Forgiveness and Feminine Power

Twelve years ago, sparked by a difficult transition to motherhood, I began studying the soul-quenching world of feminine power.

 

On this path I learned all about:

 

  • Sisterhood – I became part of a community of women that truly saw and celebrated each other.
  • Desires – and we lived in sacred alignment with our deepest desires.
  • Self-love – and in a societal sea of fear-based messaging, self-love was the boat we sailed.

Finding this path was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It lit up my relationships, intuition, creativity, and overall confidence. It was such a positive force in my life that I went on to create retreats and workshops working with these teachings.

 


“I received a message from the universe that simply said: Forgive.”


 

Back then, if you asked me about forgiveness, I probably would have suggested that forgiveness was a religious concept that instructed pardoning. Being a psychotherapist at the time and hearing challenging stories daily, I also may have added that forgiveness was a nice idea, but not for everyone. Some things were just too painful to forgive.

But then something intense happened to me: I was betrayed by someone I trusted. And I lost something I deeply loved.

Initially, I looked on the bright side. The relationship certainly had its problems, and there was a genuine part of me that was relieved it had come to an irreconcilable end.

I also had so much to be grateful for and even more to look forward to. I vowed not to let the loss bring me down.

However, as months passed, whenever I thought about what happened, I would feel an undeniable ball of resentment in my gut that made me think: “That. Was. So. Wrong.” My mind struggled to comprehend that it even happened.

So there I was on the path of feminine power that stood for:

 

  • Sisterhood – and a trusted female relationship had imploded.
  • Desire — and what I had desired was lost.
  • Self-love — and self-doubt rained down on me.

 

I was in the deep hole of betrayal’s aftermath, and I hung out there for three very long years. And then one dark evening in October 2012, I received a message from the universe that simply said: “Forgive.” 

I initially balked at this idea as I had no desire to let anyone off the hook. But the message was so clear that I reluctantly accepted the directive and began researching the world of forgiveness.

Three weeks later, my resentment was gone. I felt peaceful, and my faith in my myself and the universe was restored. I was wowed.

 


“Forgiveness is a spiritual experience that heals betrayal.

It is very powerful and sits at the core of feminine power.” 



 

Fast forward to today.

Over the past 12 years I have observed the rise of feminine power, and while “We can do it!” is the awesome and accurate collective cheer, becoming and achieving are never straight lines. Loss, setbacks, and failure are always part of our feminine path.

Whatever the story, it is imperative to the success and fruition of feminine power that we transform hardships into the highest force for good.

That’s where forgiveness comes in.

Betrayal is when someone or something you trusted fails you. It often results in a grudge, a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment.

Ask yourself: Am I carrying a feeling of ill will or resentment towards another or myself?

Or, does your body cringe or contract when you think of a difficult time in the past?

If you answered “yes” to either of these questions then ask yourself — are these feelings helping me to:

 

  • Attract and sustain the types of relationships I deeply crave?
  • Align with and attain my desires?
  • Trust my intuition?
  • Live creatively?
  • Be courageous?
  • Love myself?

 

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, then your feminine power is likely being held back by something in the past.

Forgiveness not only untangles you from the past, but in doing so, unblocks the vast potential of your feminine essence.

And this is why today, when someone asks me my thoughts on forgiveness, my eyes twinkle as I say, “Forgiveness is a spiritual experience that heals betrayal. It’s very powerful and is at the core of feminine power.”

 

Ask to Learn New Things: Six Steps to Expand Your Feminine Power

We women are often blocked when it comes to asking for what we want.

This holds true even when it comes to asking for additional training at work. Maybe you were taught to be polite and to go for what you want – but only if you weren’t too demanding? As women … how do we best reconcile that?

In researching my book Pause  (and stretching personally to make bold asks) I created a six-step plan for women: How to negotiate to learn new things at work.

Honoring your deepest desires to learn and grow while voicing them is also an act of self-care – and one that can pay off in spades.

No matter what skill I am working on, I am becoming a more empowered feminine leader when I ask for support … and influence others based on what I’ve learned.

For the past several years, I’ve made bold asks from my employer to support and cover trainings including coaching certification, graduate and non-accredited courses, week-long emotional intelligence leadership retreats, and somatic leadership training.

Blaze on and trust your feminine intuition to make your bold ask. If you do get a no, all it means is “no for now.”

Improving our skills and being exposed to new ideas not only makes us better at our jobs but makes us happier and more engaged at work.

This is also true if you are struggling on the work-life balance beam.

It can be tough to find the time and resources for anything that’s selfishly for you, let alone for your own personal development. I encourage you to stay the course, tap into your hungers – and then go for it!

The pre-requisite: Give yourself permission.

Women often believe that asking for what we want is a selfish act, or perhaps our time should be spent elsewhere. Not true! We women are limitless!

The moment you decide to go for something, pause and trust … you can create space for it to happen … with a little intention, planning and support.

 

  1. Identify how you want to learn and grow.
    Get clear on exactly what you want to learn and how you want to do it. Do you want to build your emotional intelligence skills to be a more attuned business leader? Are you interested in a yoga or meditation retreat? Set aside a specific period of time, such as an hour, one evening or even a weekend to explore ideas. Research what appeals to you. Be vigilant and create boundaries for yourself to get it done. Journal or write it down.Research shows that writing has a neurological effect on the brain, effectively saying: “Wake up and pay attention!” When you write you honor the feminine value of creating.
  2. Own it.
    Women are especially prone to think that if we need to study up on something, we lack a competency or have a particular weakness. Not true! View this as a skill to develop. Step into owning it as part of your commitment to your emerging feminine leader. The first step is the ability to own your desire to grow in this area … and that will ripple into the work arena. If you don’t support yourself, no one else will.
  3. Create your vision statement.
    This is a powerful feminine leadership move. Create your vision statement and orient from there. Visions guide us to think big and are generative from a vast open world of possibilities. They infer possibility and are a beacon … a hint of the person we can become. Ask yourself, “Who will I become as a result of this investment in my time and resources?” Will you be more engaged, influential or mindful? Be specific and descriptive. Keep it in the first person. One sentence is ideal. Write it down, read it daily, and continue to refine it as you evolve.
  4. Connect your goals or outcomes to your employer needs.
    These are more specific to task outcomes and can flow easily once you’ve created your vision. To get buy-in from your manager, team, or company, connect what you will gain to their business objectives.

