light bliss

The Disaster of Being Invincible: A Guide for Alpha Women And Those Who Love Them

There is a new type of warrior in America today: the invincible woman. Invincible women are those who play full out with life. These women have gigantic visions and a relentless drive. These are women who compulsively take on multiple projects. They are perpetually busy. In relationships and at work this is a woman rolls up her sleeves do it all! She often sees herself as being able to do everything faster and better than anyone around her. But there is a particular quality that separates "busy" women from invincible ones~ the latter think they need to do it all by themselves. Invincible women are the one's who say "no" when asked if they would like help. Meanwhile they carry the entire world on their shoulders and run themselves into the ground. I should know! I am a recovering invincible woman.

I speak on behalf of the women who masterfully excel at virtually anything they do. The women manifesting empires while working out, juggling relationships and dozens of other hobbies. I speak on behalf of all women who need to carry in that last grocery bag from the car. I speak on behalf of all women who compulsively exhaust themselves.

I have invincibility in my blood. My mom broke all the rules, eloped in the 60's to marry a black man and travelled the world. She was a woman of "firsts":  the first person in her family to get a college education, all the way through a PhD in Applied Mathematics. She blasted away the glass ceiling at the World Bank as one of the first women in charge of massive projects around the globe. On the side she had two children, divorced in the 70's when it was still a revolutionary act, bought her own home and became a marathon winner. In her free time on the weekends she rolled up her sleeves for home care: climbing ladders, painting, drilling holes, knocking down walls, planting a massive garden, mowing the lawn, chopping firewood, canning tomatoes for incredible traditional Italian meals. At nights and on weekends she spent amazing amounts of time with me and my brother, going to 4-H, horseback riding competitions and has since taken up arc welding, sculpting and orchid cultivation. Growing up with this gutsy role model taught me that being a woman means being fearless and daring while doing it all.

Are you as dazzled as I am by this list of accomplishments? I'm proud to be the daughter of an invincible woman!  She has taught me that anything is possible. Invincible women are superheroines in the US, where the American Dream promises freedom through hard earned success. This mentorship eliminated my self-doubts, allowed me to create idealistic visions and gave me the audacity to tackle the unthinkable and succeed. 

So, given how incredible this all is, what's the problem? The disaster of being an invincible woman is that it can require letting go of  a delicious, relaxed, and inviting feminine energy which allows one to receive. Here is where my own shady past comes in. When a woman wants to be in charge of everything, idolizes achieving, and moves like lightening there isn't a whole lot of space for a man to be a man or for friends to be friends. When I was hard instead of soft and driven instead of relaxed, romance dwindled. When I tried to do it all and stay in charge, I pushed away those who wanted to work or play with me. Here is my confession: I am not strong enough to be invincible. 

Thing is, invincible women often become invincible by letting go of needing. For an invincible women, letting go of needing is powerful. By letting go of the need for rest, nourishment, and support, you express strength.

The dictionary defines invincible as, "too powerful to be defeated or overcome: ie, an invincible warrior."  This is where I get curious. As women, are we at battle? Are women struggling to avoid defeat? What is true power? Is being overcome "bad"? Why are we fighting a battle? And is our life force energy best invested into being warriors? 

So here is the promised guide for alpha women and those who love them.

10 ideas to contemplate and share...

1. Enjoy having needs.

2. Play with asking for help

3. Have fun with surrender. 

4. Dream into resting more.

5. Experiment with letting go.

6. Explore softening as strength.

7. Savor receiving and saying yes.

8. Consider how much less really is.

9. Appreciate how competent everyone is.

10. Wonder about how you can  let others be in charge.

The battle isn't over. While I've apprenticed to those who masterfully nap, cultivate chaos, ask for more and loose control, I still have my moments of invincibility. It is an amazing gift. Invincibility is an invitation to deepen the art of being a woman~ a luscious being who compels through invitation, who leads by feeling more emotion and builds trust through vulnerability. I bless all invincible women, and my hope for us is that we can be truly free.

