Welcome to the Sacred Feminine Series: The Sisterhood Wound
The Sisterhood Wound is one of the biggest things holding us back inside our feminine leadership. It keeps us from expanding and growing. If you have ever wished drama between girls wasn't a "thing" this is the episode for you.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome back to the She's Sacred show. I'm Katherine Phifer, and I'm so excited that you're here welcome welcome. Today we are talking about the sisterhood wound, and how it's holding you back in your life and in your work, in your business and your leadership and all the things and how it it's really holding all of us back. It's really holding the entire paradigm of feminine leadership back.
So we're going to go into the depths of this concept and some new and powerful ways. And if this lands for you, if this feels like, yes, I wanted to do more work around this, then I would love to invite you into the Sacred Femme Experience. The Sacred Fem experience is my love letter to infusing the sacred feminine into every part of your life and your business and your leadership.
It's actually like a lifestyle shift where you take the principles that I share with you. Over twenty one days and you infuse them into your own personal life and you create a whole new playing field. It's really fun.
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It needed some conceptual education connected with it because I really feel like we are at a at a place in the world and in time where we're having the invitation to move forward. We're having the invitation to make some shifts. And it really is up to us to answer that call.
So inside the program, I have three master classes. One is how to heal the sisterhood wound, which we're going to be talking a little bit about today. And then the next master class is the soft power revolution, how to change the climate and the terrain of leadership.
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I would love for you to come in. It's on sale until November 30th.
So I'm doing a three-part series over the next three days around the Sacred feminine within leadership in life, and until the 30th, The Sacred Femme Experiences on sale, like I said, Energy Queen, my other program, it's sister program is on sale.
You can buy them as a bundle for less than you would get for either one of them on sale currently. Both of their prices are rising for 2025. You can also do the whole shebang, which is all of my programs in six months. And if you pay in full for that, I'm offering a VIP day in Paris. Paris. I love Paris. It's become my new favorite city in the last couple of years. although London actually is my real favorite city in Paris is the second favorite. But anyway, we'll meet in Paris. We will have a day together. It'll be completely bespoke and catered to you and to your preferences. So we'll talk about what you want to do. But the Whole She Bang is really a high level private experience with me will be doing private coaching.
We'll do the She's Sacred Blueprint or we'll really remove what's not working for you and infuse what will. We'll take it to the fem suite, which is my high level one-on-one container. And we will create so much magic for you over a six month period of time. If you're interested in any of that, it's all on sale. There's a link in the show notes for you to check it out. And the next three days, I'm going to be coming in with the sacred feminine series.
And today we're going to talk about the strohood wound. Okay, let's dive in. after all that, all that talking. I won't do that tomorrow or the next day. but all that.I will mention it, but I won't be going into that much detail.
Okay, so this topic is one of my biggest challenges. It's one of the biggest things that I've had to work through my whole life. It's so funny because I was thinking about how in a grad school I did an entire thesis on social aggression with girls. And I was so fascinated with why girls were so mean to each other. and the dynamics of the mean girl phenomenaon. Now, when I was in grad school, the book, uh Queen Bees and Wannabees came out, and it was this really profound study on girls and social situations and high school.
And then right after that, the movie Mean Girls came out. And that movie is actually based on that book. And I have to say, the movie's brilliant, I think, in terms of really symbolizing what queen bees and wannabes look like and what the mean girl, social aggression phenomenon is all about.
And we have not healed from this. We might have gotten a little bit smarter, but if you have daughters, you know, we have not healed from this. We've not healed from this from ourselves for ourselves.
We have not healed for this for our daughters. So in the studies that I did around social aggression, I did I dived into a lot of different studies and books. And I remember specifically how female gorillas will be so awful to each other around receiving the love of the male gorilla, and the females are in charge, but they have to have the male to procreate.
And so if they have a perceived notion that there's a queen bee and there's another gorilla who's coming in to maybe thwart the queen bee from her status. They will all work to remove that female gorilla out of their pat. And when you start to think about it, you start to think about your experiences in life and how in some ways we've all been in some sort of unconscious competition with one another.
And while we're supposed to play nice and be nice to one another, we do unconsciously try to figure out where we land in terms of the order of leadership, the pecking order, And we put ourselves in there. And sometimes we want to be number one or we want to be higher than someone else. And so we'll push ourselves to make sure that we are placed and a higher level than someone else.
There are courses on this. There are thesis and books and so many powerful things that we can dive into around this topic. But for today's purposes, the point that I want to make is that the Sisterhood wound is deeply infused into most cultures and most paradigms that exist.
And the reason why is that the greater paradigm benefits from us fighting, the greater paradigm benefits if we're focused on each other, if we're focused on backstabbing one another or we're focused on putting ourselves in a pecking order or we're focused on being unconsciously mean to one another, then the greater paradigm wins because we're focused on each other and not on what's happening in the greater paradigm. Also, we subscribe to a const contract that says that there's only one person that can be in charge. There's only room for one.
And so not only are we elbowing our way to get to the top, but we also put our our, say our votes or our money into somebody else who we feel like as at the top, we can't be at the top, so we'll put our money into the person that we think should be at the top. And we're social beings, and so we want to fit into a community. We want to be loved and cherished.
It's actually death to us to not be in a community. And so we want to be able to maneuver ourselves in a community in a way that feels like we belong, but the wounding makes us not belong. So it's quite complicated and it's quite layered.
