Entrepreneurship - Sarah Poet

Part 4: I have no idea what I’m doing.

I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. Because I’m not here to regurgitate existing options, most of which (all of which) were designed in patriarchy.

I’ve heard over and over from various sources that when you really get close to something, it feels like nothing makes sense and it’s all going to fall apart. I’ve heard that when it’s about to all come together is when most people tear it down.

I have no idea if things are coming together.

I have, in my life, worked for things to watch them fail. I have given my all to things that did not become financially viable. I have poured love into relationships that did not pay off.

I likely also have pulled out just before things were about to get good. I’ve watched myself almost sabotage things in the very recent past, with enough self awareness now to know when to zip it lest I destroy something viable.

I have some wild ideas. This past week, I was interviewed on my friend Laura McCann’s show called “People We Adore” because Laura recognizes that I have some pretty new ideas. And what I appreciate about her reflection of me and my ideas is that she reflects to me things like, “You’re living it. You’re living on the edge. You’re living the experiment you believe in.”

Thanks for noticing, Laura.

It’s true – I’ve done pretty wild things like left a stable career when my son was in the 4th grade and then sold our home to free myself from karmic shadow-masculine contracts. On and on. I have lived the Sacred Remembering path and my life doesn’t even make sense anymore by conventional standards (some things are a little difficult to justify to my ex-husband, for example, as I take my child with me on this journey.)

Recently, I dissolved my LLC, started a Ministry, moved to community, got a bit of a job after five years as an entrepreneur to put some stability under my ass, and am turning my membership into a space of regenerative prosperity for all women involved. I could have kept building an “empire” but it started to feel shitty and lonely. Did I pull out before it got good? Or did I know it wasn’t the way? Hmm…. maybe both? Maybe who knows? Maybe who cares!

Let’s start with… I dissolved my LLC.

So, LLC is a legal structure and essentially a taxable entity, and one option on a standard menu when one wants to “go into business.” Well, we as sovereign, questioning and discerning women might start to ask ourselves questions like, “Why if I want to do my soul’s work in the world, do I need to do it under a prescribed legal structure?” “Why, in said legal structure, is it actually harder to accrue resources? Why am I participating in something that makes it more difficult to redistribute money directly to women?” (Because that’s not what it was established to do, of course.)

When one starts to ask, “How can I become the most sovereign with all of my resources?” then one receives innovative answers.

Having an LLC didn’t feel good after I built it and looked around me. It was another way that I’d bought into patriarchal structures that, seems to me, didn’t actually serve me or regenerative economics. So, no thank you. My mission is my mission and doesn’t belong to a predetermined legal structure and I don’t need permission from a Big Daddy agency in order to run it. Bye!

Secondly… A Ministry…

This one gets really fun in Part 5, just wait. But here I’ll say – if my work is not through my ego (part 2) and my work is my mission (it is) then my work is service. It is not a business, it is not for profit, it is not something to be mandated by anyone other than Source. My soul’s work and mission is via my own sovereign energy and that of Creator, and it is through this co-creative relationship that the magic and miracles of the work and influence will come about. So THAT is where I want my energy, money, time, attention, resources, and talent to go. I do not consent to agencies siphoning off of my energy while I’m trying to do my soul’s work, thank you very much.

This Ministry is about our sovereign connection with Source, with this planet, and is held in the unified field, where your energy will naturally organize. This Ministry is about each woman’s sovereignty, and for each woman to learn to foster and trust her sovereignty and direct connection with the divine. This Ministry is a strong antidote to separation messaging and is a path to reunification with the Sacred, with Source, with the Soul. Women, standing in the truth of who they are – resourced AF with SOURCE.

Thirdly… A Membership Community aka Sacred Remembering (Church)…

Here’s where I’m really following my intuition to (hopefully) create an actual space where the Heartland regenerative energetics are thriving and women are becoming MORE financially resourced. I sense an entirely new energetic structure of regeneration and replenishment coming for everyone involved. I’m still receiving the specifics (you know, from Source), and more and more come to me the more I commit.

For any one woman to create an empire, and have other women following her, could become a little schemy and also it’s an old method of hyper-individualism that breeds competition. Blech. I didn’t really set out to have to “sell myself” as an entrepreneur, but that’s what that style of solo entrepreneurship requires. It’s constant. It is so much pressure to keep producing even when one feels lonely or downtrodden (and in that model, it’s not even okay to admit that). So I grew up a bit.

I want to receive money for my sacred work. I also want my friends to receive money for their sacred work. I want to pay women who I know to help bring the sacred work into the world. I want women to get paid rightfully for their energy. I want to have enough and share more. I want to create a network of women that all benefit when one woman benefits. These are New Earth energetics, these are regenerative ideas, and it is rightful. So I want to figure out a way that this happens. Together, in Heartland Ministries and the Sacred Remembering Community, I believe that we will figure this out.

I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. Because I’m not here to regurgitate existing options, most of which (all of which) were designed in patriarchy.

Fffffffff that. No.

I am here to help establish new paradigms. With my life. With my energy, heart, body and resources. Only that will do.

A few years ago, feeling timid yet much more determined and courageous than I am even now, I was standing in the kitchen of the house I ended up selling and I thought, “Well, fuck. It’s as though my soul is guiding me such that I can’t even participate in anything patriarchal anymore. It just doesn’t even work.” Yes, dear past-Sarah, you nailed it. That was and is exactly the case.

I’m a rebel and I don’t necessarily even mean to be anymore. It’s just who I am. It’s messy, especially when I let the human ego get loud in my head with notions of failure or scarcity. I think the difference is, I’m no longer naive. I’m aware that patriarchy and sexism and separation exist everywhere everyday and just because I say “no” to it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect my life and the lives of those I love.

