Money Tip 008: Women, we are not a niche. Rise Up and Shine.
Nothing in this post is a recommendation.
“I’d love to meet with you today, but only if you’re meeting from a place of empowered pleasure.” - Sabrina Vedete
“The gender stereotypes introduced in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophesies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Sabrina said it best. And Sheryl said it second best. The choices we make in life matter a lot as women, and how we are choosing them is going to decide how they play out. We need to realize what is on the table for each of us (anything is possible but not everything so you must choose), what we really want, and which choices will allow us to thrive in our lives and feel all the feels.
When I think about the choice between being a mom, killing it at my career, or trying to somehow do both of those things, as well as living in love with a partner; I get tired. But then I always think of my friends who are currently doing all of the above. The reality is, they’re way more tired than I am. They talk often about how they feel like they’re letting one side of their lives down - job or kids. I have recently discovered how strange the term work/life balance is. It is like… wait? I’m not alive when I am at work? Why are these separated? Shouldn’t work be a huge aspect of my life? Can’t they all go together? When they didn’t, is that why I felt dead? Is purpose the key to finding work that feels like love?
Back to the point. When I hear my friends crying out about balancing work and kids, I notice how they don’t mention their husbands. Specifically how they are letting them down. And that’s the scariest for me of all. Because that is your pleasure partner in life! And pleasure, whether it is the deepest sacred bond with your person or staring at a beautiful tree to recharge and notice how we are nature, matters to our happiness and success in our daily lives.
The messaging and conditioning I receive often is that if I finally do ever meet my guy…I might lose him…to my own need for accomplishments and that is just part of the bargain. Errrr. Hold the phone and no thanks. Maybe the message is that the person I choose to partner up with is a decision to not take too lightly. And that’s why I am the age I am and not married yet.
I think that healthy intimate relationships need to be a priority in life, right behind cultivating self love. You can't really get to lasting love with another without love for self. (Read Art of Loving by Erich Fromm for more on this.) The thing is that as adults, we need both of these relationships. Our pleasure, whether we are in partnerships or not, cultivates all the energy in our daily lives. Eastern energy work that millions of people follow has followed this principal for thousands of years. Simple pleasure is ideal as our day starter and ender. It can be with another person or prayer or mediation. But give it to yourself, to succeed. Take note of yourself when you are scrolling on the phone before bed or watching tv and the version of you, who you may have yet to try, who is taking care of their heart and mind and body before bed. Which of those two do you think is thriving throughout the rest of their day and in their dreams at night and in relationships? Correct. It is the woman who takes time for herself, her pleasure, and her lover.
If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that all of our energy starts from our Ching. When I started working with healing my womb and cultivating Ching, it all changed for me. See Diagram below for help to visualize what this looks like. Ching is that the pleasure zone of our lives and bodies as an energy force. We are sensory oriented beings. So to deny that part of our lives over and over again as a martyr often for kids or career, is really foolish. Kids and career benefit when we operate from our pleasure, and take the time to care for ourselves, versus draining the life force. Sabrina Vedete taught me this term “Operating from Empowered Pleasure”. It “fixed” very seemingly broken parts of my mind, body, heart, and unity to this planet. I plan to live by empowered pleasure as a choice maker, since she said it to me. I had been for a while, but didn't realize what it meant until she told me she would only meet with me if I was coming from that place. This knowledge has really changed my perspective to one of choices and how we make them. If we operate from empowered pleasure in all that we do, we can dance ecstatically through life in all of the demands that we allow our journey to place upon us. Solitude, Intimacy, Work, Kids, Hobbies, you name it. Empowered pleasure starts being our guide and life starts getting a lot easier. I thank Sabrina for teaching me this, because I needed to hear it, as you might need to too.
I’m no longer in denial about the fact that when something is special you hold on tight, you treat it with respect, you love it and make sure your love is an action word. My favorite definition of love is “The constant care and consideration for the growth of something.” This makes me think about what I have said that I loved and actually didn’t. And it also makes me feel for my future and what I really love now.
I love the idea of intimacy daily, something I long denied myself, as many women do. I love the idea of a job with purpose that will grow into an effective position in society and help people. And I love the idea of a family of my own. That is what I want to accomplish in this lifetime. But that is a lot! Can I actually have it all?? I think the only way is choosing actions and words through empowered places and knowing that I operate with love (constant care and consideration for the growth of all of these things). When I think about my privilege to have all this as options, I wonder how many women still have no hope for all of this, have had to sacrifice and pave the way for me to be in the position that I sit right now, and how I can change the future for generations of women to follow. I also think about how much I have gone through and worked on myself to get to a place where I actually can live and make choices in my empowered pleasure filled self. It took a lot of work, but it is possible, I now know that for sure. I think the coolest thing is when I see other women who have done the work, and are figuring it all out with female-ness guiding them. And when we find each other and dance into friendship and empower each other. And when men get this and support connecting powerful loving women to each other too.
