464: The Hidden Patriarchy In The Spiritual Community with Sahara Rose

You're not here to make me more open. Only I make myself open when I trust. Because you can't force a rose to blossom. She will do it in her own timing, in the right environment, with the right people. And guess what, bitch? She still got thorns. Because we are not just the rose, we are also the thorns. And that's not what the patriarchy wants. It wants to shed us from the thorns like the watermelon. It wants to remove our seeds. It wants to make us all sweet all the time. And that's not what the feminine is. The feminine is also our rage. It's our power. It's our truth. It's our sovereignty. It's the strength that pushes out human life onto this earth. It is all of that. Namaste, it's Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the Highest Self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul's highest development. If it's your first time listening, welcome. I've had this podcast for over five years and we continue to dive deep into spiritual and soulful topics that I feel are so important to be discussed. And my approach to spirituality is really a lot more grounded, fun, relatable, earth, earthy, and honoring the sacred feminine energy within us. And that's really what I want to jam about on today's solo cast. So I've been noticing online right now that a lot of people are awakening to the hidden patriarchy that has been within the spiritual space. And when I say the word patriarchy, I am not saying I am against men. I am happily married. I grew up with a brother that I'm best friends with. I love men so much. But the patriarchy is the male control over the feminine and non binary energy. So it's really the suppression of the feminine by the toxic masculine. And that's really what the patriarchy is. And this has existed for the past 2,000 plus years through many different religions, governments, cultural, societal beliefs. We're not going to get into all of that in this episode. I've been talking about it a lot on the podcast and in Rose Gold, my Sacred Feminine Mystery School. But I want to speak about how sometimes the patriarchy can wear a spiritual cloak. Sometimes it could put some Palo Santo mist on and wear some mala beads and pretend to be the conscious bro. But it's actually still the same patriarchy, whether they are even aware of it or not, whether we are aware of it or not. Because the patriarchy isn't like men being like, hey, I'm going to dominate women, but rather it's a belief system that men are superior to women. You know, we're seeing this played out in the extreme right now in my motherland of Iran, where women are literally being killed, tortured and raped by the government simply for existing, simply for singing, dancing, showing hair. Women are considered half of a man. Women are legally allowed to be murdered by their husbands. There are so many rules that I've been sharing about on my Instagram that shows the patriarchy is a very, very real thing. And if you don't believe me, I mean, just look at what's happening in Iran. Look at what's happening in many, many parts of the world in its own unique way. And I will link my episode below about what is actually happening in Iran. But now let's talk about its more subtle approaches. Because sometimes we think, oh, well, the patriarchy's over in the Middle East. But, like, we're all good here. Peace. And it can still exist. So I'm gonna tell you a story that I've never shared before, ever. And I'm gonna share it here. And it's a very vulnerable one. And if my mom's listening to this, sorry, but I have to share this. So when I was 23 years old, I went to Goa, India, which is a very spiritual community in South India. Lots of hippies, lots of tantra stuff. And at this time, you know, this 10 years ago, I was very new to the word tantra. Like, I honestly thought tantra was like, you know, you hear of tantric sex, I thought it was like a sexual practice. But I was hearing, oh, tantra is actually this, you know, more embodied path to spirituality. And I was very interested in that. So there was a tantra festival going on at this place, I believe it was called the Love Temple, near where I was staying. And I decided to go and I walk into the shallow where it was taking place. And there were only a couple of us there, myself being a 23 year old girl and a few Russian men in their late 50s and one other young girl around my age, and the teacher was a female, she was like in her 50s, also Russian. So she begins to tell us how the feminine needs to be more soft. It needs to be open, it needs to be receptive. Men don't like a woman who's too loud, who's too assertive, who's too in her power. You have to be open, like a beautiful blossoming flower at all times, times, and allow yourself to receive. And most of us women, we have been so conditioned by society that we are so hardened so what we really need right now is to practice ourselves, opening up for the masculine energy to penetrate us. And in that place