Leading from the feminine

For the past nine months I’ve been going through quite a significant change. A career girl who had learned to make it in a man’s world, I realised how I had been living in a way that did not honour the cyclic nature of my body. I discovered how I had learned to rely so heavily on my masculine patriarchal strengths of pushing on through, enduring, not stopping and always being ON. When Light Is The New Black came out I was so devoted to being of service that I pushed my body’s needs aside and rapidly became depleted. While I had written the book while in the feminine, I had no idea how to run my business without reverting heavily to the unbalanced masculine. From my career in advertising, this was the only way of working that I knew. Before long it became evident that this was no longer sustainable for me if I was to create a life’s work, not a season.

I retreated to the luscious land of Avalon (Glastonbury) to give myself the nourishment I needed and look at how I could build my life around leading from the feminine and building my business in a way that is sustainable for all of the creations that I am here to share. And there are many.

At the end of November, two weeks before I left London for Sydney, I returned to Glastonbury for my hens party with three amazing women (Amy Kiberd, Hollie Holden and Lisa Lister) who joined me in a powerful ritual in the White Springs. The intention of the ritual was to step fully into my feminine power and release any old patterns from my lineage so that as I could enter my marriage without having to relive them over and over again.

It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life which set off a seriously powerful chain of events both personally and in the female line of my family that I have been living through since and to be honest still digesting! It amazes me – the power of women coming together in circle.

While I was in Australia I twisted my ankle and got very sick twice! It was as if my body was releasing lifetimes of holding it all together and pushing on through. It was uncomfortable and absolutely beautiful as I found myself surrounded by all of these strong women who gave me healing, soup, love and sisterhood.

The visual that best represents it is a lobster molting (losing its shell). The time comes in a lobster’s life where the hard shell that once protected it so beautifully becomes tight and is restricting its growth. And so the lobster finds a safe rock to retreat under to shed the very thing that has been home for so long, in order to continue to grow and flow with life. This process is not effortless and it certainly is not pretty. It is a real struggle. But before long the lobster finds itself free from the hard shell and reenters the great world softer and sensitive yet freer, connected and more alive than ever.

The past year felt like a tightening of that shell. My time away in Australia has felt like that rock. And now I am making my way back into the ocean feeling softer, stronger, potent, freer and more myself than ever before.

While I am also aware of having shed an old protective method of survival, I sense a fierce wisdom rising deep within me that would not have had the space to rise had I kept myself contained in that safe shell any longer.

Rise Sister Rise:

Are you currently leading from the masculine or the feminine? What in your life is no longer sustainable?

Check out my Rise Sister Rise Membership here for monthly guidance on living a soul-led life, soulful meditations, spiritual tools and live monthly calls.