Goddesses Are In Synch With Their Physical Well-being. We know perfectly well when we’re doing something to threaten health and we strategize how to quit.
But Sometimes a Doctor Visit is Necessary – Do you dream of hospitals? Doctors? Shamen? Magic pills? One of society’s proudest boasts is our seemingly mysterious ability to cure illness, or at least palliate its effects. Your dreams say you yearn for healing, and something in you recognizes you need help.
Do You Trust Your Doctor? Establishing trust is key. Sometimes it’s spiritual healing that’s required. Try a naturopath, acupuncture, massage therapy – searching for that instinctively helpful healer. Revisit advice on managing gurus – they must not be greedy and must demonstrate they have your best interests at heart. Goddesses never become someone else’s sex toy or enabler or support another’s extravagant lifestyle. Seek references from friends. Anyone attempting to isolate you and wall you off from information is not your friend.
The Goddess Path Can Be Exhausting. There is resistance on every front to women who prioritize their own well-being. But you have to get the oxygen mask firmly on your own face before you can help anyone else. Goddesses also need constant support. No shame – it’s part of the calling.
What Makes a Goddess’s Heart Race? – Anyone developing their own map gets lost frequently. How can we find the right path? How can we develop the confidence to choose the “right diagnosis” for what ails us? When should we request a “second” or “third” opinion? How can we stay on the “right” course, or even assess the “rightness” of any course, considering all our past mistakes?
Goddesses Too Need “Heart Strengthening.” “Foxglove” the source of digitalis, (a powerful heart medication) tells us: Listen to your heart. Get out your Goddess Journal and start making notes. What questions do we wish to ask? Who do we want to be? Where are we trying to go?
Goddess Danger – Can we tell the difference between a “fortifying” or a “harming” path? TV pharmaceutical ads list grisly side effects for pills tackling the vaguest malaise. Who can overlook these threats? Perhaps the ultimate “danger” lies in ignoring the warnings our “dis-ease” gives. What does “I want to be young again” really mean? We are all mortal. We have just so much time left to plan. To “become”.
Goddess Opportunity – Some people are more confident following an “experts recommend” course, others adapt and customize as they go. Joy is the moment when planets and moments all click into alignment and we feel we accepted as a beloved child of the universe. Let’s unclog our ears, remove the plank from our vision and simplify our world to recapture the moments of joy experienced in childhood. If a loving, guiding force rescued us over and over again, we can summon the confidence to find several human healers to guide us through the healthcare system.
Models & Mentors – “Hugging is good medicine”
– Karen Salmansohn
“Medicine is the art of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” – Voltaire
“Medicines cure diseases, but only doctors can cure patients” – C.J. Jung
“Medicine cures doubt as well as disease” – Karl Marx
“The arts are as essential to everyone’s lives as clean food and fresh air”
Goddess World is Fateful – We are all about to go through some things. Do you dream of costume drama? Historical characters? Ancient books? Do you consult tea leaves? Are you superstitious? We are all caught in the mesh of history, but goddesses see clearly what the rest of us only feel. The field is too vast to fully appreciate; “Ordinaries” find the pull of forces too powerful to resist or even rise above and visualize. Those caught in wars, in genocides, in natural disasters, are brutally unlucky. But the techniques of the Goddess can substantially save, improve, even alter their fates. Goddesses hold the clue to extract us from this multiverse maze.
Goddess Are Called – by History. The Multiverse allows us to rise above the crushing by the gears of chaos. According to the philosopher Hegel, “Heroes are singular figures “whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit.” Such heroes interfere in and remake the world from the point of view of the Multiverse – everything CAN happen everywhere all at once. This sacred vision dramatically alters “the complex of historical relations which appear to be only their interest, and their work.”Remember, the Goddess’ Code is “Never Surrender”. Never consent to the misuse of human dignity.
