Intuition, Identity, Integrity and Influence: Recipe for resilient and impactful women.

(Keynote speech at ALS Cayman's fundraising brunch "Let Talk" Women's Empowerment Brunch held on Sun 14 March 2021) I am truly honoured to be here with all of you beautiful, strong women today. It is such a blessing to be enjoying this event with you all without masks and social distancing, while most of the world is still in lockdown. As I take you through this little guided journey, I encourage you to take out your phone and open the notes app in case you want to make a note of any 'tidbits' you find interesting. I am a big fan of practical application, so I’m hoping to share some ideas you will find useful!

The past year of “pandemia” has highlighted the incredible resilience of women worldwide. Yes, of course men survived and helped greatly along the way, but I believe it is safe to say that it is the women who bore the brunt of the homeschooling, the meal prep, the house cleaning, the medical care, all while still working full time remotely and enduring monthly cycles in suffocating situations. [insert applause here – turn to your neighbour and say “good job”].

My own Covid story saw two devasting losses: The closing of a business and a miscarriage. And yet I want you to know that my story isn’t a sad one. You see, even in the midst of loss, I was able to find parts of myself that had gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of life.

It is from this place of hope that I would like to share some powerful truths that I have learned over my four decades that have helped me, and continue to help me, navigate devasting trauma, loss, challenges, and anything else that life chooses to throw at me.

I began my search for purpose at an early age. Being the eldest of three and the only girl, I was a natural born leader, blazing the trail for my two younger brothers who unbeknownst to me, grew up in awe of my apparent badassery. Having always had vast and varied interests and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I developed a prolific set of skills and talents that have continued amassing to present day! (seriously, do not ask me how many courses I am currently enrolled in!). A 'jackie' of all trades and master of some. The result has been a life that looks like a modern-day female version of Forest Gump’s with adventures and experiences so surreal one would think it’s a tale of fiction.

The downside of this amazing capacity for variety, is that one can become a slave to passion. Over the past decade, I found myself being burnt out and overwhelmed because I was chasing too many passions at once. I’ve recognized that this has been my pattern throughout my life, and at times have felt powerless over it. In the past five years I’ve started several businesses that utterly consumed me, to the point that I was starting to lose sight of my purpose, my ‘why’ for living. Passion and purpose must go hand in hand for it to be a fulfilling, rewarding and balanced endeavour. Unbridled passion on its own is a runaway train to nowhere.

And So, when Covid hit, I was forced to really acknowledge 4 attributes that we as women possess, that are helping me re-centre and find my way back to myself. And because I Absolutely Adore Alliterations (see what I did there?) those 4 attributes are: Intuition, Integrity, Identity, and Influence. I am learning that when these four elements are fully activated and working together in our lives, we can more easily become the women we were created to be.

One of the most important gifts that we have been given as women is Intuition:

This God-given divine power is much stronger in women than in men. Our intuition is carefully designed to direct us towards all that is good and beneficial for us. Yet, it seems that from the time we are born, we are faced with the systematic deprogramming of trusting our intuition. Case in point - the pressures that society places on us as women. Instead of being encouraged to explore our own interests and strengths, we are force fed all the ‘answers’ including what careers we should choose, where we should live, how we should look, how we should dress and even who we should associate with, to name a few. Because of these pressures, I cannot begin to describe the immense shame I felt when I decided to leave my legal career after investing so many years of training, to follow the urge deep in my heart to do something different. I should have been applauded for trying to walk my own path, instead, I got opinions of concern and disappointment. The unfortunate part is that my own internal dissenting voice was even louder than any of the external voices. I tortured myself over that decision, telling myself that I was a failure for quitting. What I later came to understand in my training as a leadership coach, is that we have all the answers inside of us. And only when we are ready to receive those answers, we will be able to see them clearly. This is where I really started to become reacquainted with tuning in to and trusting my intuition. As women, we are more linked to the earth and the cosmos than men. Our natural feminine cycle is based on the lunar cycle. Our bodies are literally the timekeepers and perpetuators of life for all humanity. Yet we’ve learned to distrust and worse, think of this cycle-- and by way of extension, our sensitive nature-- as a curse. Men often shame our intuition by calling us “too sensitive” as if it is a bad thing. We may even have said that about other women ourselves! This, coupled with our own self-doubt, and trauma responses can cloud the signals our intuition is trying to send us, causing a chronic lack of confidence and indecision. Have you ever experienced a time in life when you just knew something deep in your soul, yet you decided not to follow that leading and then later discovered that your intuition was correct? I’m sure we all have many of those stories. The next time this happens, try to examine why you chose to resist your intuition. What was the fear that deterred you?

