Dahling, today is a special day at the Divine Living podcast. I’m here with my mentor, Katherine Woodward Thomas. Katherine is the reason I and many others found their soulmates. She helped me develop the power of the feminine and become the Queen I am today.
If you don’t know her already, Katherine is the best-selling author of “Calling in The One” and “Conscious Uncoupling”. She’s a licensed marriage and family therapist and a strong voice for modern femininity.
We discuss what it means to be a woman today and how to denounce our former roles, without forgetting the essence of our femininity. Katherine explains the source of feminine power and shares advice to help you find the one.
We also talk about what to do when you find your partner and how to embrace relationships between equal partners. Dive in for a dose of timeless feminine wisdom!
Ours Is the Relational Power
When our partners are there to support and empower us, that’s when we have relationships that help us realize our greater potentials.
Our mothers and grandmothers fought to get a seat at the table and rightfully contribute to the world. Part of that revolution meant saying: “I don’t need to be a wife to be a person. I can define power myself. I can own things. I can create things.”
Some of us thought that was the end of the road. But as we women rose in power, did our unhappiness levels also rise?
We really are hard-wired for happiness. And as we move forward from the masculine system of power our grandmothers had to step into, we discover the feminine powers that allow us to contribute greatly to the world AND be happy.
In our generation, we don’t need to be masculine to succeed. Our greatest power is our femininity, and part of that includes our relationships. When our relationships are happy and healthy, we create a foundation to become who we want to be and manifest the world we want to see.
As strong women in our autonomy, we need to remember to include ourselves among the people we’re taking care of. We need to prioritize ourselves, but to do that, we don’t have to be alone.
We are the ones now who are recalibrating the rules of the relationship. And as we go through that shift in dynamics, we find ourselves experiencing relationships as the love between equal partners. This shift is pushing us to grow and transform ourselves so that we have the inner resources to allow this change to fully manifest.
How We Manifest Our Relational Power
If we look at what’s happened with COVID, we see that women leaders did much better than their counterparts. Katherine explains that the reason for that is found in the woman’s innate power to inspire and encourage people to act together.
Masculine powers are needed when we want to build, measure, project things. And our powers don’t exclude each other, but they are different systems.
Our powers allow us to sense the possibilities. It’s all about our relationship with life and how we hold and navigate the possibilities that are present. It starts with our relationship with ourselves. It’s about how we encourage, heal, soothe, and care for ourselves. That’s the foundation from which we can extend and build relationships with others.
Another aspect is the power of collaboration. Whereas men show up with ego and orders, women can come together to create a joint experience. In whatever we do, our femininity is best expressed when we seek to affirm, support, and share life.
Breaking Through the Inner Glass Ceiling
We’ve been programmed to think we need to figure everything out ourselves. Work hard and don’t trust others. Don’t be a burden to others. Don’t depend on others. But such thoughts, do they support our femininity? And how do we release them so we can grow together?
Katherine tells me such views comprise our inner glass ceiling. We are the transformational generation, but so much of what we learned as children comes from old systems of power. Women were once valued solely for their beauty and ability to take care of others.
Today, we need to become conscious of these kinds of assumptions. We need to challenge and define for ourselves what it means to be a woman, a wife, and a mother. Are these old assumptions serving our new lives?
Are they aligned with our values? Is it what life needs from us right now? To disappear, martyr, and sacrifice ourselves for the needs of other people?
Or is there something else manifesting?
Katherine proposes a role model of a woman who’s standing in the fullness of her power. She’s advocating for all that is life-affirming and good on this planet, and she does so in ways that reflect her values and integrity.
As women, we are called to bend the rules and change the roles, no matter how difficult it could be for us.
Changing the Mindset Around “The One”
One of those assumptions is that our partner needs to be earning more than us. In my story, both me and Glenn were broke when we met. Katherine worked with me to get past that assumption and I’m so glad she did. It made me ask myself: “Where is that particular value coming from? Is it really important to me? Or am I just living out my conditioning?”
As Katherine puts it, there aren’t many fairy tales in which the princess finds a broke prince and invites him to live in her queendom. So, since we were little girls, we’ve been indoctrinated with the expectation that getting into a relationship should mean upward mobility for us.
Now is the time to deconstruct this and many other love and relationship myths. If we look at the underlying pattern, we see that these myths come from role-based relationships. But as the world is moving into a feminine version of power, we will see the rise of soul-based unions. Life is pushing on us women to rise for that and acknowledge that our partners might not look like what we expected.
How Katherine Met the Right One at 61
We all have our reasons to doubt we’ll ever find the one. For Katherine, she was 61 years old when she met her partner. She could have found a million excuses: all the good ones are taken, or they’re all too damaged. But she got support and hired a coach to help her figure it out.
And, she decided to make a musical vision board. Katherine spent her 20s as a cabaret artist in Manhattan, both she gave up her singing career. Why? She believes a part of it was the upbringing that made her feel she wasn’t good enough.
But this time, in her 60s, she felt that a musical vision board would be a fantastic way to solidify a strong and authentic sense of self. She met some amazing artists and collaborated with them to make an album about love.
The final song was to be about what it feels like to have love. She couldn’t write it. Katherine couldn’t see the possibility for love to happen for her at that time. Everyone has their own reasons to doubt love, but we are also called to overcome our doubts.
Katherine’s friend helped her imagine what that love would look like. She told him a beautiful story and realized that yes, that can be a song. They called it simply “The I Love You Song”, until three weeks later, Katherine met the one in a really wild, unplanned way. She immediately saw the signs and today, they are living out the lyrics of her song.
“Michael’s Song”, as it was renamed, ended up as the #1 song on the iTunes jazz playlist and made it to the Billboard. At the time the song was released, Katherine and Michael were already engaged.
It’s from her own story that Katherine draws the confidence to ask women not to default to our old assumptions and excuses. Ask yourself: “Are these obstacles in my mind coming from the traumatized self or the true self?”
And as you ask that, deconstruct anything that’s not serving you. The world right now needs us to show up and contribute our creativity, our greatness, and our love. It needs us to create businesses that are reflective of our love.
We are called to manifest a sustainable world that affirms life, so we can guard our grandchildren’s grandchildren. That’s a true reflection of our relational power and we need to call in the men who will support, empower, and love us for the Queens we are.
What a blessing! If you want more of this greatness, find all things Katherine at her website. Sign up for programs, get her amazing books, and get in touch!
We’d also be so honored to hear your takeaways! Screenshot this episode and tag us on Instagram at @ginadevee and @katherinewoodwardthomas. Let’s get talking, my dear Queen!
Be sure to subscribe to the Divine Living podcast, share your reviews, and tune in every week to get one step closer to your Queenhood!
Finally, if you want to tap into your feminine power in style, come join us over in the Q Club! The Q Club is your new favorite at-home destination for all things Queen: femininity, luxury, spirituality, travel, lifestyle, entrepreneurship, high-vibe community, and unapologetic self-permission. There’s still time to join so don’t hesitate, click here and let the fierce, feminine, and fabulous FUN start now!