Welcome to the Unfuck Your Relationships podcast, the
podcast where we are not just unfucking your love life, but
unfucking your relationship to yourself and your entire life.
Around here. We raise your standards, we
break patterns, we upgrade yourself concept.
We are talking about boundaries, money, shadow work, your
relationship to your body, sex, all of it.
We are covering your entire life baby.
Think of this podcast as like Big Sister Energy where I am no
fluff, no bullshit, but I am also very open with my heart and
I'm going to share all of me with you and that will be able
to transform your entire life through you listening to this
podcast. So if you are ready to stop
settling for the bare minimum and actually be the woman that
you can wake up in the morning and be proud of, you are in the
right place. Let's get into today's episode.
Hello, my loves. Welcome back to the Unfucky
Relationships podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Panning,
and this is episode 228. And today we're going to be
talking about how to enter your dark feminine era.
People get very, very confused by this because there is a lot
of talk on TikTok, especially around black cat energy, dark
femme energy, all of these things.
And it's actually very much a lot of myths and it's very like,
oh, it's about dark lipstick and, you know, dressing quite
vampy. And this is how you manipulate
men and, and all of the things. And so we're going to be
breaking down a lot of that and for you to actually enter your
authentic dark feminine era. So to break it down, your
feminine energy is essentially your internal world.
This is everything that happens when your eyes are closed,
right? So your emotions, your feelings,
your intuition, all of it. But then, and we also have
masculine energy. That's a different conversation.
So within those within feminine and masculine, we have the light
masculine and the dark masculine and the light feminine and the
dark feminine. And so the light feminine
typically has characteristics that this is really what people
think when they think like, oh, feminine energy.
They think light and flowing and soft, nurturing, maybe a bit
maternal, playful, open, a lot of heart, energy, a lot of in a
sense there's it feels quite youthful and quite light and
airy and bright. And then the dark feminine is a
lot about intuition and bold and being assertive and power and
sensual and sexuality lives in like, I mean, you could
sexuality could be in both, right?
It could be, well, you could have your sexuality in the
masculine. You could have your sexuality in
the light femme. You could have your sexuality in
the dark femme, but it's really that like seductress type energy
in the dark feminine. And your dark feminine can be
such a portal to your power as a woman.
And people get very threatened by this because women hold this
this internal power within them. But we've been taught that it is
scary. We've been taught that that is
too much. It's too bold.
It's you're too loud. It's you know, you're, you're
too emotional, you're too bossy. You're too, too, too, too, too,
too, too, too, too all of the things right.
Even I think, you know, during sex and getting like really like
animalistic and wild and primal and passionate.
It's like, whoa, turn it, turn it down right.
No go into your porn star archetype or, you know, just
like, yeah, no, it's nice versus actually being in your your
animal body, which is essentially like what this is
like. I think we forget that we are at
our core. We are animals, right?
As humans, we are animals at our core.
And so we have this animalistic primal nature, but we've been
taught to disconnect from that because we've been taught and
conditioned that that is not safe to do.
And this is one of the archetypes that we actually
explore at the awakening her retreat.
I'm not going to tell you what it is, but we really get into
this dark femme this, this primal wild sexual energy in a
really safe and contained way, which is really cool.
So again, what we see on social media is a very diluted surface
level way of looking at the dark feminine, which is again, ten
ways to manipulate a man you know, or your dark feminine
energy by doing the triangle method or here's a dark feminine
makeup tutorial. I love a dark feminine makeup
tutorial that is not going to help me access my dark feminine.
That might be an expression of my dark feminine.
So there is a difference and the reality of the dark feminine,
it's like it's earthy, it's in the body, it's very womb energy.
Even, you know, our this is the thing as women, it's like, oh, I
want to connect to my feminine energy.
And you just think that is about receiving part of your feminine
energy is like learning to love like your, your womb, your you
know, if you have a womb or even the energy of your womb and your
bleed like your, your menstrual blood, like connecting with it.
And I'm not saying that you need to put it on your face or you
need to fucking do anything with it, but just like it's not some
massive inconvenience. It's like, you know, it's like,
wow, what a beautiful thing. I remember actually when I was
getting off birth control years ago, I was like, yeah, I want to
get off birth control. I, you know, and she asked me
why. The doctor asked me why.
And I said, well, I really want to get my period back and I want
to connect with my cycle again. She was like, that's the best
part of being on birth control is that you don't have a period.
