Freyja: The Goddess Who Refused Shame
Article · 4 min read ·
No one else decides your fate.
Freyja wanted the Brísingamen necklace.
Four dwarf brothers had crafted it and it was the most beautiful piece of jewelry ever made. It glowed with its own light, radiant with power and intention. When Freyja saw it, she recognized it as something that belonged with her story.
She offered to buy it. They refused. Not for gold. Not for trade. Not for any price she could offer.
Instead, they named a different kind of exchange: one night with each of them. Four nights. One necklace. And Freyja chose to accept. She spent a night with each dwarf. She claimed the necklace. She wore it openly.
Later tellings of this myth often frame the story as a scandal, proof of Freyja’s excess, her appetite, her supposed lack of restraint. A story meant to caution rather than understand.
But what’s striking is what doesn’t appear in the myth: Freyja does not express regret. She does not hide her choice. She does not perform shame. She wanted the necklace. She understood the terms. She chose with clarity. And the Brísingamen becomes not a mark of disgrace, but a symbol of her power. For Freyja, sovereignty means taking responsibility for one’s choices, not avoiding them, and not allowing others to rewrite them as moral failure.
The Teaching: Conscious Choice and Sovereignty
The Brísingamen story is often used as a warning about female desire, about wanting too much, about crossing invisible lines, about the supposed dangers of women claiming power openly.
But read more closely, and a different teaching emerges. Freyja does not act impulsively. She does not deceive. She does not deny the nature of the exchange. She chooses knowingly, accepts the consequences, and integrates the choice into her identity.
This is not a story about recklessness. It’s a story about agency. The discomfort around Freyja’s choice does not come from harm done, but from autonomy exercised. From a woman refusing to let others define what her desire means, or what it costs. The shame attached to this story does not belong to Freyja. It belongs to a culture that struggles with women who trust themselves.
Shadow Work: Untangling Shame from Responsibility
Where have you been taught to confuse responsibility with shame? There is a difference between reflecting on choices that violated your values and carrying shame for choices that simply made others uncomfortable. Sexuality, ambition, desire, negotiation, visibility; many forms of power are labeled “problematic” when exercised openly, especially by women.
The question is not “Was this approved?” The question is “Was this chosen consciously, aligned with my values, and owned fully?”
Shame is useful when it points us back to integrity. But shame that exists only to shrink autonomy is not guidance; it’s containment.
The Practice: Releasing What Isn’t Yours
This is not about performing shamelessness. It’s not about shock value or rebellion for its own sake. This is about the quiet, radical act of refusing to carry shame that was never yours.
Identify what’s actually yours.
Shame has a purpose when you’ve violated your own values, harmed someone, or crossed a line you genuinely believe matters. That kind of shame carries information. It can guide repair and growth. But most of the shame you carry? It isn’t yours. It was placed on you by systems, cultures, and people who needed you to feel wrong in order to control you. Freyja’s “shame” isn’t about harm. It’s about autonomy. And shame born from someone else’s discomfort with your power does not belong to you.
Name the difference.
When shame arises, ask:
- What value of mine did I violate?
- Who was actually harmed?
- Or is this about someone else’s discomfort with my autonomy?
If it’s the latter, that shame isn’t yours. You’re carrying someone else’s fear your sovereignty.
Wear your choices.
Freyja doesn’t hide the Brísingamen. She wears it. What are you hiding because you were taught to be ashamed? Privacy and sovereignty are not the same thing.
Notice the difference between:
- “I choose not to share this.”
- “I’m hiding this because I’m ashamed.”
One is power. One is learned containment.
Refuse the performance of regret
People will expect apology where none is owed. They will want you smaller. Softer. Ashamed. You don’t have to perform regret you don’t feel. You don’t have to apologize for choices you’d make again.
State your choices. Live with them openly. Let others sit with their discomfort.
The Truth Beneath the Myth
The Brísingamen story is not about sex alone. It is about the right to choose, and to live in integrity with that choice. Sovereignty does not mean ignoring consequences. It means accepting them without self-erasure.
Freyja’s body is hers. Her desire is hers. Her accountability is hers. And none of that requires shame.
Closing Reflection
What choices in your life have you fully owned, but quietly carried shame for anyway? What would change if you separated responsibility from self-condemnation?
Freyja wears the Brísingamen openly, not as provocation, but as integration. A reminder that power claimed consciously does not need to be hidden.
Your body. Your choices. Your sovereignty.
Held with awareness. Lived without shame.
Read more
Comments
Show more