Women Archives - Andrea Hylen

Tag Archives: Women

Developing the Qualities of Feminine Leadership

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Andrea Hylen Leave a comment

It was 1974. I was in the 11th grade at Phoenixville Area High School and I was chosen to be the Captain of the show flags in the marching band. Right before our last local parade of the season, and before the band camp started where I would receive guidance on show flag routines and leading a squad of girls, the current Captain had a family emergency and was not available to lead us. I was thrust into leadership with no idea what I was doing! My first thought was to lead like a man using the stereotype of a platoon sergeant in the Army. I yelled at the 12 girls to straighten up, to present their flags with more precision. Stand tall. Straighten up. Sharper moves. Get in line. I was yelling the orders during the whole parade and I was exhausted by the end. I felt terrible and it wasn’t fun at all. I can remember feeling defeated and unsure of myself, questioning my ability to lead. The current Captain had always made it feel so fun. How could I lead like that?

At the summer band camp training, I learned new routines, observed the leadership and marched all day for a week. The fun returned. When our high school band camp started the week before school, I was eager to share what I had learned with the girls. While the other marching band groups: batons, rifles, and musicians, were practicing in their separate groups, I decided to try a different approach to lead. Instead of focusing on precision and marching in straight lines, I told the girls I wanted to share new routines I learned at the training camp. I focused on having fun, team building and connection, seeing us as collaborators and asking for their ideas. This was why we were on the show flag squad. It was fun to be part of a team and we wanted the challenge to learn the routines.

In the afternoon, when all of the groups came together to learn the choreographed routine, we would perform at every football game intermission this fall season and in competitions with other marching bands, we were ready. The show flag girls were connected and focused. We had filled up with fun all morning, connected with our purpose and now we worked hard to become the best squad of all time.

It was the first time I could feel the power of working as a team and leading in a way that invited every voice into the circle. Seeing and valuing each other. When I think about feminine leadership, I remember that moment in time. The elements included creativity, connection, team building, collaboration, intuition. I have used this experience in work, raising children, and leading women’s circles. This is what it feels like to lead with the feminine leadership style.

Fast forward to 2013, and the Heal My Voice feminine leadership project. In an on-line circle of twenty women, in the dead of winter, we began to ask the question, what does it mean to be a feminine leader? The women in this writing circle ranged from a football player in a women’s league, to a woman who worked at NASA, to a woman who had adopted children from Russia, to a young female entrepreneur, to a woman who was homeschooling her children. We began to unravel all the ways we had been leaders. Student council President, Mother, Team leader, Engineer, Adoption Pioneer, Girl Scout Leader and Teacher. Our discussions focused on how we had been leaders in the past and how that was changing with new awareness. Who were we as leaders? What mistakes had we made? How had we corrected those mistakes and shifted? How did we want to lead now? Many of the women in this group had graduated from college in the 70’s and 80’s. We had enthusiastically entered the workforce, but we had been expected to lead like men. Even the clothing we wore, suits with shoulder pads, were to look like men. We had to cover up femininity which was seen as weakness. For those of us who had defined ourselves as volunteers, caregivers and mothers, we didn’t even acknowledge the leadership roles and qualities we were using because we were not paid a salary. We now know that leadership has nothing to do with a salary. It is in the choices and decisions we make and how we live our lives by example.

In our circle conversations, we defined feminine leadership as a balance of feminine and masculine qualities. We defined masculine qualities as structure, risk and action. We defined feminine qualities as creativity, empathy, holistic and intuition. Women and men can lead this way. So, why use the words “feminine leadership” if both women and men can use this balanced style? We are unraveling the toxicity and dysfunction around the words, “leadership” and “power.” Step into using personal power, inner wisdom, inspired action and feminine leadership: A balanced approach of doing and being. It is time to find a new authentic way to lead.

I leave you with a few questions to explore:

*Do you see yourself as a leader?

*What are the qualities you use to lead?

