Something to Say
Over the years hundreds of women were my teachers. They taught me that every wisewoman has something she wants to say. She’s got a voice because she cares. When she listens to the wisdom of her heart, something really matters to her whether in the backyard with the kids, in a company as part of the senior management team, or holding political office – she is ready to speak up.
Culturally trained to be apologetic and uncertain, women don’t always value what they know deep inside. We compare ourselves unfavorably to other women and men with demeaning self-talk that our progress, our contribution is not enough…and never will be enough.
Yet, every time we speak up, put out what we think, it has a positive effect, unless of course we are speaking to someone not willing and ready to hear. Then we need to make that fundamental decision – is this mine to say, is it to this person at this time? If yes, then figure out how to say it without making the other person wrong or joining in the status games of one-up/one-down; who is in/who is out. In my experience, truth may not be pleasant, but it does stand on it’s own as an authentic perspective.
The key is right place, right time, deep connection with what really matters. Personal power ensues. Not power over – power with. An invitation to make a positive difference in the world, now, when we are so dearly needed on all fronts.
There is not a tax on the number of words we are allowed to use nor an open door to talk nonstop. When we link wisdom with our core values – we become wise leaders creating bridges for others, and/or just plain stating what needs to be said as the alchemists we are sometimes called to be.
What are you called to say? To whom? When?
Do it. With love.
Celebrating your wisdom,
Karen
Join me on March 29th 4pmPT / 7pm ET in the next Conversations with Remarkable Women with Beth Greer – Huffington Post columnist, mom, and intelligent wisewoman with critical information on health in our homes. Sign up today to hear the free call or get the recording.
http://www.thewisdomconnection.com
Business Coaching: Building a Business to Momentum
- Pre-Formulation: This is the time of conception, just starting to put your ideas and vision together. When I’m coaching a woman at this stage she says things like, “I love taking pictures and I wish that I could use that to earn some money for my family. But, I’m not sure I’m good enough.”
- Formulation: Like being 4 months pregnant, you are on the path to building a business. Maybe you’ve set up a blog (but you’re barely writing in it), opened a bank account, came up with a company name, learned your camera inside out, and offered free photo shoots to friends and family to build your portfolio.
- Concentration: This is the “doing” stage (remember the first couple months after birth!). You are putting 10 in to get 1 out as you work on website, financial systems, designing logo and ads, learning new software, setting up online accounts, and getting some clients. If someone asks, you can finally say (without choking) “I’m a photographer with my own business.”
- Low-Momentum: Whew! Finally, that intensely concentrated time of doing, doing, doing starts to pass and now you are putting 5 in and getting 1 out. Things are starting to happen on their own. Happy clients refer more clients. You trade tips with other photographers.
- High-Momentum: Like a snowball rolling down the hill, things are really starting to grow. It’s still a lot of work but your systems are in place, your reputation proceeds you, and it’s more like putting 1 in and getting 5 out. You start to look for ways to innovate, improve quality, and extend your reach. You are a confident photographer.
Let’s Celebrate your Wisdom!
One of my dearest friends is very wise. She sees the potential in me when my vision is shadowy. She uses the power of her gentleness, the strength of her love, and the clarity of her insight so that every one around her flourishes. She’s an absolute joy, with a lovely ability to discern what really matters.
While many men consider themselves wise, many women question whether they have wisdom. They might think wisdom has to do with age (older is wiser) or sex (the image of the white man with the beard) or a certain erudite character. It’s an effect of the cultural context I refer to in earlier blogs and dive into in depth in my upcoming book. I’m working on it every day this week and I feel so happy doing so.
It’s amazing that many women, like my dear friend, are very wise; yet, when asked, just about every woman hesitates to claim their wisdom. If I asked you, “How were you wise this week”, it might be the first time you’ve ever been asked this question, or thought about your self in this way. You might speak about it in a shy or self-dismissive manner, but yet, in just a few minutes, you would most likely tell me about a feeling, an insight or decision, a time you communicated your truth or an action you took. You would tell me why you considered them to be wise and why they were important to you. And then another, and another. Once we got you started, it would be hard to stop!
Would you share your wisdom with all of us? How were you wise this week? Let’s celebrate your wisdom!
When you post your comment let me know if you are interested, and I’ll send you an advance copy of part of the Wisdom Chapter of my upcoming book. Maybe I’ll even use your example in the book!
