You worked for several years within the world of finance as a mortgage broker. What connections do you see between the need women have to connect to the Goddess within and our need to become financially empowered?
Great question. When I was a broker, I worked really hard at empowering women financially. But nearly every time, the women would come back again and again, broke.
I think that there are two systems in place that hold women back financially. One is external. You cannot deny that women around the world make less money for the same work. Women own only 1% of the world’s wealth. There is a systematic financial oppression of women firmly in place. That will not change until we turn the system upside down.
The other is internal: until we believe we are worthy, we will not be financially independent. And that is not to blame women in any way. We socialize girls from almost the get-go to think of themselves as lesser beings. The idea that God can only be male is the worst form of this.
You can’t work on one system of oppression without the other. I hope that my writing will begin to change the way we think about both.
I also want to say that women are marketed and sold an enormous amount of crap. Buying into all of that contributes to our oppression. Until we decide we won’t buy into this anymore, we will continue to have less money. We can also learn to live with less so that we can do more.
I quit my job, which had a high earning potential for many years, so that I could do the work I love. To do that, I cut my expenses back by 80% and sold my house and my car. I now walk everywhere, and love it. That was a gradual process that took me years to come to terms with. I’m very proud of my life now. I couldn’t say that before – even though from the outside, my life probably looked a lot better earlier.
We are conditioned to think far too much about what other people think instead of learning about what makes us happy. I tried to include quotes along that line in The Girl God book as well.
Your career has many facets—author, life coach, political activist. What connections do you make among your activities, and how does the divine feminine inform and inspire your work?
Z. Budapest has a fabulous quote on this and I think I don’t think I can improve on it: “Without the Goddess, feminism is not going to work, because you’re going to burn out. You’ve got to have spirituality connected with your political aspiration because that’s how this animal works.”
Excerpt from my interview with Elizabeth Hall Magill
Painting by Elisabeth Slettnes
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