*What are your strengths and weaknesses?

*How do we lead together?

Andrea Hylen is the founder of Heal My Voice and the Writing Incubator, on-line writing communities with coaching support. www.andreahylen.com

Posted in Leadership

The Vulnerability of Writing

Posted on May 22, 2019 by Andrea Hylen Leave a comment

“Being Vulnerable on the Page: Our words tell the truth about more than what we’re writing; they also tell the truth about us.” ~Judy Reeves

When I began to write my story for the ninth Heal My Voice book, I remember sitting in the living room, hands hovering over the computer keyboard and feeling hesitant to type any words. The book was called, “Sensual Voices: True Stories by Women Exploring Connection and Desire.” All of the women wrote stories about a woman’s journey with her body. Stories of menstruation, pregnancy, breast feeding and swimming in a lake. Some of us wrote about a journey with our sexuality. I knew that was the story I was compelled to write and I could feel the fear of writing about my personal experiences and revealing secrets. At first, I was afraid to even write it for myself! Then, I was afraid that if I published it, my reputation would be tarnished. I felt that people who had different experiences would judge me. I felt that everything I had committed to and built with Heal My Voice would be destroyed, including harming the women who had written stories in all the books. I even had a back lash from my mother one night, when she saw the description of the Heal My Voice project on my website. Sensual Voices: True Stories by Women Exploring Connection and Desire. She said, “Who are you to lead that project? What qualifications do you have? Why is this on your website?”

Whoa! I got whacked emotionally for about an hour. Luckily, she sent this through email and I read it while I was sitting at Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville, Maryland with a cup of coffee and a delicious meal. Pausing to eat the piping hot food that had just arrived at the table, I waited to respond, until a feeling arose in me and I wrote her back and claimed my voice. It was a huge breakthrough AND it was the 9th Heal My Voice book. I was not new to writing and not new to expressing feelings and emotions for all the world to see. I had experience with the vulnerability of my inner writer voice. (And FYI: I have a background in women’s health, social work and had recently taken a year long program about women’s sexuality and I am a writing coach.)

But here’s the thing. Every time, I reveal something about myself in a blog, on a radio show or in a book, a wave of vulnerability comes. I feel it is a part of the writing process to uncover and feel the feelings. For this project, I had support, experience, I felt the feelings and I moved through it faster.

As a writer and a leader of groups of women writers in The Writing Incubator, I know that vulnerability arises as a part of the process:

“Why aren’t my words flowing?”
“I don’t have time to write.”
“I feel lost in this program.”
“I’m behind everyone else.”
“I’m doing it wrong.”
“I’m scared to be seen.”

I see it all the time in the on-line writing programs as well as experience it myself. There is a desire that rises because you feel compelled to write something. There is a “yes” to “The Writing Incubator” space that comes with a layer of vulnerability of being seen in community. Then, there is the vulnerability of writing feelings or a story on paper or the computer. And THEN, the idea that you would share this with someone else! The vulnerability of the truth that is your life, the exposure of how you describe your feelings and words, the fear of rejection, etc…

The feeling of vulnerability is always present. Every story I have ever written in a Heal My Voice book, or a blog (especially being a guest blogger) or in my books on Amazon, trigger the voices in my head that are telling me I shouldn’t write.

Underlying all of these fears, maybe women are also afraid of a collective energy. Call it the fear of being exposed for book burning or the burning of witches at the stake. Or a myriad of other ways that women have been burned physically and emotionally for speaking up. It can be a deep imprinting from the past. I encourage you, as you begin to write, to find a safe place to express yourself, to be witnessed and and to practice sharing your voice. Build the muscle by sharing your voice in community.

One more thing. I have also felt or heard women say:

Hasn’t someone already written this story?
I’m not an expert.
Who am I to write this book?

You are here to write what you are compelled to express and share. It begins with writing for yourself. That may be in a journal. You may write to redefine your work. You may have a program to design or a blog to start or a book to write. You are the only person who can write a book in your vibration and with your exact experience. The possibilities for self-expression are infinite.