Many Blessings, Karen
The Crone as Guide into the Unknown
Guest blogger Dale Allen continues our journey into the Crone archetype and how she is our guide through the unknown. As leaders in home, community, or work, we are leading through dismantling of many structures and relationships. Post a comment and tell us all about your own relationship with the Crone or ask Dale a question.
You’ll love my interview with Dale from Tuesday, March 6, 2012. Sign up here to receive access to the recording.
I celebrate you, your wisdom and your leadership – in connection for the benefit of the world! Karen Buckley
Part 3
Our journey to the inner Crone archetype goes beyond the personal to the collective.
I believe that the metaphor of standing uncertain in a winter landscape—needing to turn inward, into the stillness—is a valid metaphor for the collective consciousness on our planet right now. Collectively, we just don’t know what’s going to happen or where we’re all headed. We suspect something new wants to be born. In the traditional wisdom cycle, we think it must be: birth, growth, death, renewal. The birth cannot come until the death happens. We learned this tradition in the logical/linear fashion: we want to start at the beginning, at the birth, as if nothing preceded it.
But in feminine wisdom, it’s an ever-turning circle: birth, growth, death, renewal, birth, growth, death, renewal. We know collectively, that the way that we have been operating is not going to last. It’s not going to continue. Things are crumbling, things are falling apart. Even so, we sense on the deepest level inside ourselves that we didn’t come here to Earth for failure. We didn’t come here for ultimate destruction. We came here because inside us, within our Souls, there is a seed. Every one of us holds this seed as Co-Creators of a new paradigm on this planet. The only way we can do it is if we are willing—right now, all of us—to remain in this space of stillness for a while, unknowing, even though it can be tough to do.
The Crone is such a big part of my life right now. Even though I know better, the most painful thing I do is delude myself into thinking that I am having a solo experience here. I’m really not. The moment I think I am on my own, the moment I think that whatever pains or disturbances I’m feeling are mine and mine alone, I’ve bought into a great falsity, the ultimate trick. In truth, my whole subterranean, psychic landscape is shared with you, just as I share yours. Collectively, especially in these times, there is a lot of fear. There is sorrow. There is also a lot of courage.
If you are ever in a moment—or I should say, when you are next in a moment—when you feel the pain and discomfort of not-knowing, understand that you are not alone. We are all in this together. We all share this moment on the planet for a reason. We have waited lifetimes for this lifetime.
You count, you matter, you are critical to what wants to be created. Know that, and know it well. Don’t try to fast-forward to spring. Stay with me, if you will, in the light of the Crone’s fire, stay in the stillness and together we will emerge into the dawn of new beginnings. The Archetypes That Shape A Woman’s Life – The Crone© — By Dale Allen
In an upcoming blog series, I will explore the gifts of the Maiden archetype. Let me know if you’d like Karen to feature this here!
Dale Allen has been described as “a living Goddess, a bright light, a messenger, a teacher, a storyteller who was born to be listened to!” She has brought her talents to scores of audiences—nationwide and from Kauai to Dubai—with her one-woman show, In Our Right Minds™, A Celebration of Women, the Sacred Feminine and the Right Brain.
Ms. Allen is a veteran of corporate and commercial communications. Her extensive resume includes hundreds of voice-over, on-camera, and live presentation projects. Some of the most quality-conscious companies (among them, BMW, General Electric, and Canon) have chosen her to represent their brands. She is an accomplished lecturer, workshop facilitator, playwright, and theatrical actress. She received the 2011 Sparky Catalyst Award for Inspirational Women in Los Angeles. Described as having the energy of “a Cape Canaveral lift-off,” she thoroughly engages and inspires her audiences, ranging from highly-educated corporate leaders to teenage girls seeking their place in the world.
Her full performance DVD is available at http://www.inourrightminds.com.
Thank you Dale! Please visit Dale’s website to learn more about her beautiful work and listen to some of her powerful dramatic talks. — http://www.inourrightminds.com
Blessings, Karen
http://www.thewisdomconnection.com
The Wisdom of the Crone: Essential to Leadership?
Guest blogger Dale Allen continues our journey into the Crone archetype and her relationship to our personal power and inner knowing. She can show us how getting to know the wisdom of the Crone helps us to harness our leadership. Sign up for this blog to get the link to Day 3 and learn more about why you just might want someone to call you a Crone!
Dale Allen In Our Right Minds
You’ll love my interview with Dale from Tuesday, March 6, 2012. Sign up here to receive access to the recording.