we can blossom into our full feminine potential. So really we need to disarm ourselves and allow ourselves to be just these open water like vessels. Okay, that sounds interesting. Makes sense. So then it comes time for the practice. And the practice is the men, 50, late 50s men are going to sit down while we young 20s girls are supposed to give them lap dances. And instantly I knew even then that something was wrong with this, that I don't even know these men. I don't even speak the same language as these men. These men could very easily be my father, even grandfather in some cases. This doesn't feel honoring my sense of self, my sense of worth, my own boundaries. So I didn't wanna do it. And the woman was like, oh, that just shows how conditioned you are because your walls are just so high and your heart is just so closed and you need to open. Because when we can open ourselves up to worship the masculine, it doesn't matter who's in front of us, we can just open ourselves up to be penetrated by the divine. And it's important for us to see beyond the and just see them as God in human form and worship them like that person was God and reincarnated. Again, you could say spiritually, that could make sense. But the practicality was I was a 23 year old girl supposed to give a lap dance to a 58 year old man who I did not know. Does that resonate to you as true? Because we can take a spiritual truth of like yes, the feminine gets to open, but the actuality, the practicality of so you little girl who's just entering the spiritual space, who doesn't even know yourself, to prove that you are worthy of love, you need to bypass your entire sense of emotional well being, erode your boundaries to prove to some spiritual God up there that you are indeed a feminine goddess being. Thank goddess, my true divine feminine self was online because I walked out of there and said, no, I will not do this. I was disgusted, there's no fucking way I'm going to do this. And I left. But the other girl stayed. And I don't blame her because of how much guilt and how much shame we are pushed upon in this spiritual community to be so open and submissive and soft. And it comes back to the conditioning that we had as children from these Disney movies, from these fairy tales, that one day this knight in shining armor is going to choose us. It's going to save us. And we just have to be pretty and beautiful and soft and quiet enough for them to choose us. And it's that exact same fantasy that makes us as women. By the way, if you go to most tantra training, spiritual trainings in general, they tend to be more woman because women tend to be more open to, how can I change? To maybe grow or maybe to receive love. And then when you're telling me the path for the reason why I've never had a good relationship, the reason why I've never felt this, I've never felt that, is because I'm not open in my yoni enough. And the way for me to prove myself is to give a lap dance to some dude. A lot of women are gonna unfortunately, bypass their intuitions and say yes to that because of how beaten down we've become, because of how gaslit we've become, because oftentimes we enter this spiritual space of like, okay, my old way of relating was not working right? So let me just erase my memory of everything that I've learned and step into this entirely new system in this entirely new philosophy. And even though it doesn't feel right, that must mean I'm just not open enough. What a perfect recipe, right? What a perfect recipe for a man to be in power. Because let's dive deep into these polarity trainings. I'm curious, who teaches the majority of them? Who's written the biggest books? Every training I've seen has been taught by a man. I remember being at a training taught by a man. It was mostly women, and he was telling us how to be a woman. Oh, no, you need to be a man. At the end of his workday, he doesn't like to be asked questions. Do not ask him questions. Oh, you want him to help around the house? Do you know what you should do? You should wear lingerie. You should wear lingerie and just play some music and sensually dance and rub your inner thighs and smell really good. And then if that doesn't work, you know, you should make him a snack, because men really love snacks, you know? So make him a snack and pour him a nice cold beer and then rub his feet, because, yeah, he's just so exhausted from a cold, long day, and, you know, rub his feet and then maybe rub his back and scratch his head. And then, you know what? Don't expect anything because he still might be tired. So you know what? All you can do is just inspire him to his fullest potential. You definitely cannot tell him what to do. No way. That's going to totally lose your feminine velour. Let's just take a moment to think about that. If I can't tell my husband, hey honey, I need support. Hey honey, I'm carrying a lot of the load. Hey honey, I'm overwhelmed. Hey honey, guess what? I also work. Hey honey, guess what? You're not taking care of me while I'm