Success in the feminine way

First of all, let us look at what success really means. 

I believe success can look different on the outside for everybody, man or woman, but the experience of what success feels like, on the inside, will probably be universal.

I believe we all desire to feel loved and capable of loving. If we feel this energy flow in our day-to-day life, I would call that a big part of 'feeling successful'. 

Next to feeling loved a sense of feeling connected to Self, to others, to life itself, to a greater purpose is what contributes to feeling successful in life.

The feeling that you contribute something that is of greater meaning, not only to yourself, but to others and society in general and that your contribution is valued in a way that you feel free to live your life as most fulfills you, having enough financial, physical, emotional freedom to grow and develop your contribution.

So, how you would give expression to this version of success can be totally different than the way I give expression to it, but can we agree that at the core we all desire love, freedom, fulfillment and the experience of contributing something of meaning?

Unfortunately the very way our society is still structured, to be financially, physically, emotionally free, most of us find themselves in a place where they have lost all connection to Self, to others, to a greater meaning, to the feeling of contributing something of value for the good of all. We need to work hard in order to just get around, to pay the bills, we need to push ourselves and put ourselves under enormous amounts of stress and 'busyness' in order to keep up with the speed at which this society is moving ... uh forward?

In doing so we try to manage the un-managable: the flood of continuous information that reaches us through our devices every second of the day. 

Focus, mental clarity, logic, vigor, persistence, brave actions, rational intelligence, ... all of these typical masculine qualities get challenged every day by the 'muchness' we live in. I recently read in an article that our average attention span is less than that of a goldfish. With a nine-second attention span he beats us by one second. 

We can see this as a problem or ... as an invitation. I believe this goes exactly as it is supposed to go. I believe we collectively receive an invitation of Life itself: to restore the divine unity between these beautiful masculine qualities and their feminine sources of nourishment: intuition, sensitivity, flow, presence, playfulness, joy, creativity, ...

To restore this unity we might need to redefine this whole idea of success. You can describe what it looks like on the outside or we can describe what it feels like, on the inside. If we start with what it feels like, we will automatically receive the outside forms of what it is supposed to look like.

If I remember anything from my early science classes that is that form always follows energy. So mastering the energy will determine the form. So being more aware of our energy, feeding our intuition, sensitivity, presence, ... will present us with new forms where we can build our actions, logic, persistence and vigor upon.

I believe true success lies in the eternal dance between the feminine and the masculine. Let the feminine be the fertile soil where the masculine can find form in.

In our business, Zoë and I are constantly guarding over the fact not to get carried away with forms and 'hard work', because it is still how most businesses operate and it is very easy to get carried away in the doing side of our business. We continuously call each other into the awareness of nourishing our most valuable assets as women in guiding our business forward: our intuition, our presence and most of all our joy and playfulness!

Here's to success in the feminine way 💫!