    Are there issues at work that you could better resolve as a result of this training? In what ways will your company benefit from your improved performance, skills or knowledge?

    What specific skills or knowledge can you share with your manager, team, and/or company from your training or experience? Can you provide a recap (verbally or visually) based on what you learned or how you plan to apply this at work or in your career?

  5. Prep and practice.
    Get ready for the conversation and to make your ask. What are the worst and best-case scenarios? Anticipate questions or concerns. Extra credit if you make your own note cards or flash cards. To my knowledge, nobody I know was let go for asking to learn more. Trust that you are prepared while you acknowledge any fear. Anticipate negotiating, or the opportunity to explore alternatives. Figure out how you will celebrate when you receive that long awaited: “Yes”.

    List out what is negotiable – things like timing, budget and activity. Is partial or full reimbursement possible? Can you avoid using vacation days? One colleague of mine negotiated a week-long leadership retreat where her manager agreed to only log 50 percent for vacation time – that’s 2.5 days she got back in vacation!

    When preparing for your conversation, think specifically about what each person involved in making the decision has to gain. Do your homework and read up on HR policies. Know how educational reimbursement works in your company.

  6. Make your ask. When you’re ready to sit down with your manager, don’t catch them off guard. Give them ample notice and consider adding it to the agenda for your next one-on-one meeting. It doesn’t have to be a formal meeting. If you’re catching up on how your weekend was, make a plug for what class caught your eye and why it matters to you. Better yet, offer how you think it helps you be a better leader in the workplace. Offer to provide a recap or follow up training based on what you learned open to the whole team or organization. If more time is needed, offer to schedule more time to discuss further.

    Recap your vision and goals. Be clear about what exactly you’re asking for – is it for time off, compensation (expenses), or some combination of the two? What will they get in return? Refer to your notes if needed. When the conversation is over, consider following up in writing, emphasizing how this would benefit you and your manager, team or business.

    Be grateful! As a feminine leader, you can be grateful for so much and send gratitude to others. Whether it’s in silence in a full conference room or with your manager, or as you pass someone in the hall, an attitude of gratitude never hurts when it comes to making bold asks. An example is, “Thank you [MANAGER NAME] for supporting me and helping me reach my potential.”

There are three likely outcomes: getting what you’ve asked for, getting some of what you asked for, or getting a flat out “no.”

By following these steps, you will increase your chances of getting a favorable outcome. Even if you get a no, think about how you could reshape your ask for the future.

Remember, just by making your bold ask you are contributing to, and maybe even igniting, a corporate culture that supports individuals to learn and grow in ways beyond the status quo. And that is leadership.

From Adrenalin to Inspiration: The Burnout Solution

How breaking our addiction to excitement helps us access our natural, sustainable energy.

Most people intuitively get the concept of switching your energy source from “adrenalin to inspiration.”  It’s actually quite similar to switching from oil to solar power. One form of energy creates negative consequences and is limited, and the other is sustainable and life regenerating. We can grasp this concept for our homes or cars, but what about our bodies and our being?

What I call “authentic” or “connected” power is the source of inspired energy. This is the place where we are in tune with ourselves, nature and others. When we are in tune with our authentic power, we naturally source from inspiration. Disconnected, or reactive, power acts through selfish competition, survival, and without regard for others. When we are sourcing from disconnection, we tap into adrenalin. We need to rush, be busy, not be lazy, and get it done when we are in an adrenalin state.

Most people mistake excitement for energy. Energy is energy, excitement is a heightened state which can burn out your natural energy reserves. This one discernment can change your life. Read on to understand the subtleties.

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What is living from adrenalin?

For the most part, many of us use our stress response and adrenalin to increase productivity. We think this is the source of energy – it’s the source of the “just do it” mentality. The greater the pain, the greater the gain, so we push through and engage in a competition to determine who can work the most hours and juggle the most activities.

As a society, we are low-level adrenalin junkies. We chase it through caffeine, reality TV, dramatic relationships, Facebook, twitter, constant stimuli, and avoiding silence and stillness. Whether people know it or not, they tend to rely on adrenalin as their main energy source.

But this strategy is excitement masquerading as life-force. Living this way creates high periods of productivity, but they are always followed by the inevitable crash. That crash leaves us feeling low, disheartened, and guilty about doing nothing. Does this sound familiar to you?  Here are few more examples in order to determine if you are sourcing your energy from adrenalin.

Signs and Symptoms YOU Are Using Adrenalin as Energy

  • You can go for HOURS with no food or breaks and be very productive, but then you reach a limit after a couple days or on Fridays when you just can’t conjure up the energy anymore
  • You feel if you stop for one second you will “get behind”
  • Fear fuels your motivation
  • You never feel like you “get there”
  • You get snippy and irritable
  • You procrastinate on what matters, but busy yourself with other work (My house is very clean during tax season.)
  • You experience a lack of self-confidence, fraud syndrome, and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
  • You are never really full, content, or peaceful but you work hard to convince the world that you are

There is another way! When we are stressed, we cannot access the problem-solving state of mind necessary to relieve our stress. We cannot access intuition and imagination, and yes INSPIRATION. It’s hard to see what’s missing when we’re in this adrenalin soaked, spazzy place. But when we are able to shift to living from inspiration—to a state of connectedness and expansiveness—suddenly what we need becomes as obvious to us as getting a glass of water when we’re thirsty.

What does living from Inspiration look like?

Here are the possible benefits of shifting from adrenalin to inspiration:

  • Knowing you are enough, you matter, and your life is purposeful
  • Not requiring outside validation to feel on track in life or on a project
  • You operate from a place of: “I’m worthy, deserving, and good enough now. From this place, I can create whatever I put my mind and heart to”
  • Joy is regularly accessible
  • Your cell phone connection to the big boss of infinite wisdom is your intuition
  • You become inspired, feeling the desire from within to complete a task and you become an overflowing cup, rather than scraping from the bottom of your will power
  • You are pulled by your visions, rather than pushed by your self-criticisms

Simple Steps to Implement Inspiration Energy Into Your Life

I highly recommend stopping the search of what to do, and connect to your own inspired state to ask what you need. You know. I know you know. Now love yourself enough to do it, and be it. Remember, living things need life-sustaining nourishment. We need:

  • water
  • sleep
  • rest and work, ebb and flow
  • food that has nutrition for energy
  • the Sun
  • connection to other living things

You get the picture – doing what lights you up, nourishes you, makes you feel content.