I'm like, I don't think that's healthy to not have a period for
three years. You know, like that's, so that's
part of it. It's like parting part of
recognizing our natural cycles as as women, right?
And connecting with our womb, with our blood, with our sex,
with our, with our carts, all of it.
And that is so much of the work this is, I'm laughing because
I'm like, this is actually such a different texture than a lot
of the podcast episodes that I have done.
This is, yeah, this is a lot of work that I'm very passionate
about. This is a lot of work that we do
inside the experience. And obviously at the retreats,
these will be the last ones that I run.
But this, this work I'm so passionate about, of helping
connect women to their feminine, their feminine essence of them
being woman, which is so beautiful.
So when we're thinking about myths of the feminine and like I
said, you know, those TikTok trends of, you know,
manipulation, sure, that is part of the dark femme, but that's
actually from the wounded feminine, right?
That is the part that is not clear because actually when
you're coming from an integrated dark feminine, you have clarity,
you have precision with your words, you are able to stay
calm, cool and collected. And this is one of the things
that is so beautiful in terms of the communication, the
communication of when you're communicating from, from the
feminine, there's no we, we think that because the feminine
is your internal world and it's your emotions.
You're running around screaming like a banshee and being
destructive and you're like a tornado and you leave a path of
destruction where you were. That's not necessarily the case.
You can actually be deeply integrated and grounded in your
emotions and you can feel anger and shame and guilt and sadness
and grief and betrayal and all of these things without spewing
it on to another person. You can share.
I'm really angry right now. I'm, I feel deeply betrayed.
I am pissed off without right and the dark femme that like I
said, there's a precision and there's a clarity.
There's self respect. I think self respect is such a
quality of the dark feminine. She's not willing to tolerate
shit from anyone and not from a space of superiority of thinking
that she's better than anyone or having these standards that are
so high that they become walls. No, there's still a softness.
One of the archetypes that we explore is the archetype of the
queen. And I say soft front, strong
back. You have a strong erect spine
where you can set boundaries and say no and have authority and
clarity. But you also have a soft open
heart. And there's compassion and
there's empathy. And this is where we get the
mixing of the, the, the light and the dark feminine, right?
So part of that though, is women are scared to be in their dark
femme because they don't want to be the villain.
And like I shared, we are conditioned that this is too
much. Women were burned at the stake
for this energy, right? We were called a witch if we
were direct and clear and in embodying our sexuality and our
sensuality and being playful and singing and dancing and
expressing, we were burned at the stake.
And that lives in our cells, that lives in our DNA.
That doesn't just go away. Even though that was, you know,
ages and ages and ages ago, it still lives in US, right?
These things get passed down through generation to generation
to generation. So there are things that it's
like I'm as a woman, as a as women, we have these collective
experiences and I don't have to have directly experienced it to
still feel the effects of it. Right.
So you may not have ever experienced a significant, you
know, quote UN quote, capital T trauma with a man, but you still
have that general maybe sense of fear of men.
OK, well, where does that come from?
Or let's take something actually, that's not really a
good example because I'm sure you could be like, well, here,
here, here, here, here. OK, cool.
Why does it feel so fucking scary to speak up in a meeting?
Why? You're not going to get punished
for it. No one's going to be mad at you.
Why does that feel so scary? Or to share your opinion with a
partner or a friend or speak up at A at a party.
Why? Because we have these collective
experiences that happened where we were punished, taken,
abducted, kidnapped for speaking up, for being bold.
And I know this might feel like a heavy episode, but it really
it, it's, it's that it's like, Oh my God, this like this.
It feels irrational. And I hear that from women all
the time. Like I don't know why I can't
just do it. So it's it's recognizing that
people pleasing is a fond response, right?
And people pleasers will crumble when they meet the dark femme.
And that is her beauty. She has the ability to slice
through all of the bullshit. And I think, well, yeah, I know
This is why people hire me. I had a session with a one to
one client the other day and she said it, you know, it was our
first session. And she said I was really
nervous for our session because I know that you, you are a seer
and you have the ability to see beyond the masks and facades
that I present. And I'm like, Yep, that is me.
I'm deeply intuitive and I can see beyond the bullshit.
That's what makes me so good at my job.
That is what helps you 10X your results, collapse time very,
very, very quickly and get results very, very, very, very
quickly. Rather than me sitting there and
justice coddling you and validating you.