I have a strange story that I revert back to when I find myself trapped in a life web of trying to decide on how much and what to become and balance. A male friend who has been married for almost 20 years told me, speaking about his wife who he has extra marital affairs on regularly, that he does it because he misses his girlfriend. I genuinely try not to judge anyone, but on cheating in marriage is hard for me. I find it challenging since I am a child who had a father leave my mother for his mistress. Because of this, cheating is not in my DNA. I would never want some kid or anyone to hate me as much as we hated that woman who came into my parents marriage and intimacy. But when my friend explained it in detail, it actually made sense to me. I started to understand more, my dad’s perspective. He explained his theory of why men and many probably an equal amount of women go out and get themselves a girlfriend or boyfriend while still inside of their marriage. They love their spouse. But they miss their girlfriend/boyfriend. She who is now his wife or he who is now the husband. He explained “When I met her, we dated and fell into love. She was my girlfriend. I married my girlfriend. But then she left and she became my wife. And then she became a mom. And she also had a career. So one day I wake up and realized that my girlfriend, the favorite one of all of those things, was long gone. She didn’t have room for the girlfriend. It was too many roles” Ok. Barf a little but shit. Yeah. Makes sense! And let’s be real here…being the girlfriend was probably also her favorite time and role in her relationship as well. It was surely the easiest! (If it wasn’t for you, please send us your secrets to motherhood, career boss, AND wifey role and how you balance it all - to give the ones of us out here petrified of all those titles at once, some hope.) All those roles seems like a lot to juggle and stay…female/happy. It might actaully be unreasonable to ask all of this of modern women, and yet, millions are out here doing it every day. I’d say a lot are actually doing it pretty well. I’m impressed but also in a constant state of wondering how.
It is pretty unnatural for women to have to have all of the roles we carry throughout life, but so many do, and without a ton of help. Can we quantify the cost in any set of metrics? Women’s happiness? Women’s economics? Women’s health? In the sad truth of the US economics for the middle class, the real issue for women is that the majority can’t actually afford to not work while having kids. We pay for it in retirement. We pay for it by not being financially literate or savvy and by leaving our cash in savings account where it doesn’t ear. We pay for it by leaving our jobs because we feel dead and like the mountain is not worth the climb. So, every year, especially in covid, a ton of women DO stop working because their salary is the same cost as a nanny, they really need a break after 10-20 years in the workforce, covid has made it impossible for dual income since one parent must be a home schooler, and for the love of all nature they want to enjoy their little human creations. And I totally get ALL of that. But I also appreciate truth and reality and preparing for the future wisely. In Lean In, Sandberg explains the problem with stopping working. Which is real, ladies. She explains that the real issue is that once women get off the working scale for 3-5 years, and then try to go back, their salary is slashed in half when it could and should have moved up past double or at least 1/3 more. The job isn’t waiting for her and someone else filled it. And at this point in most women’s lives, it’s noticeable that those funds are needed and it was a mistake to step away. If we do leave our jobs to stay home, we really ought to be creating, inventing and thinking bigger than we did inside our “jobs”. That to me is the key. But all of this is the working and modern woman’s conundrum…how much responsibility do we want while staying sane and holding onto the love of life and work and kids and above all, our intimate partners.
If you get smart enough to marry or date a partner that “gets it” (meaning all of that just mentioned) and who also understands the financial metrics around getting off the work force to manage the mother and home making duties, you are one step ahead of the rest. But how much of our duties at home go unpaid for? See first blog on this topic. Ugh. Painful. How many more years must we live in our homes as caretakers without any payment for that work? I say, one needs to be as well read as possible on the topic of financial metrics around women and working before she jumps off that job she worked so hard to attain. Because once you leave it, it’s a lot harder to get back than you’d think and doing household chores often goes unappreciated and unpaid for and can really make a kink in the pleasure routine you were accustomed to as “the girlfriend”. Be reasonable with how much you can handle while remaining happy in life and get really clear on what roles you want in life and what kind of partner you need to make all that work.
For me, like other delusional women who haven’t started a family yet, I want the whole thing. And that is why I choose to wait to do so later in life. I want to be successful at work and participate in the economy and contribute to an industry with expertise, I would love to be a great a wife/girlfriend (yes I aim to be both for the same guy) and I would love to be a mom to some rad humans. But sometimes I wonder at what expense I’m willing to pay for all those roles, not just with money but with my time, that thing that I have very clearly up until now valued above all else. And of course my sleep. How do they do life without sleep?! Is it enough to just be someones partner in life? Do we have to be super successful at work to be valued in society? Do we have to have kids? Do kids really make life worth it or are they a total crap shoot - literally. Is it weird to be a woman who choses not to have kids? In all honestly, not having kids is a more rare experience than having them, but it is still looked down upon. Is having kids the ultimate experience as a woman? Are they the teacher we need to experience for a full life cycle. The key that helps us to remove all those pesky little personality qualms that we hold onto for dear life, before having offspring?
