The Healing Cocoon Podcast

Ann Marie Paul has cracked the code of female embodiment. Her deep knowing that the body holds ancient wisdom has led her on a powerful path toward purposeful, open-hearted living. As a women’s embodiment mentor, intuitive, tantrica and womb alchemist, her own journey of empowerment through listening to her womb voice has enabled her to share these ancient tantric priestess practices with others so they, too, can come into close relationship with their own exquisitely unique womb voices and heal the divine feminine within. 

Meeting Mortality

When Ann Marie was in college, her grandmother began to decline. As she watched her gradually lose her mental faculties and physical strength, she also witnessed the accompanying fear and pain, and determined in her mind to find a way to age gracefully. “I’m starting yoga now,” she purposed. Besides the emotional toll her grandma’s decline took on her, it was also a face-to-face meeting with her own mortality and became a launching pad for her eventual journey into feminine embodiment, Bali, and so much more. 

During those years in college, Ann Marie had fallen into patterns of excessive drinking, but once she began pursuing yoga she cut out anything that interfered with her practice, including alcohol (hangovers don’t exactly serve the goal of pose mastery!). Ann Marie speaks of the ways yoga healed places in her consciousness and in her energy. It woke up new things inside of her and sparked a life upheaval of the best kind.

The Masculine and the Feminine

Ann Marie immersed herself in her yoga practice. But as the years and the devotion to her practice went on, she began to see the many masculine elements of yoga and how some of them were getting in the way of her parallel pursuit of feminine divinity. She was experiencing literal numbness in her pelvic area—no sensation. Yoga can be healing and nurturing, but its core is characterized by movements that are masculine, with straight lines that do not take into account the female organs in poses. Eventually, this led to yoga burnout for her.

There is a purpose for the masculine alongside the feminine though, and there is magic to this dance. A man’s body resets every 24 hours and the world is built around this masculine cycle. A woman’s cycle resets monthly, so blending the two worlds and learning to honor our feminine body clock is necessary for a harmonious life. Ann Marie teaches that we can blend these two cycles by taking the pressure off ourselves to show up the same every single day. Some days of the month we can feel excited and energetic, other times even the slightest effort can feel like pushing a boulder uphill. 

We can also give ourselves the space to process our emotions, which she finds herself especially open to right before she bleeds and for the first few days of her period. “My life has shifted to where I’m living a lot more in the realm of creation, magic, sensation, and feeling. Hustling did not increase my productivity.”

Being Dominated by the Divine Feminine

Her passion to reclaim her femininity was prayerful and intentional—a lot of books, teachers and mentors, courses and retreats. Her previous background made it easy for her to fall back into masculine patterns, so divine feminine would find ways to dominate her energetically and help her course correct. When she falls back to masculine patterns, the divine feminine makes her sick, the electricity will go out, there will be a flood or something external that forces her to stop in her tracks and process. 

It might seem like that after a while these events would become obvious, but even after such a journey she admits that it usually takes a few days for her to realize what has happened. In the moment it’s hard to catch the bigger picture, but after resting she begins to feel the grace and appreciation, to feel her angels and guides, the higher lesson coming through. And the pattern repeats, but ultimately when looking back she sees measurable change and growth.

And Then There was Bali

During a yoga teacher training, a guy, who often vacationed in Bali, said to her, “You live in Bali. Just go. Pack your bags, sell everything you own.” While it took her ten years to buy the plane ticket, that stuck with her and became an intense voice in her heart. She said once she got there, and still lives there today, her energy immediately felt at home. She realized her overwhelming masculine drive and her need to reconnect with her femininity. 

So physically moving to Bali was really the spiritual initiator of stepping into her feminine divinity. Now she teaches women how to connect to their womb, the source of creation, surrendering to that wisdom and intelligence and with something greater than themselves. When a woman connects with her womb, she is connecting with creation and this higher intelligence and energy, which leads to a more satisfying life. “I feel blessed that the divine feminine dominates me.”

Learn more about Ann Marie at https://www.annmariepaul.love and find her on social media at @_annmariepaul_.

For the full interview with Ann Marie, listen via the link on this page, https://anchor.fm/thehealingcocoon, or find us on Instagram @thehealingcocoon.