In fact, I encourage you to start spending more time listening to your inner guidance as a spiritual practice. Even if it seems to defy logic, just take baby steps towards trusting your inner compass. Oftentimes this is how God speaks to us, but we’re too busy listening to others or our inner critic to take notice.

One practical way to get in touch with your intuition is by daily journaling. This is completely different than a diary where you simply record things that have already happened –instead, this is a place for a running stream of consciousness to get you to the other side of anything that may be holding you back. Google ‘morning pages” and that will set you on the path to a practice that will absolutely change your life, if you let it.

Intuition is inextricably linked to the second ‘I’, “Identity”:

If you’ve been tuned out up to this point, I bet this is where will get your attention. And even if you’re tempted to write me off, just bear with me as I try to tackle a sensitive topic here: I believe in true feminism. But it’s not the same as what is taught as feminism today. Modern or False Feminism tries to assert that we are exactly like or equal to men. This is just factually, physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally false. We are not exactly like or equal to men and that is by deliberate design! We are not meant to be like men or anyone else for that matter. Further, I don’t believe that we merely deserve the same rights as men. I believe we deserve MORE rights than men, by virtue of our unique biological make-up and needs. But that, my dear sisters, is a topic for another day. (Watch this space!) Throughout history, including scripture, women have been identified as the ‘weaker’ sex. I used to struggle with this concept, until I got a revelation of how to reframe that label. It came in the form of an analogy about metals. As we know, some metals are physically stronger than others. Steel is one of the strongest metals on earth. Yet, it is relatively affordable and readily available. On the other side of the spectrum, Gold is ‘weaker’ in terms of hardness, but it is much rarer and much more valuable. In fact, Gold is the most malleable of all metals. It can be drawn into a wire of single-atom width, and then stretched considerably before it breaks. A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square metre. This doesn’t sound like a ‘weaker’ metal to me. Sounds like the superpowers that women possess. In the same way that men can be likened to steel in terms of brute strength and functionality, women can be likened to Gold, a rare and precious metal, which just happens to be softer. So now, I can appreciate being the ‘softer more precious’ sex with a knowing smile on my face.

My version of true feminism is appreciating our God-given differences and embracing all the power and purpose that comes with that, without feeling like we have to prove or compare our worth to anyone else’s.

When we know who we are and appreciate all the giftings, attributes and flaws that come with that, we can operate in the world with an authenticity that does not require validation from others. This means we can support other women without jealousy and envy that comes from a place of fear or insecurity. When you don’t need people’s validation, their invalidation won’t bother you either. And you are freed up to walk without judgment of yourself and others.

What would it take for you to get to the place of saying “Your good opinion of me is nice, but it’s not necessary?”

Now that we are following our intuition, are confident in our identity, we must employ Integrity

If you find yourself struggling to keep up with commitments in life, at work, in your family and relationships, it is usually an indication that somewhere in the depths of your psyche you are out of alignment with your commitments to yourself. Afterall our external world is simply a reflection of our internal world.