I celebrate you, your wisdom and your leadership – in connection for the benefit of the world! Karen Buckley
Part 2
She’s been with you since you since the day you were born: Meeting the Crone within.
Let us continue with our journey. Here we are, standing in a winter landscape where all is barren, frozen and covered with snow. You can no longer see the road you were traveling. You are tempted to quickly fill the void with something familiar because it’s just too painful to stand in the unknown. Yet you know on the deepest level what you must do.
Within this metaphor, turn your focus and your energy into the vital organs of your own body. This will be the pathway for going down, deep down beneath the snows—down into the groundedness of your own Being. Hold in your mind an image of a cave underneath the cold, frozen ground. It’s lit orange by a small fire tended by a very ancient, sage woman.
She is a WiseWoman with long, white hair and long, thin fingers. She tends the fire. When she looks at you and your eyes meet, you see timelessness. She’s so very ancient, yet timeless. In many ways, it’s like looking into a baby’s eyes. We say a baby is “fresh from the lap of God,” because, as you look into a baby’s eyes, you’re taken out of the earthly realm and brought into a place of soulful eternity, very much like this ancient Wise Woman’s eyes. You sit with her in the silence. She knows you deeply.
She makes no judgments about you or your life. She makes no judgments about what you constructed and what has fallen. All that she cares about is whether you are living in your own authenticity. “Did you make mistakes?” her eyes ask you. “Yes, of course I did,” your eyes answer. She smiles. She’s very pleased about your journey. You have revealed to her that the mistakes you made were yours. Your efforts to live in alignment with your soul all along the way are evident. It was because you poured your life, your love, into something—maybe it isn’t there anymore, but you did it and it made you stronger and you learned. She’s very happy that you are doing your best and coming from a place of love and learning, even with all its pain. As you sit with her in the stillness, you simply take account for where you are, and breathe for a while in the not-knowing, in the winter—quite suspended, but also very alive.
The Crone asks us to just look around at what is. In doing so, we are looking through eyes of authenticity. The key is to not employ an immediate storyline to fill the gap. We should not try to make ourselves comfortable and make things look like what we knew before. We might be tempted to do that because it’s just too painful to not know. If we resist, we resist a culture that perpetually asks, “What are you doing? I need to know what you are producing! What can you show me? If you can’t show me something you’re producing, you don’t exist!” Our only answer to this discomfort must surely be, “Ahh, but I do exist. I am breathing. I am here.”
If we’re willing to stay in the stillness, even though it’s painful—if we just breathe with it—we open up a fertile space. As we look into this ancient woman’s eyes, she reveals to us that she holds the seed to the bloom of our destiny. It is through the Crone that we come back to the Maiden.
If we try to harness our leadership without bringing forth the sage wisdom of the Crone, we will miss the very seeds of our own creative contributions. We will be hollow, plastic, robotic. Taking time to just be in the stillness—in the not-knowing—pays off in an ability to sow the seeds of our souls’ offerings. The Archetypes That Shape A Woman’s Life – The Crone© — By Dale Allen
In tomorrow’s blog I’ll bring our journey round to how the Inner Crone goes beyond the personal to the collective.
Thank you Dale! Please visit Dale’s website to learn more about her beautiful work and listen to some of her powerful dramatic talks. — http://www.inourrightminds.com
Blessings, Karen
http://www.thewisdomconnection.com & http://www.communicore.biz
Isn’t it an insult to call a woman a Crone? I’ve invited guest blogger Dale Allen to tell us how we can more effectively harness our leadership as women when we understand the archetypes, and bring the wisdom and strength they provide to the table. Tune in to the next 3 days to learn more about why you just might want someone to call you a Crone!
Dale Allen on Archetypes for Women
Plus, join me when I interview Dale on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. Sign up here to hear the call or receive access to the recording.
I celebrate you, your wisdom and your leadership – in connection for the benefit of the world! Karen Buckley
Part 1
It’s wintertime in our northern hemisphere – a perfect time to explore the Crone archetype and start the series: The Archetypes That Shape A Woman’s Life. The feminine archetypes I speak of are Maiden, Mother and Crone and, in that order, fit a woman’s chronological life: Maiden – childhood, Mother – reproductive years, and Crone – elder years. I really want to stress these archetypes are alive, not just some cold and impersonal psychological labels.
