A deeper vision of the feminine genius
On searching, perceived failure, and growth
Five years ago today, the first episode of The Feminine Genius Podcast was released into the world. Within the run of the podcast, over 100 episodes were released, featuring conversastions with nearly 100 women from all walks of life, backgrounds, and places.
It was, and remains, one of the biggest blessings of my life that I’ve received to date. I received a lot of creative and technical support throughout the run of the podcast, and also learned so much from talking to a diverse pool of women from around the world on what it means to live out their own feminine genius.
As many of you know, the podcast formally came to an end in 2022 as I prepared to enter into postulancy with the Daughters of St. Paul. Now, about 8 months on since my departure from postulancy, I’ve come to appreciate even deeper this gift of the feminine genius in my own life and how it is a living and active thing.
I’ve mentioned before in an interview I gave in 2021 that Pope St. John Paul II doesn’t technically come out and define what the feminine genius is in the apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem (“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”) or his Letter to Women. I shared similar sentiments with the hosts that I found it frustrating that JP2 wouldn’t define this term that has since gotten so much air time in the Catholic world. Everyone has a unique flavour and perspective on what it is and isn’t.
The time that I spent in postulancy, and the subsequent time that I’ve now spent back on the “outside” ever since discerning out has really challenged my own initial view of my feminine genius, and even to some extent, my trust in God. Simply put, “going back” is a hard pill to swallow when you very publicly say that you’re going to do one thing, and then a year later, things change.
But I suppose this is really the heart of the matter. What I perceived to be failure wasn’t failure at all. It was just another turn in the ongoing journey that God has been taking me on.
When I first entered postulancy, I thought that I knew what the destination of the journey would be: A radical surrender of giving my life entirely to God through the vocation of religious life — at least, that’s what I hoped for at the time. So you can imagine how uniquely challenging it was to be thrust back into my ‘old’ life, but now as a different person.
The good news in the midst of all this, and what I’ve had to really wrestle with, is the fact that God’s not done. He’s never done. And thanks be to God for that, because it means that there is still more to grow in and still more life to live — that itself is the gift of life.
I think a part of me was sincerely hoping that religious life would be “the end” in an attempt to skirt responsibility for more choices in my life. But my one year in the convent showed me that even in religious life there are choices to be made, a continual deepening of who God has made me to be. Simply put, there is no end to the choices that we have to make, regardless of where we end up. This might come off as abundantly obvious, but in hindsight I really was looking for an ‘end’ so that I wouldn’t have to keep searching.
The last several months have provided me with a revelation: that we continue to search for what it is that helps us become more of who God has made us to be. This searching is not a restless self-seeking, but rather a continual quest to find God in all parts of our lives.
Within this is the constant reminder of how God gives me freedom to choose, and wants me to be free. He wanted me to freely choose to enter into religious formation. He wanted me to freely choose whether I stayed or left. And now, there continues to be many free choices that He puts before me, all with the goal of finding Him at the heart of these decisions.
This is the feminine genius at work: the pursuit of the One who always pursues us first, offering us love and peace as a free gift. Each women will be called to pursue God in their own unique way, and once we have come to be found by Him who loves us, we can then give that love to others. And I have to believe that we do that in all parts of our journey, even in those places where we feel like we’ve messed up or failed.
The last few months have felt like stumbling in the dark. At some points, it was so pitch black that I questioned whether God was even there.
My number one concern ever since coming home has been grasping for meaning on why things happened the way that they did. Now, months later, I have come to accept the fact that there are some things that I will perhaps never know. It was frustrating to accept at first, but now, I’ve been trying to take it as a gift.
All I can do is my best with what I have in the moment, and let God lead me faithfully as He always has done.
I know that there will continue to be moments like this: Of waiting and watching, of feeling like things just don’t make sense. But this is the feminine genius at work — a continual invtation to follow Him, holding His hand tightly, and allowing myself to be surprised, opened up, and blessed.
To all those who have supported me throughout my time with The Feminine Genius Podcast and other creative endeavours that came along with it — thank you.
I have no idea what God has in store, but what I do know is that I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds in His time.
In Jesus,
Rachel