A few writing prompts for your own reflection:

*Turn up your awareness, every time you write or every time you think about writing.

*What are the words you are hearing in your head?

*Are they stopping you from writing?

*Find one thing you can say to yourself whenever you hear the words. Create an affirmation. Or write a few words on a sticky note that will help you remember who you are. “I am Writer and I have something to say.”

Andrea Hylen: Author of Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey. Creator of The Writing Incubator, on-line writing community. www.andreahylen.com

Posted in Writing

Liberating Your Voice

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Andrea Hylen Leave a comment

(Originally Published in On Purpose Magazine February 2019)

(Photo Credit Liz Lemon,

Women’s March 2017)

By Andrea Hylen

In a song called Liberation, Christina Aguilera begins by asking, “Where are you? Are you there?” Her words are barely a whisper. A calling out to a part of her that lies dormant. The rest of the song is a soft melody with piano and violins and other string instruments, until the end when she whispers, “Remember.” I don’t know what her personal intention was for the song. For me, it was a call out to a part of myself that had been suppressed for too long. After listening to her song today, I had a remembrance of a time when I had things to say and no place to say them. It reminded me that when I started to blog in 2008, I started every writing session with. “Dear Listener.” The subtext was, “Dear Listener, Are you there? Can you hear me?”

Liberation is one of those words, like power, that can bring up feelings of discomfort. Liberation means “setting free from oppression.” In order to heal and liberate your voice, you have to be willing to admit that you are, or have been, oppressed. As the artist and activist Judy Chicago, recently said on the Netflix film: Feminist: “liberation in the 70’s meant ‘you had to be disobedient.'”

For a moment, let’s push aside any feelings you may have about suffragettes and the second wave of feminism, the liberation movement in the 70’s. Separate from that, I want to ask you, “Were you ever taught to be a good girl?” Feel that for a moment. Did someone ever say to you, “Be a good girl.” What did it mean to be a good girl? Could a good girl have a liberated voice? Did she have to be disobedient to be free?

A deeper clue about the conditioning around being a good girl came to me recently when my mother read one of the stories I wrote in, “Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey.”(As an aside, this article is not about bashing my mother. I understand that being a good girl to her meant that I would be safe. If I didn’t challenge anyone with my voice and I was a good girl, I would be safe. That is a huge discovery in itself.) My story in the Heal My Voice book evolved around a moment when I yelled at a housemate in 2014, the year I shared a house with seven people in Los Angeles. My mother said she couldn’t read that story because she didn’t raise me to yell at people. She raised me to be “a good girl.” In the story, I talked about how I had acquiesced to someone for 4 months because she was having a hard time adjusting to sharing a house with so many people. I shut down my needs and desires and did anything I could to avoid conflict and make it easier for her. Although everyone had some private space of their own in the house, she was having a hard time with the shared spaces. Everything came to a head after I returned from a three-week business trip and she had set up her acupuncture office in my bedroom. Setting boundaries and asking her to remove her stuff from my bedroom by a certain date didn’t work. And on the final night, when her massage table blocked my ability to get into my bed, I snapped. All of the suppression and holding back and acquiescing finally boiled over and I screamed at her. The other housemates clapped and cheered that I had liberated my voice. My “good girl, people pleasing, community building” persona was stretched to the limit. I couldn’t repress my feelings any longer. To really claim my space and stand up for myself I had to break through the nice girl my mother had taught me to be.

The only problem with that scenario was that I didn’t have enough practice with my voice to use it firmly and directly before reaching that boiling point. There was no place in my childhood or in adulthood where it was safe to be messy emotionally. No place to express anger, fear, hurt, or anything else that felt uncomfortable. No place to practice expressing my thoughts and feelings and practice trying on different hats or different ideas. It took that moment with the roommate to help me break free from oppression. My liberated voice can now express feelings of anger, hurt, fear, as well as upliftment, joy and confidence.

