In this episode of Women Thriving, Unapologetically we reveal and explore the missing ingredient to happiness.

I would love to liveLike a river flows,Carried by the surpriseOf its own unfolding.~ John O’Donohue We can be so hard on ourselves, can’t we? Pushing toward a goal with […]

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons […]

There is something so stunning about how the fullness of life is held packed inside a seed until the moment is just right to unfurl itself into the world. This time of the year in the Pacific Northwest is an eruption of green, color, scent and beauty as new life emerges after the dormant winter. I particularly love watching the ferns in my backyard do their elegant opening. 

"I have come into the world to see this, the swords drop from man's hands, even at the top of their arc of anger, because we have finally realized that [...]

“The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, […]

Do you Recognize Your Own Mysterial Leadership Emerging? This budding quality of leadership is not based exclusively on roles, power, and command over others. It is an integral way of […]

We are such beautiful, vast beings living in a beautiful and vast universe…

In these days of the Great Unravelling, as COVID-19 lurches us back and forth out of lockdown, as we are being asked to face the shadows of systemic racism in [...]

In many of the talks that I have given over the last few years, I have mentioned that the upgrading of our inner operating systems to one I call Mysterial is to prepare us for the dark times ahead. I would imagine you would agree that we are in the midst of these dark times right now. They are not coming sometime in the future…

A few years ago, I met a woman called Rachel, a devoted mom of two boys, brimming with talent and capability (much of it packed away like beautiful items in a hope chest), who was experiencing a major challenge. Her lack of self-compassion was wreaking havoc in her life…

In the past decade, we’ve made huge strides in the field of women’s leadership. More women ran for public office in 2018 than ever before. #MeToo has helped take steps toward true and real equality. A recent McKinsey report (of 222 companies employing 12 million people) found that 90% of people consider it a priority to hire and retain women (almost double the findings in 2012).

How can we stoke our inner fire, without burning out, so that we can make our unique contribution in the world in a way that is aligned with the ground of our being?

Over the past fifteen years I’ve had the honor of speaking to thousands of women change agents, and the one thing I am sure of is this; while the leadership challenges today are enormous, it is this very pressure that is allowing us to birth a whole new way of leading – in alignment with our evolutionary unfolding. 

It’s counter-intuitive – by all outward appearances, once women have become successful consultants, executive coaches, leaders or entrepreneurs, they have it made, right?

How grounded and at home do you feel today?

Today’s world inundates with invitations to move up-and-out as we boldly take our place in our culture as leaders and guides.

I care deeply about the future of our world.

I’ve long been inspired by women who dare to listen to the clarion call to lead with emotional intelligence, intuition and courage in the face of uncertainty, to create the kind of future we all long for. Women like you. 

As we dismantle the old architecture within us – created by the hyper-masculine culture that we’ve been living in for 5000 years – it takes real courage to sit in the unknown calling in the future that we know is possible.

In this interview I share what happened to me on January 3 of 2013. When I had just finished my first book, and was working with a publisher to bring into the world, I came home to find that my beloved husband had committed suicide…

I was recently discussing with a client the powerful nature of resistance to change, even when… or especially when… we want a different experience. Like many of the women who find their way into the Mysterial work, my client’s old ways of being are no longer working.

I am excited to share this podcast! In 2018 I was invited to participate as a presenter at the FemmeQ Summit in LA. The conference was uniquely designed to bring together both male and female speakers to run workshops and be on panels. I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a workshop and being on a panel with Robert Schwenkler…

Do you find yourself giving so much to everyone else that there’s nothing left for yourself? This is an all-too common pitfall for women, especially mothers and those caring for aging parents – or sandwiched between both! In this video, I guide you through the felt experience called Soft Animal of The Body.

What’s up with the pendulum swinging into over-doing and over-giving when we are so stirred up? Giving to everyone else and feeling there’s nothing left for ourselves. In two decades of research with hundreds of women, I’ve discovered…

You might be asking yourself how we’ve come to learn about the existence of, and pathway to, this new way of being we call The Way of the Mysterial Woman. This emergence was unmistakably revealed over the course of 15 years of research.

Let’s use this International Women’s Day to return home to the Ground of Being – and not just for today! I invite you to take 5 minutes sometime today or in the next few days to listen to my message wrapped around a powerful poetic prose piece called Ground from poet David Whyte…

I recently had the chance to sit down with Sunny Joy, host of Sunny in Seattle, to discuss transformational psychology, shadow work, ancient Mystery school secrets, and visionary evolutionary thinking.

