Hustle culture - Sarah Poet

Reclaiming Feminine Nourishment: Soul Medicine & Healing the Mother Wound

That’s when I saw a large replica of my womb and stomach like a chamber, and it was stuffed with hardened sticks, logs, pieces of furniture, tables and chairs. It was like an uncomfortable nest. Who knows how long it had been sitting there – these things I’d taken in that had never nourished me at all. How could they?

One of my two cats will choose love and touch over food. She was feral as a kitten and she’s learned to trust my hands. As I dish out the high quality cat food and sit it in front of her, she’ll follow my hands if I walk away. She’ll opt for touch over food. So I stand beside her so she can eat without alarm.

A fetus or gestating mammal in utero can sense the mood of the mother, and reacts to it from the time it’s just a few-celled zygote. If the mother has any kind of barrier – like stress, or fear about there being enough resources, or doubts about wanting an unplanned pregnancy – the fetus feels it and this creates what’s called a “nourishment barrier” that the living thing will likely take with them throughout their lives.

It’s like that strange feeling that you weren’t wanted as much as your siblings, or you somehow caused your mother’s stress but you can’t find any earthly reason for it.

Recently, I left an appointment and found a voicemail from my best friend in college, who I hadn’t talked to in a few years. I realized how deeply I missed her, and a few other relationships that I hadn’t nurtured, and then that in perfect combination with the effects of the appointment, I went home and had a three hour psycho-somatic integration period, like I was remembering something profound.

That “something” seemed to be nurturance.

I reached out to these friends and said things like, “I’m sorry, when my life became difficult, I self-isolated. I miss you. I love you. Let’s connect.”

My therapist calls this “reaching.” People with nourishment barriers have a hard time “reaching” for what we want or need. We act like we’ve got it all under control. We go without. We ignore the alarms as they sound.

There’s an end of the road to that, I imagine, whether forced or chosen.

I sort of cracked open two days later at a fire circle, speaking about this inherited tendency that my mother had modeled for me to always appear strong and independent, to resist asking for help. As I spoke this, my body started to leak tears, my voice caught, and I began to quiver a bit – sure signs of loss of control – and I let it happen as I said I was opting now for nourishment and connection. Again, I reached.

In response, the elder Grandmother of the circle asked me if I’d lay down on my back beside the fire. Always up for a soul experience, I said of course I’d do this.

She asked one man to drum and a woman to sing and she began putting her hands on my face. The way she moved her hands let me know she could feel the tension that I hold on the left side of my face and body.

She invited other women to touch and nourish me, and soon everyone in the circle was signing and I was crying, aware that it was one of the most beautiful things to have ever happened to me, yet I couldn’t fully integrate it in that moment. I tried to take in the touch, especially, as it was so generous and I didn’t realize how much I needed it. She asked me to flip from my back to my stomach, and I was aware of the closeness of my belly to the Earth.

Recently I did a “regression” journey back to the womb of my mother, as I wondered what it felt like to be in her womb, given the magnitude of nourishment barrier I have carried. As a child, I wasn’t nurtured very much at all – I don’t remember being held or comforted when I was upset. I wasn’t allowed to ask for things I wanted. I got the sense I annoyed her very much. As a little one, I stopped “reaching” early on. When I regressed into the womb in meditation, it felt like something akin to fire in the cells and neurons. Something like chemical poisoning and I couldn’t escape the heat.

Lately I’ve been closely tracking what my body wants as nourishment – for food, for rest, for comfort. It wants to play with clay, to eat warm squash soup and fall foods, to dance to my “eros” playlist, to journal much more than usual, to find no problem in anything.

When I try to come up, to find reason, to reengage and make something new happen, she pulls me back down and in.

I’m aware that if I don’t do this now, there is no other time.

About a week after the fire circle, I woke at dawn deeply tucked into the layers of my bed on a chilly fall morning.

The Inner Earth Grandmothers of the Heartland reached out to me. I said in connection and gratitude, as I always do, “I Am Here.”

They invited me into their council chamber. They invited me to lay down, with my head in a lap, similar to what happened beside the fire.

First they told me to lay on my back. They asked me to pair with the frequency of the inside of their Earthly chamber. My breathing slowed as I matched what they were offering.

They encouraged me to roll over onto my stomach and press my belly onto the Earth, again the same thing that had happened next to the fire.

