4 Pillars PIES Practice for Developing Feminine Leadership

The 4 pillars of feminine leadership development is based on PIES Practice, which is the engagement and management of our primary energy centers to create grounding and balance within ourselves so that we can create grounding and balance outside of ourselves. 

We engage in 4 pillars PIES practice in our healing, base building, training, leadership development and direct action as a way of keeping our justice and liberation work focused on a conversation that impacts every single one of us – regardless of our identities and geographies - and that we can all be in together, if we so choose: a conversation about our humanity. 

We start with spiritual energy because we start with our SELVES and with grounding ourselves in our own unique contribution. 

Spiritual Energy | Story Sharing

Spiritual energy is the fire in our bellies, our core motivation, the home of our deepest self-interests. Story sharing allows us to share and to reflect upon our experiences to better understand our needs, our beliefs, and what makes us who we are. Sharing our stories with others allows them to see the truth of us rather than the stories they’ve been told about people like us. Story sharing is at the heart of all authentic relationality.

Emotional Energy | Healing Practice 

Emotions are complex and teach us about our past experiences and our current needs. Healing practice allows for us to express and examine our emotions so that we can learn the lessons from past experience and have a better grasp on negotiating our needs in the present moment. There is a significant amount of embodied confusion and misinformation about the purpose and function of our emotions. This misinformation, along with oppressive experiences involving emotions, compel us to automatically suppress our emotional expression, and the emotional expression of others. Political Healers project aims to provide healing practice that works to heal past trauma AND heal the trauma associated with suppressing emotions. Emotional healing is a key component to authentic expression. 

Intellectual Energy | Political Education

Intellectual energy fuels our thoughts and beliefs, as well as our mental/thinking power in any given moment. Intellectual energy has historically been lauded over emotional energy; in normative society thinking and reasoning is deemed better than feeling and emoting. The distinguishing between intellectual energy from emotional energy is a classic demonstration of the dominating belief that masculine energy (intellectual/logical) is superior and therefore preferred over feminine energy (emotional/abstract). Emotional intelligence is at the heart of wisdom and wisdom keeps intellectual energy sharp and grounded in composite and collective energies.

Physical Energy | Call-to-Action

Physical energy fuels our physical actions and motor skills, and has very real and definable limitations. Physical energy has historically been lauded over emotional and spiritual energies; in normative society action (even poor action) is deemed better than emotional expression. Physical energy is fueled by all of the previous energy centers, but can also be fueled by trauma responses when other energy centers are low and action is still “required.” Remember that threat responses are all action-related: Fight, flight, freeze submit. Every person must learn to move at the speed of trust that works for them, in all of their PIES, but this is particularly true for physical energy centers. On a collective level, however, both action and inaction have consequences. Wisdom and strategy are needed for a collective to act within a range of manageable consequences. For a collective, to NOT act in an area is to sanction the actions of others in that area.