sitting around at the spa all day. So just as tired as you are, I am. And it's beautiful to want to do things for your husband. And it's beautiful to want to do things for your wife. But why is it that us as women, we can't say how we feel and we have to just sexually inspire them to come to the conclusion that they need to take out the fucking trash? Why is it that they're so afraid of us for asserting our needs, for asserting our boundaries, for having a voice? This approach to spirituality is actually the patriarchy in a spiritual cloak. It's the exact same thing. It's saying that you as a woman have to manipulate yourself and use your sexual energy and use your beauty because if you use your power, men will reject you. And we see this playing out on social media. Everyone's a coach talking about the divine feminine energy, but most of them are not actually utilizing it. That's why I don't even use the word at this point, divine feminine, because it has been so distorted by this that I use now the word sacred feminine because it has a different texture to it. Because the true divine feminine is embodying our full expressive selves. But the way that it has been co opted in this online spiritual world is it means being a submissive, sensual, wet, juicy, open goddess at all times. Do not have a voice, do not have a purpose, do not have a sense of self. And definitely don't ask me to do anything around the house. We'll take a quick break so I can share with you this special offer. The greatest way that we can help balance and heal our nervous systems is through embodiment work. You see, we spend most of our times in our heads. We are constantly analyzing, trying to make sense of the world and predict the future. But what we really need to create the future that we want is to drop into our body's wisdom and understand what it's telling us. And that way we can bring about more healing and co create the circumstances that we desire. And that really come comes first from knowing our body's language. So I have created my free goddess embodiment practice which will allow you to drop into your body's wisdom in under 10 minutes. This is the perfect practice you can do. If you have no prior experience to embodiment or if you're already practicing yoga meditation, maybe you're working out, but you want something a little bit more feminine and flowy to add to the end or beginning of it. This practice is for you. I play incredible music and I guide you through dancing and just really feeling the messages that your body has for you. And you're going to feel so different on the other side. People seriously say, I can't believe how amazing I feel in less than 10 minutes and I'm so excited to see how it turns out for you. So if you're interested, head over to iamsaharrose.com embodiment again that's IAM saharrose.com embodiment and you can find that link in the show notes and download the practice. This. I thought we weren't in the 1950s anymore. Did that. Are we, Are we back? I'm. I'm confused because this is the same thing. There is nothing divine about negating your boundaries. There's nothing divine around having to figure out how to sexualize yourself enough to get what you want. Our sexualities are ours for us to own, not for me to figure out how. I'm going to present it to you so I can receive respect, receive love, receive freedom, receive equality. And I see this happen so much. I know people who are successful, growth oriented, beautiful women who have also fallen victim to this narrative that their boyfriends keep cheating on them and they're like, you know what? It was my fault because I wasn't in my feminine enough and that's why he had to go cheat on me with a girl that he found on OnlyFans because, you know, I was answering emails. How could he be attracted to me? So in my masculine, it's like, let's follow that thread. Okay, If a man says you checking your emails is so in your masculine, he is not sexually attracted to that. Okay, let's say you stop checking your emails. Okay, you got fired from your job. Okay, let's say you get fired from your job, your business collapses, then what? Oh, you have to rely on him. Okay, let's see. Does he want to work and provide for you too? Hmm, that's starting to feel heavy after a little while. Okay, he's starting to get a little bored after a while. Oh, he's starting to judge you. Oh, you're just a stay at home wife. Oh, you're just a stay at home, Mom. Oh, he's doing the exact same thing. Cheating again. Because you're not interesting enough. You're not in your power enough. So the exact same thing happens, and they'll find a way to blame it on you. You're too masculine. You're too feminine. You're too this, you're too that. We can't live our lives around trying to make anyone else happy, let alone being dictated on how to be our gender by the opposite gender. I am not interested in a man telling me how to be a woman in his male fantasy version, because his only concept of being a woman is someone who's there to rub