That’s when I saw a large replica of my womb and stomach like a chamber, and it was stuffed with hardened sticks, logs, pieces of furniture, tables and chairs. It was like an uncomfortable nest that had been swallowed and undigested into this space. Who knows how long it had been sitting there – these things I’d taken in that had never nourished me at all. How could they?

Things to fill a space that I couldn’t absorb for nourishment.

The Grandmothers and I removed each piece, one by one, until my internal chamber was just Earth again. And then the biome properly reestablished itself as Earth and dirt into this space once again.

After that I could breathe more deeply.

As I began to stir, the cats knew that meant it was time for their breakfast. And so I went and stood beside the cat, so she could eat in peace, and know that she is not alone.

**You are also not alone. We need one another on our journeys of reclamation and soul. Reach out for 1:1 support and multidimensional healing today.

Returning to the thriving nature of the feminine.

This is where we collectively (in our “empowerment”) point to men as the “takers,” and while there is certainly plenty of evidence that men can act as takers, if we don’t fully understand the feminine principle, and there is a planet-wide reversal, then why do angry women expect men to fully understand how to heal this reversal and deliver it to women? That’s a little strange, don’t you think?

There is a force at play on the feminine principle on this planet that is inherently consumptive.

When I say “the feminine principle,” I mean the feminine in all things – woman, man, earth, children, animals… everything. Another way to say it would be “feminine energy.”

I think back to my father as a child. I was the oldest of three daughters and while we experienced a lot of provision and effort from my father, it was apparent to me in a felt-sense that he deeply hated the feminine.

There is a simultaneous longing for what is feminine, and also a willingness to consume or destroy it.

Isn’t that fascinating?

That’s called a “reversal.”

And we have a planet-wide reversal of what “feminine” or “mother” represents.

And so every woman, if she’s honest and if she’s able to slow down for a moment, can likely feel a sense of fear somewhere in her gut that is pervasive.

Consistent.

This is the fear of being consumed. The fear of the feminine principle in you being consumed.

By what?

Great question.

I think it would start at home – in us. In my remembering and action as a woman, I can heal my participation in any reversal of feminine consumptive patterning.

So I had a life-long fear that I traced to my father, because in his hatred and also his alter-ego darkness, there was plenty for me to fear as a child and young woman about being consumed, being taken from, being manipulated and brainwashed. The fear ran really, really deep.

But my mother was also super instrumental in forcing me to place my child for adoption, she denied her own daughter’s reports of abuse, and she would spend money on making things look good, but to my memory never expressed true generosity with money when I was in need.

These are examples of pretty severe reversal patterns – from both genders. From both mother and father. So the reversals are not just perpetuated by men.

Also you can sense in my examples that both had to do with my body, my children, my creation/sexual energy, and also my resources. *All of the above are affected by the consumptive patterning at play on the feminine.

When women want to stop incessantly consuming, stop keeping up with societal pressures, when we want to just “quit” the ridiculousness of always spinning our wheels and feeling exhausted, what we are really wanting to do is to heal the feminine principle in our lives.

We want to heal the fear of not having enough, the constant fear of being taken from, and we want to live in peace. We want things to be naturally abundant. We get this crazy notion that we may even be able to thrive!

What we want is to heal the reversal currents.

How we do this is to return to our organic nature. We literally create a new energy pattern in our lives.

One way to think about this is to think, “In what ways am I behaving because society / family told me to, and in what ways do I naturally intuit I want to use my energy?” Then do that. What you intuit is most likely coming from your organic nature.

It is through us that these patterns correct. It’s not something that society will do for us, because why would it? The current structures of power certainly benefit from feminine exhaustion, so I don’t presume the change would come from outside. It comes from within, from our direct remembrance of what is good, right, fair, and just and then living in accordance with that.

Truth be told, there are vast energetic networks that have kept the feminine energy, or feminine principle, both entrapped and available for consumption for a long, long time. It’s worked out for some – like my parents – who played the games as they were laid out, who amassed wealth, and who are willing to sacrifice children, love, and decency in order to maintain that wealth. It has not worked out for others, and for many of us, we are not choosing it.

I do not choose for my feminine principle to be continually exhausted in a reversal/inverted pattern that is a net-deficit game on my life force.

I do not choose for my feminine principle to be consumed.

And I do not choose it for this beautiful planet or the children coming into it.

Do you?