In fact, the fact that I’ve said “no” to it with my life and it still exists has, in the past, made my life much harder. Complacency is easy. Actually figuring out how to be sovereign in your energy such that you can’t be siphoned from, and also, such that you don’t feel like you just walked through a battlefield every dang day is significant work. Thankfully, I am “getting it” and it’s getting easier.

Sovereignty isn’t about fighting or defending. It’s about discerning and owning the fuck out of what you give your energy to and what you don’t. When women do that, it changes the world.

My job is to live as often and as many moments as I can in what I call “The Heartland” – the space of the Regenerative Feminine. Because when I live it, and teach others how to feel and hold the frequencies, we transcend patriarchy.

Boom.

You know, I think this might be the point of the breakthrough. I have a pretty good feeling about it. But if not, if you’ve known me for any time at all, you know I’ll keep going.

PS:

I do want to say thank you – to the women who see me NOT succeeding in so many (traditional) ways and who hear my worries and who still sit beside me, join my ministry board of trustees, make altars on my behalf, and believe in me when I crash. Thank you for continuing to come to the Sacred Remembering calls, for referring your friends, for trusting me to caretake your partnerships and your children. I love you. Let’s do this. Let’s get paid well and make new models. I can’t do it without you and don’t want to. The New Earth is here and we are it.

If you’d like to join the waitlist for Heartland 2023, it is now open HERE.

https://www.sarahpoet.com/heartland

PART 1: Update – I got a job & moved to community.

Last year, I started to dream about living in a community with my son. I had dabbled in sharing land with other mothers during the beginning of the pandemic, and I liked the idea of groups of intentional people coming together around a purpose or cause.

I am very much an introvert, and I actually have very little patience for long, winding conversations about ideals. I prefer setting conscious intention and then trusting that my/our actions and the Creator are co-creating according to that intention. So I didn’t want to live in an ideological or unspecified “intentional community,” because I thought it would drive me nuts.

So after a breakup last year, I’d had it. I called a friend who was well connected and told her what I was looking for. “I want to live in community. I want to work with good people toward a common goal. I want to raise Rowan among other people and not be so damn isolated. This solo path is exhausting.”

I spoke it.

She introduced me to some people the following weekend and I felt a connection to that land. I hoped that it might work out, but long story short, that wasn’t the place.

The year went on and one day, an old friend asked me for a session that I’d offered her over a year prior. When I read the email, I got full body chills. That, to me, is a sign that something sacred is at play. For weeks or even months, I didn’t know what that sacred thing was.

We did the session and she saw and experienced my wisdom and skill at coaching and energy work. She had known me for a long time, but she was surprised by how far I’d come. She knew me when I was a school principal. Now, I am a woman who has been walking my soul path, clearing my trauma on all levels, honing my energy, and living in union with Spirit for many years. To say the least, I’m different than I used to be!

She had been advising a local man who wanted to bring a big vision through. He was at an age appropriate for retiring, but he had one last major, albeit ideal, project he wanted to complete. She introduced me to him and he said that the conversation we had over tea was one of the most interesting conversations he’d had in a long time.

What did we talk about? The Regenerative Feminine, applying concepts of resource sustainability and regeneration to women, the Heartland, the things I’d been channeling for the past three years connected to my ancestral connection to this region, and more.

I started working with him. I took a job – at first a few hours a week, then up to a half time salary. After five years of entrepreneurship, I began investing my life force and energy into the community that he has built and wants to build. This has been a huge adjustment, and honestly, necessary. On a sovereignty path, it’s easier to be fully sovereign on your own. But the real work is in relationships, which this situation is teaching me in real time.

As I visited this piece of land, thirty minutes south of Asheville where I’ve lived for many years, the Regenerative energies were immediately clear. In one of my first encounters with this land, in a vision she showed me “entangling” with her like in the movie Avatar when they’re about to ride those winged creatures and their hair intertwines. It was magical.

My journey of becoming sovereign in my feminine resources, of clearing the shadow masculine & feminine from my own life, of knowing my value and worth, and the journey I’ve been walking since 2020 of the Heartland – the place beyond power and domination, the place of the Regenerative Feminine – has been long! In February of this year, a book proposal for Heartland received an Honorable Mention from HayHouse – the biggest publisher of spiritual books on the planet. Everything felt like it was getting closer to coming to fruition. This land seemed to tell me that there was nothing left to worry about. This land seemed to welcome me into a new kind of frequency.

The process of establishing an exchange agreement based in sovereign energetics, that valued all of my resources – not just my time – was a big process. I’m not sure we got it completely correct, but I lived a process that was pretty cutting edge in that I advocated to get paid for feminine resources that our economic system historically overlooked. I look forward to helping other women and organizations in these kinds of fair-exchange conversations in future consulting work.

Last week, I walked into the empty house on the property that my son and I would be moving into the next day. I wanted to do a deep energy clearing that I’d learned from Sarah Thomas years ago to purify the space for us. I did some work outside the house, too, to let the Spirits of the Land know that we intend to be in right-relationship with them.

On the counter inside the kitchen was a freshly baked coffee cake from a woman who lives here, and a bouquet of flowers picked from the farm. I was greeted by two coworkers with hugs and celebration, and a fancy little note in the flowers said, “Welcome.”

I’m writing this in my new dimly lit bedroom, two cats on the bed and a dog asleep on the floor, listening to the first rainstorm I’ve heard here. I live at the bottom of a spillway that looks like a waterfall, at the bottom of a lake, and I’ve heard that as the surface area of the lake collects extra water, the amount coming over the waterfall which is essentially in my front yard can become quite…. powerful. Flowing, forceful water, collecting in front of my home – so many feminine metaphors exist in this place.