Last month I had a substantial conversation with with Runa Magnus of the podcast The Change Makers! It was a real pleasure to engage with her around why it is important for those of us who want to make a difference in the world to be running on an ‘inner operating system’ that is up to the complexities of the world today…

My conversation with Sheila Sutherland of Reignite Your Purpose spanned many topics including how women in business who are using the traditional masculine leadership style are ‘burning out’ at alarming rates…

I recently talked with Jana DeCristofaro on the Grief Out Loud podcast about my story of surviving the loss of my husband. In my interview, I discuss the “shame swamp” that surrounds those who are connected to someone who commits suicide and the process of falling apart before you can fall together again. I hope you will take a few moments to listen.

There’s a shakeup going on for women right now. We, as women, are on the edge of evolution. We are bringing in a new wave of development. We’re giving birth to this new level of our potentiality, and it’s shaking up all of the old structures. 

An interview on the Sacred Psychology podcast, hosted by licensed therapist and empowerment coach, Tamara Powell. We discuss a new phase of consciousness and the Feminine and Masculine shadows that are holding women’s true wisdom, love and power hostage…

Learn 3 rituals that can change your life – quite literally. How we enter our day has everything to do with how we experience it and what we manifest. Yet far too often we don’t take the time for tuning the instrument of our being so that it is able to play the song of our hearts. Instead we roll out of bed, turn on our phones and tune into a world of information and demand all before we have any connection to ourselves.

In a video conversation inspired by Mysterial Faculty member Nota Lucas, we peer through the Mysterial lens at current events like #MeToo, women’s marches, the US Presidency and more…

If there is one thing that most of us can probably agree upon it is that these are challenging and unpredictable times – both personally and globally. Psycholanalyst and author Clarissa Pinkola Estes has written a powerful prayer that invites us to let what knocks us down in life also be our teacher. 

In this tincture conversation, Suzanne Anderson and Kim Carpenter explore this juicy topic. A collective shift in consciousness seems to be happening for women these days and igniting many to ‘do what is theirs to do’ and start their own businesses. What is that about? …

I recently had the pleasure of joining life coach and colleague Jodi Flynn on her show Women Taking the Lead. She has created a uniquely engaging format in her conversations, where she asks her guests to not only speak about their professional expertise but to also speak candidly about humble beginnings and how we played small at some point…

I was recently invited to join my friend Mariaestela in a sacred conversation about the rise of the Divine Feminine and its necessary place in evolution…

Poetry is one of my favorite languages, connecting the heart and the mind in ways that stir the soul. I use poems to inspire women to awaken their innate potentiality – a potentiality that I call Mysterial. Mysterial Women are able to weave together all of their Feminine and Masculine strengths as elegantly and powerfully as poetry does.

In the mid to late nineties, I was leading the European office for my Toronto based consulting firm. We were smack in the middle of a huge corporate culture shift program with IBM, who was learning to become more nimble to adjust for the new computer kids on the block, like Microsoft. The corporate leadership culture was required to shift dramatically from hierarchical, more Masculine command and control styles to much more flexible and inclusive Feminine approaches that allowed for empowered actions further down in the organization.

One of the more feminine models is that of collaboration, and so I am inviting you to join me in consciously sourcing our fellow Mysterial Women. 

You, and the others who expressed interest in learning and living in the Way of the Mysterial Woman, have stepped into a curiosity of your Mysterial emergence; together we are beginning to form a kind of energetic beacon which will draw the other women toward us.

I recently had the pleasure of discussing the “inner lizard” with my good friend and colleague Martha Hamilton, author of the new book “Going Reptile: How Engaging Your Inner Lizard Leads to More Fulfilling Work and Personal Relationships.” 

Women have the tremendous opportunity to become agents of creative change in the face of the uncertain and unknown. The potential within us to bring forth a new way of being is coming to the surface, and we’re being guided to nurture it into bloom.

I have long considered poetry to be one of the languages of the Mysterial Woman. It brings together the more masculine use of words, with the more feminine imaginal. The weaving together of those two ways of knowing is one of the potent elements of the language of poetry. It addresses both the spoken and not spoken – evoking that which is between the lines.