 

Activating the Magdalene Grid

Tonight I went to an talk at East West bookstore in Mountain View with my dear angelic friend, Ewa to see a presentation about Anna, Grandmother of Jesus. This is an amazing book which I highly recommend to all those intrigued by channelled messages about divine feminine light activation, Essene lightbody initiations and ascension.

I was drawn to attend the event because of my own personal relationship with Mary Magdalene as a tantric teacher and guide. This intrigue with her was deepened by a journey I took to France with my beloved, where we visited her grotto, the cave where she lived out the last thirty years of her life (blog forthcoming about my downloads on the mountain top).

The presentation encouraged us to consider an actual collective entity of Magdalenes with whom we could communicate and consult for guidance. She suggested that this collective is an entire lightbody lineage composed of many, many people~ women and men, who seeded bloodlines with dna activations. Of utter importance as a Magdalene is the urgency in honoring the call to whatever form of sacred work you have been called to do. The role of the Magdalene is to give voice to the divine feminine calling we have been summoned to. She emphasized that the entire lineage took place to seed us, right here and now, in the future. The time is now and it is safe to bring your voiced message into the world! She encouraged us to take the time to connect with the specific Magdalene guide who could most effectively coach us on our life path... and to take the time to activate the Magdalene Grid within our bodies, anchoring a frequency of the ascended collective consciousness into our very cells.

Compelling!

xoxo,

Christabel

 

 

Feminine Power Week 7 Exercise: Activating Our Leadership to Create Our Brightest Future

Week 7 of the Feminine Power Course has been amazing! This segment was all about how to activate your leadership to create our brightest future. The emphasis of this segment was to stop using external excuses for not being the woman of our greatest vision and highest potential. There was encouragement to COMMIT to living as our future self now, playing the biggest game we can in service to the evolution and flourishing of the whole.

I loved the reminder that uncertainty is normal and healthy when doing something that has never been done. I also loved the reminder that growth requires the ability to tolerate imperfection. Finally, the idea that we NEED others in co-creative partnership to fully manifest our greatest visions. Such profound life lessons for expansion!

I received encouragement to be more vulnerable and cultivate the ability to be in partnership instead of being alone. I realized that I want to create a forcefield of open invitation around me to welcome in opportunities, collaborations and alliances of co-creation. I realized I want to commit to all the inner changes I need to make to magnetize ecstatic partnerships with luminous visionaries who up-level my capacity to love, imagine and take action. I desire to create structures in my life congruent with the future self I want to start living now!

I need to commit with ferocious tenacity to living in these new ways, even if they are extremely uncomfortable, foreign and misunderstood by those around me. I am really getting that I need to take an unshakeable stand on behalf of how I a seek to move the culture of humanity forward. As a pioneer of something that does not yet exist, I choose to self generate my own momentum and validation to move myself forward upon this path. 

A power statement that names the new sense of self I want to share is...

I AM the generative force of the universe and I am on the planet to create the full flourishing of life everywhere I go!

Anchored in this power center, the new ways I am showing up for life are...

~ I begin taking bigger risks extending myself to more people I admire, yet for some reason believe are "inaccessible" or "in a league above me",  cultivating curiosity about what possibilities exist for our co-creativity

~ I follow through on creative impulses I have in just a few days, instead of just writing them down and waiting for "one day when..."

~ I apply for bigger opportunities to present/facilitate which are on the edge of extreme discomfort for me because they are so new. I let my passion to serve the ripe blossoming of the whole motivate me to persevere, despite hesitation.

~ I look for ways to leave those I interact with feeling more radiant, enlivened and presenced when I leave

~  If I desire something, I take the initiative by virtue of my thriving essence and I initiate it. It is my nature to be an initiator, the same way it is the nature of the sun to shine. I am the creative force of the Universe! I AM.

Identify the fears that have been preventing you from creating co-creative partnerships...

My fears are that I will be the one ending up doing all the work and that no one would work as hard as me anyways, so why partner with another person. Then, once I am entangled with someone else in a relationship which isn't working, I fear that I will not have the ability to communicate my disappointment in their performance and need for them to step it up, and will bottle up my emotions and not know how to exit the relationship in a healthy and loving way.