As we watch women liberating their voices at the Women’s March and in the #metoo and #timesup movements, we are going to witness women with feelings. Feelings are clues that are connected to intuition. Feelings and liberation are a super power. It is time. We need your voice. We need your voice to create a ripple effect of liberation in the world. When you follow your heart, when you listen to your intuition, when you show up because you know in your heart that this is where you are meant to serve to offer, to lead, you are using your liberated voice.

I leave you with a few questions to explore:

What does liberation mean to you?

Where do you feel you have the freedom to speak, to express your thoughts and feelings?

Do you feel liberated at the dinner table, in your business, in your community, in the world?

Where do you feel your voice is shut down or not welcomed?

What is one step you could take to liberate your voice?

Andrea Hylen: Author of Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey. Creator of The Writing Incubator, on-line writing community. www.andreahylen.com

Posted in An Evolutionary Woman's Journey Series

Week One: What is the Story You Want to Tell?

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Andrea Hylen Leave a comment

This is a 30-week series with topics and questions from Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey by Andrea Hylen. Available on Amazon

Question 1 of 30: What is the story you want to tell?

“When I started working on women’s history thirty years ago, the field did not exist. It was not recognized. People didn’t think women had a history worth knowing.” ~Gerda Lerner, On Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove, August 2010

When I read about Gerda Lerner recently in Carol Lee Flinders book called, “At the Root of This Longing,” I started to realize something deeper about what we are doing and being in Heal My Voice programs and in The Writing Incubator. Women are writing their stories and recording Women’s History. This is why it is so important for women to flood the market with their stories. Not just our theories or steps to success but the raw emotion of awakening. Writing our history.

It’s time to tell our stories. You are a history worth knowing.

Let that idea wash over you today. Your voice, your stories, your writing, your programs, your books are a record of Women’s History. Your voice is so important!

We all have many stories in our lives. So, which one is bubbling in you right now? Which story would serve you to write?

While writing my first story for publication, in 2008, for Conscious Choices: An Evolutionary Woman’s Guide to Life, I thought I was going to write a story about the birth and death of my son, Cooper. That was the story I had spent time feeling and processing and I wanted to share my experience with other women. But there was another story that was bubbling inside of me. It was a story that began when I heard a song playing in my head. “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor…” I recognized the song as something Mister Rogers sang on his PBS Children’s Show. “Okay,” I said to myself. “Why does this song keep playing in my head? Why am I waking up hearing it when my kids are all grown up now? I haven’t watched Mister Rogers in years!” I started to remember a really low point in my life when they were both under the age of 2. I felt unloved and unseen by my husband. Nothing I did, nothing I said, was “right.” I felt criticized and then ignored. As I started to write about things I was feeling during that time, I discovered a moment in that story:

Friday morning was the day I was at home with my daughters, catching up on the laundry, cooking meals for the next week an getting the house organized before the weekend. We would watch Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. There was always a moment when Mister Rogers would say, “I love you just the way you are.”

And just like that, when I remembered the feeling, I knew that that was the story I needed to write. It was a story about a low point when I felt hopeless. Mister Roger’s words gave me hope to find a way back to myself. Writing about that low point helped me connect the dots of when my healing and transformation began. It helped me to see my strength and personal power.

An exercise:

Think back to a time in your life. Let’s pick high school, as an example. Notice if there is a memory of pain or pleasure. Now, think about your first boyfriend or girlfriend. What is a memory? The first thing you may experience is a feeling. It might be a tightness in your chest or bubbling joy in your belly. There may be a variety of emotions, even if there isn’t a specific moment you remember. Begin there.

To inspire and ignite your writing, begin to ask the question, “What story do I want to tell?” Start asking it out loud to yourself. Maybe you ask it before you go to sleep at night. Or you ask it first thing in the morning. Don’t grab for the story. Just wait and allow it to come to you, like the Mister Rogers song came to me. It could be a feeling. It could be an emotion. And when you feel the memory rise, write it down! Acknowledge the moment, even if you don’t want to write a whole story right now. Write it down and wait for more inspiration to follow.