Goddess’ Challenge – Always try to comprehend the bigger picture by comparing it to several other proven scenarios. Were those who fled Germany before Hitler shut it down, France before the Terror or Indonesia before the tsunami just “lucky” or had they learned to read the signs? Rulers by whim are even more dangerous than the weather, for their brains inevitably become echo chambers rotting from within. The larger the council of power the better – true democracy is best, but even then there are those self-destructive ones among us desiring to “shake things up”; loving chaos for its own sake. They may dream of riding a whirlwind but no one can ever truly tame a whirlwind. As the Chinese say, you can ride the tiger but you can’t get off. The challenge is to see the whirlwind – and the tiger -coming.
Goddess Inhabit Danger – Is the danger learned helplessness, our old enemy? Or is it comfort – we’ve created a berth for ourselves that’s just too cushy to leave? Sometime the danger is an inability to imagine evil: “it CAN’T get that bad” or “These people are my friends.” Famous last words. Or is panic the enemy? Don’t risk becoming too terrified to think.
Goddess Seize Opportunity – Have you noticed, yet, that it’s always the same opportunity we must accept? Wake up. Embrace maturity. Those who fear being “woke” fear waking from the nightmare to seize control of their own existences; they are seen as cannon fodder by those in power. To become more like God, who the Gnostic gospels call, “Good”, we must Create. To regard each other with the wise generosity of compassion. Study all input intelligently. Learn to recognize and repudiate garbage. Don’t be lured by fantasy thinking of effortless achievements. In order to claim our specie’ opportunity goddesses seek out and create safe spaces to grow, think and learn.
Models & Mentors – “We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone” – William James
“No matter how dirty your past, your future is spotless” – Drake
“Our destiny is not written for us, but by us” – Barack Obama
“If you can influence, direct or control your environment , you can make your life what you want it to be” – Napoleon Hill
“Life is choice, not chance,” – Jean Nidetch
“Winners fail until they succeed” – Robert T. Kiyosaki
Goddess At Peak – A project of yours is nearing completion. Harvest is approaching. Do you dream of fruit, perfectly ripe? Do you love to cook and entertain? Are you attracted by movies with long family dinner scenes, everyone celebrating outdoors beneath an arbor? Is touring wine country a popular fantasy of yours? You are a person who is propelled forward by imagining smiles on the faces of others as the work of community and you believe that family harmony is to be celebrated and enjoyed. This vision can keep us going through bitter hardships.
Harvest Comes Because Goddesses Prepare – You became a goddess because you resisted others’ negativity, hopelessness and learned helplessness. Instead you turned your eyes to the inevitable rituals of seed care, the health promotion of living things, and now you are granted a front-row seat at the celebration of flourishing.
Goddess Challenge – Keeping these visions alive during the training phase is hard, because the growth cycle is long and can be boring and uneventful. That’s why planting occurs in stages, so all your psychic eggs aren’t resting in the same basket. Learn to enjoy all the seasons, without hungering for a single season. This is a good time to contrast group versus individual gratifications and ask ourselves, “What’s that about?”
Goddess Danger – Even Goddesses can become thirsty for gratification until it takes more and more to satisfy us. “Winning” is a shallow goal if that’s all there is. Goddesses seek harmony, blending community resources to make the whole family stronger. The worst outcome is to be locked in an addiction cycle and spiraling downwards; no longer part of the growth process, benefitting from training and spiritual renewal.
Goddesses Rest by Dreaming Forward – Sitting around the fire telling stories, modeling “success” as peaceful sharing rather than as an endless party. Luckily sleep and dreams are the best model of fruitful dormancy. We require those periods and we need to look forward to their relief and imaginative nourishment.
Goddess Opportunity – Every group celebration of the success and nourishment cycle is different. Are there leftover behaviors that no longer serve you? What fresh, exciting new ideas might you add? Is everyone in the family/community being well-served or are there grumpy holdouts? It’s fruitful to listen to the grumpy holdouts occasionally. How might they do things differently? If all they want is to harsh everyone else’s buzz, maybe they should no longer expect an automatic invitation to the feast.