In Heartland, “saturation” is a frequency of the regenerative feminine. So is “pooling.” Saturation is when the particles of matter all become encoded with the connectivity of water, allowing for a transmission of regenerative current to spread through everything. Pooling is when resources collect and when a woman doesn’t have to keep moving in order to keep receiving, rather, she slows and allows her resources to pool – counter to patriarchal notions that tell her she must always be productive.

I’m living at the bottom of the lake, where an abundant waterfall of water spills, slides over huge rocks, and pools in front of my deck.

I am listening for Her messages. I am listening to this land.

Less than a year after I set the intention, I am living in community. Not too hippy, not too idealistic. We’re building solutions for regenerative economics and each contributor’s resources will amplify. I get to bring my wisdom and energetics to this place. A few weeks ago, I lead five coworkers in an Earth-energy healing around a big Grandmother tree. She showed me the vision the night before, how to involve the core team, and each step of the process. I invited them that morning, they came, we laid roses and co-created a land clearing. My 72 year old male “boss” included.

So, it’s pretty cool. I’m grateful. My son gets here on Wednesday and he’ll have a summer job here this summer. People are asking about him and looking out for us both. As a single woman, responsible for parenting and the economic responsibilities of my family, I was tired of being a one-woman-show. I was tired of fierce entrepreneurship and fierce independence – ready instead for a little interdependence, a little more recognition of what we all need and require… belonging.

Thanks for reading my update. This was Part I. I’ll send more soon.

PS: My work isn’t going away. In fact, that’s kind of the point to repositioning my life in this way. It’s like I made an inner-masculine decision to put more stability in place in my life, as a woman and a parent, so that my life’s true work can come through. And I moved to a place where the point of the community is for each person’s true work to come through.

Heartland 2023 is coming. Heartland is the place of the Regenerative Feminine. Join the waitlist HERE: www.sarahpoet.com/heartland

The real reason women are quitting.

I found it was becoming more and more difficult, as I was a part of a team and physical community of people, to remain sovereign particularly in my emotional energy. When we are relational (and we naturally are), the human-relating stuff starts to seep into the crevices of our lives, and work isn’t just work – it’s intertwined and perhaps harder to compartmentalize.

As a woman, I watch myself have a certain habit that goes something like this: when I am invited to be a part of a thing (job, relationship, group goal), I first discern if it is aligned with my values and life direction, and then if it seems to be, I jump right in and give it my all. Key word – discern. I remember an old friend saying to me years ago after a breakup, “I think it’s all about discernment, Sarah.” She was saying – think more about it first. So I have gotten better over the years, but still, oftentimes, not long after this wholehearted “yes” to investing my time, energy, attention and heart into the genuine progress of said job, relationship or group goal, there is often a subsequent time of saying to myself, “Ah shit, I gave too much again.”

What would indicate that I gave too much as a woman? Personally, and I don’t think I’m alone, I experience that I’m not being met by others in the amount of care that I am putting into it. It might seem like I’m caring too much, or they don’t care as much as I do. Another way I experience this is when the value exchange isn’t reciprocal. Maybe I gave too much in a job contract and am finding myself thinking about it when I’m not technically working, taking me away from valuable family or creative time. Or, the last time I was in a love relationship I knew I’d given it too much of my attention (and other resources) when I became sick with covid and he said as if accidentally speaking out loud the passing thought that was going through his head, “Oh, I should bring you food.” And then he never showed up with the food nor mentioned it again. That was the moment I thought, “Oops, I’ve invested more than he’s willing to invest.” It all fell apart not long after, which is quite alright, because I don’t like to live in a net deficit. I desire reciprocity and mutual respect of one another’s resources in places where I invest my energy.

Emotional Over-giving:

But back to the “thinking about the job when I’m not technically working.” This one wasn’t a problem when I was solely running my own business. After a previous career in education and as a school leader, I’d worked to build my own coaching and consulting practice in masculine / feminine energetics (see my TEDx) but then for various reasons – including but not limited to desiring to live and serve within a progressive community, and wanting to raise my son with more stability and positive community influence – I negotiated a part time salary to help build an innovative new project. I got my first “job” in nearly six years.

Because we live and learn what we’re meant to teach, over the years I have developed and taught this system to women called Structure and Flow and my entrepreneurial work has begun to take shape more and more around redefining women’s #resources . I have taught this for years, but then I needed to really lean on this system for women’s resource allocation that I’d developed, as I found myself needing to categorize my time and not allow the various jobs and tasks to all blend together.

I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing tasks and duties, or giving my attention and focus to one thing at one time. For example, I am a single mother and devote time to my son in a certain way and when I’m with him, I’m fully with him. I have coaching clients and run a membership community, and again, when it is just my work there is this joy that I have with it and I never think to myself, “I’m thinking about a client too much.” I do my work, my clients reach out when they need me, and all is great in the exchange (which I worked a very long time to achieve, I will say). I’m actually very good at managing my own energy and boundaries when it’s just me and my business, but some kind of old wire tripped when I went back to a paycheck, and what an opportunity to observe and report from this angle!

Personally, I have redefined the value of my resources. People don’t just pay me for my time, as standard economics has implemented for some time. I define my valuable resources as my time, life force energy, attention, creative energy, my love and devotion, my intuition, my body, and my emotional wisdom. And that is what I charge for. Those are the things I’m considering when getting involved in an exchange, but that’s because I’ve literally redefined “value” for myself.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

She said what? Charging for emotional energy? Yes.

My emotional energy is one of my most valuable resources. It is my intuition, wisdom, my body’s knowing, and emotional energy is the basis of creational energy.