I need to grow myself to be liberated from this fear, so I can collaborate well with others, by...

I create clear contracts and agreements which invite a deeper level of co-commitment from both of us. I take personal responsibility to create a sense of safety and peace of mind  by being the initiator of discussions. I learn to communicate more transparently, authentically and immediately when feeling discomfort. I learn to tolerate the anxiety of things being done at a different pace if they are not mine to do. I realize that partnership can gift deeply enriching gems of insight and experience which would be impossible to generate alone. 

 I have such a feeling of quickening around the importance of this training! I'm excited to see who I continue to evolve into...

Love,

 

The Sensualization of Goddess Blossom...

I realize more and more that Divine Feminine qualities which allow us, as women, to be most aligned to our deliciously female essence are qualities that bring us into our body. The life force energy of feminine flavors is all about living in the senses! It is all about feeling, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing and seeing as sacrament. Living from the divine feminine is about living in a sensualized universe which fully inhabits the skin, muscles, and all matter of physicality of the body. The feminine is about being open to life in every way, living from an undefended heart which allows the flow of all emotions, from compassion, from disgust, all while staying centered in love. The raw, primal flow that is female invites softening and trust while experiencing the rainbow of human sensations in service of being truly alive. By nature, the Divine Feminine is erotic, flourishing, ripe and yearning for full expression with a level of longing which can never be fully satiated. Desire, as a force of nature, is a feminine expression of fullness.

With this in mind, I just evolved the imagery used to represent the Goddess Blossom Women's Circles~ from a light, airy, universally happy faces with mostly white or light colors ~ to richer colors and more reds and much more tactile, sensualized images. It actually depicts more of what actually happens in the circles~ There is more rawness in the new version. There are warmer colors and a more clear depiction of  emotional flow, longing and sensual saturation. I'm excited about this development! Learn more about the next Goddess Blossom Women's Circle here...

(the previous flier is below)

 

 

 

 

 

In continuing service to the expansion of divine feminine consciousness on the planet...

xoxo,

On Being a High Maintenance Pony...

Remarkable women require remarkable care and feeding! Every woman should create a series of self care rituals and practices which help her shine the brightest... and she should be proud of the time that it takes.

As women, we are usually dissuaded from being "high maintenance". This concept is associated with being fussy, irritating or demanding. It is also usually associated with superficiality, celebrity lifestyles and overspending. It is generally something that excuses need to be made about. Men tolerate it but only if there is a big "payoff" for them personally, rarely recognizing the inherent value in opulent self care. But what if we, as evolutionary women, reclaim the idea of being, "high maintenance"? 

During a recent talk with my dear friend, Anne, she commented in a confident voice, "I'm a high maintenance pony," and then laughed proudly. She went on to describe all the self soothing rituals she has around daily yoga, exercise, prayer, saunas, spiritual quests, etc. Throughout her description, there was a sense of pride and accomplishment in her voice which really got me thinking. Anne is an extraordinary being. And I am realizing that time investment in being extraordinary should be valued as something special and honorable instead of something to be embarassed about.

I am now proud to say, as well, that I am a high maintenance pony! Actually, I have been for years, but I always had a few mixed feelings about it. Sometimes it has meant not eating what everyone else is eating or drinking when I go out. Sometimes it means having to say no to types of media which many enjoy but I know don't benefit me. It has meant prioritizing trips for my own spiritual expansion and growth over some family events. It has also meant saying no to my romantic partner when I need to invest time into resting or yoga instead of going out. Honestly, while I have always been able to say "no" with ease, I have felt a slight tinge of guilt about it. And sometimes being called, "high maintenance" made me feel a bit bad.

Talking to Anne reminded me that I can provide myself with all the validation I need. I can be the source of my own recognition by refocusing on the depth of my own life calling. I require extreme measures of self nurturing and  tender loving care and I am proud of it! High maintenance ponies are the stuff of champion ponies. Elite achievers which are in the top five percent of any field need equisite care and feeding~ think of Olympic athletes, the Dali Lama, and competing dancers.