Models & Mentors – “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you will get but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter, enjoy” – William Blake
“Every deed sows a seed, though the harvest you may not see”
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond” – Gwendolyn Brooks
Goddesses Must Detach to Rise Above – Goddess-Vision sees the big picture.Is there loss? Yes, and it has a necessary place in the universe o birth freshness. Is there suffering? Yes – no one “rises above” without it. No one grows empathy and compassion without it. The generous Goddess feels your feelings with you, then she suggests you Get Over It. You still have a body on this planet; you will use your brain to Rise Above and Study the Multiverse.
Do Goddesses FaceDepression? As we have discussed, goddesses feel all feelings, including lack of feeling. Discouragement is common. We must accept that the Universal Brain is bigger even than the goddess brain. Sometimes even our dreams hurt. We experience such shuddering emptiness it’s a physical relief to wake up and find that dream wasn’t real. It’s enough to make a person fear going to sleep.
The Cure is Detachment – Buddhism warns against “clinging” as the source of all suffering. Life’s professional warriors – such as cops, firemen, paramedics – all will tell you to “forget’ the personal just to get the job done. Focus on the “healable” crisis– learn to enjoy the exercise of your gifts.
Learn to Mourn. Mourning is the process of “letting it go” – releasing whatever it is – personality, idea, memory – into the multiverse. Goddesses know it will ultimately be cared for because in Jesus’ own words, those who mourn “will be comforted.”
Remember there Is a Worse Loss than Death: People Can Lose Their Personalities BEFORE They Die. Be sure to think your worldview through BEFORE the crisis happens. Remember, what a caterpillar calls “the end”, Nature calls ”a butterfly.”
We All Need to Mourn – Goddesses mourn, too. Goddesses’ powerful forward drive never fools them into thinking that moving backward in the dance is a sign of weakness, when ebb and flow are laws of life.
Sadness is Stigmatized in a society where perfect strangers feel comfortable demanding that you “smile.” Look at all these Instagram feeds with everybody grinning away because they’re having so much FUN and their lives are so PERFECT they never wake up shuddering with sadness. Except they are human too, so we know that they risk their very humanity by trying to pretend ”everything’s fine” when the red lights are flashing.
Maybe They’re Just Better at Covering It Up than we seem to be. And some people, admittedly are just plain shallower. They’ve worked hard to feel less deeply! And narcissists convince themselves that they can transfer their pain to others and “free” themselves by enjoying the suffering they’ve created. This inevitably means we all have lots of work to do.
First, We Sort Out “Real” from “Transferred” Suffering. Whose misery has been foisted on you? If you’re in that position you are literally a “scapegoat” and will need all your goddess skills to get out of it.
DO NOT ACCEPT TRANSFERRED SUFFERING! – Pain is inevitable but suffering is voluntary. We feel compassion for some, we pity others their willful darkness but goddesses do not accept their world scheme of punishment and torment.
We’ve All Got Plenty of Legitimate, Necessary Mourning to catch up on. If you skate over “bargaining” and “acceptance” all that’s left to you is denial and depression. Sometimes, the “causes” of your lost mourning seem inconsequential to our “adult” selves. “So your pet died when you were five,” everybody says. “Your parents got a divorce. You moved five times. Get over it, already!” But we say, Now is always the perfect time to accept the power and significance of your own feelings.
Goddesses Feel Compassion for Everyone – Themselves Included. Begin with yourself. Why feel these things now, right before you set off on your next great, consequential adventure? Sometimes it is joy that brings to the surface those past unhealed hurts. That’s necessary, part of the ebb and flow. Because we are strong enough to feel it now.
Goddesses Are the Heroes of the Collective Unconscious – Goddess do battle for and honor centuries of collective suffering. (Inter-generational trauma.) It’s OK to think about that sadness, especially if it makes us feel closer to other people. Everyone has these lost, wrecked treasures submerged in their lives.
