Sister-Queen,

While everyone around you seems to be excitedly planning what their business and life goals are for 2017, you might be feeling like you're falling behind because, for the first time in a long time, you aren't interested in new year goal planning.

It's been a long year. You're tired. You're still processing. Still integrating.

You're resting and giving yourself time to just...Be.

The transformations you have been through this year have entirely changed your whole approach to living your life and leading your business.

Through your ego being stripped away this year, you have released a lot of ideas about what success and being a successful entrepreneur is supposed to look like.

However, you can still that an old part of you is still active and it wants you to 'get your shit back together', 'get your ass in gear' or 'get back to hustling'.

Well Sister-Queen, this is a sign for you that you can drop that internal struggle right now. The time of pushing, forcing and trying to plan every detail of your success is over.

Give that part of your old self a compassionate hug and ask it to sit down because it's no longer needed.

You see, with your new transformations you have entered a new way of leading your business and life.

This new way is about Listening.
It's about Waiting.
It's about Leaning In.
It's about Receiving.

And then it's about taking fewer but more intentional actions.

In A Course In Miracles there is a prayer to the Divine that says:

"What would You have me do?
Where would You have me go? 
What would You have me say, and to whom?"

This is your new goal-planning system, Sister-Queen.

Asking these deeper, more soulful questions and then listening ENERGETICALLY for the answers that pour forth.

You are not asking human self. You are not looking for the answers which are logical, or the most profitable or that will bring you the most popularity. You are not looking for the first answers that pop straight into your mind.

No. You are listening with your Soul.

You are asking your Higher Self and the Divine. You are saying, without any attachment or expectations:

Dear Divine Source, what are my assigned missions for 2017?

I am listening with all aspects of my Being.

Please tell me:

• How would You have me use my gifts in service to others?
• What lessons and adventures would You have me experience?
• What beautiful creations would You have me birth?
• In what ways would You have me experience my inner most desires?
• In what ways would You have me grow into the leader I am here to be?

Listen for signs. Visions. Feelings. Words.

Listen for your sacred truth and the simple yet powerful answers that will be downloaded to you.

You won't do this in a single goal-planning day. The old ways are gone now. There is no rush.

Use the entire month to Ask and Listen. 
Ask and Listen. 
Ask and Listen.

And make notes of what answers you are given, and how you feel about those answers.

And, this is really important, don't dismiss the answers you are given.

Don't let your ego tell you that these answers are too simple or won't make you enough money or don't fit in with your current reality.

If you are truly going to be a soul-led, new paradigm, awakening feminine leader, then you must learn to trust in the mystery and the irrational nature of the Divine Feminine.

Nothing about THIS year made sense, and yet it brought you to exactly where you needed to be.

Trust that the force that took you to your depths this year also has the same power to take you to your heights next year.

Stay curious.

Ask. 
Listen.

And when the time is right, you'll know when to take action.

Layla xo

Image Source: Unknown.

A few months ago, Lioness stepped forward as one of my spirit guides.

To the right and left of her were She-Wolf and Mama Bear. But Lioness was the Queen.

It was at a time when my son was going back and forth to the hospital as he was having post-operative complications.

I was exhausted and wondering why God was putting us through this. I remember it so clearly: I was sat on the hospital bed while my son was fast asleep.

We were waiting for the nurse to take us to the operating theatre. I had just read a passage from the book Women Who Run With The Wolves. 

Suddenly, it felt like my brain went a bit loopy and visions started appearing in front of me, like a movie.

The first was Lioness in the savannah. Then She-Wolf in the woods. Then Mama Bear next to a river.

And then Lioness started speaking straight to me.

She talked to me about fearlessness, feminine animal instinct and sovereignty.

She taught me one of the most important lessons I've been given this year: that I no longer have to struggle or prove myself to deserve what I desire. That I have struggled my whole life and always survived through life's challenges, but now was the time to take my rightful place on my throne.

She said to me: 

"From now on, nobody - not even yourself, has the right to shame you for how you choose to live your life, or to make you feel that you are unworthy of what you desire. You are a Lioness. Royal feminine blood runs through your veins. A Lioness doesn't ask the other lions and lionesses if she can have what she wants. She simply claims it as hers. And a lioness is not afraid of the challenges that life throws at her because she knows she has the strength, instinct and fearlessness to survive and thrive."

I'm so grateful for all the things Lioness taught me this year. She awakened within me a fearlessness and a fierceness that I had never known till that moment.