his feet at night and to take care of his erections and to be his trophy wife. He doesn't deal with the shit that we deal with. He doesn't have the same trauma in his lineage. He has not seen the woman in his lineage being abused, abandoned. He has not ever had to deal with having your womb be a commodity. He could might say, you know what? Pro choice, pro life. Tomato, tomato. Why are people arguing he's never been in a position that that law mattered to him? Most men don't even know what their own mothers have gone through. Most men are completely cut off about the way that the feminine has been suppressed throughout the world and even in their own bloodline. Because what we women do best is put on a happy face, and we push forward and we try to create better lives for our kids and the people around us because we don't want to bog people down. So of course they don't know, because we have been made to believe that our full expression, our full truth, our full experiences are too much. So put a pretty bow on it, get in the kitchen, put on some lingerie, and keep being of service. Fuck that. Fuck that shit. I will be of service when I am so naturally full that it is an expression of me. I think it's beautiful to want to offer your partner massages and gifts, but they need to earn that. They need to earn that level of respect. It doesn't come just because they've decided. They are the enlightened masculine. So you better get on your knees for them. No. Respect and trust is earned. It's not given just because you have a penis. And I see this happening again and again in the spiritual community, the Tantra space. It's like, hey, welcome to Tantra workshop. Okay? You have to take all your clothes off and do extremely intense sexual practices with total strangers. And if you don't want to do it, it just Shows how closed off you are. Who's benefiting from this? I've noticed a pattern here. It's this polyamorous dude who then puts himself in a position of power that all of the women want to be with this one person, because oftentimes, and we've seen this happen in a lot of tantric communities such as Agama, that these men who are in charge of it say, for you to become spiritually activated, you need to sleep with me because I offer you sexual powers and I am essentially the God in the space. So if I am choosing you even for a night, that means you are worthy of a God. And you might be laughing like, who the fuck would say this? Look up most of these tantric spiritual centers, AKA cults. Not all. A lot are cults, and a lot of them aren't even tantric. They're just straight up spiritual cults. Seen this happen time and time again, and it's even happening right now. Benjito is another prime example. A lot of women are speaking out about the sexual abuse that was happening in that community. So we need to talk about this, because I had no idea about any of this when I was 23 years old. And I very easily could have been one of these girls who could have been manipulated into a culture, who could have been manipulated by some spiritual man who claims he has all of the answers and the way to get them is to sleep with him. Oh, and you better do it without a condom, because sexual energy cannot transfer through if there's a condom. I've literally heard that. Or, oh, we must have had a past life together. I'm feeling this cosmic karmic energy between you and I. But, oh, there is a love curse. And the only way that we can eradicate this love curse and be with our divine partners is if we have sex to break this curse. Otherwise, neither of us will be with our true twin flames. Also heard that one. There are a lot of fuckboys who've realized if they put on some spiritual clothing, they can go to the spiritual festivals and take advantage of young women in their maiden phases who often just want more than anything to be accepted, to be chosen, who are open to learning entirely new things, even if it means negating their boundaries because they haven't learned how to listen to their bodies yet. So a lot of these men know that there is a huge opportunity for them to abuse women in these communities. And maybe you have experience with some of these in many spiritual festivals, communities, events out there. Like you can feel it. And oftentimes you feel it, but then you convince yourself, oh, you know what? He's a really nice guy. Oh, it must be my block. Oh, it must be me just not being open enough. I must not be spiritually advanced enough. Right? So we gaslight ourselves, we override our boundaries. We do things that we know we don't want to do, we don't have to do, but we feel like we should do. To be accepted, to be loved, to be chosen. So this is a really important conversation to be had in the spiritual space because I think a lot of us have noticed it. Maybe we've talked about it to a couple friends. I haven't heard anyone do a podcast about it. So that's why I'm just coming out there and sharing my experience. Because I have had many with these different. And I'm not just