As I re-read the quote by Gerda Lerner, it seems hard to believe that there wasn’t a program to study women’s history, right? Or does it? Gerda Lerner introduced the first official women’s history program in 1972 at Sarah Lawrence. 1972!! I was just entering high school. No wonder I was confused about who I was as a woman. There were very few examples of women in our curriculum or our conversations.

That was then, this is now.

When I published my book this summer, I gave a copy to each of my daughters. The book has fourteen of my personal stories of challenges with triumph. It is a path of how to awaken and evolve, as a woman. I told them that I didn’t expect them to read it now. But some day, they would want to read my words and share them with others. It is the history of their mother. It is the history of a woman: Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey.

Write your stories. Share them with others. Your life is part of the History of Women.

A few reflective questions:

*Have you ever doubted that it was important for you to write a book or to share your stories in blogs, programs and social media posts?

*What does the critical voice inside your head tell you about why you shouldn’t share your stories?

*Write about why it’s important for you to share your stories. Tune in to your inner wisdom and see what surfaces.

What is the story you want to tell now?

If you want to explore writing as a process or you are working on a book or developing a program, the next Writing Incubator begins on April 1 with early bird pricing. Check it out! You don’t have to write your stories alone.

The Writing Incubator

Andrea Hylen believes in the power of our voices to usher in a new world. She is the founder of Heal My Voice, an organization that inspires women to heal a story, reclaim personal power and step into greater leadership and the Writing Incubator, an on-line writing community with writing prompts and writing labs, for women. She is author of Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey.

Andrea discovered her unique gifts while parenting three daughters and learning to live life fully after the deaths of her brother, son and husband. She follows her intuition as she collaborates with women and men in organizations and travels around the world speaking, teaching and leading workshops. Her passion is authentically living life and coaching others to do the same. To connect with Andrea and learn about coaching, current projects and on-line writing circles go to: www.andreahylen.com and www.healmyvoice.org.

Posted in An Evolutionary Woman's Journey Series, Writing

Feminism: Awareness + Action = Change Part 2

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Andrea Hylen Leave a comment

Day 90 of 100 days of Blogging

When it was first available on video in 2004, I bought a copy of the film Mona Lisa Smile and watched it many times with my three daughters. I loved how the lead character, the teacher, challenged the students to think. I home schooled my daughters from 1996-2006 with the intention to learn and teach in an environment that would stimulate creativity, problem solving, personal responsibility and connection to community. My focus was to teach them how to find and use resources and make decisions that would stimulate life long learning. It is my passion to cultivate learning and leadership and I LOVE seeing a teacher who is doing the same.

When the film crossed my path again a few days ago, it showed me a picture of something I have been thinking about since my Aunt Ellen died in September 2015. The journey for women who are challenging conventionally defined gender roles or challenging expectations of how a woman is supposed to live her life.

My Aunt and my mother both graduated from college in 1954. My mother married my Dad. Raised three kids. Supported my Dad in his 33 year career with Pillsbury and packed the house and moved 20 times.

My Aunt married my Uncle, started working at Liberty Mutual where a man mentored her and opened a door to advancement that was normally opened only for men. She had the education, the brains, and the ambition. During her 30 year career, she rose to the ranks of Assistant Vice President. My Aunt and my Uncle never had children during their 60 year marriage but they loved and nurtured many, many children of their family and friends.

Two women: One chose career. One chose homemaker and motherhood.

*****

After watching the film once, I watched it the next day to reflect on the dialogue and the subtle messages and the obvious messages.