I am realizing more and more that in living as my future self, now, I am being invited to step up the quality of my life and the size of the game I am playing. If I am already my future self~ an inspirational writer, speaker and workshop leader ~ empowering millions to enhance the quality of their lives, of course I would require equisite care and feeding (as I already do!) I would realize that the value of my life work is so great there it is an obvious need to nourish myself in lavish ways to allow my body to vessel and transmit the energies moving through me.

So that's it for today. Consider how much time you take for you and maybe give yourself a bit more. Enjoy self soothing, pampering your senses and doing things which make you feel clear and open. This is the most precious investment of time you can make.

xoxo,

 

 

The Art of Opening: Lessons from David Deida

Opening is a true art form and spiritual practice. The more you master the discipline of relaxing into your animal body with lithe presence, suppleness and ease, the more you open as a channel of love. Who knew? In school I never took, "Relaxation 101" or "Opening to Love 101"... so now as an adult I am called to re-create the basic training required around having a human body. This is about allowing flesh, muscles and bones to fully feel without judgement~ be it anger, sadness, joy, frustration or fear ~ and then beginning the slow craft of softening into it.

How quickly can you unclench your jaw when you are angry? How habitual is it for you to relax your belly, soften your face, uncurl your hands and unlock your shoulders back and down and your heart forward? How delicious and generous does your breathing become? How instinctual is it for you to consciously melt your heart open as a source of compassion and nurturing? To literally "switch on" feelings of caring deeply  for another, when your entire physiology actually wants to tense up into a little ball and roll away?

This devotion to being soft and supple is informing everything about how I am doing yoga. When I am in a pose which I think I can no longer tolerate, with shaking thighs and ragged breath, I remember my holy service, my personal vow to softening. I give my pose over to a higher service of being open and let go into it fully. When I am in a conversation and I feel a judgement or critical thought tightening my muscles, I extend my breathing and focus on feeling yummy, tender and flowing even while I feel the critical thoughts. When I feel like emotionally closing down and retreating to introversion, I stay. I stay instead of leaving, change my posture to unfurl my body open like a ripe blossom on a delicious fruit. I think of being warm all over and allow myself to feel vulnerable. Being open is a very active practice!

Become a genius at opening. Become a guru of softening. Be such a walking, taking, languid pulse sensual presence that you generate a forcefield of letting go all around you. Let your body be flexible and graceful. Seek yielding and pliability. Hone the ability to instantly refashion your posture and emotions so that you are a lighthouse of love.

xoxo,

Christabel

ps. Learn more about David Deida here.

Realizations after a Women's Circle Led by David Deida Facilitators, Sabrina and Kaidan

My spiritual evolution as a woman is about becoming more ecstatic, sensual, and expressive. I really understand how full embodiment is required to truly immerse in the divine feminine. This means emotionally responding in the moment, then flowing back to love instantly. Staying centered in sensual power as a source of energy. Expressing pleasure and pain exactly when it happens. Delighting and reveling in sensations. Softening and getting ripe and bouncy as a life practice. My natural genius as a woman isn’t in trying to hold emotions inside, trying to change anyone, trying to control or direct. There is no invitational power in getting hard, angry, sarcastic, dark or dry. My opportunity is to soften, immerse myself in pleasure, and to create a welcoming, an energetic invitation. My opportunity is to merge so fully with the present moment through my body, that there is no delay time between sensation and expression~ it is instantaneous. There is absolute oneness with the flows of experience. This welcoming is wet, juicy, glowing, ecstatic and delicious to be around. It is ripe and full of desire. There is an absolute relishing of yearning, as an expression of the cosmic feminine expansiveness incarnate in my own body~ and from this unquenchable desire I can more fully immerse myself in my body’s sensual presence. It is a feeling of openness, being folded open, loving as a pulsing, throbbing heart. This is the source of absolute power and home for me as a woman~ in ecstatic, blissful lovemaking to every moment, being fully in it, expressing everything on the emotional spectrum right now, and always coming back to pleasure and love...

xoxo

 

Becoming the High Priestess

It has been a time of rapid personal growth and integration for me! I haven't been writing much in my blog because I feel as if I have been riding an incredible tidal wave of self-actualization. I've had the sense that there has hardly been a moment to pause and reflect through the written word. 