To begin to redefine what “resources” are for us, and then also see the true value of them, we must be willing to look at “resources” and energy, and redefine them through a #masculine / #feminine lens. And when we do, it all starts to make more sense. This is what is underlying women quitting. Stick with me.

Masculine & Feminine Resources are based in Masculine & Feminine Energy:

It’s not a #gender thing, although it influenced #genderstereotypes . Masculine & Feminine are energies within each of us, and we call on them for different aspects of our lives.

I’ll break it down like this – there are feminine and masculine archetypes, and affiliated with those archetypes are certain qualities. Now, we must (must) take time to understand what is an *actual* archetypal quality of both masculine and feminine versus a societal projection of feminine and masculine. Most people, if you just say these words, are going to associate societal projections and stereotypes to this, but I don’t have time to unwind that here, so we’ll move forward with a few quick examples.

An archetype isn’t a person, it’s a flawless example (which people are not). The masculine archetype possesses qualities of singular focus, linear thought, task completion, decisiveness, consideration of all in the tribe, and makes sure everyone has their resources.

You might not associate masculine with those things and instead associate masculine with things like dominance, control, coercion, snagging all the resources, etc. That is patriarchal, or shadow masculine. Also called unconscious masculine. It’s what needs to be cleaned up on the planet.

The feminine archetype in its healthy expression will possess qualities such as nurturance, caretaking, emotional consideration, lovingly willing to open and to give, is very heart centered, has a wisdom based on a full-spectrum seeing (as compared to the singular focus of the masculine), is communal and relational.

The unconscious, shadow, unhealthy feminine would be emotionally manipulative, withholding, seeking to snag the man’s resources, or the harsh feminism of trying to take the power back.

We pay for masculine qualities, but expect the feminine to give for free:

If you hear nothing else from this article, hear this: in value exchanges, both economic and relational, our society as it stands most often will pay for what is valued as masculine energy, and it wants feminine energy for free.

And this is why #women are #quitting – because they are tired of the world just expecting the exhaustion of what is inherently feminine to be normal and for the taking.

When you work in a “job,” you’re typically trading #performance and time for a paycheck. Performance is output, people assume that output leads to profit. All of this is masculine energy also because it’s outward, always moving, always pushing. And if you’re always in “yang,” then you’re not taking enough time to rest, and you’re not going to get to the really good creativity. #Creativity and productivity are not the same thing, they do not at all come from the same areas of the brain or impulse. Creativity has an impulse and needs to be nurtured, production can be rote.

So that means, most companies who are trying to innovate probably want us to feel something. When we can feel, we can be lit up, we can invest our love and devotion, we can care about what we are doing, and we can create better solutions for the world. You’ll notice that what I just referenced is feminine.

But people typically don’t pay for creational downtime, for time to gestate the ideas, to have an emotional reaction to something. Some are innovating in this way, but many are still pushing for productivity and output as a measure of profit, and passing this pressure onto employees.

Women are going to have emotional reactions to work, because we are relational beings and we are always considering the whole. It is the nature of the feminine, and women have feminine energy because we are women, and the world is having a massive awakening in feminine consciousness right now. If you’re missing this, your head is under a patriarchal rock.

This awakening is also an unidentified reason women are quitting. They are #remembering something, and realizing they don’t fit into the status quo, but don’t have the exact words for it. The more a woman remembers the truth of authentic feminine and masculine, the less she will be able to fit into what has been the norm. Thank God. Because she will quit, and she will start something new that does work differently, and she will be on the front lines of innovation.

Redefining value at work to keep women:

We want to care and invest our emotional energy, and many times, it isn’t wanted or appreciated. Correction: it is wanted if someone needs to vent #emotions at work to someone who is naturally empathic. It is wanted for free. But what happens when a woman has an intuition inside of a work project, or wants to bring an innovative agenda item to a meeting, or try something collaboratively that has traditionally been between male decision makers in a room? Can that be heard? Or not? If not, she’ll be quitting.

It is not fun or fair for a feminine-essenced being to have to stuff her #intuition or inner knowing (also called emotional energy) because only masculine traits are valued. It is not fun for her to emotionally labor, on her own time while she’s trying to have an easy going dinner with her kids, how she’s not listened to at work or how she truly senses what is needed, but her wisdom isn’t valued. That is deadening. She has life force, she has energy that she wants to give. She wants to devote it toward something that matters.

Will you redefine “value” in order to keep the women? Will you better listen to the women in your organization? Will you trust her to know the fullness of what she can bring to work, and know that your company will be better off for it? I hope so. When you do, all KINDS of creational energy will flow for your projects! All of that feminine emotional energy remember, is creational, and it wants to go somewhere!

Decision makers are welcome to reach out to me, as I consult with companies to identify and help heal the exact places causing unrest. Many people don’t know how to identify what is blocking the operational systems in an organization because they don’t yet have this language or concept. It’s not taboo to talk openly about masculine and feminine, about where it applies to gender and how it impacts us. Companies who are willing to do this will innovate first and go the farthest in the future world we’re creating. Visit https://www.sarahpoet.com/reconciliation today to learn more and book a consultation with me.

#embodiedbreath #masculinefeminine #quietquitting #greatresignation #emotionallabor #emotionalenergy #creativity #innovation #newparadigm

My “business” failed this year, I’m happy to announce.

Pressuring my mission, this soul of Embodied Breath that came to me in 2017, squeezing and pushing her, always demanding more of her, behaving toward her as the world has treated the feminine – that failed this year.

I’m happy to announce, my “business” failed this year.

False marketing failed this year – pretending I have it all together when I don’t as a “coach” failed. Participating in notions of perfectionism failed. It is not a strategy that is in alignment with me.

I am happy to announce, over-giving failed this year. I stopped endlessly giving in the hopes that I would receive – clients, attention, money, or validation that what I was giving was worth it to anyone. Business built on giving in the hopes of receiving failed this year.

