"True femininity is power!"

Anja is a person who's purpose and confidence you can feel when you meet her. Her energy is consuming, and listening to her speak charges your soul and allows you to believe that you can achieve anything you want to.

Our theme is fearless -- tell me what that means to you.

I don't think being fearless is about having no fear, I think it's about not letting that fear control your decisions.  It's doing things even though you have that fear.

Do you feel fear motivates or holds you back?

Fear used to control me, but I think now it motivates me.  A lot of the time, I think when something scares you, it's good. It means you should definitely be doing it.

I also believe there are different types of fear. Once I was chased by a bear and I thought I was going to die. It taught me I can get through difficult things, like sleeping less than half a kilometer away from it with a tiny can of pepper spray in my hand. It wasn’t a profound change but rather a realization that I can survive.

Your poetry deals with the emotional spectrum. Tell me about that.

The emotional spectrum is the breadth and width of the emotions we have. We need to express all emotions--in the healthiest way possible. I think most people say love is the greatest emotion because it allows us to work through some blocks, but anger is also incredibly powerful, and so is fear, and they are not negative unless you allow them to be. The emotional spectrum is the extremes and in-betweens of all of these emotions.

What advice would you give to women moving through fear?

The best piece of advice I can give to women is to check out of the social norms of what a woman is supposed to be. That doesn't mean you don't paint your nails and watch romantic comedies, but I feel women stay in a state of fear because of the unknown. Women are not taught to use our bodies for protection and a lot of women don't know how to use their bodies in a compromising position. Fear holds women back from stepping forward and taking risks in life. Forget social norms. For powerful heterosexual women, sometimes we feel that if we show our power we will never find a man. True femininity is power. Once we are able to start to slowly unwind how we've been socialized- because it doesn't happen overnight -we can take more of our power back and be what we really are.

Posted by: Nicole Parmar

Photo Credit: Suzanne Rushton Photography