Third Pillar of Soul Craft: The How's | by Jaclyn Lanae

Much of the work in the feminist, civil rights, and other democratic or justice movements has long centered around dismantling domination and its destructive social and political systems through addressing the systems themselves. Calling out the abuses of power and people, highlighting inequities, creating policies based in community care, and advocating for political leaders that are working to install protective and supportive egalitarian structures. Obviously and of course this is absolutely crucial work that is already effecting change and helping us all to re-imagine a world in which all people are afforded equal rights, we live in harmony with nature, care culture is prioritized, and everyone has value. However, we are also well aware that abolishing oppressive and abusive systems does not mean that they won’t rise again. Neither does creating systems that would control the people that are, were, or would be involved in their creation. It isn’t realistic and it isn’t sustainable. Because it doesn’t really get to the root of the problem which is the fundamental belief that (white) men are superior to all women, people, and things of the Earth.

Uprooting the core belief that women are inferior (and all the implications that go along with that) is one of the fundamental keys to each of us shifting our own belief system and the collective perspective to those in which there is very little space for dominating, oppressive, abusive, and harmful systems to take root. Because, beliefs that don’t stay rooted in us don’t stay around.

And that’s one of the many reasons that Soul Craft seeks to help the movements take down patriarchy  from a slightly different angle - an energetic one.

This is the macrocosm of Soul Craft. 

However, breaking down a collectively held belief system is not easy work, and it cannot be achieved by brow-beating others with a different perspective. It must be achieved by convincing a malleable and brainwashed collective consciousness that there is a different reality. A more authentic one. 

We do that by demonstrating, embodying, living into and expressing outwardly a radically different paradigm. One in which women are not just equally valued, but revered. Celebrated. Supported. 

Exhibiting that version of reality, the inherent truth of it, requires us to shift our personal perspectives and belief systems, re-align our own energy and priorities, and live out the embodiment of a future that centers the value of women. 

This is the microcosm of Soul Craft. 

Recommend a world building resource

You. A feminist you know. A woman-friendly resistance group. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. We stand together,
or we fall alone.

Resource Reccomendation

For the last couple of months I’ve been writing to you about the basic principles of Soul Craft. What it is and why it’s important, and how we can embrace the death of old versions of ourselves in order to create space for this new, intentionally and personally crafted version. This month I want to talk about the third essential element of Soul Craft: how it’s done. For me, this is perhaps the most exciting element of the concept - the boots-on-the-ground, action-oriented element. The stuff we can do, individually, to help effect change. It will also be the center around which we will focus much of our future work. 

Soul Craft is the personal, creative process of designing and embodying a version of ourselves and our collective reality that we want to live out; it’s a process of crafting ourselves, for ourselves.

So how do we get into that creative space and do that work?

There are lots of tools available to us - and we’ll explore those over on the Medusa Rising Discord server(if you’d like to get in on the crafting and learn how to use the tools, become a member of Medusa Rising to gain access), but all of those tools really come down to a few basic concepts: 

• Re-train our brains.
• Regulate our nervous systems
• Embrace Self-ISH

Brain Re-Training 

It might sound a little woo, but the effectiveness of these tools is scientifically proven. Consider the placebo effect, for example. According to the article Justice for Placebo: Placebo Effect in Clinical Trials and Everyday Practice published in February of 2020, “Studies have demonstrated that placebo injections and more complex procedures, including sham surgeries, can produce therapeutic effects comparable to real treatments, particularly in pain management and neurological disorders.” In The Neuroscience of Reality, author Anil K. Seth points to the fact that we think color is an element fundamental to the reality of something, but, as he states, “…We have known since Isaac Newton that colors do not exist out there in the world. Instead they are cooked up by the brain from mixtures of different wavelengths of colorless electromagnetic radiation.” 

In short, our brains are powerful. Neuroplasticity is a thing, but it’s not magic.

Our understanding of the world and our own reality is heavily influenced by our sensory input and our beliefs about what they mean.

For instance, if we believe that personal achievement is the primary marker of success, we may adapt that into a belief that competition and resource hoarding are essential to a happy life. However, if we believe that a strong community is the standard of success, we may be more likely to participate in empowering others and resource sharing. Beliefs are habits, too. 

Our beliefs and perceptions of reality are incredibly powerful, and they heavily influence our decision making. This truth is deftly wielded by massive corporations, political pundits, and salespeople of all kinds. Marketing campaigns, religious dogma, and fake news manipulate millions of us to adopt belief systems that ultimately affect our behaviors. 

However, because they are beliefs, we have as much - if not more - power to effect change in ourselves. Neuro-plasticty is on our side, and with conscious effort, we can wrest ourselves from the horrifying brain-washing of the projected beliefs of Patriarchy and consciously re-wire our brains to create a new operating system for ourselves. Which, of course, will be a powerful and necessary ally in creating a different kind of world and world-view.