I invite you to come into a dream space, a space that is timeless, where characters in novels dwell and where archetypes live and breathe. Within our psyches, the archetypes are always available, they are always there. Rather than just focusing on, and taking the gifts from, certain ones at certain times, it’s very important we understand the archetypes. They offer us such valuable insight, pathways and perspective to understanding where we are in life and what we’ll miss if we don’t glean their wisdom now.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung described archetypes as models of people, behaviors, or personalities. For Jung, the psyche was composed of three components: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is where the archetypes exist. These models are unlearned; they are innate, universal, and hereditary. An archetype is an inward image in the human psyche that exerts a powerful influence on the nature of an individual’s personality and, in turn, on the larger culture.
In The Archetypes That Shape A Woman’s Life, I’m not going to begin with the Maiden, which would logically fit the chronological order of things. We aren’t going down a logical path here. We’re going into a space that is beyond logic and beyond time. It is not sequential. We’re going into the dimension of archetypes. I want to focus on the Crone, because I believe that the Crone is probably one of the least well understood of women’s archetypes. Could it be that we fear her, in our culture that so prizes youth and productivity? Are we so jaded by the glamour of youth that we look at the Crone sometimes and say, “Can’t we just skip this one? I don’t think I want to go meet her.” She exists and has existed in us since the day we were born. And she’s so powerful! One of the greatest things we can teach our children (by “our children,” I don’t mean biological/personal family only—we all have children of some sort in our lives) is life is a series of deaths. Life is a progression of disappearances. Our culture thinks of life as an experience that goes something like this: we build it, we structure it, we count on it, we delude ourselves into thinking we’ve arrived somewhere … and then it all goes away. Instead we should look at certain threads that remain: threads connecting to our constant and timeless Inner Core. If we don’t, we can get lost in the painful shambles when all these constructs fall.
Do you remember graduating high school, perhaps heading off to college, and hearing the adults say in a wistful sort of way, “They have their whole lives ahead of them”? What they don’t seem to realize about this stage in our lives is that it is actually a kind of death. Deaths happen even during childhood. I make this point so that you understand that all sorts of deaths happen throughout life. Unprepared, we can get to a point where what we constructed, put all our efforts into — our plans, our dreams, our hopes — are the ways we came to define ourselves and our lives.
These constructs can and often do fall. You may find yourself asking, “What happened? I’m standing here now and I can’t see any of it anymore. I don’t know where to go. I can’t see the path, it’s covered with snow. I don’t know anything here. It’s very still. It’s very silent.”
Yes, winter is a great time to explore the Crone. The winter landscape offers us its barrenness. Rather than despair, we need to look on it as a revelation. See that the lack of fruits and flowers, our myriad creations, the garlands around the Maypole are not truly hidden by the bleak landscape with trees silhouetted against the sky.
We will come to see that it is just another manifestation of death, not to be feared. What was familiar may be gone. But we can’t fast-forward to spring. In fact, if we try to fast-forward so that something will immediately fill the void, we will find that it is false and it, too, will fall. If we have the courage to stand in the stillness and simply look around us, there’s an invitation that will occur. It’s an invitation to journey down deep within our selves. The Archetypes That Shape A Woman’s Life – The Crone© — By Dale Allen
In tomorrow’s blog, I’ll take you on that journey beneath the snows to meet the Crone within.
Thank you Dale! Please visit Dale’s website to learn more about her beautiful work and listen to some of her powerful dramatic talks. — http://www.inourrightminds.com
Blessings,
Karen
http://www.thewisdomconnection.com & http://www.communicore.biz
Join us on our The Wisdom Connection Fan Page for more great references and links.
Wealth for Women Summit – WOW!
Are you ready for an elevated conversation about money and wealth? Take a look at all that is offered through the upcoming Wealth for Women Summit. I am delighted and honored to be a speaker in the Wealth for Women Global Summit Series dedicated to Empowering Conversations About Your Money and Your Life. Please join me there and pass this important information on to others who could benefit.
This is a FREE, dynamic virtual series of wide-ranging, insightful interviews, beginning TODAY, Thursday, February 23, 2012 and hosted by Debra Price Van Cleave. This very special series will give you access to today’s most inspiring and influential thought leaders on topics that matter most to women about money and life, grounded in Feminine Wisdom.
Included in this distinguished group of speakers which includes Marci Shimoff, Dr. Sue Morter, Morgana Rae, Margaret M. Lynch, Rinaldo Brutoco, Caterina Rando, PJ Van Hulle, Karen Solomon, Leela Francis, Dr. Toni Galardi, Moses Ma and Claire Rumore, Rev. Julie Renee, Shelly Lefkoe, Anat Baniel, Angie Grainger, Adiel Gorel . . . and some surprises, too!