Goddesses Feel Deeply – Your power frees the greatness of your emotion even as it protects your feelings and other people’s. Celebrate the fact that you are able to feel so deeply in a world where others feel forced to abuse themselves, taking risks and drugs in order to “feel something.”
The Art of Detachment allows the goddess to rise above the fray, strategize, plan. Even on the eve of battle they enjoy their lives. Let go – finally – of the toxic elements in your life. Time to go “no-contact” on the toxic people who waste your energy. Read up on sadism, the better to understand the people out there who are revel in your suffering. Buddhists recommend surveying your thoughts and feelings from a distance, as in hypnotherapy, then setting them free.
Detachment is Not Dissociation – Dissociation is more like floating through life with all our systems repressed, feeling numb. Dissociation is not good. You can use that quivering pool of tears to respond more intensely to life, to art, to music, and to each other.
Resilience is the Goddess’s Most Powerful Survival Trait. This means that even after blight, we can flourish more strongly, just the way pruned plants will. It’s not necessary to explore all the caverns of your being, but it will make you stronger. Once again, choose a buddy and a guide. Think about the “hero’s journey” story you respond to most deeply. How would you explain your hero’s journey to someone else? Feel free to use metaphors, after all, when we were children we did feel our world to be populated by monsters and the supernatural.
Models & Mentors – “Detachment is power. Release all things that no longer work for you” – Shane Steele
“To be detached means to dive so fully into the experience you dropout the other side… with full understanding you can say, “Now that I know, I can let go”
– Teal Swan
“In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty…freedom from our prison of past conditioning…willingness to step into the unknown surrenders us to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe…” – Deepak Chopra
“I release the subjective thoughts, energy and emotions I am holding about people, places and things that kept me trapped in dis-ease…I can step back and allow the feelings & thoughts & energy to dissipate…I am then free to act with compassion, love & acceptance” – Angela James
“Attachment is the fabricator of illusions – reality can be attained only by one who is detached” – Simone Weil
“Detachment is having your life be about you, not about other people”
Do Goddesses Have Paperwork? – Plenty! – The path of an evolved, enlightened being is littered with maps – theoretical, hypothetical and under construction.
Goddesses Dream of a Better World – Do you dream of paths diverging in a yellow wood? Checklists? Maps? Are you talking to yourself as you follow your routine? What IS your routine? How has your routine evolved? What efforts have you made to change it to newly perceived needs and discoveries? Or is your routine formed outside you, for the benefit of others?
Goddess Dream of a Responsive Universe. If you talking to yourself throughout your routine that self-talk needs to be positive. Goddesses are accustomed to being alone during peak experiences. They must record these for history because as Virginia Woolf reminded us, nothing has happened until it has been written down. Become an encouraging coach. Don’t hold yourself hostage or nobody can complete the steps.
If You Have No Goal, Any Path Will Take You There – But you won’t like where you end up.
Goddesses are Goal-oriented. As you become more adept at change, you realize that dividing effort into “steps” to achieve a goal is critical. It won’t happen fast. Your conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious (not to mention your pre-conscious!) are going to kick up a helluva fuss. But aligning these is the most interesting part! Change is guaranteed.
Goddesses Are Sore-Muscled Athletes – Day 2, thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS. Guess what? EVERYBODY THINKS THAT! Expect it! You treat yourself with loving compassion and cold compresses, hot baths and massage. In other words, there is an established map, a way to GET THROUGH THIS. The challenge is to CUSTOMIZE your map.
Being is Movement. As we shape the Path, it shapes us. Even the most anti-social creatures are constantly making paths for others to follow. Such delight when we uncover a ready-made Path because path-making is exhausting! A ready-made path is a mysterious invitation. All paths lead Somewhere. Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the existence of The Other.
