I sit in the early hours and I divide my journal into two columns.

In the first I write words such as action-taking, linear, goal-setting, doing, ambition, drive, laser-focussed, productive, initiating, instructing, formulas, high-energy, achieving, numbers, sales funnels, playing the social media algorithms, schedules, successful, well-executed routines, systems, force of nature, force of will, maximising my return, respecting the output.

In second, I allow other words to form onto the page and sit for a while with them. My simple jam jar of flowers gathered from the garden next to my notepad is where my eyes rest.

Evolving, unfolding, opening, receiving, listening, softening, Nurturing, stillness, flow, natural rhythms, sharing and quiet, strong, dark beauty. Working in tandem with the particular energies of the cosmos found within us and respecting the guidance provided by them, Exploring our own dark corners and shadows as we do our work. Responsive, generative, feeding the soil from which the creations grow.

In nearly every entrepreneurial program I have been in over the past 20+ years, run by both men and women, there has a been a focus on the words contained in the first column. Sometimes veiled with feminine sounding words and concepts, but pointing here nonetheless. We are so conditioned to emulate those values in our business journey, simply because of the under-valued (or active suppression) nature of the feminine energy over thousands of years. They are our ‘normal’ but for many women, they are not our ‘natural..’

And it has led us here.

To huge faceless corporations, promotional ladders to climb, bonuses to be earned to motivate us. To a ravaging of the planet in our desire for more. To war, starvation and drought and disease. To AI celebrated for its ability to do even more, faster and better. than humans (because the humans are having to numb themselves with alcohol, food, drugs and porn to cope). To mental ill health and suicide. To eight hours a day staring at our phones and our daughters having to stick on false eyelashes and snap themselves before they can go to school. To entrepreneurs jumping into the flood of formulaic business building practices, and heeding the call to build their businesses at speed, make profit at all costs and work themselves into the ground trying.

And then taking our definitions of success and routes to get there and attempting to train our sons and daughters to do the same. Work hard. Strive for the results. Follow the path.

If your’e a mother, you’ll probably have realised they are not having it, these sons and daughters of ours.

They are saying ‘no’ to school in their thousands. (Almost 100,000 children in the UK did not return to school after the pandemic). They are protesting against the pressures of our crazy world with self-inflicted scars on their arms, the only way they know how to cope with out of alignment they feel with the systems and institutions they are asked to comply with. They are fluid in gender and sexual preference and welcome the diversity of the many ways our different brains are wired to work. The idea of 9-5 is abhorrent to them.

I used to be in despair - how will the earth survive her crisis with these un-resilient children in charge?

But then I realised.

They are our guides, those sons and daughters of ours that push back.

They are saying ‘enough’.

They are saying ‘the way you have been doing things is no longer tolerable.’

They are saying ‘your institutions do not work for people or the planet’.

They are showing us radical change is required, and that they are already doing it. They are the awakened ones, not the ones that need taming.

They are a reflection of the part of us that is starting to awaken and asking us to realise our own knowing of the misalignment between how we are currently behaving and the re-alignment to truth that is being asked of us.

And for us, their mothers, a different way of being in our lives and work is part of that awakening.

No, you don’t have to be ‘always on’ and building your social media profile to build a successful business. I’ve been discovering many that are quietly doing it without.

No, you don’t have to set big, hairy audacious goals, grow bigger balls and move hell and high water to get them after going to a bro-marketing conference. Shudder.

No, you don’t have to hit seven figures, or even six. Or even five. Or even four.

No, you don’t need a funnel or to manipulate people to buy your thing.

No, you don’t have to have it all figured out at the start.

Of course, you CAN do all of the above. But we are being asked to question the way we have always done things.

Instead, what if you were to let your business unfold at it’s own natural pace? Despite the pressure you feel to get it done more quickly than you are.

What if you are merely the vessel through which this creation has come to be born, needing to be touched by your femininity, to be tended to and nurtured in order to reveal its riches?

What if there were seasons and cycles in your work as there in nature, that you, as a woman are so finely attuned and designed to flourish alongside?

What if you were to welcome its dark corners, its invitation for you to open yourself still further to the mysteries of that which spins the planets and makes you divine?

What if how you express yourself, the words you feel moved to share and the values you, as a woman, hold close to your heart are enough to change the whole world?

It is not passive, this female energy. It is the birthing of a living, breathing thing, an active co-creation, a new form being brought to life.

What if you are the source and the creator of all of it?

What then?

I don’t have the answer. When I listen to my children, I see how the change is coming.

And all I know to do is this: Allow this feminine energy into my work and life. Expand the consciousness of this woman here. Dissolve the conditioning.

I know that has consequences that are unfathomable from where I am currently standing.

And suddenly I feel hope.