I am going to give you a simple definition of integrity which I encourage you to write down: Thoughts + Words + Actions = Integrity

Only when these three things are aligned can we feel at peace and make forward progression. How many of us feel stuck in a rut? You want to accomplish so many things, yet find yourself month after month, in the same aimless routine? Now when we start examining where we have not kept our commitments to ourselves, the list can start to get pretty long. So for the purposes of today and our short time together, I would like you all to think of one thing that you have purposed in your heart to do, be or achieve, yet have struggled to make much headway. For me, that thing is writing. In my mind’s eye, I can see myself being a published author, I talk about writing all the time, yet when it comes time to sit and write, there seems to be a million other competing priorities that pop up. So, my thoughts and words are aligned, but I’m still missing that crucial action part that completes the formula. Oftentimes, the things we were created to do, are the things we resist the most. And if we understand this, we can take heart in knowing that we are not alone with all the other people in the world battling their resistance to fulfil their calling. And we can also look to those who have felt the resistance and did it anyway. (For more amazing insights on the phenomenon of resistance, you can read the short book called the “War of Art” by Steven Pressfield.)

I’ve found that reading the stories of other writers and their process helps to normalize my struggle and gives me the motivation and encourage to just sit down and write – even if I write garbage. The only difference between writers and those who want to be writers, is actually WRITING. So in your case, you need to Figure out which piece of the integrity equation is missing and work on strategies to put all the pieces in place so that you can work towards keeping those commitments to yourself. You may find that some of those things you thought you wanted, you actually really deep down only thought you wanted. When you start walking in integrity with yourself, this is the beginning of true transformation. Integrity is the catalyst (or the axe) that mines all the ‘gold’ that is sitting, latent, in your intuition and identity. You can only give, what you have already received. If you are not giving yourself the gift of integrity by keeping your commitments to yourself, you will be hard pressed to consistently do so for others. Integrity helps us to keep pressing ahead towards the goal even when everything else seems to be trying to hinder us. Like that malleable gold, we will bend but we will not break, when life gets tough.

All of this serves to activate our power of Influence

When we embrace our Intuition, understand our identity, and walk in Integrity, our power of influence can flow freely and do the work it was put inside us to do. Influence is defined as: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself. A scientific definition of influence is: electrical or magnetic induction: the process by which an object or material is magnetized by an external magnetic field. I like the scientific explanation because it paints a vivid picture of the effect of influence – we can literally attract or magnetise others. Another apt analogy of female influence was captured in a line from the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” where the mother was giving her daughter marriage advice and said: “The man may be the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head”| We all have a sphere of influence. You don’t have to be some well recognized leader or have a million followers on Instagram to be influential. Whichever arena you find yourself in, in life, you can invoke your power of influence. Now, a word of warning here: not all women use their influence wisely, and if pushed in an unhealthy direction, influence can become manipulation. We have to mindful of this and ensure that this strength is not pushed out of balance when we become blinded by pain, envy or unforgiveness etc.

Despite how women have been portrayed on reality tv (catty and vindictive), we naturally gravitate towards living in community and supporting each other. When we are abiding in the purest form of our feminine essence we can use our power of influence to uplift each other, heal ourselves and the world. Mary – jesus’ mother. One women. Raised and influenced a man who literally changed the course of history and mankind. That is a powerful example of how one woman, through her seemingly small contribution, impacted and influence the entire world. To the mothers in the room – do NOT underestimate the importance and power of your work as a mother. You are literally shaping the future of our entire existence. I think about the incredible women who started the ALS Foundation. From a place of great pain, they found purpose. This is a testament to what women can do when they work together to fulfil a calling and use their influence for good. As I look around the audience today and see the company I am in, I am proud to be amongst you today. While I have shared a little of my story, the magnitude of collective wisdom residing on the inside of all of you is palpable. I hope that after today, you will be encouraged to share your story with others because the world needs to hear it. I will leave you with these closing thoughts: We play an active part in our story. It matters not what we were born into, but what we birth out of us. We are co-authors with destiny. We aren’t being held at the mercy of life. How we choose to see and tell our story determines how we show up in the story. I choose gratitude. I choose joy. I choose showing up again and again even when I want to run away and quit sometimes. Just keep coming back. Choose the role you want. We have more power than we realise.