Nervous System Regulation

Our nervous systems are the information transmission system of our bodies. They take in mind-boggling amounts of information and carry it to our brains where it is processed into responses - and belief systems, according to recent studies. The credition model, discussed in the article Believing and Beliefs—Neurophysiological Underpinnings published in the National Library of Medicine, “posits that beliefs are the result of neural processes that involve the perception of external information and their valuation in terms of personal meaning determining a person's behavioral decisions (Seitz et al., 2018)”. Further, “the formation and updating of beliefs involve rapidly evolving neural processes such as perception, valuation, sensorimotor control, mentalizing, and perceptive-emotional integration.” Meaning, there is at least strong evidence that our belief systems are also heavily influenced by our nervous systems and the way we process incoming information. 

It makes sense - especially when you consider that so much of the reason - and often the way - we are manipulatable and manipulated is through a conscious effort to hijack our nervous systems.

Patriarchy and capitalism have mapped onto our realities a state of constant stress, uncertainty, and fear which it then leverages to coerce us into compliance and adoption of its version of reality.

However, when we reclaim our power to draw our nervous system into a state of certainty, security, and calm, we are less malleable by these outside forces. Additionally, from this calm, centered space that experts call ‘a window of tolerance’ or baseline regulation, it’s easier for us to connect to our inner wisdom, our soul selves which paves the way for our brains to respond to incoming stimulus in a way that more accurately aligns with who we are, and who we want to be.

Embracing Self-ISH 

One of the myriad, infinite brain-washing imprints that patriarchy has levied on all of us, and particularly women - often through the religious machine - is that there’s something wrong with being self-centered. And, of course, there are manifestations of self-centeredness that are deeply problematic. However, there’s an element of self-centeredness that is actually incredibly valuable: the orientation of giving to ourselves. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers called it “self-regard.” So much of our realities - our personal economy, our emotional labor, our perpetual exhaustion just to name a few - are built around the concept that we should always be doing for and giving to others first. Capitalism thrives on the idea that there’s never enough, and that’s especially true if we’re supposed to be providing for partners or children or even whole families. There’s a gross exaltation of martyrdom - especially of women - for the sake of others. We’re expected to give of ourselves and our resources to the point that there is little if nothing left for us to give ourselves. And when we hope for acknowledgment and appreciation of those sacrifices (which are still less than the bare minimum), we’re left desperately wanting. And that can push us to take pride in that martyrdom ourselves.

But self-centeredness is actually incredibly important. By prioritizing ourselves and our needs we create a more well resourced version of ourselves to generously share with others. And that’s great. But at least as importantly (if not more), we demonstrate to the people around us how they can take care of themselves, creating interdependence where there had been only dependence. If our children’s needs are always met by someone outside of them, how will they ever be able to take care of themselves? And if they’re perpetually dependent on someone else to take care of them, they are perpetually vulnerable to the control of their benefactor. I’m looking at you Pink Pill.

Perhaps most significantly of all, however, is that in de-prioritizing ourselves in our daily lives, we’re reinforcing the message in our brains and our energetic bodies, that we aren’t as valuable as others. It’s self-talk without words. That our needs aren’t as important as the needs of those around us. Which keeps us in the patriarchal belief validation loop that our value is extracted from what can be extracted from us.

The shift towards centering self is perhaps one of the hardest. Not because it’s difficult physically, but because it’s difficult emotionally. And not even because others make it emotionally difficult for us - because we do.

So often in my work I see women that simply cannot fathom choosing themselves first. Women who abstractly understand the importance of self care and self prioritization and self orientation and yet are seized with a crippling guilt at just the thought of saying “no”. 

Of course, I am not advocating for a world in which we’re all out exclusively for ourselves and we don’t give to, or share with, or help anyone. Quite the contrary.

What I am encouraging is a world in which we are so well adept at recognizing and fulfilling our own needs first that we are overflowing with energy and resources to share with others. And that it’s not only me or you or women who do this. Others also generate energy and resources to share with us. We can be so abundant in ourselves that we are able to become masters of our specific gifts and talents - and then share them generously with the rest of the world. Rather than trying to provide everything for everyone, we can specialize - and then share. If we want to. And others will do the same. Idealistic? Perhaps. Possible? Possibly. Necessary? Absolutely. We cannot keep the engines of community and society running on the exhausted, depleted souls of martyred women. At least not healthy communities and societies.

These pillars of Soul Crafting are the foundations on which we will be working together to shift the way we relate to  ourselves, our families, and our lives in order to re-imagine a different world for all. Join us.

Jaclyn Lanae is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/ or connect at AuthorJaclynLanae.com.

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