Charting Your Own Success
Spring is in the air and it’s bringing a rebirth for many of us.
Many people I know are experiencing a new beginning or new life changes of some kind, whether that is in relationships, new jobs/ careers, home moves, or something else entirely. There is a sense that life is wide open at the moment and there are so many directions we could take. Maybe if you are reading this, you are experiencing it too?
And with the rise of the feminine happening across our planet, things are certainly changing and at rapid speed. Things could be shifting and moving in ways you didn’t see coming, and asking you to make changes in any number of areas in your life.
Generally speaking, a historical dominance of masculine energy has meant that we’ve mostly been all up in our minds. While masculine energy is very useful and important and not a bad thing at all, it can run riot when not balanced out by the feminine.
The nature of masculine energy is mental-based, logic-based, and mind-based, whereas feminine energy is heart-based, feeling-based, and intuition-based. So, up until now it's been common practice to steer the direction of our lives based solely on the chatter of our mental plane – which is so highly influenced by thoughts of what other people are doing, external societal expectations and what others (and ourselves) tell us we should be doing.
But with the rise and re-emergence of feminine consciousness, we are seeing and feeling the impacts of rebalancing – both in the external world, but also within ourselves. So in this blog post I want to talk about one way we can consciously tap into this rebalancing: Alignment.
Alignment is a way to chart our life’s path using both our inner masculine and inner feminine reserves: connecting within to determine what direction really feels right for us (feminine) and using the gifts of our mental discernment to figure out how to get there (masculine). This can prompt us to consider what it is that we really want, rather than perhaps staying on autopilot based on what everyone else is doing or what we’ve done in the past.
I’ve been reflecting on my own alignment a lot lately. Before starting my women’s wellness business, I spent about a decade working in the environmental sustainability industry. And in this career, I fully embraced the wisdom of alignment – calmly staying in my own lane and focussing on what I wanted to do and what felt right to me, regardless of the career success and career paths of those all around me. But somehow, when I began my business, I managed to completely forget about this zen approach to life, and I promptly fell into my own version of comparisonitis and shiny object syndrome. While some things I’ve done over the past few years have felt on purpose, such as writing my book and running women’s circles, there have been many, many other things that in hindsight probably weren’t exactly the best use of my time and energy - including creating an ill-fated resume makeovers side-business (?!). Alignment is one of those lessons that I need to keep revisiting time and again it seems…
So, with the energy of spring upon us and the sense of a brand new clean slate ahead, now is a great time to be focussing on alignment – and getting back into it if you’ve veered off course for any reason these last few months, years or decades. It feels so good when we're in it - and life flows that much more smoothly. And connecting within to our own unique and wonderful strengths helps us to avoid living our life according to someone else’s standards.
To help you, here’s some simple Charting Your Own Success reflection journalling questions to get you going:
1. What are your personal strengths, passions/ interests and values? Write a list of at least five things.
2. Fulfilling your top values, passions/ interests and strengths, what would career or other success mean for you?
3. Write down at least one goal to encapsulate your own personal meaning of success.
This blog post is made up of content from the ‘Charting Your Own Success’ chapter of my book The Patriarchy Illusion: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Spiritual Feminism