Do you know what is the number one female shame in the world?

Research on masculinity, femininity, and shame showed the following:
For men the number one shame: being weak (also being vulnerable).
For women the number one shame…I’ll let you guess what it is……Yes indeed, body shame!

And from research the body shame syndrome is also making victims amongst women who are young, between 20 and 30, normal body, and physically agreeable and even attractive.

Whether we are young or old, skinny or heavy, with or without wrinkles, it seems we all suffer from body shame.

All the great emancipation movements that we have been witnessing since the feminist revolution in the 60’s don’t seem to have solved the female body shame issue. Our modern mass media culture, and especially social media, make us drown even deeper into the body shame.

Empowering emancipation discourse or narratives to help women go beyond body …

You hardly see naked breasts on the beach. Why?

In the past, topless sunbathing was normal. Nowadays, you hardly see naked breasts on the beach. Why?

One of the most recurring questions I get when people watch the documentary Coco Cabasa about my life and my work is about a scene when the police wanted to arrest me because of ‘immoral conduct’, simply because I was sunbathing topless on the beach. The repetitive question is: “how could a Muslim girl sunbathe topless? in a Muslim country?”

It was indeed forbidden, but I did it. I did it for different reasons; such as rebellion (against suffocating moral norms), emancipation (the right to self-determination), body freedom (I liberate our body), esthetics (I don’t like the white marks of bikini on my skin), solidarity (with the women who fiercely fought to uncover their body-breasts)…

Today, 30 years later, I would not do …

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Would you like to let go of all the negative emotions stuck in your body?

Hadra, a spiritual trance dance, is an ancient tradition in North Africa, very popular in my home country Tunisia.

My father’s family was nomadic people who travelled through the African continent and settled down finally in Tunisia. They always lived in tents. They got their first ‘house’ in the late 50’s (it was more a clay hut than a house).

As a child, I went few times a year with my father’s family to nomadic camps in the desert. One of my vivid memories was the trance dance. That was WILD! There were live musicians who played certain classical trance pieces and the people, women and men, danced and danced and danced until they fell on the floor happy and exhausted!

The main function of these spiritual dances was emotional release. The idea was that to enter the realms of …

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Stop blaming and shaming men! Men and Women have a common enemy…

I often have debates and arguments with many of western feminists because I refuse to point the finger to men as the origin of evil: gender inequality and misery of women and girls. I perfectly agree with my Western sisters that most of gender violence, sexual violence and many kinds of violence against women are made by men. But that’s not the origin of the problem, just the consequence.

The origin is patriarchy. In the emancipation race, patriarchy is the common enemy, of women and men. But patriarchy is maintained in place by men AND women. This became very clear to me already as a little girl who grew up with harem women in North-Africa. That female exclusive world was amazingly beautiful and at the same time incredibly cruel for women. Read more about this in the article below. And …

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Overcoming Fear: How to Fall Graciously and Rise Victoriously (with a Divine Dance film)

I don’t know about you but despite my success in all areas of my life, I feel regularly overwhelmed by fear.

I was lately preparing a lecture for a big event about the Rise of the Feminine and FeMale Leadership to a large audience of corporate CEO’s and top managers. At the same time, I was also busy preparing the last details to launch an online training! On one hand I felt very excited, and on the other hand I was scared!

I felt the low vibration of fear, fear of failure and fear of success, taking over my system little by little. Even though I knew rationally there was no single reason to feel scared about it, I was still overwhelmed by fear.

Rationally I knew that I am an expert on the subject and that I am able …

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How to Heal Your Fear of Failure?

Have you ever been so afraid of failing at something that you decided not to try it at all?

Or has a fear of failure meant that, subconsciously, you undermined your own efforts to avoid the possibility of a larger failure?

Has fear lead you to sorrow, apathy, guilt and shame?

Many of us have probably experienced this at one time or another. The fear of failing can be immobilizing – it can cause us to do nothing, and therefore resist moving forward. But when we allow fear to stop our forward progress in life, we’re likely to miss some great opportunities along the way.

Fear of failure is one of the strongest emotions as it can take over our body and lead us in a ‘descent into hell’ by getting us in a spiral of suffering vibrations and then …

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Unforgettable: Divine Dance in a Church in… Istanbul!

This year I celebrated the International Women’s day in Istanbul where I gave a lecture, with the Divine 9 dance, about FeMale Leadership in an old Chapel from the 16th century! Unforgettable experience!

When I entered the space, I felt overwhelmed by emotions, sad and happy ones.

The first emotions were full with the low vibrations of sadness and grief. Once upon time, long time ago, this Divine Dance was practiced in temples to honour the Divine Feminine in every woman, and every man. That was about 4000 years ago, when the society was matriarchal with an egalitarian system between women and men.

When our civilization moved from matriarchy to patriarchy, these dances were banned from temples and confined to… brothels. So, I felt first the sadness and the pain of excluding this ancient female dance from the sacred space …

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How to feel sensual and attractive like Aphrodite while you look like RoboCop?

I was born and raised in North-Africa, sun, sea, desert… As a child I always dreamed of mountains covered with snow, of pine trees camouflaged under a thick layer of powder snow… looking like elegant ladies wearing white evening dresses and ready to dance the Waltz on top of the mountains…

I skied only twice in my life. It went better than expected, for an African girl learning to ski in her 50’s! But this year, I was not that lucky! I had a ski accident and a bad knee injury. The doctors advised an operation, but I refused. I don’t believe in the quick fix. I believe in the power of the body healing itself. But it’s a long way to go. I just removed the plaster and now revalidating and walking around with crutches and a full leg …

How to Heal from (Winter) Depression?

I was always afraid of depression. I come from a family with a long ‘depressive history’, with many depressive women (and men, but these won’t admit it of course).

By nature I am a joyful optimist person. But every Dutch winter (I live in beautiful Amsterdam), I get ‘hit’ by a depressive wave.

I did not know how to deal with depression until I started practicing my Divine 9 Dance Therapy. Dancing our ‘female collective depression’, the low emotional vibrations when we feel worthless, powerless, hopeless, shameful, guilty, lonely…

Dancing these vibrations helps us to better understand that the mysteries of women can be seen not only through the clinical eye but also through the eye of the feminine psyche.

The Divine 9 Dance is place where we can see our shadows as a rite of passage, an opportunity …

How to survive holidays with your (dysfunctional) family?

The last time I celebrated Christmas with my family was … 20 years ago.

I love my mom and my mom loves me. But we cannot be together more than few hours without having an argument. We argue always about the same old subject: religion and life style. My family is very conservative, on the fundamentalist side. I am, as we say in Tunisia, on the side of ‘Islam Light’. We clash continuously about this difference.

I decided to spend this Christmas with my family in the Tunisian mountains. It would be for me the ultimate test about ‘Teach What You Preach’. How to use during the inevitable clash with my family my Divine9Dance and especially the Cabasa (vulva dance) to 1. Stay calm 2. Stay connected to what I feel 3. Do not fight 4. Put my boundaries with …

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