saying it's spiritual dudes, it's often the woman too, because the person who was the teacher at that tantra workshop I went to was a woman. So the patriarchy can also be lived and experienced through by women. She probably was taught the same thing. She probably was taught to override her boundaries. And she's created this false sense of reality that by doing so she has made herself more open when actually it has made her disconnected. Because when you allow yourself to go all the way there with a total stranger that you have no rapport with, you are basically cutting yourself off from your intuition that I'm gonna make a kind of sad metaphor here, but often what happens to prostitutes is they have no choice but to cut themselves off from their body because it hurts too much to feel. Because if you actually felt the violation that was happening every single time, you couldn't stand it. And that is why there's so substance abuse and suicide amongst prostitutes. So this same energy, in a way more micro scale is happening in these tantra containers of women who basically have to cut themselves off in order to be okay with this, and then convincing themselves, oh, wow, I've become so open. Now, that being said, there are many great tantra teachers, and if you are interested in tantra, I highly recommend if you are a woman, to study with another woman. Because I do think there will be a level of more safety by someone who just understands the vulnerability of being in a female body and everything that that comes with. You know, I have gone to different, not even just tantra, but like different spiritual workshops and practices that were taught by men who just didn't get that, who were doing like a one on one session with me at night in the Dark at their house. And I'm just like. To me, my body is like, alarm ringing. Like, I am not safe. Something could happen to me here. Like, where's my phone? What if I get raped? Like, what's going to happen? Like, that's an everyday occurrence in the mind of a feminine being. Like, men don't have to think about, oh, if I'm walking through this parking lot and someone chases me, like, where am I gonna run? Do I have my keys in between my knuckles so I can stab him in the eye? Okay, when I sit in my car, can I lock my door as quickly as possible? Okay, this guy's behind me. Is he. Is he gonna take my. Like, that is a constant for women. Men have rarely lived in fear of their lives. For women, it's a daily basis thing. So I think that that's why it is very important to have more female spiritual teachers of all lineages, whether it's plant medicine, because I will also name. There have been rapes happening by shamans in the ayahuasca community that many people have been going to who are raping women while they are under ayahuasca and the shaman is under ayahuasca. This is happening. People aren't talking about it. And in many different forms that are more subtle as well. So as women especially, we need to have our full discernment on. And who gives a fuck if someone tells us, oh, you're not spiritual. Oh, you're so closed. Oh, you need a lot more softening and openness and receptivity to do. Say, yeah, you know what? I'll go do that. Bye. Because you're not here to make me more open. Only I make myself open when I trust. Because you can't force a rose to blossom. She will do it in her own timing and the right environment with the right people. And guess what, bitch? She still got thorns. Because we are not just the rose, we are also the thorns. And that's not what the patriarchy wants. It wants to shed us from the thorns. Like the watermelon wants to remove our seeds. It wants to make us all sweet all the time. And that's not what the feminine is. The feminine is also our rage. It's our power. It's our truth. It's our sovereignty. It's the strength that pushes out human life onto this earth. It is all of that. And I'm actually so happy to finally see it coming around, of social media, of women standing in their power, because for a few years it was like, oh, my God, she's like trying to be a girl boss or, you know, she's like, hustling. And there it was almost like we were, like, looking down on women for working. I'm sure you kind of noticed and felt this. And this whole time I've been telling people, being in your purpose is not a masculine quality. It is a human quality. It is your highest self's quality. And it's so easy to create these distortions of, well, like, as a woman, you should only want love and sexuality and pleasure and, like, that's it. And as a man, you should only want stillness and purpose and depth. It's like, well, the men also want softness and beauty and pleasure, and the women also want purpose and drive and stillness and devotion. We all are both. And the feminine within, it has such a spectrum. If you look at the goddesses, there is Kalima, there is Durga. Durga is like, she's riding her freaking lion and she's a warrioress and she's fighting battles. That's also an energy of the feminine. Kalima