What if you started playing your own game?
I spent years fighting until I realized I had the power to change the rules.
What do you think happens to people who constantly live without the support they need?
You might assume they end up feeling resigned to their reality and give up on trying to change it, but the opposite is true.
I read a statistic today that made me feel more hopeful for the state of women and marginalized communities than I have in a while:
In the State of Women study, “89% of millennial respondents said they were actively seeking ways to build the lives they want. 64% said they felt the trajectory of their lives were more determined by “my goals and actions,” whereas only 36% answered “societal factors.” These responses are almost certainly influenced by how deeply Americans value individualism, but their sense of individual agency didn’t manifest in the form of ambition or a determination to try harder, take big swings, lean in to existing systems. Instead, in the face of persistent inequity, women are focusing on their own needs, even when that means doing less for or because of others.”
Women feel more empowered to build the life they want, not through deeper ambition, but by looking inward and focusing on their own needs.
It turns out, the more we recognize how little control we have over our external reality, the deeper we listen and tend to our internal world, and the closer we get to our true source of power.
What can we expect from this shift?
The emergence of a new, complex, integrated group of people who are more spiritually and emotionally evolved than those who haven’t been forced to survive decades (generations and centuries) living in inequity.
I’ve often thought forced resourcefulness can spur the greatest forms of creativity; inequity might serve as one of the greatest restrictions of our time. You can insert climate change here, too.
Who’ll be the best problem solvers and leaders of the next 100 years?
Will it be those who have decided to approach constraints as an opportunity to evolve and create something new? Or those who get angry, but keep playing the game even when the rules set them up for failure?
Admittedly, I spent a lot of time and energy pissed off in my teens and twenties.
I am the daughter of a working single mother who fought tirelessly to make sure that I had the same access and opportunities as the next kid. I remember playing ‘Office’ instead of ‘House’ as a child. I'd borrow my mom’s watch and briefcase, and walk around her office while she was on calls or doing tasks for her co-workers. Don’t worry, I’d negotiate my own salary, too.
At home, I saw a woman in charge, who worked for herself, who “did it all.” My mom taught me how to have authority over my own decisions.
Much to the dismay of other family, she didn’t baptize me when I was born. Instead, she waited to let me find my own path. As a result, around 4th grade, I started asking questions naturally about different religions. It wasn’t long after I started exploring various religious histories that I decided to identify as spiritual, not religious. A choice that has remained true to my authentic identity since.
By the way, her mother, my grandma, was a brilliant musician and music professor who decided to teach a course about female composers and musicians, only to find out that little had been written about them. So, she traveled across four continents to interview some of her heroes and filled three books with profiles of their careers.
It’s not hard to imagine how little my reality at home was reflected in the outside world. At first, that made me angry.
I was a feisty little one. Provoking everyone from the teacher who didn’t treat boys and girls the same in school, to the dude who cut the line at restaurants (because clearly he had the pre-ordained right to), to some of my lucky bosses who thought they could get away with treating me the same way they treated every other woman who came before me.
I learned early on that I come in an interesting and unexpected package. I’ve got a kind of girl-next-door demeanor, who is open and welcoming to everyone —unless you’re the asshole who isn’t nice or tries to take advantage. Then, my ferocious desire to protect kicks in. Apparently, my Chinese astrology sign is an earth dragon, and that kind of checks out. The moment I feel like someone is mistreating another person, I want to breathe fire. 🐉
And, it’s a fire attached to a rather uncanny capacity to think and speak very quickly, and eloquently, on my feet. Which is why for a long time, I thought that meant it was my duty to.
Eventually, I realized that using my fire this way was just me masking the pain I was experiencing as someone living in a society where I felt deeply unseen and rejected. From a young age, it was very clear that the only “value” I had was my physical form. As someone who went through puberty at 11, I learned this lesson way too young. Imagine being an 11 year old girl getting hit on by men every single time you went out into the world. Walking around the mall or at school where male teachers thought I was a substitute teacher. In my twenties, I can’t tell you the number of people who told me my early success was just because of my looks. So, I worked harder (and wore baggy, dark clothes) to prove them wrong.
I say this knowing it’s a privilege that I can simply change my clothes and the impact of how people perceive me.
I kept up this way of being until around the same time I got into my accident in 2015, which was truly my wake up call to stop wasting energy in the fight, and instead go inward in search of my own truth and authenticity.
Until this moment, I was completely codependent on my external reality — the thoughts, opinions, and actions of people around me. As you can probably imagine, New York City was a land mine of outside influences the moment I walked out the door of my little 400 sq. ft. apartment in Chelsea.
As I went inward, fighting no longer felt authentic to me. What was waiting for me on the other side of all that anger was a deep well of grief and sadness, just begging to be explored. I realized that my desire to provoke others into their own awareness or growth was a shadow I was living in, and a way to avoid my own pain.
Can you relate?
Do you ever fixate on trying to change someone else because it’s easier than confronting the things deep down you don’t like about yourself? The honest answer for most of us is yes.
I spent years navigating those dark waters.
In the beginning, I remember a coach suggesting that self-love exercise where you look in the mirror, make eye contact with yourself, and say I love you. I couldn’t do it.
I had a long way to go. But, in a weird way my injury and sudden move to LA worked in my favor because it forced me to spend a lot of time with myself — to go on long solo walks, read books like Joe Dispenza’s, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, and Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul, journal, figure out how to meditate, learn to read human design and tarot cards, and catch the sunset every day. Tuning into the the rhythms of nature really helped.
The purpose of this time, which I look back on now as a gift, was to help me authentically answer the ultimate question: Who am I?
Not ‘who am I’ in the eyes of the people who know me or the society I am living in, but when I quiet all that noise, who am I on a soul level. The person who was born with something to do in this lifetime and gifted the tools to do it.
You can call this your purpose, or your life’s work. We all have one.
While it’s taken years to mature my understanding of my purpose (so be patient if that’s where you are), this moment happened for me so that I could become a compass for others who are also on a path of deep, personal exploration.
With clarity, I now know I am here as an illuminator. To act as a guide for others who are in search of the truest form of freedom and liberation: a rich, loving, joyful, peaceful, easeful inner world. This is where real wealth and power lies in our society and where your source of connection lives.
This summer, I learned first hand there is nothing more powerful than knowing that no matter what happens (at work, with your relationships, with your bank account, with the planet) that you are good. That no one can take that away from you. It is honestly the most liberating feeling I have ever felt. I want that for all of us.
To get back to what got me off on this tangent in the first place (thank you to my coworkers for sending me the study on women over the weekend 😅), you now have a little insight into the wisdom of women, or I'll say the feminine (because I do honestly appreciate every person, regardless of sex or gender, who has figured this out and is on their path).
When we look inward, and focus on what’s true for us, we realize we already have the tools to build the life we want.
Integration
When do you feel “most connected” to yourself? How frequently do you create this experience for yourself in your day?
What lesson or message(s) did you receive about your purpose around the ages of 18-21. And then maybe again around the age of 27-30?
What is something you love doing, that comes naturally to you, that others might look at and see how “work” or “not that fun” (a way to explore what your purpose might be).
If you are open to or into exploring a spiritual paradigm, look up what your north node sign is and what house it is in. This will give you some guidance on your purpose if you’re feeling totally lost.
Connected,
Ashley
CEO + Founder, Liminal
P.S. a helpful meditation for clarity as you reflect and write your answers to the integration section.