In Heartland, we examine this truth of feminine consumption – both how the patterns play out on women, and also how we participate. When we have this information, we can begin the process of extricating ourselves from reversal currents and instead become a part of becoming what I call the “regenerative feminine” on the planet.

For women, transactions-first models feel gross.

We are modern women, waking up to the truth of who we are, and standing in that truth. We are formulating businesses, offerings and strategies, according to the full truth of who we are. We are choosing where to spend our money based on how we feel, who we know personally, and what ethos we want to support.

For women, sales are not first.

I think more and more, women are keen to know when a situation is transactional, and we’re opting out of it.

A few years ago I joined a women’s community where the premise was everyone was featuring their offers, but it really in practice reduced to everyone selling to one another. Or trying to. I never sold anything. Not because my work isn’t valuable or applicable to the women there – it could have been really useful – but I think it was because everyone felt “sold to” when maybe what we wanted was connection first.

Over many years now of what I’ll call spiritual entrepreneurship, I have worked with coaches whose models I no longer agree with ethically, and I’ve watched as female entrepreneurs first emulate and then try to adapt and improve current models.

I’ve also watched women’s circles that are like pyramid schemes and rely on overly-feminine processes and don’t effectively help women creators to launch and be prosperous.

As women creators who are bringing deep wisdom through based on life experiences, training, spiritual evolution and consciousness, we’ve got great offers, but how to get them to really fly? Sales gets tiring, but more than that, it often just doesn’t feel aligned to the authentic nature of what we’re trying to bring forward.

To be a solo-entrepreneur really requires one to constantly sell themselves, which isn’t the point, because we’re trying to sell an offer that improves someone’s lives but we’re a one-woman show, so it looks like we’re trying to sell us.

Which feels gross by the time we really experience it. Maybe more so depending on the level of ethics one chooses to utilize.

So, integrating experience with intuition, I’m going to offer a new way.

A new community model formulated on relationships first, but with the intent that every single woman in the space thrive financially and experience prosperity in all areas of her life.

And, it’s a community that fosters women’s unique gifts and talents, allowing her to experience prosperity in alignment with her true calling and essence.

This community is based on the premise that women can be exactly who they are, develop their ideas into financially viable offerings, and be celebrated and experience prosperity along the way. This is the Sacred Remembering Community.

Over the next 5 to 10 years, I want to see this grow into an entirely new model for women’s success. Since apparently the Barbie Movie just made it acceptable for us to now say “patriarchy” publicly without cringe, I’ll say it is an alternative or antidote model to patriarchy. (I said patriarchy in 2019 in my TEDx, which TED just so happened to not want to publish… so I’m glad we’re moving forward.)

I’m coming up on two years of running this community, and what I’ve witnessed here as well in the other groups I’ve hosted is that when women know one another, and care about one another’s whole experience, they will naturally uplift one another.

Without making sales, marketing or transactions the focus, women’s prosperity elevates when women form authentic relationships first.

So the basis of Sacred Remembering is “women waking up to the truth of who they are, and standing in that truth.” We share the “this is who I really am” part, which leads to women feeling more confident to stand in that truth, which then leads to more prosperity.

So let me give you an example.

If I know Audrey as a friend via community, and I have seen Audrey’s personal and spiritual evolution, and I’ve heard in Community Calls why she cares so much about the topic that led her to creating a business or an offering, I’m going to tell everyone I know about Audrey‘s offering.

Because it’s a genuine on two levels. One, I have a relationship with Audrey, and two, I have witnessed her authentic process, the reclaiming of her own truths, and her passion.

Also, when a woman really touches into the *very* thing she cares most about, she lights up. When we see that in community, we reflect to one another, “Yes! That! Please share that with the world!”

When women or female entrepreneurs are trying to do this in isolation, we don’t have the feedback, and we don’t have the community to uplift us, which leads one down the road of becoming transactional. We have to sell our products. And that really is grating and draining to the cultivated feminine system within a woman. If we want to stop emulating patriarchy, we remember what life with the integrated feminine actually feels like (Barbie doesn’t understand that part yet), and then we have to develop new models that nourish, rather than deplete, the feminine.

When you are in authentic community, and someone over-steps and tries to sell to you first, it feels abrasive and inappropriate to the feminine essence. The feminine flourishes with relationships, a felt-sense of truth and trust, and connection.