Trying to figure out what you wanted to hear or receive, so that I could give it, failed this year.

Getting in front of the camera or making a social media post because some formula says I’m supposed to failed this year.

Holding up more than is mine to hold up failed this year, so that other beautiful realities of how the feminine is meant to be supported could be realized and energetically restructured.

Self-sacrifice failed this year.

Emulating patriarchal, extractive business techniques that tell us that we as female entrepreneurs can “have it all!” as a one-woman show, which forces us to sell sell sell and build build build, and inherently manipulate our potential clients – that also failed this year.

Hiring business coaches to tell me how to run an inherently patriarchal business, when I could and potentially should be sharing my realizations with them, failed this year. Overlooking the inherent feminine trauma inside of this coaching “industry” while so many attempt to do it differently but are silently finding out it doesn’t work if you want to actually do it differently – that failed this year.

Participation in that which does not align with my values failed this year.

What I thought was “business” thankfully failed this year.

Assuming that if I played by the rules and legal structures laid out as options for me and other female entrepreneurs that I would be supported and successful in an inherently patriarchal culture failed this year.

Anything that is not energetically sovereign failed this year. Giving away my resources failed for me this year.

Selling myself failed this year. It’s not me or “female entrepreneurship” or talent, resume, or title that I’m selling. It’s love that I’m offering, and love that I am exchanging, because it is love that I am being, and it is love that I serve.

Love didn’t fail this year. Love was birthed this year, from what has honestly been a perpetually tender heart. Love rose as my “why” this year. And from that, trust began to thrive this year.

Connection didn’t fail. Nor did authenticity or the willingness to sit with you in the very real spaces. In fact, the most real of the real are the only spaces I will now enter, when the invitations come to invite me there.

The devotion to creating the new paradigm we need – that is thriving this year.

The need on this Earth for what Embodied Breath and I have co-created over these last four years didn’t fail – it’s alive and well. And so all of these other things failed so that I could get it in my little human head that “business” isn’t what it’s ever been about.

It’s about the mission – for unity of feminine and masculine on all levels, for the return of the regenerative and prosperous feminine, for the sovereignty of our resources.

It’s not a business, it’s a mission.

And in 2023, this mission is becoming a Ministry.

May we have the heart and wisdom to allow the old structures to fail, so that love can help build a new earth.

May my energy and my life be of service to this re-unified frequency of partnership and love.

Sarah Poet

*I am not going anywhere. This is to announce that foundations & energetic structures are changing within a regenerative frequency of Love.

You can still contact me any time.

Serving Union: https://www.sarahpoet.com/consciousrelating

Serving Women: https://www.sarahpoet.com/privatementorships

Serving Men: https://www.sarahpoet.com/private-coaching-for-men

How do men respond to female entrepreneurship? Here’s my TOP TEN.

It takes consciousness and the transmutation of shadow-masculinity in order to actually uplift the work of women, but he does it because he knows it serves us all when he does.

I was walking in the woods recently, early morning as per usual, and all of the content for this blog started to download through my intuition. I felt the genuine inspiration and got out my phone to voice record myself.

I listen to that voice of intuition and the muse of inspiration. This was a fun blog post to put together, somewhat cathartic in allowing myself to name things out loud that I’ve spent years experiencing and examining (and healing).

I don’t write it to bitch, shame, or blame men. I do write it to call awareness – to female entrepreneurs who need some context for what they may be experiencing and for men to hopefully self-examine their level of allyship for females trying to make a difference in this world.

Do all female entrepreneurs want to make a difference? No, I’m generalizing. But we are living at a time when more women than ever are starting businesses in order to make the world a better place, in order to help fix inequities, and in order to make their living in creative and beneficial ways.

My business is a coaching and consulting company in the area of masculine / feminine reconciliation. I serve as a coach to any gendered human, but I specialize in the energetic dynamics between men and women as we come out of patriarchy and look to relate in new and sovereign ways.

I started my business in 2017 with a brief period of overlap as I left my former career in education. Perhaps because I work in this arena, I both notice nuance in gender relations as well as have had to deal with quite a bit.

Please enjoy my top 10 ways men have responded to my female entrepreneurship. Names may or may not have been changed because I may or may not desire to protect the identities of the men I’m referencing.

TOP TEN RESPONSES TO FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP (in no particular order):

1: “Give me your energy for free but don’t make me look at my own shit, especially not my unresolved shit about my mama.”

Eivind ran an international men’s group and invited me to write for his members. I agreed to write a short column per week, and I agreed to do it for free! I was just starting off, after all, and this man had an established group. I was a guest in his space! I just offered over my energy for free, hoping it would lead to new paid leads.

I posted content weekly, and I noticed a very clear trend. When I uplifted and exalted masculinity, men cheered my posts. When I added in a bit of a call to action (“Please look at this shadow behavior, gentlemen”) the men would oppose or even attack me in the comments.

I pointed this out to the leadership of the group, and this is when I really began to understand that there was so much work for men to do even beyond joining a men’s group – they had to reconcile with the feminine and women. The leadership couldn’t understand this because they hadn’t done it themselves (something I have seen repeatedly in men in men’s organizations). Eivind “stuck up” for the men who were offended, rather than supporting the woman who was writing content for him for free. So, I stopped.

Explanation: This behavior is based in a lack of actual honor for the feminine and wanting women to continue to stroke the man’s ego (or… you know… other places) in order to continue to self-inflate and validate his importance. It’s also based in an unresolved Mother Wound where his internal little boy still kind of hates / kind of craves the feminine as Mother.