I can see what's going on and This is why I've been able to
have what I have in my life because I can see through the
stuff and I'm willing to be the villain in someone's story.
And if you're going to enter your dark feminine era, then you
need to be willing to be the villain in someone else's story.
You need to have be willing to let people talk.
Let people say what they're going to say.
Let people think what they what they want to think.
You know your intentions. I'm sure I have pissed off some
clients with the reflections that I've given, but I'll tell
you what, 90% of them come around, whether it's the next
day, 2 weeks later, six months later, a year later, three years
later, and they go, you know what?
That thing that you fucking said to me, I was so triggered by it
and I hated you in the moment for saying that, but you were
right and it changed my life. And I'm like, right, because we
need that. So I was willing to wear the
label of being the villain in someone's story.
And I just have to trust that they're going to get exactly
what they need. And that's part of it is deep,
deep, deep trust. And being willing to be the
villain in someone's story can look a million different ways.
It doesn't have to just look like delivering an uncomfortable
truth to someone. It could be walking out of a
date where someone is being disrespectful.
It could look like saying no to plans that you want to do.
It could look like ending a friendship because it's no
longer aligned. It could look like leaving a
relationship that is unhealthy and toxic, or even just where
your needs are not being met. And the reality is, is that to
the wrong people, your boundaries will look like
aggression. And this is what I've said to I
was speaking to a client inside the experience a couple weeks
ago and she was unpacking her last relationship and how she
was showing up. And she's like, you know, I just
want to make sure that I do things differently in my next
relationship, right? And so we were unpacking, you
know, how because I had helped her through this relationship
and through then, you know, the, the ending of it as well.
And she was talking about, you know, he said this and I said
this. And here's how I communicated.
And I was communicating my needs and I was communicating my
boundaries. And here's how I said it.
And, and I was like, at the end of the day, you can communicate
something perfectly. I could give you a literal
script. You could read the book
Nonviolent Communication. You could communicate perfectly
and someone could still receive it as a personal attack.
So it's letting go of that, of knowing I know that I'm not
being aggressive, but you're reading it as that, and that is
not my work to do. And detaching and letting go.
The Dark Femme is very good at detachment.
If you're the woman who has consumed all of my podcast
episodes and other podcasts, and you've read the self help books
and you have done little master classes and you've dabbled here
and there, but you still keep repeating the same patterns in
your love life and in friendships and in money and all
of the things. And you're like, fuck, why do I
keep doing this? I need to put you on to
something that is the awakening retreats.
They're happening in January 2026, and they are the place
where you get to actually transcend this behavior and
finally get to do something different.
So your first retreat is going to be awakening her.
And this is where you are connecting to your feminine
energy, your pleasure, your devotion, your joy, your
ecstasy, your rage, your grief, all of these pieces.
So you get to live in totality of the woman that you are.
And also where you're going to have an opportunity to heal your
relationship with women. Because the more I work with
women, the more I realize how many women have felt betrayed by
other women almost more than they have felt betrayed by men.
And you're really focusing on healing your relationship to
yourself, to your body, to your sexuality, to your joy, to your
confidence, to your insecurities, all of the things.
And then your second retreat is awakening him.
And this is where we're anchoring into your masculine
energy. So your relationship to
responsibility and integrity, following through on the things
that you say that you're going to do, discipline, discernment,
direction, all of these things, and healing your relationship
with men, as well as then bringing this into a focus of
how do you then bring this into relationships?
So everything that you learned at awakening her and about
expansion and emotional expression and all of these
things, how do you then hold that containment and bring that
into your romantic relationships and your friendships?
And that is really the focus of awakening him.
You can choose to do either or, but I've designed them to go
together as a pair and that is what most women who have decided
to do the retreats are have chosen to do.
I do want to say these are the last retreats that I'm going to
be running. If you've been saying I'll go to
the next one or when you come to the States, I'll do it.
I'm never running one of the states.
I can tell you that right now and I'm not running more
retreats in the future. This is your time.
Make a fucking holiday out of it, come to Australia.
Most of the women who have signed up are coming from the US
which is very cool. DM me on Instagram if you have
any questions, otherwise the link will be at the description.
I cannot wait to see you there. Let's get back to the episode.
The next step to entering your dark feminine era is to raise
your standards. And I know we have talked about
this a lot around raising your standards but truly like I'm
just going to say it until the fucking cows come home.
You do not get your wants met. Get your standards met.