Meditation Injection

Meditation can help train your connection to your inspired state of being. Here’s a quick practice I call Meditation Injection. It can take place during red lights in your car, bathroom breaks, elevators, waiting on the phone or in a line, waking up or falling asleep, commercial breaks, and so on. Giving yourself an uninterrupted two to five minutes is great. They key is to do what you know you will maintain. Here’s a tip: Set a reminder in your phone to remind you do this Meditation Injection.

Begin to breathe and notice how it feels. Feel the sensations: warm, cold, tingly, or perhaps numb, vacant.  You can’t get this wrong, just feel and notice. Feel your breath, notice and inhale and exhale. Notice how your body keeps you alive effortlessly. Notice that it’s all being done for you. The Earth is spinning and gravity is holding you in place. You are basically being hugged by the earth’s magnetic core. You might sigh or you might even tear up with relief and recognition. Inhale. Exhale.

Welcome back home – to being you and being connected to life.

Now you can get back to work and be your awesome, inspired self!


The Emerging Women Leadership Platform is dedicated to supporting learning and collaboration that integrates feminine leadership and catalyzes a vision for a thriving future. Start your 30 day free trial to get in on the live webinars, practices, and connection now!

Our Top 9 Fave Wisdom Quotes from Emerging Women Live 2015 Power Talks

If you loved our Emerging Women Live 2015 keynote speakers, don’t miss the wisdom from our Emerging Short talks, too. These power talks let us hear from a diverse group of women who are positively using their feminine leadership to change the world. We’ve sifted through our notes and gathered our top nine favorite quotes.

Be sure to catch these brilliant women on the live stream archive, which will be available for replay until Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015.

 

  1. Vicki Saunders (Founder of SheEO)

“We (as women) have not been at the table for designing this world. We need to be there for VERSION 2.0. We all need to redesign this world desperately.” twitter

 

  1. Wokie Nwabueze(Founder of Women Prepared to Lead)

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“When you can become enchanted by who you are, when you can forgive the part of you that betrayed you, then you will be seen and heard and nothing less than captivating.” twitter

 

  1. Promise Phelon (CEO of TapInfluence)

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“Grit is the sand that is exfoliating the path of where you want to go.” twitter

 

  1. Anese Cavanaugh (Creator of IEP Method)

“People often think it is the doing that is going to impact, what actually is more powerful is our presence.” twitter

 

  1. Neha Sangwan, MD(Founder of Intuitive Intelligence and Author of TalkRx)

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“It’s impossible to prove something to others that you don’t believe yourself.” twitter

 

  1. Johanna Jackman (Senior Director at LinkedIn)

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“Vulnerability plus tenacity – they are the platform for being truly authentic.” twitter

 

  1. Natalia Oberti Noguera (Founder/CEO of Pipeline Angel Fellowship)

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“Privilege is like oxygen, you don’t know it is there until it is gone.” twitter

 

  1. Guru Jagat (founder of the RA MA Institute)

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“It’s important for us to train our mind to consolidate our energy, so that we then can use that energy for a true revolution.” twitter

 

  1. Sahar Paz (Author, Speaker and Life Coach)

“Don’t let your shero cape, become a veil.” twitter

Free Online Seminar – 3 Keys to Feminine Power

We’re happy to share a special invitation from our good friend Claire Zammit, PhDc, to attend her FREE online seminar for women: “The 3 Keys to Feminine Power.”

Claire is the leader of the Feminine Power global learning community and co-founder of Evolving Wisdom, and has helped more than 300,000 women worldwide create extraordinary lives.

Register Here as Our Guest—The 3 Keys to Feminine Power

During the event, Claire will reveal her groundbreaking approach for generating genuine intimacy, deeper connection, creative expression, supportive community, meaningful contribution, and authentic success.

three keys We believe that women will play a profound role in creating a better world for us all – don’t you? Learn how to step into your own power to create the future you dream of with Claire’s free online training.

Discover Your Feminine Power — At No Charge!

We look forward to hearing about your experience. Please come back to this post and let us know what you thought about the class in the comments section below!

Juicy Bites: Your Voices ~ Sharing Experiences

This week, Juicy Bites is all about YOU and how you experienced Emerging Women Live 2014. Emerging Women is all about your strong voices, and we love the beautiful and varied ways you speak about October’s event.

So whether you joined us in NYC, tuned in via livestream, or gleaned inspiration via social media, we encourage you to join in the conversation. Let us know what your experience with Emerging Women Live was. We love hearing similarities, synchronicities and new points of view from our tribe.


1. 11 Changemakers Who Rocked ‘Emerging Women Live’ via Rewire Me

The Rewire me team compiles their favorite moments from 11 speakers, panels and workshops in this inspiring round-up of EWlive14.

“You can see Amanda Steinberg’s fearless attitude in this exchange: when asked if she ‘just wanted to be taken care of,’ she replied, ‘No—but my ex-husband and my boyfriend do.’”

Continue Reading…


2. Big Girl Panties via Strong Starting Now

Did you relate to the “time to play big” message that so many of the speakers were referencing? Melissa shares her realization in this personal essay.

“I have woken from my slumber and have remembered why I am here. Though my voice will quiver and my hands will shake I too find courage when I stand and say, ‘This is who I am.’

Continue Reading...


3. Falling Into the Comparison Trap via HuffPost Living

Peggy saw the women around her brimming with the magic of connection and inspiration. So why was she feeling disconnected and down?

“I’m at a stage in my life, on the other side of struggling through the healing process, where I believe in my worthiness and value as a human being. But, when I find myself making comparisons I sometimes still doubt it.”

Continue Reading …


4. Emerging Women Live Coverage via Elevated Existence

This is the series to read if to get thoughtful recaps of your favorite speakers’ main themes. Start with Kris Carr on resilience, then follow the links at the bottom for 3 more.

