What does it mean to be a “gutsy woman”? Tap into your source of inner strength to express the courage and confidence you already possess.
A young woman quits her accounting job—it’s boring and the boss is asking her to cheat—and starts her own business as a copywriter. A single mother raises her daughters to walk with dignity and speak with self-respect. A woman in mid-life sells her house and moves halfway across the country to live in the mountains. An 83-year-old woman launches an affair with her 81-year-old neighbor.
These are some of the stories women tell me when I ask them: What does it mean to be a “gutsy woman”?
Gutsy Women You Know and Love
Take a scrap of paper and make two columns. Label one “Gutsy Women” and list five or ten women you admire. Label the second column “Qualities.” Across from each woman’s name, write the qualities she embodies.
My list includes poets Alice Walker and Glenis Redmond, activists Rosa Parks and Julia Butterfly Hill, and playwright Eve Ensler. Each has overcome adversity, exemplifying wisdom, grace, and an enduring sense of humor in the process. Each has been outspoken, taking a stand for peace, justice, and the dignity of life. Each has embodied courage without concern for others’ approval. Their actions inspire me. They make me feel all the more alive, more at home within myself. By my lights, these are gutsy women.
Take a look at your list. I’m guessing the women you’ve named show up as brave, daring, courageous. Attentive to their inner guidance. Self-determined, purposeful. Steadfast, persistent. Sensual, earthy. Self-validating. Creative. Compassionate.
Such qualities demonstrate a woman’s strength of character, the power of her soul in action. They are the definition of “gutsy.”
The word “gutsy” implies these qualities don’t live in our heads. They’re not mental constructs. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes in Women Who Run With the Wolves, a woman’s soul power “resides in the guts, not in the head.”
The guts? Yes, we’re talking about what’s probably your least favored body part: your belly. A gutsy woman is a woman who honors and activates the soul power concentrated within her body’s center, her belly.
Our English words “gutsy” and “guts” correspond to hara, the Japanese word meaning the belly as both the body’s mid-section and the origin of our life force. The single word hara identifies the belly, the body’s center, as our connection to Source Energy—the actuality of being alive.
Japanese phrases incorporating hara reveal the word’s rich meaning. For example: Haragei literally means “belly art”—an activity that’s accomplished perfectly yet effortlessly. Hara de kangaenasai means “please think with your belly”—tap into your essential wisdom. And Hara ga oki, “a grand belly,” refers to a person who is compassionate and generous.
Activate Your Self-Assurance
Remember a time when you demonstrated courage and a can-do attitude, a time when someone told you: “That took guts.” Whatever the situation, chances are that you were standing proudly, walking briskly, breathing fully, speaking with animation.
You were dynamic. You showed that you were ready, willing, and able to act energetically in a purposeful way. Your soul power was shining brightly.
The good news is that we can activate the soul power concentrated in our body’s center. We can express ourselves all the more as the gutsy women we already are. We can develop and direct our soul power with belly-energizing movement, breath, and body awareness.
Nearly twenty years ago I created a sequence of hara-charging exercises drawn from yoga and other healing arts. I needed to do so for my own healing—not only to develop self-confidence but also to move beyond the cycle of dieting and bingeing that had entangled me for years.
I’ve practiced that belly-energizing sequence almost daily for nearly two decades and have shared it widely as “The Gutsy Women’s Workout.” One woman tells me: “This practice has taken me from feeling suppressed and shameful into a functional and powerful woman.”
Another says: “After a month of struggle with depression, confusion, low energy, and no motivation, I woke up one morning and did my belly exercises. I felt energy, strength, and power throughout the day and into the evening. Now I feel energized and alert. I look forward to new horizons with a high-charge drive coming from within.”
Urged as we are to shame our bellies and ignore our gut feelings, it’s a daring act to honor our bellies and the soul power they contain. Yet as we do so, we reap all the satisfactions—vitality, creativity, confidence, sense of purpose, and more—of living a gutsy life.