Paths Speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. Paths are our Robinson Crusoe footprint. They represent Hope: this Path worked not just once, but many times. We are proud of being Path-makers, Ice-piercers in our turn, Long-distance voyagers. We lead the weary, frightened traveler of the future toward confidence and reliability.
Goddesses Use Models. We need a constantly evolving pit crew of helpers. A side effect of routine remodeling is “crazy thinking.” We all need somebody to talk us off the ledge, somebody who is familiar with not just our goals but what we are going through. Your id is always scheming to hold you hostage, and you need an experienced hostage negotiator.
Waves of “Fear” Surfacing from your collective unconscious require symbolic release and expression in art, dance, love-making, sport or theatre.
Disowned Longings from Your Subconscious threaten your secure sense of self and may require therapeutic intervention.
Unconscious Drives from Depths no one’s ever plumbed can’t be faced without the courage of a Friend or Soulmate. So, don’t try making it through this crisis without a buddy AND a coach.
Halt! AA has a useful acronym – HALT – representing:
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
These are the Emotion States of Bad Decision-making. So, when you see these conditions developing – Halt. Call your hostage negotiator immediately.
Models & Mentors – “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things”
– Albert Einstein
“A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine St. Exupery
“Always remember your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas
Do Goddesses Suffer? – Lesser mortals are under the impression that Goddessing is about permanent smug satiety. The opposite is true. All Goddess emotions are magnified. You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb.
Even Goddesses Hurt – We see the magnitude of the suffering around us. Every religion and philosophical system must account for this misery; storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration as well as animal (and human) predation.
Goddesses Get Used to Loss – Goddess dreams are magnified as they explore inner and outer pain. All fear, anxiety, terrible memories erupt out of the collective unconscious – our shared human history – and are laid at our feet. There is no universe where all these tears can be dried at once, there is only Eternity where we have been assured that “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” How do Goddesses educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma?
Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding our breath on the edge of discovery. Compassion elevates those we love to eternity.
Goddesses Dare to Feel it All. Bravely we take on the feelings of the entire planet to show that we can’t be destroyed by them. Goddesses explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion”;“ Practice taming the wild mind”; or religious – “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet.
Don’t Surrender to Learned Helplessness – Too much suffering breeds inertia. There is danger in giving up even trying to better our human situation – predators will be attracted to such easy prey. The worst outcome would be to surrender enlightenment by becoming predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty and our claim on immortality is cancelled. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.
Goddesses Dare to Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through karmic debt many times. Further epiphanies await.
Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered”
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”
– A.A. Milne
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them”
– Leo Tolstoy
“What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller
“Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” – Norman Cousins
Goddesses Generate Mystery – Do you dream of apocalypses? Religious iconography? Are you a mystery fan but irritated and underwhelmed by most “solutions”? You may have the makings of a Goddess!
Goddesses Tolerate Uncertainty – Do you have faith that there IS a solution? What is your tolerance for the mysterious? Goddesses always crank it up a notch. How much uncertainty can you tolerate? Are you afraid of the dark? Chronically underslept? Fear being alone? Perhaps you need to explore the meaning of faith in your life.
The Faithful Seek Ultimate Reward – Untrusting people are untrusted. George Bernard Shaw said it best: liars can’t believe anybody. In spite of this simple fact, we rush to trust where it isn’t warranted, guaranteeing a cycle of disappointment, yearning and dashed hope that drives our mood still lower. Who do Goddesses rely on? How can we find them?
“People Don’t Remember What You Said, They Remember How You Made Them Feel.” Recall your childhood – the people you loved and trusted and the people you were scared of and nervous about. You were developing a “gut instinct.” Who were the friends that stayed with you in the face of adversity and who were the ones who dropped away?
Love Always Makes the Difference. It is the magic salve that soothes and heals life’s inevitable bumps and scrapes. People who offer real love you can have faith in, people who offer something else – status, belonging, self-serving rationales – disappoint us. Faith gets stronger the more it is proved. We may hope for a good day, but we have faith that the sun will come up.