““Emerging means to come into being, transformation, to become manifest, to come into view, to come out from under. It’s not just happening to women. It’s happening to the feminine.” ~ Chantal Pierrat

Continue Reading…


5. 14 Things Danielle LaPorte Did Not Teach Me via Casey Erin Wood

Casey Erin Wood was wild about Danielle LaPorte – the kind of wild that leads to crazy, fantastical expectations about what might happen when they meet at EWlive14. Did the reality stand a chance of living up?

“The first time I found her it felt like she was living in my heart and whispering the words of my soul back into my ear.”

Continue Reading…


6.  The Most Ironic Story of Ever Upward via HuffPost Parents

EW veteran Justine Froelker describes her “full-circle” feelings after looking at the progress she’s made from EWlive13 in Boulder to EWlive14 in NYC.

“It took these failures, these lessons, along with the spark of magic, connections and courageous motivation from NYC for it to actually happen.”

Continue Reading…


7.  Event Tip Tuesday – The Message via Greater Than We

In this video, Susie Mordoh shares a common thread that she heard from multiple speakers at EWlive14, a message she wants to spread to help women uplift each other worldwide.

“Your body will answer your questions.”

Continue Reading…


8.  Feminine Power in Business via Kathrine Aspaas

Sera Beak’s powerful story of being advised to masculinize her voice spoke deeply to Kathrine Aspaas, who knows the discomfort of trying to live “as expected” instead of as is.

“We will use the F-word without shame.

Without fear of being burnt on academic, economic and political fires.
We say it out loud:

Feminine.”

Continue Reading…


9.  On Cultural Cockroaches, True Greatness, and Eating the Apple via Colors of Gratitude

Clear and elegant thoughts sparked by Even Ensler’s amazing keynote. Brief and thought-provoking.

“Unless a significant amount of individuals realizes her/his true power, the world will keep pushing the narrative of lack so it can keep selling less than excellent thoughts & stuff.”

Continue Reading…

Like what you’re hearing? Actualize your dreams with EW Power Circles. Registration open through November 1st. Circles begin the week of Nov. 17th.


We are excited to start a conversation and learn more from YOU, dear emerging women. Please join in with a comment below:

Power Practice #10: The Feminine Superpower of Receiving

Do you occasionally find yourself overworked, overwhelmed or just plain over it?

Choosing to make sure that you get what you need on all levels – physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally – is crucial to a satisfying and self-caring life.

Today, self-love guru Christine Arylo shares with us a superpower practice for receiving that she relies on daily. Less than three minutes each morning can help you retain your energy so that you stop getting sick, stop giving away your energy reserves and start living a more joyful and open life.

We hope you enjoy this transformational three step process for starting your day in a open way, listening to your energy levels and finding self-care anchor points to carry with you during the day.

Play the Power Practice:

Christine Arylo, inspirational catalyst, best-selling author and spiritual advocate, is on a mission to create a new reality for women and girls, one based on true feminine power, freedom and self-love instead of the relentless pursuit and unsustainable pressure of having to do, be and have it all. She’s written two best-selling books, Choosing ME before WE and Madly in Love With Me, The Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend, with a third on the way, based on her breakthrough program Inner Mean Girl Reform School which has helped over 23,000 women on 6 continents transform their inner critics. Her opinions and transformational techniques have been featured on CBS, ABC, FOX, WGN, E!, in the Huffington Post, and on radio shows, spas, conferences and stages around the world, including TEDx. She usually lives in Northern California with her partner, Noah, but in 2013 they sold their house to live their dream of living, working and speaking and teaching from anywhere in the world… true freedom, power and love!

Like what you’re hearing? Dive deeper with Christine Arylo and Kristine Carlson in the Emerging Women podcast “The Power of Receiving.”

Christine Arylo and Kristine Carlson

Embody your Feminine Power

Dear Emerging Women,

I am filled with gratitude for all of the touching responses we received to last week’s Mother’s Day letter. I feel filled with hope for the future when I hear the tribe on fire about raising awesomely integrated human beings – so thank you for reaching out and sharing your own stories with us.

What a great pairing we have for you in this week’s newsletter. So much of leading with the feminine has to do with embodiment, being tuned in and trusting the deep knowledge of our bodies. As a dancer myself, I am continually humbled by the power of the wisdom that comes through the somatic experience. If mainstream messages have you temporarily checked out of this great source of feminine power, take a few minutes in your day to listen to Power Practice #08 and let the wonderful LiYana Silver guide you back to your embodied truth.
And if you have any doubts about the potential of living your embodied truth, check out our feature on the magnificent Rha Goddess. The insights she has gained on her path are made doubly impactful by the lyrical beauty of her words. We are honored to have her as a speaker at next week’s Power Party New York. We hope you can join us!

Big love,

Chantal Pierrat
Founder, Emerging Women

“So much of leading with the feminine has to do with embodiment, being tuned in and trusting the deep knowledge of our bodies.”twitter

>>Like what you’re hearing? Dive deeper with us this October at Emerging Women Live 2014.

EW Power Party New York, May 22, 2014

Emerging Women is hosting another fabulous Power Party on May 22nd, this time in New York City at WeWork Lounge. If you can’t make it in person you can still participate via Livestream by signing up below. Please note that all tickets must be purchased in advance.

About:

Power Parties are authentic networking events that aim to bring together brilliant women ready to influence real change in the world through “the how” of what we do.

Power Party New York is designed to be a comprehensive event that will explore the dimensions of living the truth of who we are through feminine power. You will experience real connection, intentional circles, speakers, book signings, live performance and groove. The line-up for this event is awesomely inspirational – featuring Rha GoddessMeggan WattersonWokie NwabuezeJenny Blake and Rose Caiola — all successful visionary leaders, entrepreneurs, and creatives who are trailblazing a new way of influencing positive change in the world.

Expect authentic sharing of what makes these women tick and how they were able to achieve uncompromising success by living the truth of who they are. 

Register for Emerging Women’s Power Party New York HERE.

[ew-in-the-loop headline=”Sign up to stay in the loop for Livestreaming of our regional events!”]

Speakers:

Rha Goddess

Rha Goddess is a world renowned performance artist, activist and social entrepreneur who uses her artistic and motivational talents to heal, transform and inspire. Goddess’ work has been featured in international compilations, forums, and festivals and she has received rave industry reviews from Time Magazine, Essence and The Source, among others.