I’m always astonished on LinkedIn that anyone thinks that they can come into my inbox and sell me some thing with one message. My clients do not make the decision to work with me through one message, they make the decision to work with me through trust, relationally, over time. I pretty much never invest my money when I hear about something for the first time, especially not a coaching or business mentorship offer, because I have no trust formulated for the person who just popped into my inbox. I actually don’t even finish reading the message, because when you put transactions first, it is off putting to the feminine.

It feels so good as a woman to stop playing transactional games. It feels so good as a woman to lift up other women, and have other women lift me up. It feels good to trust that we can all rise together – and that we will.

For more information on the Sacred Remembering Community, please visit SarahPoet.com.

The real gender issues at work won’t look like gender issues.

So if companies are willing to innovate, and willing to realize, like we do in #DEI, that everyone has a bias, then we can start to talk about masculine and feminine characteristics and behaviors – not genders, we pivot the gender conversation – and take the conversation and #awareness to a whole new level.

The real gender issues at work won’t look like gender issues.

There are gender issues, because these are the times we’re living in, but someone’s found a way to justify decisions, to quote the data, and prove that all of the boxes have been checked – in order to put a lot of energy into holding up a pronouncement that “There are no gender issues going on here!”

You will know that there are #gender issues at work when you look at the rate of true #satisfaction of the people, especially the #women and gender non-conforming people.

We are still in an age where a lot of adult white males are busy leading #hierarchies, checking boxes, and saying, “We do not have a problem here.” This is more than we’d like to think, and it’s happening for understandable reasons, like our culture pressured men to feel they could always have the answers, and handle any problem.

There are also a lot of men emerging that want to do it differently, namely younger men and men who have gone through psycho-spiritual awakenings.

If the true essence about the feeling at work is not a good one, for anyone, you have a gender issue.

And no amount of checking #HR boxes is going to “solve” this. No amount of #denial and hierarchical proclamation will white wash the situation. It’s very easy at this point for people to see through that. They probably try to speak to it, and when they’re ignored, or it is explained to them how they are wrong, they often quit, if they’re not gotten rid of first.

Handling this requires a new and different approach – one that is relational and innovative. It requires companies who actually want to lead progress to get real about the unspoken or undefined gender issues.

Going to layer deeper, gender issues are, at the root, a discrimination of #feminine energy. Because if a woman uses #masculine #energy at work, she’s actually rewarded and can get by quite alright. This is how women were historically able to win positions of power – by adopting masculine work traits. The other polarity that women experience in the workplace is to stay quiet and more docile to keep the job. Both of these are ways that women behave in a #patriarchal workforce, both of which women are growing tired of and is why you see them #quitting .

Culturally, we don’t have the words for it yet – but we want to be able to bring the archetypal feminine to work.

I was recently talking with a male client of mine who has a multi-million dollar business. He told me that he recognized that to hire women put his business at a competitive #advantage. Not only does he hire them, he knows that to genuinely listen to them, to let them share their wisdom, and come up with a new ideas, is the reason his business is outshining competitors.

He acknowledged that he sees the resistance in others to listening to women, and it is costing his competitors. Hiring innovative women, and him getting behind their ideas, has taken his business to a whole new level.

Because he understands a bit about masculine and feminine through our work together, he was able to see that the competitive advantage was feminine energy, which is inherently creational, intuitive, and relational.

This is what the traditional workplace has been missing. And it is the very thing that some companies are denying the need to look at, while other companies are pulling ahead because they’re not just putting women into positions of influence, but then they are allowing the entire body of wisdom – intuition and all – within that woman to influence decision making in the company.

Wow! Of COURSE this is where our world should be progressing right now. Why all the discomfort and resistance?? We have to let go of what is not working to advance to where the world is progressing.

It’s going that direction, and companies can innovate with feminine / masculine understanding and incorporation for #holistic development – or not, and be left behind.

My client was happy to watch his company be more successful, and his clients more happy because of the magic that these women brought. He is someone willing to innovate and get out of his own way. Are you?

For workplace consultations, leadership team development, and systems consulting, see www . SarahPoet . com / Reconciliation and book a call today.

Know someone who needs to see this? Thanks for sharing.

#genderequity #masculinefeminine #leadership #innovation #consulting #deiconsultant #hrinnovations #newparadigm #business #thoughtleadership

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 you can make feminine leadership more sustainable for women.