So what's going on?

In short, I am rapidly realizing I am already the woman I hoped to one day become. I am living the life of my dreams and have the power to make it even more delicious, expansive and amazing. I am good enough. I know enough. I am wise enough. I am savvy enough. I have all the resources I need. This has dropped a level of urgency and passion into articulating my next steps as an inspirational author, speaker, coach and trainer. I've been awash in an ocean of amazing training courses lately with mentors and role models who are clearly demonstrating the next steps of how to move forward with my work. 

So if you are noticing that I'm posting a bit less, that's why. A much bigger body of material is articulating within me that I am developing to share with a very, very large community of people. I've had the deep sense for some time that I have been "becoming the high priestess"... 

Last night I got an amazing email from my dear friend Iris. She calculated my tarrot birth number for my upcoming birthday September 26 of this year. Guess what? The High Priestess! Below is what she sent. I have thrillbumps all over...

 "Whenever one has the High Priestess as a growth symbol, there is the beginning of a long, nine-to-ten year cycle that emphasizes the process of creative self-sufficiency and individuation. During a High Priestess year, one evaluates who one is and who one is not. It is a year in which there is need for balance and harmony, requiring trust in one's own independence, self-resourcefulness, and perceptions. Often during a HIgh Priestess year, an individual will experience the emergence of a new identity. This year marks a period of independence during which one has little tolerance for being limited, restricted or restrained. One may find that there is a need to be on one's own or it may be that circumstances force one to be on one's own. It is a year during which one could be drawn to water areas and have a deep need to remove oneself from disharmonious situations." - WOW!

and the affirmations for the High Priestess are:

I deeply value and honor the human being that I am

I am a very perceptive and intuitive human being.

I trust myself and value my sense of integrity.

May we all activate and boldly live through the inner High Priestess we have within! 

Love,

 
 

 

Becoming a Conduit for Beauty

I was at Harmony Festival the other day and received an amazing comment from my beautiful friend, Margot of Leom Designs (pictured at left). She said, "It feels good to be around you because your beauty is inclusive. I know I can participate and be a part of it." Wow! Aside from being incredibly touching, this comment got me thinking. An inspiring conversation continued with my dear friend, Iris as we drove home, feeling deeply into what it meant to be beautiful and to share it. Since then, many more questions have come into my mind. Read on below, and please leave comments on this blog with your thoughts!

*How can you amplify your radiance? 

How can you enhance and uplift your sense of beauty? What are the things that inspire you to feel and emit feelings of light? Get familiar with your own vocabulary of beauty. Make friends with beauty as a portal to light!

*How can you make beauty a generous experience? Think about what it feels like to be around someone who is generous with their beauty. Let someone come to mind whom you admire in this way. What thoughts did you have? Sensations? Feelings? How can you hold that quality of space for others?

* How can you cultivate and express a frequency of beauty that helps others feel beautiful?  Allow your intuition to guide you... how you express luminosity in a way which helps others feel affirmed in their own divinity? How can you strike a chord of harmony with others by engaging them in a spectrum of beauty of which we can all be a part? How can you make your beauty a participatory experience?

*How can you use your beauty to admire others? Reverse the paradigm! Instead of beauty being all about you and the attention it can bring, explore how your divine luminosity can help others feel recognized and seen.

*How can you activate presence and creativity in others through your beauty? What if you could use your beauty as a catalyst for awakening and embodiment, as a gift to unleash the potentials in those around you. What would that look like?

*How can you use your beauty to bask in the Divine? How can you use your expression of beauty as a way to replenish your own connection to Mother-Father-Goddess-God-Creator of All-That-Is? How can your beauty become an act of worship and celebration?

*How can you use beauty to remember you and others are Divine Immortal Beings of Light? Is it possible to harness the generative capacity of beauty to maintain your awareness on the infinity of lifetimes you and others have lived and will live? Can you express your gifts in a way which reconnects everyone to their cosmic heritage and collective essence of love?