In her 30+ year tenure as a creative organizer Goddess has worked on issues of racial justice and equality, electoral politics, offender aid and restoration, mental health and youth & young women’s empowerment. Honors and awards include, Meet the Composer, Essence Magazine’s Top 30 Women to Watch, the National Museum of Voting Rights Freedom Flame Award, the Herb Alpert Hedgebrook Prize and being a US Cultural Envoy to Rwanda.

In her newest venture, Goddess combines her hard earned business savvy with her longstanding passion for social change to create Move The Crowd, LLC a professional development and entrepreneurial training company dedicated to teaching Conscious Urban Entrepreneurs how to “Stay True, Get Paid and Do Good.” Learn More>>>


Meggan Watterson

Meggan Watterson is the founder of REVEAL, an organization that spiritually empowers women to connect to the love within them, reclaim their bodies as sacred, and become soul-led agents of change in the world. She facilitates The REDLADIES- a women’s spirituality group in NYC where women come together to encourage each other to find, hear, and to follow the courageous and audacious voice of their soul. (Some break bread together, REDLADIES break dark chocolate. Smile.)

To Meggan, being spiritual is less about learning something new and more about remembering what we have always known. She believes that getting spiritually naked is about having the courage to be radically open about the truth of who we are with no exceptions and no apologies, to reveal ourselves without judgment or shame.

She has her Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Masters of Divinity from Columbia University. Her work has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, Women’s Radio, Feminist.com, Feministing.com and StyleSubstanceSoul.com.  Learn More>>>


Wokie Nwabueze

Wokie NwabuezeWokie Nwabueze is a communication strategist and conflict resolution expert who teaches professionals how to develop the interpersonal communication skills, confidence and presence necessary for success and organizational health in business.

Wokie’s dynamic approach to communication blends her 20 years of experience as an executive coach, attorney, organizational ombudsman, mediator and communication strategist. She sits on the Board of the Scheinman Institute for Conflict Resolution at Cornell University and has taught conflict resolution, communication and negotiation courses and workshops for Columbia Law School, Princeton University, various fortune 500 companies, academic institutions and small businesses.

Wokie received her BA in International Relations from Wellesley College and her JD from Columbia University School of Law. She is a certified mediator, transformational life and executive coach, NLP practitioner and conflict dynamic trainer. Learn More>>>

 


Jenny Blake

Jenny Blake is a bestselling author, career and business strategist and international speaker who helps smart people organize their brain, move beyond burnout, and build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. With two years at a technology start-up as the first employee, over five years at Google on the Training and Career Development teams, and three years of running her own business, Jenny combines her love of technology with her superpower of simplifying complexity to help clients through big transitions — often to pivot in their career or launch a book, blog or business. Jenny is an active member of the Young Entrepreneur Council, and is based in New York City.

Jenny created her first website, Life After College, in 2005, then released a book of the same name in 2011 that was featured in Target’s 2012 graduation display. She has been featured on Forbes.com, US News & World Report, Real Simple magazine, and has spoken at major universities and top companies such as Columbia, TEDxCMU, Yale, Parsons, UCLA, Google, Intuit, KPMG and Best Buy.

Today you can find her at JennyBlake.me, where she explores the intersection of mind, body and business.  Learn More>>>


Rose Caiola

Rose Caiola is the founder of Rewire Me. She could have easily been defined by her success in the highly competitive world of New York City real estate, but she has ventured far beyond the boundaries of the business world. As well as being a real estate developer/property manager, Rose is a teacher, speaker, and expert practitioner of a number of disciplines that promote wellness—both those derived from ancient wellness wisdom as well as cutting-edge neuroscience.

In exploring the roots of well-being, she has become a Reiki master and an experienced practitioner of various yoga disciplines and mantra meditation. Rose has studied neuroscience, Tibetan Buddhism, and Chinese herbal medicine and received extensive training in neurofeedback, kinesiology, hypnosis, and Holographic Memory Resolution.

Along her path of discovery, Rose learned that people are often unaware of the many routes to optimum wellness. Her mission was accomplished when she launched Rewire Me in the spring of 2013, an instantly successful website community of seekers looking to heighten their mental, physical, and spiritual self-awareness.

Rose also works with Congressman Tim Ryan on initiatives involving mindfulness as a tool for helping children learn, war veterans heal from trauma, and corporate executives become more effective leaders. Learn More>>>


 Mahogany Browne

The Cave Canem Fellow is the Editor of the women’s anthology His Rib: Stories, Poems & Essays by HER and author of several books including her latest book of poems: Swag. She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima.

As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee.

Her freelance journalism can be found in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada’s The Word and UK’s MOBO. She facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country, focusing on women empowerment and youth mentoring.

She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, a small press for performance artists and owns PoetCD.Com, an on-line marketing and distribution company for poets. Mahogany is currently the slam host & curator of the Friday Night Slam Series at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

 Reserve Your Spot at Emerging Women Power Party New York HERE!

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Accessing Your Feminine Power with Claire Zammit

The article below is excerpted from the eye-opening keynote on Feminine Power Claire Zammit gave at Emerging Women Live 2013, and from my Grace & Fire podcast with her before the event. Claire is the co-creator of the Feminine Power training courses for women and co-leads a thriving learning community of hundreds of thousands of women throughout the world. She is a gifted and highly trained specialist in transformative education that gives her audience access to life-altering shifts, leading to embodied and lasting change. Read on to find out her definition of Feminine Power and why we all need it to make our destiny a reality.

 

“Masculine power is the power to create those things we can control and predict. Feminine power is the power to create those things that we can’t control.”twitter

 

CP: Six years ago, you made the decision to start trusting yourself and your abilities so that you could thrive in life. How did that decision come about?

CZ: I spent years of my life waiting to be “discovered.” I always felt like something was going to happen, or should happen, that was going to enable me to become all that I knew I could be. And I was very sad and confused when those opportunities never came.

And so late one night, by candlelight, I prayed for guidance. I knew I couldn’t just skip over this and continue on the course that I was on, and I didn’t know the answer, but I knew I needed to make a commitment to find out. And so, in the darkest hour of that dark night, I just surrendered, open, and I said, “Help, universe,” even though I doubted anybody was there listening.