So for instance, I got this all the time where women would say
men only want me for sex. That's a pretty common
experience that I hear from women.
I have been on so many dates. Obviously I'm in a queer
relationship now, but I've been on so many dates with men since
I was 1617, eighteen years old. I'm now 36.
That has never ever been my experience.
Why? Because it is my standard that
people want to get to know me for me.
Do men want to sleep with me? Yes.
Do men find me attractive? Yes.
Men are men. Like, I hope that they find you
attractive and they want to sleep with you if you're on a
date with them. So I wouldn't be worried if
you're like, oh, my God. Like, I could tell that he,
like, wanted to have sex with. Yeah, probably you're an
attractive woman. So there's that.
But also, is he being respectful?
So I never experienced the man who just wanted to sleep with
me, and that was that. You know, I think that happened
maybe one time. Actually.
I remember this, Yeah, one time I slept with a guy and he fed me
all of this stuff about how he wanted me to go to his Christmas
party and all of the things. And I was like, OK, whatever.
And we ended up sleeping together and then I never heard
from him again. That was probably, I want to say
2019 or 2020. That man still watches every
single one of my Instagram Stories.
He does not follow me. So shout out to you.
You know who you are. So that was an isolated
incident, right? But we get what we accept.
So if you are constantly getting people who lie, people who don't
do not communicate, do you actually have standards?
Because The thing is, if you say that you have a standard, but
you go, oh, and you need to repeat it and repeat it and
repeat it and repeat it to someone, it's not a standard
because you would have actually just walked away by then.
And you can apply this to anything, dating, relationships,
sexuality, friendships, work, career, business, money.
What are your standards is, are your standards that you let your
bills always like default before you pay them, right?
Is your standard that you have you never go below having
$100,000 in the bank? Is your standard that you when
you're making an investment, you pay in full?
Is your standard that. You don't have debt.
Is your standard that your friends are honest with you or
is your standard that your relationships are reciprocal?
Is it your standard that your if you're going to pursue a
relationship with someone that your feelings are reciprocated?
Is it a standard that people follow through on what they say
they're going to do? Is it a standard that trust is a
non negotiable in your relationships so you can
actually look at, well, are these things happening?
You want to know how your what your standards are?
Look at what's actually happening in your world.
That's what your standards are because you're going to get what
your standards are. Your standards will always be
met. Your wants may not be.
So it's one thing for you to say, well, I really want a
person who who you know is romantic and goes out of his way
and is thoughtful and all of the things.
But if that's not showing up and you're continuing to entertain
that relationship, that's not a standard and high value self
respect, right? You, when you respect yourself,
you are a woman of high value and you know that your energy is
a currency and you are willing to withdraw your energy when
your standards are not being met.
That is part of the dark feminine, right?
I value myself. I value how I show up.
This is not meeting my standards.
I don't hate you. I have no ill will towards you.
I'm just removing myself from the situation.
The other thing that's really cool about being in your dark
feminine era is the dark feminine has a lot of mystery.
Like when I see the dark feminine, I just think of like
deep Violet tones and Blues and purples and deep Reds and very
vampy colors and, and smoke and fog and Moss and just like, oh,
it's like so earthy and beautiful and there's so much
mystery and intrigue. And I'm telling you that is so,
so, so magnetic. But what happens when people
tend typically do this work? They're like, OK, I'm going to
lean into vulnerability. And then they start sharing
every thought, every feeling, every trauma they've ever
experienced with people who have not earned the right to those
things. And they become an over sharer.
And I know you think that you're being vulnerable and that is
going to create connection. It may create temporary
connection. But I'm telling you, you will
kill all mystery, intrigue and polarity.
Like that's actually just not attractive.
And the dark feminine that is deeply selective, intentional
and discerning about who gets what parts of her, not from a
space of being like, oh, you know, it's not safe for me to
share that or having walls up. It's nothing to that effect.
It's actually about, I know my value and I'm discerning about
who gets what, who gets to hear what.
So she's actually quite calm, grounded, moves in silence, does
not need to announce her every move to the world.
She just does what she needs to do.
And there's a lot of silence as well.
And I remember this experience of being on a date with a guy
because this is a very leaned back energy, right?
And I was on a date with a guy and what typically happens is
you're uncomfortable with silence.
And so you'll fill, fill, fill, fill, fill, fill, fill, fill,
fill all of the silence with with words.
And I remember there was like a lull in the conversation.