*How can you express your beauty in a way which amplifies the radiance in those around you? Unfurl your graceful essence in a way which increases other's capacity to see themselves as light beings, to generate light and to express it. What would that look like?

*How can you shine your beauty in a way which increases honesty of who you truly are, why you are here and how you want to energize life mission? Have you ever considered that you can use beauty as a conduit for your ascension? Think about beauty as an opportunity in the toolbox of human incarnation. How can it serve humanity's evolutionary capacity, accelerate planetary healing and empower you AND others to step forward into authentic self expression? 

Thanks for reading these ideas! I can't wait to hear yours. There is a new, joyful and evolutionary perspective on beauty which is asking to be birthed and we can all be a part of it!

xoxo

Christabel

Thanking My Amazing Mother, Athena!

In honor of Mother's Day, I just want to thank my amazing mom. She is one of my greatest teachers in life. I remember the level of her love for me used to scare me because it was so powerful and deep. I didn't understand how anyone could love like an ocean, with no limits and with every fiber of her being. Over the years, I realized that is how a mother loves. Like a force of nature. My mom's love and generosity for me has taught me so much about opening to feel emotions and surrendering to caring and loving deeply. She shows me how to give to others like it nourishes me, too. I am so grateful!

My mom has also taught me deep mysteries about power and being fierce. She is a warrior spirit. Having taken on the name, "Athena" 10 years ago, she truly embodies this ancient Greek goddesses' attributes. She has ability to transmit wisdom and strength through strategy. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathamatics and worked for 25 years as one of the lead women at the World Bank, trying to change the world by bringing much needed food and water to millions around the globe. Her capacity to plan and think in "organizational grids" coupled with her natural psychic gifts gives her the ability to easily reason through challenges which could seem insurmountable to other people. She also has an absolute mastery of the material worlds of money, home management, and organization. Her devotion to working hard has allowed her to retire after 25 years of work and now everything about how she uses her "free" time is devoted to expansion of life skills skills and adventure. I am so grateful for her transmission of these skills to me!

Athena also knows many things about the art of being a woman. She is my number one role model demonstrating love of the body. My mom has spent years studying how various potions and lotions and self-care ritual enhance radiance and physical health. Her elaborate skin care regimen is truly inspirational to me and has given me many insights into my own self-care practice. She also indulges herself like Aphrodite into garments and beautiful pieces of functional art and which help her feel gorgeous. She has also created a magical home sanctuary immersed in nature which holds so much beauty and light. What an inspiration! She has no doubts about her own self worth and this translates into a sense of confidence, self-love and luminosity. 

Athena loves physical exercise. She not only runs several marathons a year, she usually wins in her age class. She also takes on new physical challenges which continually astound me- such as recently preparing to run the Double Dipsea (a treacherous 14 mile up and down mountain trail run both ways). My mom shows me that there are NO LIMITS to what you can achieve when you apply yourself. The fact that she was a chain smoker for over a decade while I was young, and is now a superstar athlete is proof that you can reinvent yourself with determination, courage and focus.

Athena embodies the spirit of eternal youth in a very physical way. People simply cannot believe that she is the number of years which she is, and she retains a youthful exhuberance  and open-ness to life which mirrors her physical appearance. I love her capacity to "show up" to life, notice when she has a limiting belief around something, and let it go. I love that she is as much my friend as as my mom, giving me sage advice and being my adventure partner in life to all sorts of events which are fun and exciting. I absolutely love that she only lives five minutes away from me now here in Mill Valley (after over 10 years of living thousands of miles apart). She is the first one to sign up for my new workshops, shows up to my women's circles with love and presence and supports everything about how I want to grow and try new things.

I really could go on and on. Athena is so amazing! I hope you get to meet her one day. We know we have known each other across many lifetimes, perhaps switching the role of mother and daughter each time. She is my closest friend and ally on the planet and has been my cheerleader through thick and thin. As I grow and learn about things I share them with her and she does the same with me. It is so neat to have a mutually expansive relationship with her! I am the luckiest daughter, ever. Thank you, mom!