And I had a very deep and powerful experience. It was almost like a mystical experience where I felt an inner voice say to me, “Claire, you have to have faith in yourself. And you have to believe that all of life is organizing around your success. Even though you don’t have any evidence for it, and even though you don’t know what to do, begin to make choices and take actions in your life aligned with a sense of faith.”

 

“You have to believe that all of life is organizing around your success.”twitter

 

So I went to sleep with that thought, and I woke up the next morning and I said, “Okay, what would I do if I really believed in myself and I believed that life was organizing around my success?” And immediately I had access to a very deep intuition that said, “Go and get an office space.”

It was kind of crazy because I’d just moved to LA from Australia, and I didn’t really know anyone, and I had given up my coaching practice 5 years earlier. But with my last $1,000, I went and I got an office space. And that’s how I met the woman who became a close colleague of mine, Katherine Woodward, and within a year we started teaching programs and creating courses together. And I met my husband and soulmate, Craig Hamilton, and the relationship that we share together is beyond anything I could have imagined.

I’m really so honored and grateful to say that having created a foundation of success in my own life, I began to fulfill on that dream of really standing for the global empowerment of women and girls. I wake up and I feel like I need to pinch myself because this outer life reflects the deeper possibilities that I always sensed, but I couldn’t quite see how to get there.

CP: Wow. So what happened?

CZ: I began to create my life from Feminine Power, and it really changed everything. And I know it can change everything for other women as well.

How many women in their clearest moments sense that they have gifts and talents that the world has never seen before and will never see again after they’re gone. And that even that they have a critical role to play in shaping the future of our world. And how many know exactly what that’s going to look like?

CP: There’s a big gap.

CZ: Yes, and this is significant. This yearning that’s waking up inside of us, it’s not just a desire to accomplish – to have a nice house, to have a nice car, to get married. What’s waking up inside of us is an impulse to actualize our higher creative potentials in service to something larger than ourselves.

 

“What’s waking up inside of us is an impulse to actualize our higher creative potentials in service to something larger than ourselves.”twitter

 

We don’t just want to have the relationship our parents had, we want to have the experience of intimacy that’s beyond that. We don’t just want to get a job, we want to express who we are and we want to develop our creativity and get it out of us in a way that impacts others.

We don’t just want to get more status or have more stuff. We want to become ourselves and create a life that reflects who we truly are. What we’re yearning for is our destiny: the greatest possibility of who we are in service to something bigger than ourselves. And the nature of destiny is that we don’t know what it looks like in advance, so it’s very hard to create a strategic plan to get there, or even put it on a vision board to be able to manifest.

So the system of power that we’ve been mastering as women over the last 50 years is actually a masculine system of power. It’s a power system that based on logical and linear thinking. So if you have a goal that’s predictable or controllable – you want to build a house, get a college degree – then the masculine power system is the way to go. The problem is, we’re no longer yearning to just accomplish goals. What we’re pregnant with are these higher possibilities.

We can’t get there with just a power system that’s based on analysis and logic. We need to have a power system that based on a much more intuitive, receptive, co-creative and feminine system. Masculine power is the power to create those things we can control and predict. Feminine power is the power to create those things that we can’t control.

 

“We need to have a power system that based on a much more intuitive, receptive, co-creative and feminine system.”twitter

 

CP:When you’re in a room with other women and see that maybe another woman is not living from a place of Feminine Power, do you reach forward and try and draw her out?

CZ: Well, that’s a great question. In our course, we have a whole new set of shared agreements that we teach about creating a culture of empowerment between women. And the point in which you can really partner to stand with someone and for someone is when they step forward in self-responsibility.

We can’t go into rescuing if that woman hasn’t yet said, “I’m committed to realizing the greatest possibility of who I am. And I’m standing to be responsible, to see myself as a source of my experience up until that point. And I am open to receiving support.” I think a woman has to step into that for the support to become really conscious and powerful and potent.

“I think a woman has to step into that for the support to become really conscious and powerful and potent.”twitter

I think generally speaking, we want to be finding ways to extend that invitation to women to actually step forth into that level of commitment, to stand for their own greatness. So I think rather than saying “Oh, I see you,” we want to mirror the possibilities. I think it’s, in many ways, so true. We want to mirror the possibilities. We want to reflect opportunities everywhere we go. We want to see and relate to the most powerful version of others.

And I think more than anything I want to encourage women to take that stand for themselves as a foundation for them being able to join other women in partnership, to be able to feed each other power. I think you can create a culture of empowerment between women when everyone’s stepping forward in self-responsibility as the price of admission for that.

“We want to mirror the possibilities. We want to reflect opportunities everywhere we go. We want to see and relate to the most powerful version of others.”twitter

To hear more from the amazing Claire Zammit, don’t miss her free webinar The Three Keys to Feminine Power on May 14th. Read more about what you will learn HERE. You can also see her in New York City, where we are so honored to have her back as a keynote speaker at Emerging Women Live 2014 in October.

About Emerging Women Live 2014:

Emerging Women Live aims to support and propel the emerging movement of women who are stepping up and changing the world. #EWLive14 is a one of a kind conference that helps women to harness the power of the feminine, rock the business world, and create a new paradigm for success. Join us in NYC for a truly extraordinary, one-of-a-kind event!

Join us for an experience that will last far beyond the four days we spend together. Learn more here>>>

Power Practice #02: Writing the Bones – The Art and Power of Engaging with Your Silence

Struggling with writer’s block?

Dominique Christina shares “Writing the Bones,” a compassionate practice to help us improve our relationship with the written word. This Power Practice will teach us how to accept and creatively transform our silence, our inner critic, or simply put, to engage writer’s block. Dominique patiently guides us through the process of “dealing with silence before words happen.” 

Dominique teaches us how to fight and own our insecurities by giving them a seat at the table, by allowing the silence to be a collaborator and an instigator of creativity. This is truly a fascinating exercise that will help you stretch your imagination.

Play the Power Practice:

“Attach a wider lens to your silence as a way to conquer it.”

A writer, performer, educator, and activist, Dominique has won four national titles in the three short years she has been competing in slam, including 2012 Women of the World Slam Champion and 2011 National Poetry Slam Champion. Dominique is presently the only person to have held two national titles at one time. She conducts writing workshops nationally for various organizations, colleges and universities and is presently enjoying a rigorous tour schedule with Denice Frohman as Sister Outsider.