Just because women are in positions of leadership does not equate to the return of sustainable feminine leadership or respect for feminine qualities. True feminine leadership happens when we rebalance the inequitability of feminine & masculine in our actions, efforts, and energetics, and ensure the sustainability of systems, including the women themselves.

Last spring, as the new leaves were returning to the trees and the ferns were unfurling, I visited a year-one school startup to consult with the two women who were running it.

The ideas for the school were all about innovation, keeping children close to nature, and preserving the ideals of curiosity, self sovereignty, and relationship. The school was beautifully visioned and the positive response from the community had made for fast growth. And these women leaders were exhausted.

They were working incredibly long hours and the school had not yet met financial goals, which meant that it was running at a deficit. In response, to take care of the children and the vision, they worked harder. Of course they did. It’s what women visionaries do.

They were trying to get it to go, powering through, even despite not getting paid because they were paying the teachers first. And I was there as a school consultant, yes, but also a systems analyst, a women’s leadership guide, and as someone who connects land/vision/people together when there is a mission at work. In other words, I’m looking at systems, including the energetic flow in the system as a whole. Where is it leaking energy? Where is there an area that is out of integrity with the flow of the entire system of the mission?

And so I asked them, “Are you okay running this school if it requires that the school be run on feminine depletion? You are looking at creating a holistic school model, but what of your model is requiring the feminine to continue to run on depleted resources and energy?”

I heard back from them recently, a full half a year later, and the administrator told me, “There is not a day that goes by that I do not ask myself that question. It was the greatest guiding question I’ve received.”

You see, our systems have historically run on feminine depletion.

What do I mean by that? In short, I mean that in a patriarchal way of building and operating, we over-rely on masculine energetics: build, push, create, exert, make happen. And when we stay in that energetic for too long, we create an imbalance, which forces the feminine energetic to go into submission (getting what it can where it can, like 6 hours of sleep, a little exposure, or a little congratulatory high five now and again) or it’s just forgotten about altogether (which we’ve seen in our modern workplaces in the quest for more profit, more wins.)

When the feminine is depleted, we get women who over-give, women with hormonal disorders and weird health symptoms, the pushing down of things like intuition and taking time for an idea to gestate, and the unrealistic expectation that we are able to stay continually in go-mode.

But this of course doesn’t only affect women. It affects men in that they resist vulnerability or not having an answer, always wanting to maintain the image that everything is under control. And it has affected our ideas of leadership across the globe.

You can also begin to deduce from my simple examples here that it is not a gendered issue, and we’d be well served to move beyond the typical conversations of gender in the workplace and include instead these considerations of what healthy and unhealthy feminine and masculine leadership look like, and how they are expressed.

Historically, we’ve made “women’s leadership” and “feminine leadership” synonymous, and I want to state explicitly that they are not. Just because a woman is in a position of leadership does not mean that she is enacting feminine principles in the least. Even to write that, I can imagine that some readers may bristle at the word “feminine” being inserted into a conversation about leadership because the stigma is still that the feminine can’t lead for it’s “softness.”

But I will tell you that when we look at some of the most innovative research and actions taking place in the field of leadership, what is happening is the re-incorporation of the feminine archetype and feminine leadership behaviors. To name a few: shared decision making, collaboration, flexible scheduling, and allowing teams extended periods of time to create. All of these are aspects of feminine leadership whether we call it that or not.

Then why name it? Why name it as feminine or masculine? I strongly believe that in doing so, we can save a lot of time with a conceptual framework that also reduces many of the unspoken and tricky issues that are chalked up to gender in the workplace. It’s not differences in gender that are most important. What is most important is whether or not leaders value and know how to lead, incorporating both feminine and masculine leadership qualities, and whether they extend that to their cultures and teams.

Going back to the two women that I was coaching, as I asked them this question, “Are you okay with this place running on feminine depletion?,” they had already had an understanding of feminine and masculine, and so when I asked it, the real and deeper issue became more clear.

In trying to do the right thing, they were exhausting themselves and also running on exhausted financial resources. We can see that such a situation is unsustainable. And it is in the reconstructing of both the finances and the activities of the school into an equitable feminine / masculine collaboration that both of these issues can be corrected.

A world that didn’t value the feminine was also the world that created a very serious deficit in environmental sustainability. The two go hand in hand and this topic could be elaborated on quite extensively. And so for today, I’ll conclude that feminine leadership, which I would encourage all leaders to embrace regardless of gender, would not allow for the depletion of the feminine energetic, the earth, the resources, or the people. Often in our quest for power and profit, these are the very things that are depleted and overlooked. Women and men, and leaders of all kinds, it’s time for true thriving to include the wellness and sustainability of the feminine and masculine in harmony.

