. But I was very, very tired. And I needed I needed to like fill my own love tank my own soul.
3:31
And I come before you today with a sincere admonition to take care of yourself. There is only one you and I don't say that tritely there is only one you. And when was the last time you were on the receiving end of tender care and compassion, and generosity. And if you go blank in response, you know, it's time for you to receive and wonder. Do you know that the feminine energy is the energy of receiving? It's not the energy of service. I think that we mistake the feminine to be the energy that is in of service to other people. But we have to first receive before we can give. So as I began to let down during the early days of the retreat, it was obvious that I hadn't had this luxurious amount of care in a long time. And I let down so much that it has been really hard coming back into action mode. And this is why I am going to be very gracious with myself and give myself time. In all honesty. As soon as I got home I muscled up and I hit the ground running by immediately unpacking, doing my laundry, thinking about what do I need to hunt and gather for? And then I did that for about 24 hours. And then my body said, No way, ma'am. slow right down and continue to soak up the love and integrate these changes that I experiences. So I melted and I took a long nap. And I didn't get up until I absolutely felt I was ready to. And that was funny because I was kind of going in and out of consciousness and I would want to pull myself up and then I would just go, no, just lay back down. And in this moment, right here, right now I want to look you in the eye. Okay, eye to eye, I'm looking at you, and you're looking at me. And if you are in the role of a practitioner, a mother a leader, you must have opportunities where you others are pouring in to you.
Dana Frost 06:00
So I asked you, who pours into you who is it that you allow yourself to lavishly just lean into who validate your humanity, your love, your presence, your passion, your purpose, who validates those things in your life. If you can't name names, then we've got work to do, and I've got my own work to do. My deepest desire for you is that you will find a way to receive because you know what, giving us actually easy giving feeds the ego it helps us believe that we add value. And it makes us believe that we're valuable. And if we're not giving many times we feel like we're not valuable, but you are valuable, even if you cannot give you are valuable just because you exist. I want you to try that one on you are valuable just because you exist. A tune your value to the simple fact that you are a soul having a human experience, you matter. You are worthy. These are not vacuous words. When was the last time you stood in presence of your own worthiness? I will tell you and tell mama Bolli touched my heart. I confess, it had been a very long time since I had witnessed my own worthiness solely for my humanity. And if you are a woman, I would add your unique value because you provide feminine energy to humanity your unique value because you provide feminine energy to humanity.
Dana Frost 07:52
Okay, so let me tell you the retreat was hosted by Vonetta Taylor. And I'll put the link to her website in the show notes. And the focus was on embodiment of the feminine energies. I wasn't exactly sure how that was going to play out. But as we move through the seven days, I leaned in and allowed my feminine energy to be fully sparked. So you might be curious, well, what does that even mean? Dana? What what does that mean? When your energy feminine energy is fully sparked? Okay. I'm not going to share everything, as I said in today's episode, but I want to share one thing I learned that I'm excited to explore moving forward. And it has to do with ceremonies that women from different cultures and ancient times in the temples, the ceremonies that women held together.
Dana Frost 08:43
Okay, so, true confessions, the only information I had about ceremonies together came from the books or red tent, and I'm sure I know many of my friends read that book many years ago. So honestly, I feel very under informed but Vonetta share that women used to support one another in the temples and temple time. And while we were on retreat, we had temple time. And I will tell you, ladies, if you and many of you haven't, I would say it's rare, the woman who has experienced double time, maybe unless you've been with Vonetta. But we are missing out on something that is so extraordinary. In our modern world, we are missing out because we don't have temple time we have women's gatherings. We maybe do parties together. We celebrate when a woman gets married or when she has a baby. But temple time is so much different than that. Okay, so
Dana Frost 09:44
Vonetta shared one of the things that she shared is that women adored and loved one another before they went to be intimate, so they would be prepared their body would be prepared with oils and adornment and touching by other other women. In the temple, they would be adorned in beautiful clothes. And they helped each other prepare for this for sensuality, I just imagine that it felt so foreign to me. And one thing they did together, they danced together and they danced for one another. This made so much sense to me because women love together with her gal pals and dance. And it's very different than dancing with their partner, you know, just dancing with the women. We know how much we love that. And that's why on my 50th What did I do? I did a women's only dance party. Okay, so one of the ceremonies that we shared was dancing before one another. You heard me right. Vonetta created this beautiful setting in our garden outside with lavish cushions, and blankets and candles. And each of us danced solo unrehearsed by simply so she had a playlist, the playlist would go, and I think she started. And then the music would come on, and we would feel into the music. And when it came when it was our turn, and our The intention was to move in a way that told the story of our highest calling, and expression of who we are, and our deepest desires.
Dana Frost 11:21
So We would take turns by simply calling, reaching out for the person, the woman, we were asking to come up after us. And we just move through that. And we did that several times. And I will tell you, Temple night was magnificent, you would think we would have been embarrassed or intimidated. And there was a little bit of that initially. But honestly, the container Vonetta created was so beautiful, it was safe. And you know, we just leaned in, and we let it go. And it felt amazing, to drop all inhibitions and allow myself to be moved by these internal urgings that flowed with the rhythm of the music. It was just extraordinary. And I want to ask you, as you have that visual, so It was nighttime, and there were candles, and there were stars. It was just beautiful. And these women and we actually adorned ourselves before coming to the temple. We we know most of the time, we weren't wearing makeup. So each of us, you know, to our own degree, put some makeup on and did our hair and we you know, put beautiful sensual clothes on.
Dana Frost 12:35
So I'm going to just ask you, who could you be if you allowed yourself to be fully expressed? I want to leave you with that question and that curiosity. Allow that to be a daydream a ponder, allow the answers just to easily float to your awareness. Who would you be? Who could you be if you allowed yourself to be fully expressed?
Dana Frost 13:03
So as we end this short episode, I'll answer my question. What does “feeling younger while growing older” mean to me today after my retreat? So today this season, it means a fully awakened and expressed feminine goddess who is alive with love and so much light. And a woman who is unabashedly sharing it with others. So, I would love to hear from you. What is it that comes to your mind? Let me know: How are you nourishing yourself? Or maybe? What can you look forward to nourishing yourself in the future? Who is the person that nourishes you? Where are you allowing yourself to really lean in and let go?
Dana Frost 13:50
And as we close, I want to invite you to join my email list. I don't often while I rarely ask people to join my email list. But the email list actually today for those of us who have who are solo entrepreneurs, it's really that coveted list of insiders who are really committed. So if you have been listening to my podcast and you are enjoying it, I invite you just take that next step with me and become more of an insider and join my email list. I'll put a link in the show notes. I send an email once a week I highlight the topic that is the topic of the conversation for the podcast. And I tried to give you no insider things to just the email list. But you would keep you up to date on what I'm doing and what my offerings are. So that is my invitation to you this week. And if you are enjoying this podcast, I invite you if you haven't already subscribed, hit download. leave a review. It's been a while since I've had a review and reviews are really helpful in terms of getting with the algorithms and having Apple put the podcast before other listeners.
Dana Frost 15:03
So thank you so much for joining me this week. You can look forward to the episodes this summer, highlighting my time in Bali and how that could be relevant to you. I'm going to be inviting the other women who joined me on the retreat, I'm going to be inviting Vonetta. I've invited a woman who did an amazing breathwork experience with us to the podcast. So that will be this summer's theme. And as always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours. Thank you so much for joining me on this week's podcast.