Yo! Less Stress More Life Mojo Mentors Sounds like a brilliant Owning Pink post topic! You Pinkies are so great. What a pleasure to have you among us...

Ah, yes....you have tools, girlfriends!

Hallelujah, Simone! Let the Princess self shift! Just to help other Pinkies, what did Lakenda mean by "we have more tools?"

I love the idea of naming your shadows! Thanks for being with us, Deb! How wonderful that you're developing a course about shadow....So much depth there...

Thanks girlfriend. You ROCK!

Anita & Lissa you guys hit it on the head. When I said not "princess-y (about most of life, haha) — I am TOTALLY good owning the times I actually AM a princess (I just believe strongly I deserve the best things in life: situations, people, things, relationships, all of it; I feel I earn mine). The times "princess-y" really bugs me is when I feel it's undeserved and projected/implied other things "undeserved." I am a Warrior Queen, "stuck up" and those are all encompassing in that slippery space that undeserved princess-y has for me. Long-short, it's "what you guys said" basically. My shadow comes from that mother voice in my head that warned not to be arrogant. There's the slippery bit for me, separating (consciously and in the daily one foot in front of other way) when I AM better than others at (X), when they just erroneously assume/project (X) on me, and when I only think I am better than (usually equal parts wishful thinking as much insecurity). ABSOLUTELY. This was FUN!

As an Archetypal Consultant, I have a Warrior Queen archetype thang which most women do have, especially those who are working in what have been traditionally male-dominated arenas or are single mothers and have to be both father-mother.

My Warrior-Queen is usually benevolent and keeps her sword sheathed, other days - she takes heads. One of my pet peeves has to do with Customer Service, the quality or lack of it (once I was a grocery checker).

Maybe I am just going with the tribal flow of getting crankier as I get older and the Auld Scold archetype is sidling her way in, who in her more benevolent masque is called the Crone. And the 'Auld Scold' does have her role in the tribe, of pulling the young whipper-snappers into line.

I think a great deal of our interactions with others is tribal conditioning that has been imprinted in our DNA for centuries and working on one's Shadow is like knocking the penguin poop off the tip of the iceberg. Gotta start somewhere though - this is how we become the change (while going through the 'change'). *grin*

As a teenager and young woman in my very early 20s, I was often attacked as being 'stuck up' when, in truth, I was painfully insecure and had zip self-confidence and poor social skills, as an only child. I simply did not know how to fit in.

Most of the time, it isn't about YOUR shadow - it really is about the other person's shadow and I have been working within the psychospiritual transpersonal area for the last 20 years.

The standard response is, "Well, I think that says more about you than it does about me". Such a classic Shadow defence - "it isn't me, it's you".

Is it 'stuck-up' to make an astute observation regarding the incompetence of a grocery-store clerk; or were you observing a fundamental recklessness and inability to focus in this person that one day may get other people killed if not herself - particularly if she drives a car.

Was I stuck-up? I am sure it appeared that way and while I was focussing on my hurt and the unfairness of their observation, I was far too young and green to consider the source. Girls/women with low self-esteem who felt shame surrounding their level of education and did not much like, let alone love, the image they saw in the bathroom mirror.

I always consider the Source when a accolade (assolade) is being bestowed on me. Like Brando, I often send in my Native American self to collect it and count coup.

Thank you Simone! Did you say it? “I am Princess-y”. I can see you squirming- “NO. I’M NOT A PRINCESS.” But there must be a time- sometime- when you’ve been a princess. Something from your past that’s triggering the twitchy behavior. Go there…Own it.

Me, I have no problem saying “I am Princess-y” because I know I can be a bit of a princess. When I go to sleep at night, I have to have the fan blowing, the sound machine running, my padded eye patch on, and four friggin’ pillows! Can you say “Princess?”

The one that niggles at me is “Stuck up.” If anyone says I’m stuck up, I get completely defensive and make an idiot out of myself to prove I’m not stuck up. Then I look even more stuck up because of my defensive posturing.

One wise older woman who coaches me noticed this dynamic one day and said, “Lissa, why do you insist on putting on a tin crown when you’re already wearing a real one?” It’s taken me months to figure out what that means.

So I too must own it. “I am stuck up.” And it’s true. I have had my stuck up moments. I remember, one day when I was post-call from a grueling 72 hour weekend shift of delivering babies. I was at the grocery store, trying to buy some food so I could go home, shovel down some cereal and plop into bed. But the grocery store clerk couldn’t get anything right. She kept screwing up the transaction and it was taking forever. I remember calling my best friend on the way home and telling her about the grocery store clerk.

I said, “If I did my job the way she did her job, there would be dead people everywhere.”

I cringe just thinking of that. I’d say that was a little stuck up. Wouldn’t you?

But to learn to fully love myself and step into my power, I must accept that. Yes, sometimes, I can be stuck up. And you, Simone- sometimes you are princess-y. And yet we are lovable all the same.

xoxo