blue with her tong hung out, goddess of destruction, that's also the feminine. And yes, there's also Saraswati, who channels creativity. There's also Lakshmi, who channels abundance. But they're all different forms of the one shakti, one feminine energy. So you can't really, like, pick and choose. Like, sure, maybe some dude just wants you fully in your Lalita Sundari all the time, but guess what? But if he dishonors your truth and dishonors your boundaries, Kali is going to come out. And that's all the full feminine. So if this podcast resonated with you, if you know anyone that could benefit from hearing this message, please share it. I hope that even if one person listening to this podcast can avoid a situation like I've been in, or maybe there is in a community or in a situation where they're constantly negating their boundaries, and this just might be the reminder and the welcome call, like, that is enough. I didn't even plan to do this podcast. I was just like, on my walk and I was just like, oh, my God, I can't believe this keeps happening. I just need to talk about it. So even if one person, even if it's you listening to this, that's like, wow. I have noticed that I haven't been using my full discernment because I thought that would make me more spiritually open, more in my feminine, more in my softness. Like, beautiful, you're here now, and this was the perfect time for you to have this realization. And don't be afraid of your strength. Don't be afraid of your power. Don't be afraid of your purpose. Because guess what happens when the patriarchy takes over, which it has in many parts of the world, such as Iran, where my family fled from. Because when they don't allow us to work, what happens next is we have no control of the finances. When we have no control of the finances, we have no control of the decisions in the family. We have no control in the decisions of the family. The men have full control. The men control. They control our livelihood. They control where we go. They control how we dress. And what we're seeing right now happening in the Middle east is women are literally forced to cloak themselves. Cannot. You know, in many parts of the Middle east, women don't have a name. Your name is actually the mother of your eldest son. So before that, your name is daughter of your father. Then it becomes wife of your husband. Then it becomes mother of your eldest son. So you are actually not even given a name. You are dating, defined by your relationship, by the men around you, because that was what your worth was. Whose daughter you were, whose wife you were, whose mother you were. You didn't matter as a human being. And they cloaked us and they shackled us and they raped us and they abused us. Until today, when we remember. My grandmother was in a forced child marriage when she was 11 years old to my grandfather, who was 27. And I don't blame him because the patriarchy taught him that that's how it's supposed to be. She was basically given by her father as a part of a business deal to my grandfather. And this happens time and time again. This is happening right now in many parts of the world. And it happens in way more subtle ways as well, of women just not being in control of their lives, having to stay in relationships simply because they don't have the financial means to leave. And this is why I believe that women stepping into their purpose is the most powerful thing we can do to rise out of the patriarchy and into our sovereignty. Because when a woman is in alignment with her Dharma, her soul's purpose, the big reason why she is here, outside of her relationships, outside being of service to others, that is when she truly becomes free. So that is really what my work has been about. You can check out my book, discover your Dharma, which is all about finding your purpose. I'll have some links below to my master classes and quiz. But. But this is really the time for us to ask ourselves, why am I here? What makes me come alive and how can I live a life where I am empowered and sovereign in my choices? Because when you are empowered and sovereign, you don't have to bend and manipulate yourself to get the stamp of approval of anyone else because you have your own. So thank you so much for listening. If you loved this episode, I would love for you to share it. And I would also love to give you a gift for leaving a review for the podcast so you can head over to the iTunes store. Leave a review for the podcast, take a screenshot before you submit it, and email it over to me and I will send you my free Womb Meditation. This is a meditation to connect to the language of your womb space and listen to the intuitive guidance that your feminine being is always giving you. So take a screenshot of your review and email it over to me@saharaiamsahararose.com again that's saharaiam sahararose.com and you can find that email and those links I mentioned in the show Notes. Thank you so much for being here today. I deeply appreciate and honor you. Namaste Sam.