2. The dominator / withholding:

When I stopped working with an old friend in order to start my own business, I left with an ask that he look at the “good old boy” nature inside of the organization we had built together. Branden did three things in response.

One, he turned white as a ghost and looked like he was going to have a heart attack for two weeks because he found me to be so scary. Two, he never spoke to me again and had HR work up a deal with me to get me out of the door as soon as possible. And three, he refused to ever give any referrals, even though my new coaching business was an extension of services for the population we served. Everyone would have benefitted from referrals to my new company, but he refused based on temperament. I left an industry months earlier than expected with zero referral contacts given the stand he took.

All cooperation was out the window and he did what he had to do to cover his reputation among colleagues.

Explanation: This behavior is based in domination of women through withholding of resources, making it harder on the woman to succeed. This is very common in men who see women’s liberation and voice as a threat, and it’s scary AF for women going through it (which is the dominator’s point).

3. “I think I love you!”

There were many men, mostly in the periphery that I did not know well or at all, who, upon finding my work, thought that because I was a woman who understood and empathized with what men are going through, that I must actually be meant for them. I received many messages in my social media inboxes with such proclamations. “You get it! I think we’re meant for one another!”

Explanation: This behavior is consumptive and this man subconsciously wants to eat up the feminine and have it all to himself! It’s based in projection and unhealed Mother Wound (notice a trend there).

4. “Fuck you then, I don’t love you.”

Because of my work, some men who I partnered with did not expect me to have flaws. While in a way, this is flattering that someone would think this is even possible, this is also completely unrealistic and sets everyone up for failure. Also, there is a deep rescuer pattern in this dynamic, which I of course played into for a host of reasons, including: the vulnerability of this path including resource vulnerability, my own desire to partner, and the genuine desire to be met.

Explanation: This behavior of the rescuer/hero in men always backfires because it’s based on projections all around, and this man will find that his hero facade doesn’t know what to do with a real woman, and so he’ll reject her when he feels his own vulnerability, commonly following the path of the dominator or taking the fastest escape route possible. To the woman, this feels like harsh abandonment and a reiteration of a lack of support.

5. “I see you, and I want to uplift you, but I don’t know how.”

Men in this category are very loving and they want to support you and what you’re doing, but they support you through their love only and not action. What action would look like as if a man were to tell his friends, or contacts in business, that you are someone he trusts and recommends. Men are more likely to hire a woman coach and gender equity consultant when another man tells him that it is safe to work with you.

Another iteration of this is, “I’ll pray for you.” I’m talking about the kind spiritual man who legitimately wants you to do well but is telling you that he’ll pray for you, not the religious man who is praying for your unresolved sins and entry to heaven – those are different. The man who isn’t judging you and who is offering to pray for you is being nice, however, you may or may not need his prayer. You may need him to take some nice juicy action instead, or ask you, “How can I support you?”

If you are a man who genuinely loves a female entrepreneur in your life, how can you take action (a masculine attribute) to help catapult her work and make it more visible? What kind of masculine oomph do you want to contribute?

Do not assume that the world is ready to uplift female entrepreneurs. Don’t leave her to go it alone. If you love her, lift her up. It’s actionable and helpful.

6. “I act like I support you, but I really just want to fuck you.”

Mike was informed spiritually, had done a lot of his own inner work regarding masculine archetypes, and seemed to understand the feminine at least more than most. For years, I thought he actually understood my mission and supported it.

He asked me to model for a photo shoot on feminine archetypes, and I did it because I trusted his intentions at the time.

Later, while I was in the process of a breakup, he took me out to dinner and told me how he had always had feelings for me (a married man). If I had not averted the conversation, I do not know what he would have been willing to do that night.

He was also very wealthy, and years into our friendship, I asked him for his sincere help and uplifting my work, work that he continually told me the world needs, at a time when I did not have money for rent given the ups and downs of running your own business (especially as a female entrepreneur.)

Money can definitely bring out all of our most subconscious shit, and he seemed to revert into an uncomfortable ex-husband/father identity who had been taken advantage of before, being very stingy and claiming not to have resources to help.

All the talk of supporting my work was talk, and maybe even something he got off on. He wanted me to pose in front of his camera, which I did for his art exhibit, and yet when I needed actual resources to keep my life going, all support folded. This dynamic is a net-deficit to the feminine/woman and is self-serving to the man.

Men, it is a beautiful thing to actually put your financial resources into supporting a woman and female creator, single mother in your life, or, hell, just to make a woman’s life easier. It’s an aspect of healthy masculinity to be provisional. It’s not a man’s sole purpose, but if you are well-resourced, sharing is an attribute.

Men, if you A) reject money, or B) just want to fuck or self-aggrandize, PLEASE do not ask a female entrepreneur (or any woman) for her sex, time, or energy.

7. “That’s cute.”

There’s not much more that needs to be said about this one. I had men who saw me as a respected professional in my career in education and knew that I was formulating innovative, trauma-informed coaching solutions, and never took it seriously. “That’s cute. Good luck!”

This is, by the way, a primary energetic in the way the world responds to female entrepreneurship, regardless of gender. Many female friends will also click “like” a social media post but never directly refer to my work. There is a lack of awareness that we’re not here to entertain, we’re here to change the world and make an actual living while doing it.

(So please go refer your friends to ten female entrepreneurs as soon as you’re done reading this post. Thank you.)

8. “This is really great, but for some reason I won’t tell anybody about it”

It takes courage for a man to step into a healing space with a woman, especially when the healing space is about feminine /masculine and his vulnerability. I have received incredible testimonials from men who experienced life changing sessions, but to my knowledge (because I never got another client from their referrals), they kept it to themselves. So they experienced something incredible, but there was not an awareness or impetus to share their experience in order to uplift other men having a similar experience, potentially because of shame and stigma related to receiving this kind of help either individually or in their partnership.

