In 2015 I ran away. I told everyone that I’d go and find myself ( & God) by sitting in silence for weeks on end, but to be honest I just ran away. I ran to this little island called Gozo and into a monastery. I was the only guest amongst three old monks. There I was – on my own. Feeling a little lost. Feeling frustrated. Feeling dissatisfied – with myself and my life at large.
While I had this carefully crafted life that looked so good on the outside, I still felt that something was missing. I was not fully myself. I was not who I came here to be. I knew it in my bones. I was blaming my past, my parents and my partner for not being free to commit, for my lack of confidence and for continuing to play small instead of expressing my (full) truth.
A few weeks into my self-prescribed sabbatical I visited an old church, dedicated to Mother Mary, or “the Lady” as the Maltese lovingly call her. As I sat there in silence and in awe of the beauty that surrounded me, I slipped into an altered state of consciousness. Before I knew it, I received a vision that would transform my life. I was told that I would have a daughter one day and with the coming of this daughter I would remember my purpose. Intrigued about the clarity & authority of the message, I asked for more. The two words that started echoing in the back of my mind were “women rising”.
This is how it all began and frankly, it took quite a while until the seed that had been planted into my consciousness was ready to sprout. Or put differently, until I was ready to overcome all the reasons (aka excuses) that kept me from following my soul’s calling.
To name a few … (raise your hand if they resonate with you…)
> Who am I to tell other women how to live & to lead?
> I am not ready yet. I might need another degree or certification first.
> Is what I have to offer enough? Am I enough?
So many voices in my head. Long forgotten stories that came alive. Old programs that started to spin. It took some serious shadow work to unearth & to heal my own inner sense of inferiority and the fear of women that laid deeply hidden in my unconscious. I had to let go of my conditioned way of seeing women as ˜less than” by embracing my own worth as a woman and by making peace with my own femininity.
This wasn’t easy, because the truth is, I felt so much safer in working with and for men. This is what I had learned from early on – how to enchant men, how to please them, how to be liked by them, how to play in their arena.
Coming home to myself meant to drop the masks that I had created to succeed in a man’s world. As much as these roles and behaviours had helped me in the past, I could feel how they also limited my full authentic expression. To follow my true calling meant giving up on my carefully crafted persona, security, certainty, maybe even reputation.
So ..what helped me to shed my old identities ? To embrace both my light and my shadow?
Purpose.
A soul-inspired purpose that wasn’t about making money, being liked or validated.
A soul-inspired purpose that was big enough to walk the extra mile, to face the dragons and to move beyond my ego into full surrender & service.
This purpose came in the form of a little girl. My daughter.
When I gave birth to this bundle of wonder, something shifted inside of me. Something changed. It awakened and opened me on a much deeper level – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. I looked at her and I just knew that the time for excuses was over. I looked into her eyes and I saw myself in it. And I saw us.
I saw all these fierce feminine girls, with amazing visions for their future, with their innate connection to spirit, with their big hopes for making this world a better place.
I saw these exact same girls turn into brilliant & beautiful women who were holding themselves back, playing small or playing tough while placing the source of their confidence and certainty outside of themselves.
Somewhere along the way we have learned to buy into the myth of the good girl that swallows her anger, tames her fire, fulfills the outside expectations and listens to the truth of others more than to her own inner voice, thereby losing herself, her wild and her authentic power to make a difference.
I saw how many of these girls, now women, had turned their unlived rage and passion against themselves by making their bodies the battlefield on which they fought their inner wars.
I saw how many of us strong & sensitive women used spirituality as just another way of numbing out our pain, as a means to not face our inner turmoil and for remaining stuck in just another never-ending cycle of ˜never good enough”.
When I held my daughter in my arms I suddenly felt how the unresolved collective trauma of ancient & present witch hunts is still impacting our experience as women today. The fear of being shamed, ridiculed, rejected or hurt is still big enough to silence our rage, to hide our gifts and to keep us at bay.
It made me sad and upset, because not only do I want my daughter to thrive and to be everything that she ever dreams of becoming, but also because I truly believe that it is the soul-inspired fierce feminine strength of both women and men that carries the power to heal our world today.
It is the marriage of the masculine and feminine principle, both inside of ourselves and out in the world at large, that will allow us to collectively birth a new world Into being.
It is this vision of a world in balance that allowed me to move beyond my own perceived limitations and my fears of failure. Once I had found this inner sense of clarity and reconnected with my deepest truth, I was ready to give birth again. This time it was a business that I launched.
WOMENRISING is for you, my dear fierce feminine warrior sister. It is your invitation to awaken to your truth, to express yourself fully and unapologetically, to listen to your intuition, to lean into your shadow, to shine your light and to open to the love that resides within yourself, because it is time to embrace your full humanity and to reclaim your authentic power, purpose and peace.
WOMENRISING is for all of us. It is reminding us of who we were before the world told us who to become.
WOMENRISING is a call for female (r)evolution, re-connection, re-membering.
WOMENRISING is a sanctuary for all of you, wild souls, who are ready to rise even higher by deepening your connection – to yourself, to others, to the mystery of life.
If you want an ally on this path, someone who has walked this path before and continues to walk it day in day out, someone who both sees and challenges you to become all that you can be and help you live, lead and love from a place of truth & soul, then reach out to me.
I’d love to be by your side as you dare to rise!