Mona Lisa Smile, a description of the film from Wikipedia:

In 1953, Katherine Ann Watson, a 30-year-old graduate student in the department of Art History at Oakland State, takes a position teaching “History of Art” at Wellesley College, a conservative women’s private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, because she wants to make a difference and influence the next generation of women. At her first class, Katherine discovers that the women have already memorized the entire syllabus from the textbook, so she uses the classes to introduce them to Modern Art and encourages spirited classroom discussions about topics such as what makes good art and what the Mona Lisa’s smile means.

When the film begins, the faculty is inside the building and young women students are outside on the steps. The dialogue is between the President of the College (a woman) and the Student President (a woman).

President of College: Who knocks at the door of learning?

Student President: I am Every Woman

President of College: What do you seek?

Student President: To awaken my spirit through hard work and dedicate my life to knowledge.

President of College: Then, you are welcome. All women who seek to follow you can enter here. I now declare the academic year begun.

I could feel my heart skip a beat of excitement! I am Every Woman! Being asked what I seek. What I long for, desire. Being asked and then invited into the space. It stirs my heart. Women being acknowledged and seen as smart and valued!

In one of the early scenes, the teacher challenges them to look at art and tell her what they think:

Katherine Watson (Teacher): “Carcass”, by Soutine, 1925. Is it any good? C’mon, ladies, there’s no wrong answer. There’s also no textbook telling you what to think. It’s not that easy, is it?

Students:

Betty Warren: Alright, no. It’s not good. In fact, I wouldn’t even call it art. It’s grotesque.
Connie Baker: Is there a rule against art’s being grotesque?
Giselle Levy: I think there’s something aggressive about it. And erotic.
Betty Warren: To you, everything is erotic.
Giselle Levy: Everything *is* erotic.
Susan Delacorte: Aren’t there standards?
Betty Warren: Of course there are! Otherwise, a tacky velvet painting could be equated to a Rembrandt!
Connie Baker: Hey, my Uncle Ferdie has two tacky velvet paintings. He loves those clowns.
Betty Warren: There *are* standards! Technique, composition, color, even subject. So, if you’re suggesting that rotted side of meat is art, much less *good* art, then what are we going to learn?

Katherine Watson (Professor): Just that. You have outlined our new syllabus, Betty, thank you. What is art? What makes it good or bad, and who decides?

Contrast that scene to this comment from a teacher during the class called: Marriage Lectures:

“A few years from now, your sole responsibility will be taking care of your home, your children and your husband. You may all be in this class for an easy A. But the grade that matters the most is the one he gives you.”

After a student writes an editorial criticizing the teacher, she enters the classroom challenging them again:

Katherine Watson: I give up, you win. The smartest women in the country, I didn’t realize that by demanding excellence I would be challenging… what did it say?

[Walks over to a student and picks up her copy of the editorial]
Katherine Watson: What did it say? Um… the roles you were born to fill. Is that right?[Looks up at Betty who wrote the editorial]
Katherine Watson: The roles you were born to fill? It’s, uh, it’s my mistake.
[Katherine drops the student’s paper back onto her desk]
Katherine Watson: Class dismissed.
[Katherine walks out of the classroom]

******

“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.” – Susan B. Anthony

******

I had a conversation with my mother this week while visiting her in Florida. I will be posting some of the things we discussed in Part 3 of this series.

What are your thoughts?

**********

Andrea Hylen at Agape in Los Angeles

Andrea Hylen believes in the power of our voices to usher in a new world. She is the founder of Heal My Voice, an organization that inspires women and men to heal a story, reclaim personal power and step into greater leadership. Andrea discovered her unique gifts while parenting three daughters and learning to live life fully after the deaths of her brother, son and husband. In addition to serving as Heal My Voice’s Executive Director, Andrea is an Orgasmic Meditation Teacher and Sexuality Coach.

She is following her intuition as she collaborates with women and men in organizations and travels around the world speaking, teaching and leading workshops. Her passion is authentically living life and supporting others in doing the same. To connect with Andrea and learn about current projects go to: www.andreahylen.com and www.healmyvoice.org.

Posted in Feminist