Goddesses Trust in the Worthy -– Sometimes the mysteries of life are deliberate confusions to keep us confused. Why can’t our politicians ever inaugurate the policies that are the reason we elected them in the first place? They try to convince us that “secret cabals” and “unknown enemies” are at fault. They want us angry and befuddled so we won’t place the blame where it belongs and demand accountability. Secrecy serves the purposes of darkness. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Goddesses Demand Transparency & Accountability. You are worthy! Outline your beliefs and begin to act on them. Some mystery is endemic to existence but when people sharply change direction we can still track their path. Less smoke and mirrors and more step by step upgrades are something we can all agree on.
Goddesses Grow in the Level of Mystery we can Absorb. Algebra has logical answers, quantum theory does not. We solve the puzzles that mystified us as children and keep solving until we come to the puzzles no one can solve. But we keep trying! The limits and un-limits of physics and space are constantly being mapped. We are not content with the label “here be dragons” placed across the unknown. We no longer believe the universe resents and punishes exploration, science and development. A vaccine was developed against a mystery illness in just one year.
No Hope Without Faith – Insoluble mysteries often concern motivation – the spring-work of the soul. Why do we make ourselves miserable? Artists teach us that these questions can be “solved” by posing them differently. Depth psychologists tell us that the shallow reasoning of our surface mind is far less important than deep memories and drives we can uncover through emotional and analytic spelunking. Goddess love mysteries. Develop faith. Never give up.
Models & Mentors – “Faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong.” – 1 Corinthians 16:13
“Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there till some light returns” – Anne LaMott
“If we fight with faith, we are twice armed” – Plato
Existence Is A Spiral – Time to Make a Plan. Goddess power comes from focused desire as much as personal strength. Do you dream about the future? We know the future is real – it keeps arriving every second! But how often does it match our aspirations? Does that even matter?
Goddesses Aspire – To aspire means to yearn for something better, to be able to imagine something better and to begin to mentally create a pathway to improvement. To eternally yearn for improvement means the ultimate can never be reached, and it is the process itself – the devotion to that process – that becomes the religion of the Goddess.
Goddesses Plan – Nothing comes to reality without a Plan. This is a main argument for the existence of God – a Planner of bluebells and quasars seems so real to us and the scope of the universe, its chemistry, math & physics, so orderly. Even the people who see only “chaos” don’t actually want chaos in their own lives. Is our mind greater than the universe? Clearly not. No single brain has been able to encompass the universal design – not even Einstein’s. “Wishing” breeds helplessness and works out so seldom it usually leaves us worse off. But plans evolve, along with us, and even when plans fail, WE succeed. Edison said he hadn’t failed at anything, he simply found “ten thousand ways things don’t work.” That’s the “empiric method.” It’s called knowledge!
Goddesses Take an Active Role – Don’t bother investing pride and honor in being “right” – with a universe this complex, NOBODY’S right. Invest instead in having a good, flexible plan that evolves along with you. Plans are adaptable – they must borrow from all disciplines. Plans can be Art – art is what this universe IS – including the people in it. Give your Plan room to grow.
Goddesses Create a Future Worth Having – Without this effort all our futures would fade into entropy, a constant winding down into muck, inertia and dissolution. Understanding the Goddess’s commitment to betterment means accepting our obligation to advance the lives not only of ourselves and our loved ones, but unmet and even unborn others.
Goddess Danger – Never forget Fundamental Attribution Error. There’s a lot of coincidence and happenstance, which is what the phrase “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time” expresses. So our plan must always be modified to deal with tragedy –the ongoing and universal tragedy of illness, war and disaster. Goddess try to avert these things, will continue learning how better to avert them -but everything isn’t up to us. There are perverse, dark forces at work that enjoy harm and destruction. We can’t become over invested in “winning” because we can’t see or know everything.
