10 Steps for Waking Your Inner Wise Woman
Photo by Lindley Battle
A compass for accessing your highest self, walking in the world as the most authentic version of yourself, and making an impact while you do it.
Over the last 6 years, I’ve had the opportunity to coach hundreds of remarkable women between my 1:1 work and my group coaching work.
These remarkable women are the ones who’ve found themselves at a crossroads, a transition, the liminal space between where they were and where they want to be. The transition they’ve found themselves in often has them doubting themselves or forgetting how to access their own inner wisdom.
Transitions look like…
Feeling stuck
Experiencing next-level feelings of burnout
Feeling like something is off or missing
Working through a divorce, empty nest, or retirement
The challenges of entrepreneurship
Working through a failure
Grief (grief can be caused by so many things, grieving a past self, the death of a loved one, the loss of a friendship, not getting a promotion or landing something you wanted)
A spiritual crossroads
Feeling like you have lost yourself after parenting for one month or several years
Sorting through the after-effects of the pandemic
Transitions are a call to transformation, and when you answer the call of transition, you are listening to and answering your highest self, which is nudging you to step into a path of growth.
If you’ve found yourself in a transition and you refuse to put a bandaid over the uncomfortable feelings, without first cleaning the wound and find yourself asking the question, “now what? How do I get to where I want to go while showing up as who I want to be?”. Then these 10 steps will help guide you gracefully through your transition into transformation. It’s important to note that these steps don’t necessarily have to be followed in this order but on your path to waking your inner wise woman, you will most like tread over one or all of these stones. If these steps resonate with you be sure to download my free workbook for accessing your highest self and walking in the world as the most authentic version of yourself below.
1) Inner Compass:
Your inner compass is the part of you that calls you into self-awareness. All of the wise women I know are willing to see and feel what’s coming up. They can step outside themselves and evaluate how they are showing up in the world and recalibrate when necessary. They know that stepping back and evaluating how they’ve shown up in a situation is the best way to work through the problem. Then they think through their options and choose the option that will take them toward the most growth. They see the writing on the wall, and they choose to make changes when necessary. Your Inner Compass is the part of you that knows you’re being called to forge a new path on your journey. Wise women are also not afraid to get outside help from a therapist or coach to increase their personal self-awareness.
2) Lean on Intuition:
Learning to hear and trust your intuition is a critical part of this journey. If you’re in the midst of transformation, it’s important that you regularly set aside time for self-reflection. I encourage my clients to carve out 15-30 minutes of practice 5-7 days a week to listen to their intuition. This can look like a few different practices. Writing morning pages, or creating a regular journaling practice. Going for a daily walk without your phone for 10-60 minutes, or starting a meditation or mindfulness practice. Doing just one of these things every day will help you begin to eliminate the noise so that you can hear your intuition. Then when you hear your intuition talking to you, you’ll have to make the choice not just to listen but to also take action when it nudges you in a certain direction. If you ignore what it’s asking you to do, you are letting your intuition muscle atrophy. You’ll find the more you use it and lean on it, the stronger it will become.
3) Fear becomes a green light:
When you’re in a transition, you’ll begin to see new kinds of signs appearing in your life. In our modern, fast-paced world, most of us are not being chased by lions, but things that take us outside of our comfort zone can still spark fear and adrenaline, kicking in our desire to fight, flee, or fawn. Choices to move away from the comfort of what you’ve known might truly feel like life and death decisions. If you’re sitting at your desk journaling about dreams and land on something you’d like to do, but you feel fear rises up, you’ll need to begin to see this as a sign. You’ll learn to see that kind of fear as a sign to move forward, to go for the new job, the dream, or even ask that cute person you keep seeing when you get coffee out for a date. In moments of transition and growth, fear is typically a signal to move forward, not away. It’s the sign to stop listening to the mean voice in your head telling you that you can’t do that, you’re too old, or don’t have enough education, etc. These are all voices of your ego doing its job trying to keep you safe and firmly plated in your comfort zone right where you are. It’s cliche but true, everything you want is on the other side of your fear. Growth requires facing fears and moving forward through them.