In my interview on April 17th you will be empowered by stories of inspiring women leaders who use their Feminine Wisdom with courage, focus and confidence to create Truly Wealthy futures for their lives and organizations. You will learn how to leverage your passions and unique gifts to expand your wealth, develop your Feminine Wisdom to become a more powerful leader plus other expert advice to create wealth.
Register now to take advantage of all the Wisdom, Inspiration, Solutions and Empowerment this wonderful series has to offer you. Enjoy listening, free of charge, from the very first day, with replays of each speaker for 48 hours.
In addition, when you register, you will get the following, absolutely FREE:
1. You will be entered into a drawing for a brand new, 32GB Wi-Fi Apple iPad2, retail value of $599, plus sales tax and shipping (all included). See details on the website.
2. You will receive over 15 outstanding BONUS GIFTS, with a total value of over $500. These include special reports, trainings, audios and videos that are NOT available to the general public.
I look forward to enjoying this time together with you, Debra and the other speakers offering their very best to assist you in creating a more JOYFUL, THRIVING, PROSPEROUS AND TRIUMPHANT life.
Sign up now to reserve your spot!
This series is starting on February 23rd and you must register early in order to get access to these powerful interviews, phenomenal special offers, outstanding Bonus Gifts and a brand new Apple® iPad2.
Let’s grow our wealth together!
Karen Wilhelm Buckley
Director
P.S. Are you ready to move with your friends and colleagues into a new paradigm of True Wealth and abundance? Forward this on!
P.P.S. Look for our email next week – free TWC teleclass with Dale Allen on February 28th. For more info and to register, click here now. Fascinating artist, actress and author! Plus she will be a guest blogger next week here on the Crone.
What Wise Leaders Do
U.N. Climate Chief Christiana Figueres
Wise leaders, like Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican head of the U.N. Climate Agency, encourage change by gathering and disseminating information on what is working. A recent Huffington Post article highlighted her work with high-profile executives from companies such as Coca-Cola, Unilever and Virgin Group. “Underscoring the focus on businesses, the U.N. climate agency last month launched an online database showcasing examples of companies making efforts to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change.”
These companies include and influence key decision makers in many different companies. In recognition of the decreasing chance that the political process in the US or abroad or the U.N. climate talks will actually make a significant difference, she is reaching out to corporations as the global citizens shaping the policies and practices of every country.
Global responsibility is all of ours – and especially those who wield the vasts resources of corporations today. What is your company doing well? How can you recognize, publicize, and build on it?
Who do you see as a wise leader in your world? What do they do or not do so you consider them wise?
What Happens When we are Wise? Wise Results.
What happens when we activate our wisdom? What changes?
When my daughter, Moreia, was a Senior in college, she emailed me this story. It speaks directly to the gifts of wisdom.
Here’s the background: with the professor’s permission, Moreia completed and handed in a series of complex paintings a week after the quarter ended,. But then week after week no grade appeared in her record and now she was up against a registration deadline. She visited his office and sent emails to no avail.
Finally, a favorable coincidence gave her an elegant way to create a relationship that could help her influence the professor. Her request was clear and said in a way that some new connections could hear and help. (Oh, if only I was that wise at 22!)
When I woke today I still had no grade from my professor. I emailed him again and went to work. At work I had a table of 7 women who were loud, indecisive, basically not my favorite kind of table. But I smiled and used my feminine wisdom to engage as I made them laugh, drink & eat. Later in the meal they mentioned that they worked in the Registrars office (one of the women was the director). Through different jokes and comments I mentioned I had a serious matter to discuss with their office but I wasn’t sure if I could get off work in time. I asked if I could tell them now and they invited me to. I explained the situation and gave them my e-mail. The second server did not show up and I did not get home until too late to go into the office. I did however, check my email on break and I’d received an email from my customer, Lynn, saying that she had called the director of the art department asking for my grade. The next evening, my professor ate in my section and told me he had been called in to give me a grade! I just got off work and received an email, from Lynn, that everything has been taken care of & how much she appreciated my service. Anyone who says waitressing is not an honorable or useful job is wrong. 🙂 Love u!
From a sold foundation of a sense of personal value, confidence in the rightness of her request, and an ability to be kindly direct in her communication she overcame her frustration and waited for an opening, then acted! Feminine wisdom in action.
How were you wise today?
Karen Wilhelm Buckley 