Yesterday I did my morning meditation about being connected to the infinite wisdom of myself and the universe, with the meditation ending on the conclusion that my life could only get better and better.
As you will know if you are a constant reader of my Substack posts I am a creative, imaginative person who loves connection and adventures and can balk at the nitty gritty and the administrative stuff that life throws at us. Yet having worked on myself I do it anyway as joyfully as possible, and most of the time it works.
I wouldn’t say there isn’t room for yet more improvement, but I am definitely on the way. Or so I thought until I was blind sided yesterday by what seemed like a simple formality but ended up being a monumental task.
For revenue purposes I need to declare the furnished flats I rent in a certain way to avoid paying astronomical sums in taxes. To do so I have to make my declaration on a government site. I confidently sat down at eleven in the morning to declare my flats online, and the Kafkaesque nightmare began. Every page of the government site included a question seemingly written in a way that made it difficult to interpret. You could click on a link for explanations, but those, too, eluded interpretation!!
I had to download certain documents as part of the procedure. To do that I had to go onto different sites with different passwords which I hadn’t used for decades, so there were long moments of waiting for “password forgotten,” then “click here to renew password.” I must have done that umpteen times.
Fortunately, there was a phone number: “Need help, ring this number.” And so I did. But sometimes the people who answered couldn’t give me the information I required; I had to work it out for myself!! It was weird. I just had to keep calling. As with the rest of life, it depended on who was on the other end of the telephone line whether it it helped or not.
At one point in a scroll-down menu I had to choose what category defined my situation, and I couldn’t find mine. Then, luckily, one of perhaps twenty phone calls gave me the information I needed, though the man with whom I spoke wasn’t supposed to do that. Oh, and to top it off, the people I called couldn’t stay on the line and guide me through the procedure. That would be too easy. So once one question was answered I had to ring off and answer a survey of satisfaction.
It was endless mind-cracking admin shit—excuse my language, but it does feel good to say it, in a world that is becoming more and more virtual where what is supposed to make our life easier is actually extremely time consuming.
In the background when I called I could hear that I wasn’t the only one having difficulties. There must have been so many operators answering questions for these sites. All this so I could have a business number for my declaration to the tax people.
I think the universe and my inner guide were testing me to see if I would crack under the pressure. Well, I didn’t crack, but I certainly let off steam a couple of times with a few expletive words well chosen!!
This was just after I arrived at the end of my—I won’t say “ordeal,” I’ll say “test” to stay in the right frame of mind!
Yes, I got there, to the end of theformalities, but only to be told I needed a certified electronic signature. I went on a recommended site to pay for this signature, just to finish this trial. On that site I was asked for my VAT number to complete the form, but I don’t have a VAT number, being an artist declared at the “Maison des Artistes.”
So back I went to a site called FranceConnect, which explained that with one simple click you could finish your submission. But oh, no, not me: I had to create a file, oh, and yet another password; take a photo of my tax page; and send it to FranceConnect, who said they would be in touch.
By this time I was emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. I took a break and watched an episode of Bridgerton—readers, yes, I watch the series Bridgerton: there’s nothing like a bit of escapism sometimes. And yes, I was ready to stop.
So here I am today, and I still don’t know if I will have to redo the whole tax filing procedure again while I’m waiting for FranceConnect to contact me about the signature. For the moment, I am on hold.
What I have learnt from my Elite Membership Forum course is that I need to embrace the bigger picture, and that includes keeping your papers up to date, classified, and in order to actually save you stress and time in the long run.
Like anything of this kind, when you embrace it and put it into practise it starts to work for you. As my mentor, Peter Sage, says, sometimes we need to hear something at least fifty times before we take it in. I hope I have completed my fiftieth time now.
I am glad to say that I spent the rest of the day with my granddaughter, and it was lovely, right up to when she went to bed and I proudly witnessed her reading sentences in English from her Spot books! I’m proud because she is learning to read in French, so it’s no mean exploit!