4) Take Up Space:
As women in the world, we are constantly receiving messages to be smaller, physically smaller, and often told to be quiet directly or indirectly. As a child, you might have received the message that you should be seen and not heard. We’ve been told repeatedly, either by loved ones or the society we live in, that we should “be a good little girl.” No matter how the message is delivered, the result is the same. We become afraid to break rules, go after what we want or do anything that brings too much attention to us. Some of us even internalize this message so personally that we go to great lengths to physically make ourselves smaller. Times of transition are often calling us to take up space in our homes, in our families, in our work, and in our communities. We can not make the impact we want to make in the world or become who we most want to be if we don’t take up space.
5) Explore Creativity:
If the word creativity makes you freeze in fear, or rush to say something along the lines of, “oh, but I’m not creative,” then you’re not alone. Maybe you even thought about not reading through this step? The word creativity or “art” has become daunting and weighty. Many of us have wounds around our creativity that started in childhood. We may have been told we weren’t good at drawing, writing, singing, or dancing, and we’ve believed a false narrative that we aren’t creative. Creativity is the spice of life it’s what makes the world go round. If it weren’t for the act of creation our parents took, none of us would be here. Creativity is written into our DNA, you just might not believe what you’re doing is creative because you have a preconceived idea of what creativity is. Creativity can look like journaling, getting on your yoga mat, or putting your outfit together for the day. Creativity is how you choose to put your makeup on in the morning or when you try out a new hairstyle. Creativity is movement, laughter, gardening, cooking, and even arranging a spreadsheet in a unique way. The sooner we embrace our creativity and start using it to our advantage, the more quickly we can move through our transition into the transformation.
6) Community:
Having the right community for you is critical to moving through a transition with ease. The national institute on aging says loneliness is more detrimental to our health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day and could potentially shorten a person’s life span by 15 years. When we are going through a transition, it is crucial that we find a community that understands and supports us. It’s not enough to just be a part of any community, we need to be a part of a community where we feel a true sense of belonging. Transitions are not easy places to be in life. They feel like limbo, and if you don’t have the right community to lean on, it can feel even worse than having no community at all. Joining a club or pursuing a hobby can help you find the right community for you. I often think the right spiritual community for you is also critical. I believe community is so important that I even started hosting my own morning writing/creativity group that gives women time to write or create and then discuss what’s coming up for them, knowing they will not be given advice unless it’s explicitly asked for. It’s a safe place to explore feelings, dreams, and faith in a supportive community.
7) Vision Casting:
Spending time thinking about where you want to be one, five, and ten years from now and why you want those things gives you a destination to start moving towards. Norman Vincent Price said, “Shoot for the moon even if you miss, you land among the stars.” Having a vision for where you want to go gives you a destination to begin walking towards. If you don’t know what you want, you can’t start taking steps to get there. This doesn’t mean you need to stay locked into the original plan for what you said you wanted, but if you know the vision of what you want and why you want it, you can close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. When my clients state what they want clearly and start going after it, they have much more joy and satisfaction than clients who aren’t able to cast a vision of what they want.
8) Core Values:
Core values are the most important things in our lives. For some people, this might be things like family, God, purpose etc. I encourage all of my clients to identify their own personal core values. The things that are most important to them. For me, my core values are growth, health, creativity, sovereignty, and the divine. When I first identified my personal core values, almost everything about how I was leading my life had to change. My job, how I was treating my health, and even the relationship I was in needed to change. I started taking steps to bring myself into alignment with my personal core values. How you spend your time is how you spend your life, which means if you aren’t spending your time in a way that’s in alignment with your personal core values, then you probably aren’t living a life that’s authentic to who you are. If that’s the case, you might be feeling stuck or experiencing cognitive dissonance, and it’s time to identify what’s really important to you and align with it.