If you have a vulnerable experience as a man, and it improves your life, do you think that other men would benefit from hearing about it? Tell them!

9. “See, here’s what you do…”

I love masculine business advice – when I ask for it. Some of the best coaches I’ve had were men, and I’ve also been known to ask male friends to “coach my inner masculine.” I came from the career field of education, where I wasn’t adept at business because I didn’t have to be. Business requires both feminine and masculine.

But the thing is, most women are heavily indoctrinated with how to “behave like men” in the business world and we don’t need unsolicited advice thrown at us about how to do business in the way that men have been accustomed to doing business.

Also, I’m intending to do business very differently – in actual feminine and masculine harmony – which is something very new to the world. In this way, we need to collaborate and learn from one another. I want to learn from you, and please be willing to learn from me, too.

10. “This is great, how can I support you?”

And then finally, we have the men who either have experienced the work or respect the woman trying to do the big thing of changing the world, and they decide on their own fruition to spread the word directly with their contacts!

They introduce you to their affiliates.

They repost your social media posts.

They refer you directly by word of mouth.

They offer to coach you when you give a TEDx.

They ask, “How can I support you?”

They let you know that you can always call on them.

They put actual cash behind your mission, no questions asked, or pay your rent if it comes to it.

They write testimonials voluntarily.

They invite you into their men’s groups to share your feminine perspective and expertise.

They put you in front of their organizations and let you teach.

There are these good men, and we need more support like this.

This man has done a lot of his own work to clear the other shadow-masculine behaviors.

He has an embodied understanding of himself, realizes we are all still growing, is comfortable with his own leadership and vulnerability both, and does not see you as competition. He has no need to be angry at women. He does not wrap his identity up in how he helps you or how you make him feel, rather, he knows that it is an aspect of conscious masculinity to uplift the work of women, and to make sure that the women in his community are feeling supported and provided for.

He uplifts the work of women because it is just the right thing for the masculine to do.

Conclusion:

I used to get frustrated that more men weren’t supporting my work, and then I realized that the fact that they weren’t is a function of the very dynamics my work seeks to address.

Said differently – it takes consciousness and the transmutation of shadow-masculinity in order to actually, purely, and beautifully uplift the work of women because he knows it serves us all when he does. All men won’t automatically understand how to support women’s work, and that is a part of the process that my efforts actually seek to serve.

One of ten men might “get it,” and I can actually be of service, in the heart of the feminine, to the growing consciousness of the nine. That is my work to do because it’s a part of my mission – it’s not every woman’s work to do to help men “get it.”

And so to women, it is my advice that we not focus too much on what a man can not provide us while we do this thing of female entrepreneurship, even though that may be heartbreaking or a struggle and a half.

Keep going, ask for help from other women or men who you know do not have an alternate agenda to vampire-suck your energy, and give yourself a high-five for walking the delicate balance of being an independent way-shower and also not trying to hold up the whole damn world by yourself. We want and need support, and every-woman-for-herself is fucking exhausting. We want to call on and lean on our brothers, husbands, and lovers, and I believe in a world where we’re able to do this more and more as men heal their projections of the feminine. We also need to keep healing our anger and projections on men. We’ve got this. But shoo, I know it’s big, big work.

And men, to you I say:

Thank you for reading this!

Where do you see yourself in this “top 10?”

How have you responded to women owned businesses?

How do you directly or indirectly support women businesses, and how can you support women more directly, generously, and altruistically?

There is coaching available to men, women, organizations, and couples who are disentangling the energetics of gender and patriarchy via www.sarahpoet.com. Reach out and let’s do the good work of clearing our shit to better show up for one another.

Who can you recommend this article or my coaching work to today?? Thank you!

Now, go recommend nine more women to your network. Thank you.

Spoken & Unspoken Exchange Agreements: Who is getting your energy and why?

Some exchange agreements are laid out clearly, and many others are assumed. Are you clear about who gets your energy & why?

Some exchange agreements are laid out clearly, and many others are assumed.

At the end of a love relationship a few years ago, after I had moved in with this man thinking it was a long term agreement, and then six months later he gave my child and I the boot, we were in a counseling session.

I was speaking about the agreements that we’d had, and the counselor said to me one of the most illuminating things I’d ever heard. He said, “Sarah, were these agreements stated or written, or did you assume them?”

In fact, I had assumed them. Based on his character as I’d known it to be and his invitation to build a life together. But I had assumed that that had meant certain things about the exchange agreements.

Now, I’m not still heartbroken about that in the least, but I was reminded of this while walking and talking with a friend this morning about EXCHANGE AGREEMENTS specifically between men and women.

And I would apply this to the workplace as well.

When I took a job on a leadership team in a startup, I got a massive raise from my previous charter school job. And then I would receive texts when I was putting my child to bed, or after ten PM. When I decided that I would not be answering these texts because they were invasive, I caused some disruption. Nowhere was it written in my contract that I was obligated to answer leadership team texts at 10pm if I was not on call. The unspoken expectation was that I would answer because I’d gotten a good gig. Then it was as if they thought they owned my energy.

They did not own my energy. No one owns my energy but me, even when there is an exchange agreement in place.

For hundreds of generations, the exchange dynamics between men and women were very skewed. A woman couldn’t own land or even have her own last name, and her food and housing security depended on her husband or her father, and she had to keep them happy. So she made certain decisions about her body, who she permitted access to her body, how she gave her energy, and how she specifically did not exert her energy or risk being “too much” in order to preserve her access to resources for her and her children.