Sarah Poet is available for consultations with leaders of any gender and maintains an eye to the energetic efficiency of systems as we create a more sustainable and equitable world. To schedule, visit www.sarahpoet.com/book.

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.

“Birthing Upward” – Energy dynamics of the creative process are changing.

Feminine & Masculine energetics in new paradigm business will not be top-down, rather, bottom-up.

*Esoteric in nature, you can read this post as an “energy update” and ask yourself how it applies to your creativity, your masculine/feminine relationships, and organizational structure in new-paradigm businesses.*

This week, in my meditations and client sessions, there has been a theme and a common vision – that of “Birthing upward.”

As I tune into this further, this seems to have to do with the way in which we are now optimally creating on the planet, having to do with feminine now leading the masculine.

You can envision this by feeling into the following visuals.

We are accustomed to “birthing downwards” on this planet. The masculine would impart the seed (of consciousness or creation) into the feminine. HE would do the giving (first), that would go into her (second), and then the formation of the creation (ex a human embryo, a business, or any other creation coming into form) would occur (third).

This view could be inherently patriarchal because there is a “top down” assumption. The masculine would impart the seed, wisdom, power, authority, etc, and it would go downward through the process. This is also the energetic of old system hierarchies itself, with an assumed top-down leader, usually male, who makes the decisions for the many and essentially determines the creation. As we know, sadly, this method of authoritative masculine actually stifles true creativity. This is why we are seeing a lot of organizational structures now giving teams time to collaborate on new creations – time to derive the idea and spend in the mess of creativity is actually a feminine energetic resurging.

Now, I will attempt to share with you what I am seeing with “birthing upward.” Please keep in mind that ultimately, masculine and feminine unify as One, and yet, there are some energetics that are actively restructuring as our planetary energies realign and re-harmonize. So I am not saying that “women are taking over” or that the “feminine will win” or anything absurd and polarized like that. But I am noticing a very big “counter” energetic occurring to the polarized world as it has existed, with the masculine initiating the creative process and the formation of the creations.

I see “birthing upward” not as the only way it is ever meant to be, but that this is a “shifting in polarity” so to speak as the earth is in the process of re-harmonizing. So this is likely taking place in the earth grid structure as well as in our human bodies, psyches, relationships, business formations, organizational restructuring, etc.

Birthing upward does not start with the masculine, rather, it starts with the womb. The womb of creation is the infinite space into which the masculine seed of consciousness can be magnetized. We have been preparing Her to actually become the leading energetic source of what will now be created.

Many of us women have been doing a lot of clearing of trauma, dense energy, miasma, patriarchal exchange energetics, and womb hijackings. The feminine has been energetically advancing its sovereignty, in women’s bodies and in the earth grid. The womb energy of the collective is seemingly more clear than it has been in many thousands of years – potentially enough to cause this polarity shift, it would seem.

In a session with two men, a generation younger than myself, who are envisioning a collective and collaborative new business structure that is focused on community, I was intuitively guided to share with them this concept of “birthing upward.” I was also guided (as in, I was channeling & communicating from their soul business creation information to them) to have them tune into the “womb space” on their body first. They were pointed toward acknowledging the presence and intelligence of this energetic center in their own male bodies. This would be required for their new leadership.

There was to be no “top down” leadership, though healthy masculine structure and consciousness were welcome and necessary. But hierarchical power structures were old paradigm and unwelcome, which these young men already realize, but their questions for the session were about what the new structures for organizational development look and feel like. Leadership in a new paradigm of business is an interesting inquiry. Do we let it go and have just shared leadership? Do we not have leaders? Was masculine leadership always wrong?

I think the answer to all of those questions is “no.” Masculine clarity and decision making is necessary for running effective businesses, regardless of the gender expressing it. We also don’t need men to fear their own leadership – and we need more men to be very comfortable in their expressed masculinity and we should never shame men for their attempts at leadership (rather hone the intelligence of it). However, as these young men are realizing, we will be restructuring organizational teams and redefining leadership in the near future to meet the needs of the people and planet – and what I am seeing is that these new ways of “birthing upward” will also be more profitable.

