All communication begins with intention. A loving word, or flipping someone the bird. A treatise on feminism, or an ageist tweet out to your peers. I’m always looking for the why behind the what — what was her motivation? What made him say that? Is it Love, or narcissism or a bit of both? Is it self serving or service to the collective — can it ever be both? Are we acting out from our wounds, or our wholeness?

I recently re-posted an article about Kim Kardashian’s nude selfies because I agreed with the writer’s take: that maybe the empowerment Kim gets from her tweeting out her ta-ta’s doesn’t necessarily translate to being empowering for like, all of womankind. It’s empowering for Kim, she’s proud of her hot bod, as any woman would be. So go ahead, get naked on social if it feels right for you. We live in a relative democracy and thousands of women before us plowed hard ground for us to be able vote and go topless in town without getting arrested. (At least you can do that in the city I live in. Save for those long-gone days when I breast-fed my baby in the park, I’ve yet to exercise my legal rights to top-half nekkedness in public. But it’s comforting to know that if I lost my fucking mind and hit the grocery store with boobage unfurled, I wouldn’t go to jail for it.)

Here it is: Nakedness, fierceness, flaunted sexuality, and massive wealth aren’t necessarily hallmarks of an empowered woman. And sometimes, those are exactly the hallmarks of her empowerment. It depends on the woman’s intention.

If a woman is flaunting her stuff, then What’s the intention behind the flaunt? Is it cause-crusading or just parading? Either is cool. I love a cause — I wish more of us had them. I love a great marketing parade. I earn my living by being a public person and my own Instagram has plenty of flaunt to it.

Let’s just be genuine about our intentions — especially the publicly shared intentions. And let’s all be asking deeper questions about ENERGY + INTENTION, so that we as media consumers, as women who are looking to each other for answers — are not absorbing ideas about empowerment that don’t fit the shape of our Soul.

And by truly empowered I mean: bringing forward one’s genuine and whole self in service to the world.

Check the video. I was on my way to catch a plane, so it’s one shot, no edits:

• The difference between being discerning and judgmental.

• How expressing your opinions is how you make art out of your life.

• Feminism is not gender-specific. It’s a consciousness.

• Why sometimes you need to call out one woman on behalf of all of the other women you want to uplift and protect.

And, if I had a teenage daughter, what would I be telling her?

Love your face the way it is. You don’t have to spray paint it and stuff it. You can have an empire without commoditizing your body, you are more than just hypersexuality. Rock your sexy — for-fucking-sure, it’s part of your power and it’s part of the whole package — but you are the opinions and ideas that you bring to the table. You are the love and the energy that fills the room when you enter it. You are the strength of femininity, which is all about inclusivity — and discernment.

All Love,