When I think about all the women I admire, many didn’t have kids! I’m not sure they could have with what they accomplished back then. But now, it seems even the most successful women are procreating and in the droves. This list of women runs the gamut of kids to no kids. There is one thing they all have though and that is a combination of intelligence, grit, vision and ambition: Coco Chanel, Cleopatra, Madonna, Amelia Earhart, Gwen Stefani, Maria Merian, Hypatia, Oprah, Lisa Gersh, Hedy Lamar, Erykah Badu, Queen Elizabeth II, Gloria Steinem, Aileen Lee, Rosa Parks, Lucy Stone, Sarojini Naidu, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Goodall, Sophie Germain, Marie Curie, Harriet Tubman, Wangari Maathai, Elizabeth Fry, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Malinda Gates, J.K Rowling, Princess Diana, Michelle Obama, Anna Wintour, Malala Yousafzai, Lady Gaga, Lucille Ball, Rihanna, Sallie Krawcheck, Naomi, Vera Rubin, Kate Rubins and soooo many more, especially all the rad chicks on my podcast who are all self actualized in some way. They all seemed to do it in their own way and leave a mark. Some have multiple kids in the process. So why can’t we, as the women of tomorrow, have it all? I think we need to have pleasure and then see what follows. I think when we take off the pressure to become and just live in our power and pleasure and stay empowered, we can stay devoted to what feels right, continuously working really hard, while taking care of ourselves and expanding. That is the way we can manifest just about anything. But this messaging gets lost somewhere. I’m here to help and looking for help.
Women, listen to me, you and we matter. Let’s act like it!! And empower ourselves and each other.
Women are not a niche. We are half of this society and economy. We make up 57.4% of the US workforce and 50.2% of the bachelors degrees. Yet we are paid less than men for every dollar we earn, we are promoted less, we are underfunded in venture, private equity and hedge, we have less C suite rolls and hardly and IPOs, we are still asked to be the overarching caretakers in our homes, asked to financially provide now as well, and we still suffer workplace and domestic abuse daily. Let’s step up to the plate to live fully. That is to demand what is fair and speak up for ourselves from ourselves and others. Let’s create more companies, faster, and better. Let’s get our businesses to IPO and take our share of the markets. Let us lead with female principals and make the world turn in a way that feels nourishing instead of just learning from and then emulating men, when we get to positions of authority. Let’s be SHE and let’s do it our own way that leads with vulnerability, intuition, and awareness.
What I know the deepest is that I want to stay in love with life and continue to cultivate self care and care for others in all that I do. That’s the one thing that I don’t ever want to change about myself. Everything else is up for the taking to be honest. Adding a family and even more responsibility at work to achieve my highest self, seems really like it has to come with the right timing and possibly a few miracles. Finding the right partner to make life stay amazing with through all of this is imperative. Don’t kid yourself that choosing a partner isn’t the most important decision in life; it is. But choosing you, daily, to invest in, work on, and push farther in the direction of your dreams is the number one priority and necessity to becoming a woman who has it all. In order to do all of that, we have to heal, first and foremost. Childhood trauma is ancestral trauma and that is cultural trauma. We ARE traumatized as a gender. We won’t grow if we don’t release the trauma. We deserved and deserve better, we accept that. But we have to have the courage to release what doesn't serve us and get comfy in a place of empowered pleasure for decision making and manifesting.
If we can find friendships, associates, and mates who understand that the pressure on women is too high and the life is too fast it will make our decisions to thrive, while nurturing, all while in the fast lane: much easier. In a good mindset where our self love is real and therefore spreads out onto others, we can produce dreams of all sorts. In this space and container we will also be able to decide what we really want.
We should be allowed to pick and choose in life and we need to know when enough is enough or when to keep striving. We need to take breaks. We need tweaking, reflecting, pivoting, and rest. We deserve this. And this is how we heal as a culture and create systems that reflect our beliefs.
What has life and experience taught you about this topic of how to choose what to create in life? I think it is all about commitment. To commit is to grow and to grow is to live….but how to choose is the modern woman’s plight and what we must overcome. If we do find a way to our decision making from empowered pleasure, we can only go in one direction and that is above and beyond. Be brave this month, Women’s history month. Then let it lead you all year. Give yourself this kind of belief and daily love, if you can, and if you can’t read these blogs and find women to teach you how, like me. This is our nature as women, after all, and what actually grows our dreams right into reality. Choose yourself first, and then decide what else is to follow. Find loving partners. And for all that is holy, make your choices from a place where you have given yourself at least a few moments of divine pleasure. You deserve it, queens. Rise up and Shine.
Please message me on IG at melrosemoney for comments. Maybe will make an IG Live about this, with enough feedback.
Here are some more articles for you on the topic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/having-it-all/488636/
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/opting-out/500018/
https://hbr.org/2002/04/executive-women-and-the-myth-of-having-it-all
