Well Woman Interview: Georgiana
Georgiana Johnson caught my attention from the minute I saw her. She’s a ray of light, with glowing eyes and a slow, telling, wise voice that soothes with its english accent. Fast, old friends we became. She’s a fascinating woman with winding life experience. You can trust her to tell you something brutally honest or verging the unbelievable. But you’ll believe her. Like the one time she explained to me how when a women is pregnant with a baby girl, the mother is holding every future generation inside of her, through the finite number of eggs forming inside her daughter.
“A new born baby girl is born with egg cell (oocytes) in her ovaries. Between 16 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, the ovaries of a female fetus contain 6 to 7 million oocytes. Most of the oocytes gradually waste away, leaving about 1 to 2 million present at birth. None develop after birth.”
I mean. You get it. She’s a special woman.
She will read your astrological chart, tell you everything you need to know about women’s sexual health, kundalini yoga and elevating ones consciousness. She will swear, she will tell the truth because she stands powerfully in her own. Her ability to take a bird’s eye perspective on a scenario is something I value immensely in our friendship.
She is a force with nature and I’m delighted to share her interview with photos from a morning we spent at her beautiful home in Venice, California where she welcomed my mom and I one sunny afternoon last December.
Tell us about yourself.
I’m originally from London. At 18, after being freed from school, I escaped to Calcutta, India and have been living abroad ever since. My favourite quality is my optimism, I live to play.
What are your morning rituals? What is the first thing you do when you rise?
The first thing I do is measure my basal body temperature with my Wink thermometer by Kindara. This then syncs automatically with the fertility app in my phone, allowing me to see where I am in my cycle. Then I snuggle back into my body and bed sheets, slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am awake – I admit it’s not my finest moment. Never the less, I relish that little moment I have with myself before I’m released into the day. I listen to my breath. Lengthen my inhale and exhale, wiggle my toes, get into my body, stretch.
What is your philosophy on food + nourishment?
Information about nutrition is useful, however building a relationship with your body based on listening and feeling, is like gaining a great friend. Our body is very honest and has lots to teach us.
Quality of food is very important and so is quality of mind. How do you feed your mind?
‘I’m just passing through’ is something I remind myself of all the time. Everything is temporary. My mind is probably hungrier than my body. I’m always studying something and have an addiction to buying books. I’m also very lucky to have come across some invaluable teachers in my life who I’ve studied with privately.
What does self-care look like?
Self-care for me is knowing that time is the most valuable thing I have, and so I’m very selective with how I choose to spend it. I enjoy being happy and balanced, so I tend to make all my choices around this requirement. Self-care for me happens all day every day!
When do you feel your most radiant? Has your idea of beauty shifted over your life?
I feel my most radiant when I’m in nature. In nature there are no mirrors hanging on the walls, I look down at my feet and they aren’t separate from the earth. I touch the tree with my fingers and I am not separate from the forest, my hair is a part of the breeze. This makes me buzz all over. My life is revealing to me that true beauty is a spectrum and beyond what the eye can see.
How do we teach women bravery instead of perfection?
We lead by example. We are all unique, each of us with our own powerful gifts that are real and worth something. We must discover who we are and what our strengths are, and then go for it with abandon. I find this is really inspiring.
What does it mean to you to feel powerful as a woman? Are there specific qualities you experience and feel?
For me, power is about trusting myself and my experience of life. When I trust myself I feel completely full like the ocean and that I have nothing to lose.
History illustrates that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac in a man. As we shift into a more conscious era and as gender norms change, what do you feel is the ultimate aphrodisiac in your partner?
When a man is connected to his heart, self-aware, responsible, experienced and bold enough to communicate with me honestly, that gets my attention. Also, laughter.
What advice would you share with other woman to empower them to feel strong and confident?
It is time to build a loving, loyal relationship with yourself. What are you good at? What do you enjoy? What do you find interesting? What makes you laugh? Do more of that. Leave the rest.
How do you envision the future of healthcare?
I dream of a world where pregnancy and childbirth are trusted. I dream of mamas feeling respected and safe whilst birthing. I dream of young people being properly educated about their sexual health from the beginning, especially young women when it comes to birth control. I am a Fertility Awareness Method advocate, the pill is being handed out to women like candy and it’s a group 1 carcinogen.
What do you feel is your most feminine quality?
My voice.
There are many important topics that women don’t speak about too often. In an effort to open this dialogue up, can you share something you don’t often speak about?
I believe there is a need to look at the relationship we have with our mothers. Mother’s are the golden keys to our lineage. If we recognize what our mother couldn’t give us, because her own mother didn’t give that to her, then we can develop what we need for ourselves. And somehow reach into the past and soothe it, whilst at the same time enrich our future lineage beyond us.
What does it mean to you to be a Well Woman?
I see an image of a well of water reaching deep down into the earth. Into the darkness. The water within the well is primordial and symbolic of the wisdom that we all contain as women. At the center of the earth all the wells of the world meet at that one single source of deathless water.
Tonya Papanikolov, BSc, CNP