Women still carry the TENDENCY to get wrapped up in unspoken, unwritten exchange agreements with men and employers, because we’re subconsciously still wired to expend our energy in order to not piss off the man or authority figure that has control over our resources. If an employer decides whether or not you get a paycheck, and that paycheck feeds your kids, then you will do things like turn down your opinion or answer the text after hours in order to ensure your security.

This happens at every tier of employment, and women who have climbed ladders to achieve more are not immune to this.

And I’ll go on record right now and say that I believe that this is the root cause of burnout. How we use our energy based on what we perceive the unspoken exchange agreements to be is making women more tired, more depleted, and wondering how in the world their quest for leadership did not land them with a life of actual fulfillment.

Where is your energy going? Why? What is actually contracted, or agreed upon, and what isn’t? How is this happening both at work and with your spouse?

When that personal relationship ended, I couldn’t understand why this man wouldn’t have been happy. Because I had tried to keep him happy. He was, after all, inviting my son and I into his house. I’m not too proud to admit it. Of course not. How could I recommend that we take an honest look at these dynamics if I’m not willing to own it myself?

I did, eventually, piss off the employer with the edge that I was walking. I was getting too big for my britches, asking for equity in too many ways, and this was the last job I had before becoming a women’s coach and masculine feminine polarity consultant.

My friend and I this morning talked about the insidious nature of the unspoken exchange agreements between men and women, between money and sex. Who gets access to your energy? Why? Are you trying to keep them happy? Are you happy in this behavior and in your agreements?

Because I’m here to tell you, you are the only one that decides who gets access to your energy, when, and why. Every day, you get to define and redefine your agreements. You get to ask for that. You get to stop the habitual self sacrifice right now.

Now wouldn’t that just be the end to burn out right there?

If you’d like to discuss personal coaching about taking back your energy from unspoken agreements that are depleting your life, contact me by setting up a consultation at www.SarahPoet.com/book.

The days of the guru are over.

Sovereignty is the way of the future. We choose our next teacher or guide through felt-resonance and soul-guidance. Trust yourself.

“I don’t want to give my power away to a ‘teacher’ or ‘coach’ anymore.”

“I don’t know if I need to take other people’s offerings anymore, because I have a lot of my own gifts.”

We are in a time of massive transition. The time of giving away our power to ANYONE is OVER.

These times are for SOVEREIGNTY.

But I know that this can be confusing, and for me too. Because we want to be sovereign in our energy, not giving ourselves away anymore, and yet, we also want human connection. We want to learn and grow with one another.

We are moving into a paradigm of deep connectedness where each person is sovereign.

I don’t have this all figured out yet, but I’ll share a few of my ethics with you.

When women step into a space I hold or offering such as Heartland, each woman is sovereign.

I never “manipulate” or “heal” another’s energy. I (the ego “I”) don’t heal you, but the space I hold does. We open sacred, sovereign space in the Unified Field and set the intentions that the highest healing miracles take place, and from this space, each woman’s own Soul further connects with her body. While we do it together, each woman’s process is her own. I will not deny that it is extremely powerful, but I admit that humbly.

Each of us does have something to offer, and I am offering you a deep transmission that I have lived. I see it as Heartland “came to me.” It was given to me, and it tells me when to share it. Therefore, it is a soul activation – for each of us in our own way. This is why I’ve been saying “You will feel it.” That is your own soul literally calling you. We need to learn to trust our own souls and I’m here to encourage that.

I started working as a teacher at age 22. I thought that I had to have all the answers for kids that were just a few years younger than me. Through a career in education and a deep soul journey with this thing I steward called a business, Embodied Breath, I know that the old model that sees the student as inferior and the teacher as the only expert is a completely false narrative. (I have way more to say on that.)

I do know that when we have lived through things and also studied them, that some of us do become teachers and space holders and that is okay and good. It is our responsibility to interact with each client or person that comes into that space in a completely sovereign way and with integrity. If you feel your power is being taken, then the teacher doesn’t understand this (or you are projecting onto that teacher.)

In the new paradigm, we trust resonance. Some teachers will be our teachers for a few months, others a few years, others a few minutes. You must trust the resonance that you yourself feel and ask, “What’s here for me?” When you make a decision about what “should” be right for you when there is not resonance, you often actually take yourself off track. (Common example – hiring a “6 figure coach!!” and then realizing that wasn’t your soul that did that.) Wink.

I personally step into other peoples’ healing space and containers when I feel that their particular medicine is what I need at that moment. I don’t know exactly what will happen in the space, but I move with the resonance. I also know that I trust me and my process, and Source, first. Therefore ONLY the highest and best will come out of the sessions, no matter what the other person does. I am activating my own soul by stepping into their spaces.

Ethics re: value exchange – phew, there’s a lot to this one. What I can tell you is that I have soul searched around this topic and continue to do so so that my value exchanges are in the highest integrity that I have in any given moment. If I were independently wealthy and didn’t need income, would I offer my transmissions for free? Probably. But my soul didn’t choose that path. It chose one where I am this kind of soul searcher turned teacher and I do make my living in this way. So again, my aim is integrity.

I don’t want to be your guru. I don’t want to have a guru. I want us all to have our SOVEREIGN GOD-SOURCE CONNECTION and my work serves THAT intention. In fact, Heartland is completely about returning to your own Source Connection and rebuilding your architectural light body so that you are more energetically sovereign and inherently prosperous.

We need each other. WE NEED EACH OTHER. We don’t have to be so fiercely independent and have it all together such that we don’t need one anothers’ magic. We move together and weave and step up with our wisdom at times and at others times we receive others’ wisdom, and this is non-threatening and beautiful.

So those are some thoughts. You are not losing yourself in Heartland, my dear one. You are gaining more of YOU.

In love,
Sarah Poet

HEARTLAND 2022 begins 4/28/22. Join today if it is in resonance with you.