Goddess Faith – This is where Faith comes in. Jesus said evil will not win, and that’s good enough for me. Find your own mantra to help you stay strong and to keep working on a healthier you by designing a healthy plan and promoting people around you who can make your plan better. You will also be contributing to their plans – and that’s gratitude. And love. Win-win!
Self-Definition is a Joy – Even though the Ultimate can never be reached by in this lifetime and is always just ahead, it gives us a concept of Paradise we can work for. This work provides the deepest pleasure and connection between persons that is achievable on this planet.
Models & Mentors – “The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment” – Pema Chodron
“The future starts today, not tomorrow” – Pope John Paul II
“A good education is the foundation of a better tomorrow” – Elizabeth Warren
“An uncertain future is not oppressive when Hope guides us” – Charlotte Bronte
Goddesses Dominate Follow-Through – No map is useful unless it is verified and experienced. Ideas are dreams until they are sketched and tested. Every effort is a time commitment, but if the idea is worthy, the time must be committed. There is no failure, only learning, on the eternal time scheme.
Consult Your Dreams – Do you dream of rings? Tokens? Trophies? Collecting and collectibles? Antiques, graduations, pawn shops, art museums? Ceremonies? Awards? Rewards? You are longing for the symbols that consolidate desire. But desire is nothing without will. What is your conscious will? Subconscious? Unconscious? Collective conscious will? What ignites you? You are a creature of Now, a chip on the whirlwind, but you will soon manifest power over yourself and the future.
Goddesses Are Athletes – Nobody’s skills are very good at first. We know there’s nothing “magical’ about becoming a pro! Who said it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be good at something? Isn’t that, like 27 years? In other words, when you really want something, you’re going to have to make a major life commitment to make this possibility a part of yourself.
Goddesses Hang In There – Being committed means you already know it will be difficult and you will have to push through. Goddesses do their best to inform themselves of the challenges ahead and to brush up all their skills, but nothing substitutes for dogged day to day stick-to-it-iveness.
Goddess Challenge – Are you up for sacrifice? Not many people are! You’re going to have to skip the easy, tempting treats – physical, spiritual, emotional – to satisfy the demands of your training. There’s really only one way to do this. You’re going to have to change into a person who LIKES and PREFERS the goal-driven lifestyle. It’s easier if the lifestyle’s not TOO restrictive. By that logic, you can see that it makes sense to start off slow and build – just like you would in the gym. No sense overwhelming tender muscles with weight they can’t handle!
Goddesses Never Surrender – Retreat is only a re-framing. You wait to see a better way to reach your goal. And sometimes new information makes for a goal change. No shame, there! This is the sign of lifelong learning. Goddess are life-long learners.
Goddess Danger – There’s the risk that our self-control will be sabotaged. Addiction. Getting obsessed by something that may have started off healthy, even noble. Suddenly you’re in a downward spiral.
Admit When You Need Help. Is your obsession interfering with work? Relationships? Health? Are friends and family intervening, starting to talk? When a commitment turns deadly – and we know even romantic relationships can do so – reach out to someone with a balanced perspective. Likely there’s a plan already developed to get you back on track without losing the gains you’ve already made.
Goddess Opportunity – Persistence in a healthy commitment is the best path to transformation there is. You truly can become a different person, the person you always wanted to be, over time and in tiny steps. When I wanted to give up sugar, I consumed a lot of fake sugar at first, then less and less over time, until now I can’t believe I ever liked or was satisfied by that stuff – real or fake. My palate has changed, so has my health and so have I. That doesn’t mean I don’t eat the occasional wedding cake! I enjoy my new-made self, and so can you.
Find a Buddy on the Journey – a tried and true pathway. Use mindfulness to examine cravings, release them and calmly set yourself free. Track everything in your Goddess Journal.
Goddesses Honor Their Contracts – Goddess make alliances and promises. Some promises conflict with each other. Some contracts we end up not wanting to fulfill but there is just no way out but through. Goddesses know how to concentrate on the future and keep trying to negotiate win-win modifications to ease everybody’s ride.