All this is to let you know that I am without the slightest qualms serving you up the main extracts of an old Substack post called “Women Power” because it is my passionate objective to work with older women and their immense potential.
Extract from “Women Power”: I truly believe that we are standing on the edge of a new age if we women can only realise our true potential.
Looking at the world, we can see that the worst in masculine energy exists at the moment. We women can make a stand against it, not by going out and protesting—although that is one method—but by changing our internal dialogue and inner sense of self worth.
I’m not the only one who thinks like this. There are many others. The Dalai Lama has been saying it for a while. So let’s get the message out!
To quote Leonard Cohen, “I wish women would hurry up and take over… Then we can finally recognize that women really are the minds and the force that holds everything together.”
Leonard Cohen expressed this thought in 1968. What’s holding us back?
A lot of what holds us back is cultural. For centuries we’ve been second-class citizens, without even the right to vote, our opinions dismissed as irrelevant, fanciful or just downright silly and not taken into account. We are gaslighted.
Our inferior status in the hierarchy is reflected in our salaries, and statistics show women have to work twice as hard to get to the same position as men. Our low status pervades all types of societies. We are often referred to as the weaker sex.
What does this type of conditioning do to our mindset?
You don’t have to be a genius to realise what it does.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her book We Should All Be Feminists talks about when her teacher tells the class that the child who is top of the class will become the class leader and be recognised as such. Then when Adichie herself is first in her class and waits expectantly for her honorary role, the boy who is in second place is nominated. When Adichie asks why, she is given some ridiculous reason like, “You can’t expect a girl to have this role.”
Adichie concludes that girls can be ambitious but not too ambitious. They can be successful but not too successful.
This turns out to be true. According to the expectation gap, women expect 50% less than men with the same background, according to research done by Dr Claire Zammit. [[can you cite the source of this research?]]
Is it any surprise, then, what happened to Chimamanda?
There’s the perfection trap, too. Women are judged more harshly than men, so they either hold back, over-prepare, or never put themselves out there at all. If they fail they’re judged more severely than men.
And now let’s talk about the confidence gap. Women want to be 85% sure before they act. Men are 15% sure.
At one point I subscribed to a wonderful, cutting-edge magazine about philosophy, psychology and science, a French magazine called Nouvelle Clé (New Key), which unfortunately no longer exists. I very distinctly remember an article talking about two women scientists who had debunked Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. The article gave examples of survival being all about collective contribution. They used chimpanzees to illustrate their example and proved that the female chimpanzees regulate the tribe and provide the necessary harmony and cooperation for the tribe to survive. (Darwin, of course, is a household name, but I can’t remember the names of the two women who wrote the article—can anyone reading this tell me their names?)
I could go on and on. The number of examples of women who are sidelined is infinite. One is the sculptress Camille Claudel, who finished in an insane asylum, unlike her celebrated lover, Auguste Rodin.
Masculine culture is strategic, logical, based on linear power, and focused on external power. There’s nothing wrong with that in certain contexts, but it doesn’t correspond to women’s power.
Women’s power permeates and flows like the ocean, diffusing and embracing all around it. It’s based on our intuition and internal strength.
Since I myself have worked on developing my inner strength, I know how important it is to realise our potential, to play our part in uplifting a world that needs to be uplifted.
When women are in unison, their power is strong. It lifts everyone.
Now we have the tools and the means to recognise our particular power and the tools and means to express it.
We need to know that failure is not definitive. It’s just a part of the learning curve. We must learn to trust ourselves, to be confident, and to laugh at our mistakes as they have something to teach us.
I have been working for a long time now with a mission to help other women self actualise and realise their potential, giving them the tools they need to experience their greatness.
I’d love you to drop me a line, to contact me and let me be a mirror for your own excellence and see you emerging from your cocoon to become the butterfly you were always meant to be.
There is no age limit. Whether you’re young or older, your potential always exists, until your last breath.
All power to us Women.
Take a look at my website and what I am proposing:
