This is FEC: a women’s circle in Barcelona you can call home.

Hi, I’m Leilany, and I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to self-empowerment practices for women. I’m based in Castelldefels, just outside Barcelona these days, but I started the Feminine Empowerment Collective, FEC for short, in my hometown of San Diego, back in 2021.

FEC began as an answer to something I kept hearing from the women around me: a need for a space where women could share, be seen, and flourish alongside other women.

A space to safely explore the changes in our lives, our transformations, and that ancient desire for sisterhood. Our ancestors gathered in circles during full moons, in sacred moments through their menstrual cycles. They had elders to turn to with questions about their transformations, moving from girlhood to womanhood, and sometimes to motherhood. They flourished in community. It’s no wonder we still seek this.

Today, we often live separated from our sisters, unsure of who to turn to for compassion and understanding.

FEC became a space where women from many walks of life came to share in that sisterhood. Over time, it grew into a group of women sharing gifts from many different paths; therapy, acupuncture, astrology, nutrition, movement, art, creativity. I facilitated most of our sessions myself, guided meditations, tools for working through anger, inner child healing practices. But every so often, a woman in our circle would bring something of her own to share too, a belly dance class, a cacao ceremony.

Always lunar, always cozy, always a little bit magical.

I left San Diego in 2023 to move to Europe, and I miss the sister circle I helped shape there. I trust that same magic is possible here, near Barcelona, too.