Her first full length poetry book, The Bones, The Breaking, The Balm: A Colored Girl’s Hymnal will be released March 1, 2014 (Penmanship NY). Her second book, a radical look at the creative process, Writing In Fire, is set for publication in 2015 by Sounds True. Dominique was also a featured presenter at Emerging Women Live 2013 & 2014.

Want to see Dominique perform “The Period Poem” at Emerging Women Power Night? It’s a must-see.

Interview with Claire Zammit on Feminine Power

This is a transcript of my conversation with the powerhouse Claire Zammit. Claire is the co-creator of the Feminine Power training courses for women and co-leads a thriving learning community of hundreds of thousands of women throughout the world. She is a gifted and highly trained specialist in transformative education that gives her audience access to life-altering shifts, leading to embodied and lasting change. She is also a co-founder of Evolving Wisdom, a transformative education company listed as number 83 in Inc. Magazine’s 2013 list of top 500 fastest-growing, privately held companies in the nation.

Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Claire.

Claire Zammit: Hi, Chantal. Great to be with you.

CP: I’m excited to be talking to you because I know that every time we get on the phone together, we end up talking about my favorite topic, which is feminine power.

CZ: Yes, absolutely.

CP: Well, maybe we should just jump in, and I know that’s the title of your upcoming book, and it’s the title of your work. 

CZ: We’ve been teaching a seven-week course on feminine power for the last four years, and we’ve had about seven thousand women participate in that, and hundreds of thousands more with our free events. It’s something that I’m really seeing as speaking to women’s experience at a very deep level. I think that’s what we connect with when we have our conversations. So I’m excited to be able to dive into it today, together.

CP: “Feminine” and “power.” They’re two very different energies, but together they totally make sense. And I’m just curious to see if you can start with defining what you mean by “feminine power.”

CZ: Well, I might just start, if I can, with a bit of a story that creates a little context for it. My teaching partner Katherine Woodward Thomas and the women that we were serving in the community, we had started in Los Angeles—we had a center for transformation, and we were coaching women and working with women.

And both of us were accomplished, successful women, as were the women we were serving. And we really noticed, in spite of having so much “power” in our lives, we both felt this very painful and confusing gap between the deeper potentials that we sensed for who we were as women, for the creative contribution, for the intimacy and connection of our relationships, and just for our overall experience of life. We couldn’t quite put our finger on what it was, and we found that women everywhere were having the same experience as us.

At the same time, we noticed that there was a yearning towards the feminine that was happening. We said, “This is really interesting. So why don’t we do a class so we can begin to explore what the feminine is?” And the first night of class, we listed these feminine qualities up on the board, and these masculine qualities up on the board—just common assumptions about the feminine: flowing, intuitive, receptive, surrendered, nurturing. And typical masculine qualities like logical, linear, hard, angular, penetrating.

And we looked at these different energies and these different qualities, and what we noticed was that we were hungry, as a group, as women, to experience these more feminine qualities. We were very drawn, but there was a collective fear that if we allowed ourselves to be scented in these qualities, that there would be a loss of power. So there was this idea that we were drawn to power, we’re drawn to this feminine, but it occurs like somehow there’s not power available to us.

We looked up the word “power” in the dictionary, and it said, “To do, to act, to accomplish, political force, might.” And it was like, “Gee, this sounds very much like the masculine qualities that we have up on the board.” And we realized—it was kind of a big awakening—that we as women, in the power system that we’ve been mastering over the last 50 years, have been in  more of a masculine version of power.

And so we just went, “Wow, I wonder what a feminine version of power would look like,” so that we could begin to create and source our lives from these feminine qualities. We made it our mission to find out how to access the more feminine version of power. And the interesting thing we found was that it speaks to a shift that’s happening, I think, for women where we have accomplished a lot—and certainly there’s a long way to go globally and in the United States. But there have been huge strides made over the last 50 years through feminism that the opportunity, the access to power and to freedom is so enormous.

“We made it our mission to find out how to access the more feminine version of power.”twitter

It’s a different kind of yearning that’s waking up inside of us where we don’t necessarily want to just achieve success, or we don’t want to necessarily just have power for power’s sake. What we see—and this was my experience, it was Katherine’s experience, it was the experience of the women in our community—is that what we’re yearning for is to actually create our lives as an expression of who we truly are and an expression of our deepest gifts. We want to realize our higher spiritual potentials, our potentials for our relationships, our larger creative contribution.

“What we’re yearning for is to actually create our lives as an expression of who we truly are and an expression of our deepest gifts.”twitter

And what we recognized and realized was that because that has to do with the flourishing of these higher potentials, you actually can’t create that kind of success in your life just with the masculine system of power. For that, we need to awaken this new system of power, which is more of the feminine system, and that’s really what we’ve been going into in all of our work.

So the masculine system of power is anything that’s predictable or controllable, and that you can create with a step-by-step plan—like building a house. You have a plan, you have a certain number of bricks, you have an infrastructure, you know how many people you need, and you can just execute the plan and be able to make it happen. So the masculine system is a wonderful system to use for anything that you can create in that way. If you want to get a rocket ship to the moon, the masculine system has been amazing. The miracles of science, the marvels of industry are incredible gifts of the masculine. It’s not that it’s wrong and bad, it’s just insufficient to create the things that we’re now most yearning for.

And feminine power is really the power to create those things that can’t be controlled: true love, intimacy, higher creativity, the realization of your spiritual potential, your creative gifts, being able to impact others. All of these things we need to be able to access with more of a feminine system of power that we’ve found is based upon the feminine principle of relatedness. So I would say there is a difference—I could go into this all day, but I hope that’s a helpful starting point in terms of the context around the two.

“Feminine power is really the power to create those things that can’t be controlled: true love, intimacy, higher creativity, the realization of your spiritual potential, your creative gifts, being able to impact others.”twitter

CP: Yes! Creating a life where we’re really living our truth, and the outer world becomes a reflection of our inner alignment.

I love the idea that feminine power becomes expressed through relationship and our greater contribution. After you realize the truth of who you are, you can go in a million different directions. But when people with a strong feminine lead realize the truth of who they are, they want to express it in terms of relationship. This means a great contribution to the world and how we can make the world a better place.

