As many of the systems we've relied on out in the world start to fall apart, women have a unique challenge because even in the best of times we tend to be already overloaded. As times get harder, life itself seems to make more and more demands on women. We’re expected to stay younger, work harder, and keep working, later in life.

Women juggle growing children, aging parents, and demanding (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) careers. Even “retirement" does not necessarily mean a woman stops working - maybe she has one job less and only a few less responsibilities.

If it doesn't look like we're going to be able to relax any time soon, how do we find the energy we need to meet these new challenges? If I'm going to have to keep working and be an even stronger support for my partner, family and community, how can I organically, naturally keep my energy going? How can I both take care of business and also savor and enjoy life in this time of limited resources?

Amazingly, learning to reclaim your feminine sensual energy can be a key to keeping yourself young and vital in an increasingly difficult world. Exactly those parts of yourself you thought you had to sacrifice along the way in order to be more professional, a better mother, a more serious and consequential actor on the world stage – that essential feminine and sensual part of yourself can be the key to keeping vitality and staying power as you age.

The image from the past is that women who use their femininity are somehow not playing fair, manipulating, using sexual attractiveness instead of using skill and competency to get ahead in the world. That image has led women to reject their femininity, feel ashamed of their sexuality and sensuality, and abandon much of their real strength and natural aliveness in their daily lives.

The tragedy is that women often don’t know how to use their sensual energy for themselves. We think our own sensuality is only for a romantic partner and don't realize we can hold it in a way that it feeds us, nurtures us, makes us more alive, present, connected, charismatic. We tend to pull back from all of our feminine sensuality and then begin to lose our own life force as part of this overprotection.

For years Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, the originators of the Psychology of Selves and of the Voice Dialogue process have been talking about the importance of "Aphrodite energy." They point out that it's essential for both women and men to be conscious of the power of the deep feminine archetype and to access that energy for their own health, vitality, longevity, and effectiveness in the world, as well as for pure pleasure in being alive. Learning to hold the power of the feminine with consciousness through the Aware Ego process is entirely different from unconsciously playing out sensual feminine stereotypes.

The Voice Dialogue Institute offers a workshop for women titled “Reclaiming Our Sensuous Nature.” This is a weekend designed to help women learn to hold their own sensual vitality for themselves rather than focusing on giving it away or trying to hold it back. This is a unique and powerful opportunity for women to learn the secret of “Aphrodite energy” and how to work with it effectively in every day life – watch for it on our home page.