I was guided to share with them that the “fertile soil” of building from the ground up, which included engaging, optimizing, and celebrating the enthusiasm of all participants in the formation of what the leadership would build would be the “birthing upward” approach for the success of their business formation.

Widening the vision again now with etheric metaphor, the womb of all creation is the fertile ground, no longer into which we will plant the seeds, but now, the fertile ground of the cosmic womb of creation (the feminine) will determine which consciousness to attract to it (the seed), thereby activating the birth of certain (new) creations.

The womb is now attracting the seed of its own choosing with a certain magnetism. The cosmic womb (deep, eternal feminine) is now calling to it the light of consciousness (deep, eternal masculine.) From there, and this is the most significant part, the structure is forming. The feminine is magnetizing the consciousness that will lead to new structures. The feminine is attracting the consciousness of its choosing.

The collective will attract its new leaders. The people will determine our next direction. The womb will attract the consciousness – this is “birthing upwards.”

Any person who is able to read and follow this does not see this as a “women flipping the power script” feminist agenda, rather, the delicate and powerful shift in polarity and honestly, an energetic directive, coming from the Holy Mother, and the Holy Father is ready and welcome to participate. The recalibration is in effect.

If you are starting a new business based on a “soul calling” and would like to do a channeled session with the business entity itself, if you are looking at how to redesign leadership structures in your organization to make it more inclusive, or if you just feel the intuitive nudge – schedule a consultation with me at www.sarahpoet.com/book.

Stop letting men deplete you.

the woman who has something they want. Some men will uplift women and their missions. Let’s talk about the difference.

Some men will subconsciously tear down the woman who has something they want. Some men will uplift women and their missions.

Let’s talk about the difference.

A man who wants something from a woman that he’s not getting may act in the following ways:

insatiable desire for her body, her energy
tearing her down when he sees her succeeding
feeling very lofty for his minor financial success, feels inflated when giving to a woman
desires to have a lot of conversations of big ideas, but does little with them and does not have a command of his own money or make those things happen

At the root of any of this behavior is a dis-integration of the Mother in the man.

A man needs to acknowledge his insatiable thirst for Her (mother, feminine, woman) and reconcile this within himself.

When he does, he will be IN SERVICE TO a woman, her mission, her success. He will ask how he can help. He will refer her services to others, he will put her in front of his people. He will invest his energy and money into her.

Because he has no problem uplifting and sharing the wisdom of the Holy Feminine for all eyes to see.

Women, my guess is that you have a lot of experience with men who do NOT understand this yet.

My guess is also that you have a lingering imprint of depletion as a result of this.

Maybe you’re married to a good man who can’t get enough of you… but it wears you down for some reason.

Maybe you enter into relationships and receive big promises from men, rearranging your life accordingly, to find he can’t keep it and then you feel depleted.

Or you spend a lot of time with male friends who talk about deep and spiritual stuff but then you realize that this time investment hasn’t actually made you more resourceful.

Maybe you have no idea what it feels like to be uplifted by a man who doesn’t want to consume you.

In that case, my love, Heartland is for you. You can take this as a live course, offered once a year, or schedule a consultation with me about doing this in private mentorship.

Heartland is about creating regenerative energetics in our systems as women so that we are no longer in depletion – and has NOTHING to do with men.

Why are women in depletion? Because we’ve operated with distortions around what masculine & feminine really are in this silly gender construct – and we’ve given and given to men, to families, to society, to workplaces…. forever.

Women are collectively depleted.

When women are replenished, we change the entire energetics of the operating system of the planet. (Starting with your world first.)

It’s a bigger educational piece that I’m happy to get into, but my love, let me ask you this – did you relate to what I was saying here? The amazing thing is, too, that when we say “no more” to depletion and clear these lower-masculine behaviors from our lives, and/or correct the energetic template ourselves, the men who show up in our lives are the ones who have done the work with the Holy Mother and are now prepared to support you as well.

What a welcome change, right??

Change the energetics from depletion to regeneration in YOU, now. Heartland will take you there.

Devotion + CoCreation = Receptivity

Long ago, women learned to be productive. We learned to hustle. We learned that our perceived value was tied to how much we got done. And, we learned that we’d have to carry a really big load, and so it was just best to get used to it.

Women often have a difficult time taking time for themselves, or resting, or they end of feeling guilty about choosing to stop when there are still things on the to-do list. Every woman knows this feeling.