CZ: Yes. And this is where it really is a paradigm shift.   Many of us are looking at what we’ve been lined up with. Many of us have been lined up with goals of success—going to college and getting a good job. I know I certainly grew up where these were the markers of success. And I experienced them. I was a high achiever early on in life, and I was able to accomplish a lot of goals.

By the time I was in my late twenties, I was the head of an organization, I had a team of 50 women. Everything looked great on the outside. I had accomplished all of the things that I was supposed to do, and yet I was painfully depressed. I would go to sleep with a kind of agony. I would wake up with it. And it was really the beginning of a dark night of the soul. And it was very confusing because I felt like there was a deeper purpose, a deeper reason why I was here. I could feel this contribution inside of me; I could sense it, but I couldn’t see it.

“I felt like there was a deeper purpose, a deeper reason why I was here. I could feel this contribution inside of me; I could sense it, but I couldn’t see it.”twitter

And I think this is the challenge that we have, where we need to create with a different system of power. Because the yearning that’s awakening in us, it’s not just to achieve these external markers of success, as wonderful as they are. A deeper yearning is awakening in us to discover who we are and why we’re here, and really participate in the life process in a way that’s bigger than ourselves. And that has to do with becoming the fullness of who we are in service to the evolution and flourishing of life.

“A deeper yearning is awakening in us to discover who we are and why we’re here, and really participate in the life process in a way that’s bigger than ourselves.”twitter

That’s really the deeper context each one of us—you, me, all of us—in our clearest moments sense that we have gifts and talents inside of us that the world has never seen and may never see again after we’re gone. Perhaps even in our most courageous moments we sense that we have a role to play in shaping the future of our world. And the thing I’ve really discovered is we’re right, but we can’t necessarily see what that looks like or how to get there. And the power that we’ve been cultivating— to do, to accomplish, to make things happen— is not necessarily the power that’s going to give us access to unleashing the fullness of who we are in this larger context.

“We have gifts and talents inside of us that the world has never seen and may never see again after we’re gone.”twitter

CP: Right. I think that’s what excites me the most about the rising feminine. And as we can teach our society, both men and women, to accept that energy, both as a lead and also as something to be integrated with the masculine, that it will bring that component of, “Yes, we want to realize who we are, but that’s not the end of the story. That’s not the end of the game right there. That’s just a stepping stone so we can be more effective in connecting with the rest of the world in a real way.”

CZ: Right! Absolutely. Through becoming ourselves, we can access the power to transform and evolve the world.

“Through becoming ourselves, we can access the power to transform and evolve the world.”twitter

CP: Right. So juicy. And I love your work also because you are teaching women. And again, the feminine is more subtle, there are subtler energies rather than, “OK, step one, step two, step three.” And there’s a lot of skills-based trainings out there for women who want to build businesses, who want to lead, but this vision piece, this perspective, the deep inner transformation that’s required—I really feel like that’s where the real work is.

CZ: Yes. Right. Absolutely. How do we begin to source power from relatedness? What’s the process of creating something from the inside out? In our work, we teach that there are three primary sources of feminine power, and the first is our relationship with ourselves, getting into an empowered relationship with our feelings and emotions so that we can transform and embody the deeper truth of who we are. I love that in your tagline, I think that’s the foundation. We need to actually step in and become the women that we came here to be.

“We need to actually step in and become the women that we came here to be.”twitter-logo-ew

Secondly, to be able to step into this rich co-creative relationship with the energy and intelligence of life and access our own inner guidance and the intelligence and creativity of the life process. And finally, in our relationships with each other. I think we’re so deeply entrenched in a paradigm of competition and autonomy. We feel like there’s something insufficient in us if we need help or partnership or support. But we’ve really found that the truth is we can’t become ourselves by ourselves, and we actually need to learn how to open up and receive and generate support at an unprecedented level to be able to create in this way.

“The truth is we can’t become ourselves by ourselves, and we actually need to learn how to open up and receive and generate support.”twitter

These ways of knowing and being and creating are a critical piece of development that we need to take on to be able to be successful at all of these other things—exactly what you’re pointing to. We don’t want to just have the tools to be able to make things happen. We want to be able to self-express, self-evolve, co-create, and for that we absolutely need to engage.

“We don’t want to just have the tools to be able to make things happen. We want to be able to self-express, self-evolve, co-create, and for that we absolutely need to engage.”twitter

I found it was critical in me—if I can share something from my own experience—to try to make that more tangible, more concrete. So the first thing, “becoming who you are,” I think we all sense this deeper possibility of who we are, and for many of us, we don’t have an experience of being mirrored by others in our lives, personally or professionally, in ways that reflect who we truly are.

That was my experience. I had this chronic experience of invisibility. I would go to different events, different places, and I would feel like I wouldn’t ever get any opportunities. And it would be very confusing because I knew I had wisdom to contribute, but I felt like there was a way, both personally in my relationships, where I felt very unseen and invisible, and professionally, where it was constantly my experience, where other people were not extending support or offering me opportunities or inviting me to participate in things. And I was very, very confused.

And I realized that I had a chronic way of being where I was constantly disappearing myself without even realizing it. So I was actually disconnected from my own feelings and emotions, and this is very common in women’s development in our culture. To access power in the masculine, we’ve had to become very hyper-rational, hyper-in-our-heads, to make it happen. That’s the kind of system. We don’t necessarily know how to relate to what we’re feeling. We kind of disappear our own inner selves.

And so I was so disconnected from myself that it was generating this experience of other people not being able to feel connected to me either. I was kind of waiting to be discovered [laughs]. I was confused because I had such an ability to see into other people and their experience—that’s often one of the gifts of this pattern of invisibility.

But through the principles we teach in Feminine Power—this is where we start, our first power base—I was able to get connected to myself, and I was able to get connected to what I was feeling, what I was seeing, what I was sensing. And I developed an ability to make that visible, make myself visible. So it was a shift from waiting to be discovered to actually taking responsibility to present myself into the world.

“It was a shift from waiting to be discovered to actually taking responsibility to present myself into the world.”twitter

This is what it looks like when we say, “Become the woman, become your true self.” There’s a gap in terms of who we are and who we’re being and how we’re showing up and how we’re relating. And when I began to show up and I was presenting myself, I can’t begin to tell you how radically things began to change for me in a very short period of time.

To be continued… You can listen to the recorded version of this interview HERE