Models & Mentors – “Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent”
– Steve Martin
“Failure is a requisite for success. If you want to succeed, double your rate of failure” – Brian Tracey
“Success is the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes on something others would give up on after thirty seconds” – Malcolm Gladwell
“Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism” – Albert Einstein
It’s Time to Release Your Power. Do you dream of fantastic feats? Sports? Circuses? Meritocratic competitions? Do you fear standing up in front of the class? Your psyche yearns to muster passion, the fuel for courage. Passion propels us forward when it would be safer to hang back. Why?
Passion Makes You a Goddess – From your youngest years, you recall that boiling inside of you. Some of us were shamed, some were praised, all of us were re-directed. It is in maturity that we begin to make sense of our passions and to see clearly that not everyone has the same ones.
Define Your Passions – Passions evolve while you grow as a person. We are constantly re-defining the problem, as well as the Self with which we see the problem. You will “graduate” from one passion to another until you find Compassion, its highest form. This life trajectory is cause for enough for Celebration.
Passion’s Worth Defending – Intense caring means you’re staking out ground in the universe. The desirable – justice, truth, art – whatever it is – is so important it needs advocates. You become aware that it’s under attack from people who, for personal reasons of their own, find it inconvenient. “Those who fail to stand up for something will fall for anything.”
Passion Gives You Courage – Defending anything is extremely scary. You can expect to experience every sort of pushback. Studying these possibilities is the beginning of your education as a goddess.
Goddesses Have the Courage of Their Passion – Sometimes we want something concrete, but most of the time it is the adventure itself that we seek. We long to be transformed into an athlete of endurance who can farther faster, learn more better and imagine deeper and more vibrantly.
Fear is a Reaction, Courage is a Decision – Even if you don’t like to fight with your fists goddesses must fight with your mind, with your longing, with your desire. So much is impossible, yet humanity attempts the impossible every day, and a surprising extent of the time, we succeed. Our well-being, our future, depend upon this passion and this courage. Be as wily as a serpent and as gentle as a dove so that your power morphs to encompass the problem.
Broken Goddess – Will your heart and your courage be broken? Many times, says the fable. But light comes in through the broken places. You will flex and bend. You will evolve and grow. Your passions will change. You will rise above your passions. Your courage will evolve. YOU WILL FLOURISH and the beauty of your effort, of your dream, joins together with all the other glorious human resolutions and accomplishments to power the planet.
Goddess Danger – Derailment is common. It is endemic. It is not the end. We live in a capitalistic society where some deliberately harness the passion, the courage, the imaginations of others to benefit only themselves. It is heartbreaking to put all your keenest insight into discoveries and achievements that only serve to buy baubles for billionaires. Soldiers can find themselves giving everything for Very Bad Ideas. Artists watch their best installments torched and trashed. All of us face the shock of old age – if we are lucky. You need a shock absorber to upgrade your courage.
Goddess Opportunity – The hum of the universe provides the refreshment we need. There is still much peace and beauty in the green places, and the eyes of children provide all the light we need. To be strong requires exercise – Push-relax, push-relax. Nutrition has the same requirement. There’s a time to eat and a time to fast and each of those spaces is holy. The less we take, the less we require, the finer tuned becomes our mechanism. The more there is to share. Share with holy people who recognize and honor the gifts of God, not those who try to inspire hate, divisiveness and violence. Naturally we have sore places – we are goddess! We all need to give and receive the magical healing of a loving touch. Let that courage be your passion.
You Are Not Alone – Someone has your back. Find out who: among the people who love you, among historical figures, famous thinkers and contemporary philosophers. If you can’t find a group, start a group. True friends give each other courage.
Models & Mentors – “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” – Brene Brown
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage” – Anais Nin
“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute for experience.” – Paulo Coelho