A few years ago, I started a “soul-aligned” business. Meaning it is a business of calling, of purpose. In such a business, there is a lot of emotional learning and learning about oneself. You can’t, of course, live your purpose and not have to stand in some fire in preparation for what you’re called to do.

I have spent a lot of time observing the energetics of healthy feminine flow and the masculine action in life and business. I have taught a lot of women about how to redefine and balance these archetypes in their lives. We need both – we can’t just sit around and flow all day, or we wouldn’t actually have a business at all. And, women I see in my practice want to lead their lives and businesses with a healthy masculine, replacing the old, outdated patriarchal hustle.

This is a great idea, but it is hard to do.

I’ve been hearing a lot of women, myself included, redefining “productivity” lately. I like this solution. There’s both healthy and unhealthy aspects to productivity.

I like feeling productive. I like crossing things off the to-do list. I know about my business that if I leave energetics messy – such as not sending invoices or typing clients notes, hence making myself overwhelmed – that the business doesn’t run and money doesn’t come in. So it’s not possible to abandon “doing” altogether, nor do I think any of us really want to. Even if we’re reclaiming the feminine archetype and the inherent right we have to slow down and rest when it’s called for, we don’t want to abandon action.

It’s the quality of the action, the “doing,” that I want to encourage us to look at. This is what I’ve been contemplating lately.

In 2022, a group of us started Structure & Flow, and this energy optimization system asks you to pick words that anchor you to your desire. These words symbolize what you’re focusing on and how you want to feel. These are the “why” for any action we take, so that we are taking aligned action.

My words are devotional, co-creative, receptive.

Essentially, what I want to do daily is to maintain a devotional practice. Inside of that devotional practice, I get insights, excitement, clarity, and motivation. (That’s the feminine, by the way – taking the time to pause and listen.) Devotion often also involves movement for me in an embodied feminine practice. Going to the yoga mat, improvisational dance, candles and sensuality, taking a hike, or being on my meditation cushion. I intend for devotion to be a feminine practice. This is where I am being the muse, opening to hearing the divine, the sacred, the intuition, the soul.

If I create that devotional space, the sacred will meet me there.

And then, from there, I will have insight.

And then I can “do” something with it, which is what I call “co-creation.” If I take action because I get an idea into my little head and then work to make it happen, I am in productivity for productivity’s sake. If I listen to the wisdom that comes from devotional practice, my action becomes co-creation, a much higher quality action.

As an entrepreneur, I have to take action. I actually love action and structure – both inherently masculine qualities. But through trial and error, I know that if I’m in the energy of productivity without devotion, I’m not actually making money. I’ll say that again. If I am in an energetic of “I just have to get this done” productivity, I don’t make money, no matter how much effort I put behind it.

And I know why that is. When the masculine takes action without consulting the feminine, as it did throughout patriarchy, the result is depletion – of the feminine, of resources, of options. Working without the feminine, or overriding the feminine, breeds more separation, and my business is just not allowed to generate income via productivity and hustle without the mutual energetics of healthy feminine/masculine integration. When the two are working in tandem, healthy energetics regenerate, including money.

If I co-create through devotional practices, I do receive flow in my business, such as new clients and money. Things happen. I don’t have to worry. For example, people book consults out of the blue just when I have space. If I listen to the divine guidance, my life is moving forward in regenerative energetics (something I talked a lot about in 2021 on the Sacred Remembering Podcast and will talk about more again as I teach about prosperity in the Heartland.)

So receptivity is the result of first devotion, then co-creation.

No more acquiring resources through hustle. No more producing just to get paid. No more exchanging energy for perceived value. No more working tirelessly (producing) in order to secure less than what brings me joy. No more “doing” without satisfaction.

The feminine is innately receptive. But “she” needs some sort of partnership with the masculine and this exchange needs to be healthy in order for her to begin to receive in new ways – i.e. without exhausting herself with productivity. We haven’t had healthy exchanges between feminine and masculine as our cultural norms, and so, we are establishing them now in our modern world.

Journal on it:

Where are you in the energetic of hustle or productivity without divine guidance?
What does feminine devotion look like to you?
How are you leading your life according to what you know is best for you instead of responding to what you have to do?
What is your relationship with your inner masculine? Does “he” push you to hustle, or does it respect your flow also? Is it strong and devoted also, or does it lie around lazily or struggle to set structure and follow through? How does your inner masculine support you?