9) Purpose:
My Grandma is 98 years old, and every time I see her, she makes a point to say, “I still have purpose, Alisha.” When I ask her what that purpose is, she’ll say things like taking care of her husband, Lionel, or tending to her flowers. She’s been a farmer all her life, and her vegetable garden and flower garden bring her joy like nothing I’ve seen before. Our purpose doesn’t have to be a HUGE lofty goal. It can be as simple as wanting to be able to tend our garden. What I know for sure is that wise women spend time thinking about their purpose, and they are willing to do work that keeps them aligned with not only their values but also their purpose. It doesn’t matter if you believe your purpose is stopping world hunger, writing books, being a kind human, or tending a garden with love. Knowing your purpose will make work feel meaningful.
10) Faith:
Personally, it took me a long time to figure out what faith was and it’s still a bit squishy and hard for me to put my finger on, but I know when I have it and I know when I don’t. It wasn’t until I knew my purpose that my faith was tested. Once I knew my purpose and started walking towards that purpose, there were many challenges. To stay the course of purpose, I had to lean on faith. My faith was in the belief that I was doing the work that I was put on this earth to do. I’ve personally had example after example of clients who’ve said they wanted to do something that would give them a feeling of purpose or significance and as soon as they were clear on that purpose, the universe sent them a test. There was a bump in the road that asked them if they were serious. In order to get over the obstacle or bump, they had to rely on their faith. When you are walking the path of the wise woman, you will be tested and challenged, and often times it’s only faith that gets you through to the other side.
My biggest takeaway over my time as a coach so far is the renewed belief we are all wise beyond our wildest imaginations, and we have everything we need inside us to make the choices and decisions that will give us clarity, peace, and purpose. As a coach to women in life transitions, I hold the belief that my clients are wise, strong, and capable, I get to show up as a mirror, as the medicine woman who can help them see the forest from the trees to make the best decisions for themselves. I get to help them uncover and unearth their own inner wise women.
The women I’ve worked with have done incredible things as a result of our work together. They’ve been able to live more authentically by identifying their personal core values and began taking steps to live those values. They’ve gone after more challenging and fulfilling careers, expanded their businesses, and started new businesses. They’ve written and published books. They’ve uncovered their creativity, often creativity they didn’t even know they had. They’ve dropped old beliefs about themselves that are no longer serving them. They’ve left relationships that are no longer serving them and even moved states. Many of them have found a deep sense of belonging in the yoke and abundance community RAW.
Here’s what a few of the clients have had to say about their work with me.
“The time I've spent with Alisha, in both RAW and individual coaching, has been instrumental in my development as a whole person. I initially booked my 12-session coaching package with Alisha, to focus on growing my business. She helped me quickly realize that some of the challenges I was facing in my personal life were actually impacting my business, so we began addressing those during our sessions. Alisha has helped me to understand that as a human, all the parts of us (work, personal, emotional, etc) play a role in the growth of each other. During our time together, she supported me as we dug deep, uncovered blocks, then looked at them and created ways to grow personally, professionally, and spiritually. Alisha guided me in creating a roadmap for continued expansion in all of these areas. Working with Alisha was one of the greatest gifts I've ever given myself.” -Amy Banocy
“I’ve been fortunate to work with Alisha and participate in the Company of Women during the most transformative phase of my life. Alisha helped me to learn to see myself in a new way and to ask questions of myself I had previously not known how to ask. The support from Alisha and the community she has created has been invaluable for me as I’ve changed the course of my life in ways I didn’t even know were possible a few years ago.” -Caroline Wilson
Alisha Wielfaert is a life coach and an expert facilitator skilled in the art of gathering women for meaningful connection and deep dives into spirituality and creativity. She is the founder of Yoke and Abundance, a platform committed to amplifying the emerging voices of women through her wise women podcast, press publishing arm, and individual and group coaching programs. Her first book, the best-seller, “Little Failures: Learning to Build Resilience Through Everyday Setbacks, Challenges, and Obstacles,” was published in May of 2022. Alisha is working on her second book, Little Rituals. In her spare time and stolen moments, Alisha loves watercolor painting. She is an avid traveler, writer, and speaker who enjoys working with anyone with a propensity to take action toward their dreams.