And typically I would have literally leaned forward in my
seat and asked another question. But what I did was I just leaned
back in my seat and I maintained eye contact with him and just
kind of smirked. And I don't know, maybe I bit my
lip. I don't know.
I wasn't trying to do anything. I was just like, interesting.
Like I don't have anything to say right now.
So I'm comfortable in silence when I tell you that man
immediately leaned forward in his seat and started getting
really curious about me and that man.
I was like catnip to that man. He could not get enough.
And I was like, oh wow. Because there's such a like the
feminine pulls that her energy pulls in, right?
The masculine is penetrative energy, whereas the feminine
pulls and sucks in. And that was like such an
example of seeing that in real time of how cool that was of
just like literally when you are just kind of moving in silence
and you're OK with silence and you lean back and you just let
the let the energy do what it will.
That is incredibly magnetic. You know that person in the room
that they don't say much, but when they say something, it is
so potent. Be that girl.
And finally, to enter your dark feminine era, you need to be
self focused. You are not looking to every
Tom, Dick and Harry to give you advice about what to do.
You are not asking people for your next move.
It's OK for you to get reflections and have input, of
course, but you are making moves.
You are making moves in silence. You are choosing to prioritize
yourself from a space of self worth, self love, and self
respect and self-care. And so you're OK with saying no
to going to whatever event because you need to prioritize
your rest. You're OK with saying no to
after work drinks on a Wednesday because you're prioritizing your
health. You're OK with saying no to a
sleepover at this guy's house who you haven't even fucking met
because you have self respect. And that's fucking weird, right?
Like you are self focused. You know what you want out of
life, you are going for it and that's part of the masculine
energy. But you are using your intuition
to really feel out situations and people pleasing is deceased.
And when you are in your dark feminine era, there is no room
for people pleasing. So that part of you that is
overextending yourself and going beyond your boundaries, beyond
your limits, that just does not exist in this.
And truly the biggest gift that I have received from the dark
feminine has been through embodiment, through actually
feeling this in my body. People ask me, what books do you
have on feminine energy? What the fuck?
Like I, I, I hear you. I do.
But also the feminine is a felt experience.
It is literally an experience. Like that's why I called my year
long container the experience because this is what we do.
We embody the feminine and you can't just intellectualize this.
You can't just get it from a book.
This is why I have these retreats, awakening her and
awakening him for you to experience the feminine, for you
to experience the masculine so you can actually integrate it.
Because right now, if you're just accumulating knowledge,
like great. I've worked with multiple
coaches, therapists, teachers, all of these people who have
very, very, very high intellect. They know all of the things
about attachment and feminine energy and polarity and all the
things, but that's not making any difference in their life.
Why? Because embodiment is the
missing piece. They haven't actually landed it
in the body. And right now, like we're going
through the connected woman and we've done some embodiments and
they're like, Oh my God, these are the most incredible things
I've ever done. Like I when you explained it, I
was like, that sounds really stupid and that sounds silly.
But now that I've done it, that unlocked something in me that I
didn't even know that was there. And I tend to attract a lot of
people who, you know, you're very self aware, you
intellectualize your feelings. You can tell me all of your
traumas, where they came from, how old you were, how it plays
out in your relationships now, all of your patterns, all your
things, yet you keep doing the same thing.
Why? Because you have not discovered
embodiment yet, which is where you actually get to be in your
body and start to shift through these parts and you get to
activate your healthy feminine energy, not your wounded
feminine energy or your wounded masculine energy that wants to
go into control and contorting and needing everything to be a
certain way for you to feel safe in the world.
So these are the things that we work on at the retreats and
inside the experience and the connected woman.
So all the links will be in the description for you in the show
notes. I love you guys.
This has been a beautiful episode.
I will talk to you guys next week.
Bye, all right, my love. Thank you so much for listening
today's podcast episode. Take what resonates and leave
the rest. There is no obligation, but you
do have a responsibility to yourself to actually do the
work. So implement what you have
learned here. Let this episode be a reminder
that you are built for more. You are not built for the bare
minimum. You are not built for mediocre.
You are meant to live a big, beautiful old life.
And if you want to go deeper, come follow me over on Instagram
at Michelle Panning. The link will be in the
description, that is where I share all the behind the scenes
content and you will get to follow me and my journey as I
raise my standards alongside you.
So I love you, I believe in your next level and I will see you in
the next episode. Now go unbuck your life, babe.