Her energy is not as present around me these days. I believe she came to me when I needed her the most, and once I had assimilated her lessons, she moved on. But anytime I'm feeling scared or unsure of myself, I call on her and she floods my energy with such strength, fierceness and royalty that I feel like there's nothing I can't do.

Thank you Mama Lioness!

Layla xo

Sister-Queen,

This year the Divine Feminine knocked you off your feet, burnt you down to the ground and then took you on a crazy rollercoaster ride through the underworld.

Not for a few days or a few weeks. But for months!

She stripped you of everything that you thought you were, and what you thought you were here to do.

She told you that you could no longer move further along on your path until you dropped everything that was no longer true for you. She didn't make a polite request or sweetly suggest this. She gave you no other choice or option.

"Wake up and embody your truth NOW, or stay stuck like this FOREVER," She stated, in that matter of fact way of Hers.

What choice did you have?

You have learnt that when She comes, there's nothing to do but to surrender.

It is always for your highest good.

Beneath the chaos, can you see the unconditional love underneath every confusing, ego-destroying, soul-embodying moment of this year? Can you see that you were finally being introduced to the real you, who's been hiding under the surface all along, waiting for you to invite Her to take Her seat on Her throne?

She's here now. And She's getting stronger, fiercer and clearer with each passing day.

2016 brought you to your knees. And because of that, your real self can now step forward and take Her rightful place.

2016 kicked your butt. But only so that it could bring you back home to yourself.

Layla xo

There she is, that Sovereign Woman.

She with the courageous heart and the wild soul. She who says, "This is me. This is who I am."

She wasn't always this way.

For many years she was hidden away. Revealing herself fully only in the words of her journal and in her closest friendships. Showing up in her truth only when she felt safe enough to be vulnerable.

But now she's changed. From her appearance to her writing, she's a whole different woman.

She's the woman who was waiting inside of her all along.

It was not easy for her, this transformation. She didn't just step into this embodied self the way you would gracefully step up a staircase.

She had to go deep inside of herself to find this version of herself.

She dug and descended.
Explored and excavated.
Re-membered, re-defined and re-birthed.

And now here she stands: Battle weary. Flawed. Tender.

She's cried countless tears and faced many shadows. But it doesn't take much to see there's something different about her.

What is it? Can you feel it?

Yes that's it...

It's not so much how she looks. It's what she's emanating.

She's grounded in her Wisdom.
Firm in her Strength.
And rooted in her Truth.

She may look like she's been to hell and back, and in many ways she has, but the raging fire only devoured everything about her that was no longer true.

And what was left behind after all the layers of untruths were burned to the ground was her true essence.

She's rising out of the ashes now, this Phoenix woman. She's orienting her life to who she has become.

It's all brand new to her and she's far from having it all figured out. But little by little, she's finding out exactly what it means to be a Sovereign Woman.

Layla xo

Sister-Queen,

Repeat after me: I will not spiritually bypass the pain and discomfort that current world events have brought up for me.

I will not bypass my grief and my anger.

I will let my heart break open, open, open and allow myself to fully feel the injustice of oppression, fear and hatred that so many of my sisters and brothers have had to live with daily and for centuries.

I will not 'light-wash' this without doing the real work of self-examination, changed behaviour and having difficult conversations.

I will not stay quiet when I see the people I know normalise bigotry.

And I will be a 'light-worker' in the truest and deepest sense of the word. Not to sound cool or enlightened, but to effect actual change.

Sister-Queen, please don't take the titles of Priestess, Mystic, Goddess, Healer, Witch or Queen lightly.

You have never been afraid of doing your deep spiritual inner work.

Of going into the descent. 
Of healing your personal shadows.
Of stripping away layers and layers of yourself as you strive for your sacred truth.

But as a Priestess, Mystic, Goddess, Healer, Witch or Queen, your responsibility for change is not just to yourself or to the clients who pay you for your magic.

It's to the whole world.

So by all means use your gifts to inspire, empower and support others. After all, that's what you're here to do and we so need that medicine of yours.

But don't forget to also use your VOICE.

Using your voice is so simple yet so powerful.

Speak up and speak out. 
Call out and call in.
Write, Speak, Sing, Protest.

You're afraid of where the world is headed? Besides yourself with anger and grief about what you see happening? Heart-broken for your brothers and sisters?

Then NOW is the time more than ever to use your voice and let people know what you really stand for.

Sister-Queen, you are coming to the next phase of your soul mission now.

It's no longer about how many clients you can sign up or how many subscribers are on your newsletter list. It's about how you can do the work you're REALLY here to do.

You say you're here to help change people's lives and make the world a better place?

Prove it.

Layla xo