On Thursday we had a full moon in Capricorn with the sun in Cancer which is exactly the opposite of my astrological imprint – my moon is Cancer and my sun is Capricorn.
Reading about this pairing brought me clarity on two sides of myself that I sometimes find challenging to bring together, but that I recognise as a struggle which is key to what I offer in the world.
Capricorn is about drive. Committed, resilient, ambitious and adventurous. People often say of me – how have you done so much so young? How do you know so much so young?
Cancer is about care. Kindness. Intimacy. Safety. Family. Home. I once had a boy say to me I looked like the kind of girl who would bake flapjacks. (They’re delicious)
When you put these together, you basically get my natural brand: Caring and Daring. Self-Care for the Wild Woman. None of that was contrived – it’s just how it came out – because it came out of me.
This weekend I met some super high-powered business women who couldn’t understand lunchtime networking. “I’d lose a whole day!” was the general consensus. What I thought was a super-fun idea and was already getting excited about was met with ‘Why?’
While they were hugely inspiring in their heads-screwed-on success, it also helped me clarify – again – that I’ve got to be really careful in what I’m creating. I don’t want to create a level of success that means I can’t go out for lunch or that meeting someone for a coffee becomes a stress on the to-do list. I don’t want to be so focussed on building my business that I forget to play.
While I thought they were fun, funny, and fabulous, I also realised that, within the small world of female entrepreneurs, we were about as different as you get.
See, they would even gasp at the fact that I put female in there. “We’re just entrepreneurs! Just business owners! Why do we need to huddle in the corner and not compete with the men? Bah”.
I don’t see women-only networking as huddling in the corner and shying away from competing with the men. Mainly because I don’t see my business as competing with anyone. But that’s another blog.
I like women-only networking because of the care and because of the relationships that build up. In fact, I went to one networking event (at lunchtime and everything) that was for both women and men but there happened to be only one man there. And that one man, was the only person in the room who tried to sell me anything. Everyone else I spoke to I had an amazing conversation with. Then it came to him. He tried to sell me his book. I didn’t want it. He tried to coach me. I said “I’ve not come to here to be coached.” He looked shocked. He didn’t know what else to say.
(I just want to do a side-step for a moment and say, in case anyone gets the wrong end of the stick – I LOVE men. In fact a part of me would quite like to lead a “falling in love with men again” course, as I think as women we’ve forgotten.)
If the women I was talking to and the man at the networking event were 100% drive, I’m 50% drive and 50% care. On a good day. When I forget about the care part, everything falls on the floor in a big self-created mess. When Capricorn leads the show, she generally gets her horns stuck somewhere uncomfortable.
The BEST way I have found to care for myself, is to work in alignment with my menstrual cycle (I can hear those high-powered business-women sighing again.)
Seriously – I started doing this two years ago after learning with the amazing Alexandra Pope, and everything changed. I haven’t been ill in two years, for starters.
We are not taught to listen to our bodies, and one of the ways we ignore them the most is when it comes to our menstrual cycle – take a painkiller and carry on as normal, right? We are missing out here on a naturally inbuilt self-regulating, self-care system. If we only listen.
Recently I have uplevelled my commitment to this practice and now rest completely on day 1 of my bleed. The energy surge that I feel on day 3, when I do this, is almost super-human. When I don’t rest, I don’t get that energy surge, and in fact the whole month feels like more of a push. It’s pretty simple really. REST.
The thing is, women ARE different to men. It doesn’t mean we’re weaker, it JUST MEANS WE’RE DIFFERENT.
For one, we don’t have the high levels of testosterone that they have, and if we try to live at the same pace we run off our adrenals. This is one of the reasons we are seeing such a surge in women under 30 experiencing adrenal fatigue and burn-out.
When I was little and being bullied at school, I used to wish I was a boy- it all seemed so simple for them; they got to just kick a ball around. Now I LOVE being a woman. I love the complexity of it, the sacredness, the sexiness.
How about we stop trying to be the same and celebrate our differences? Not just between ourselves but within ourselves too. Our Capricorn and our Cancer. Our drive and our need for rest. Our desire to be admired and our need to be loved. It’s all OK.
Click here to tweet: “What if we could celebrate our differences? Not just between ourselves but within ourselves, too.” – @KateWolfTweets
PS. Yes, I just wrote a post that contained references to not only astrology but also menstrual cycles. If you’re still here, we’re gonna get on 🙂
Over to you
I’d love to hear about sides of you that you feel compete for attention – how do you manage your yin and your yang, your softness and your strength? Do you feel required to be one-dimensional or less complex than you are in any situations in your life?
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