The final Archetype in The Mysterial Sequence, The Chrone helps us to be with what is completely – open to the Mystery and waiting for all the pieces to arrive before stepping forward. This allows us to have an open heart and to be with heartbreak—our own suffering and the suffering of others…

The Maiden Archetype is where our creativity, intuition and sexuality ignite. Yet the Limiting Belief within The Maiden Archetype Wound is “It is not safe to express myself fully.”…

This is the gate through which we come into belonging, into the community, and into our ‘fit’ with society – if we can heal the wound of trying too hard to belong, or rebellion against the current structures…

The Hero Archetype is a dance partner with todays world! We need to know how to participate in the world without burning out….

The first of five gates, exploring ‘The Mother’ Wound. Since it’s so foundational, it’s even finding it’s way into the mainstream now…

Today we honor women and girls and our right to be fully ourselves – to know that we are enough, that we are empowered to do what is ours to go, that we belong, that it is safe to express ourselves fully, and that we are an evolving channel of wisdom love and power.

Mysterial women are emerging now to bring profound new ways of being, that engage both our Feminine and Masculine strengths, into manifestation in the world. 

Money is one of the core languages of exchange in the world. One that is important for you to explore personally and one that is important for us collectively to reinvent.

One thing that I imagine many of us can agree upon right now is that we are being broken open by these times. There is a lot of talk about the need for RESISTANCE to what seems to be a reversing of years of progress for women and culture itself. I certainly agree that we will need to stand firm around many things that matter to us and be willing to take actions that we have been complacent about before. In this sense we will need to resist the tendency to remain quiet or sit back and wait for someone else with more knowledge, connections or influence to take care of the world. 

Listen carefully and perhaps you will hear your future self, reaching back through time and space whispering…You were born for these very times. Do not be afraid. Have faith in what you cannot yet see. Ignite your courage and commitment to keep on walking forward even as the fog thickens and the sky darkens. The future generations of tomorrow are counting on you today. 

I believe that women have an adaptive advantage right now to be agents of change in the world. Like Mary in the moment of this Annunciation painting we are being asked to take the future right into our wombs. To say YES to the BIG CALLS THAT COUNT. To say YES to letting the seeds of possibility be planted in our bodies and hearts, even if we do not know how we will bring them to fruition. To say YES to being a woman on the edge of evolution with the courage and leadership capacity to give birth to her FULL self and to a world that works for all. 

Yesterday was a powerful Pisces Full Moon and a Lunar Eclipse. This combination is said to stir the unconscious waters and push our deepest feelings up to the surface of awareness. Have you noticed? Not particularly comfortable! I’d like to offer you a practice from The Mysterial Sequence that is a wonderful way to work with these intense feelings and begins the process of changing our relationship to them. And like life itself it all begins with The Mother. I hope you find this helpful!

Discovering that the turmoil in our lives could be an invitation to grow instead of a sign of failure is often a deep relief for women. Working with the director Martha Enson and filmmaker Alex Carillo we created a short video which makes the case for why it is so vital right now that women turn toward their suffering and longing in a community of support to awaken the Mysterial potential within. 

With our book – The Way of the Mysterial Woman: Upgrading How You Live, Love and Lead – about to be published on April 12th I am standing on the threshold of a very new phase of my work and life. The book is the ‘pearl of great price’ after twenty years of a committed exploration into how women could develop to the next level of our evolutionary potential. There have been many rewarding gifts and many heart breaking losses during this time, and I can feel it all jangling around inside as I stand here now. 

And I am trembling.

One of the many offerings I received as I have moved over the landscape of loss, after the sudden death of my husband, was a new level of tender compassion for myself. I was always very caring and compassionate when dealing with someone else’s suffering, but I wasn’t very patient with my own. I would often leapfrog over it to help others, not wanting to turn toward my own pain…

In her recent New York Times Op-Ed piece  Gail Collins outlined the Democratic presidential nomination challenge quite well. She laid out the dynamic tension between the staunch Feminist Hillary supporters, who line up behind Gloria Steinem, and the younger generation of women who don’t see in Hillary a role model they want to follow and are aligned with Bernie. …

The darkness has invaded – blasted its bloody way into the joy, pleasure and camaraderie of a Friday night in your Stade de France, your cafés and bistros, your concert hall. After living with you for many amazing years this violation rattles at the gate of the secret garden inside you awakened in me. You are the one who taught me about the beauty way, grace, sensuality, imagination and love – you showed me the face of the sacred Feminine…