And we honestly don't need any of that. We don't need to know any of that in order to heal the sisterhood wound for ourselves. But it is good to know where it all comes from. And so I would recommend if you are interested in diving deeper, just Google social aggression within women and then all these books will pop up and you can figure out which ones are aligned to. And which ones feel like they speak to you and what's going on in your life. For today's purposes, I'd really like for us to look at your life history with female relationships in work and in your life and come up with the examples that have felt unhealthy. Come up with the examples that have felt misaligned or where they have ended in heartbreak or you've had some sort of conflict that's pretty deep rooted at work. Whatever it is, there are probably is a sisterhood wound that needed to be healed in order for that not to happen. So in my own personal life, I had a series of relationships from the time that I was eight until the time I was about, I don't know, 40. and I would it wasn't with every female relationship, but it was with one particular one where I would be drawn to someone who seemed better than me, that seemed cooler, that seemed like they had more than me, that they were just smarter, prettier, cooler, better than. And I would really want them to like me and I would be really like excited that they did. And just be like, oh, I really like this person. There's sparkly. They're interesting. They're smart. They're fun. But then over time I would mold myself to be liked by them. And I wouldn't really have my own opinions. I wouldn't really have my own stance, especially in conflict.
And the relationships would end at some point because they got too deep or they got to connected. I knew too much about them. They knew too much about me. And then the relationships would end. And it was so heartbreaking and it was the same patterns. It was the same patterns of this one specific person I was drawn to. And then heartbreak would ensue. Like I said, didn't happen with every relationship. There were plenty of people I was drawn to who were healthy. and who brought out the health and me too.
But there was always this one and at work, it was even more powerful because I would want my coworkers to show so here this was a belief I had. I felt like I had to show up with all this extra baggage. I had auto immune diseases and I had life that was going on and I would show up to work and I would be on time and I would be dressed and I would smell nice.
And if other women couldn't show up and they were not experiencing the same thing as me, I'd be super judgmental. And have this unrealistic expectation that they should show up with the same amount of enthusiasm and presence and punctuality that I did. And the standard wasn't really a wrong standard or a bad standard.
The problem was then, if they didn't do that, I would be out for blood and I would want there to be some kind of resolution in their behavior because they weren't showing up in the way that I thought that they should show up. And instead of addressing the issue with them, I would go around their back. I would talk to leaders about it. I would be really kind of bitchy about how things were going and I just really wouldn't address the situation because I wanted to be long. I wanted to fit in. I wanted them to like me, but I was also really irritated with their behavior.
And it took a long time for me to learn how to be a leader and a feminine leader and be able to give frank, curt, thoughtful, feedback around someone's behavior in their a integrity and showing up for work. and also be able to be loving and kind about it. It took a fair amount of healing in the personal relationships with women and in the business relationships with women for me to show up as a very clear leader and be able to have these authentic connections with other people and friends that felt really good and felt really magical. And once I started to allow myself to heal around those dynamics, I was able to show up and a whole new way with a whole new energy, and I was able to show up in an integrity that I didn't have before.
And healing those wounds has allowed me to have deeper relationships with women and feel really good and also be able to run my business in more powerful ways now that I am not operating out of the sisterhood wound stuff around integrity and around just being able to show up and do your job. I'm much more clear about what my expectations are. My expectations haven't changed.
I still have the same expectations in my business for high integrity, but I'm able to communicate those in such a more powerful way so that when I do hire women into my work, because I do generally like to hire women in my business, I am able to show up and share what the expectations are, what the policies are and hold those policies in accountability, so that the people who work for me can do that. And if they can't, then we can have a conversation around it that's really clear and healthy. Whereas before, it was not healthy.
It was not a healthy dynamic. It was dramatic. It was me feeling bad that we had to have this dramatic conversation and me avoiding it for a really long time because I didn't want to do it and I just hoped that things would change and they wouldn't change. there would be some kind of blow up or whatever.
And it would there would be resentments that we would carry because the situation wasn't handled in the best or clearest way possible. If you have ever said to yourself or to others, I'd just prefer to work with men, I'd prefer to have be friends with men. I would just prefer to not have any women in my in my life or my relationships.
This is because the sisterhood wound has been fairly prevalent in your life. And it doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be where you aren't in relationships with women.
Being in relationships with women can be some of the most powerful and magical experiences of your life. And we crave it, really deep down we do. We crave community. We're wired for belonging. We want to be in community and in connection with other women. We are actually wired for it, but somewhere along the lines, those wires got crossed and we didn't really know how to do it. And we got scared because our livelihood was in question. Inside the sisterhood wound, we have what we would I call the persecution wound. And this is also known as the witch wound. But the persecution wound is all around sharing your gifts and then being persecuted for it. generations that came before us. W women would be in these roles where they would share their gifts. And then if they were deemed a witch, they would they would die.
And that really can keep us from sharing our own gifts, right? And so and even worse is that it was our sister's who pointed fingers at us so that they wouldn't die. And that's where the sisterhood wound originated.
It was around pushing sisters in front of us or being pushed in front of another sister so that whoever was doing the persecuting would then persecute the victim, us, and we would die. So we lived in fear of that, right? Like we lived in fear of that, and the women who came before us carried that figure, which is ingrained into our DNA. So the women who came before us survived. They lived with that fear. They ingrained it into our DNA and now we carry it and we have to heal it and we have to let it go.
And we have to learn how to operate in a new way because the only way that the world is going to change, the only way that we are going to be able to influence a new dynamic in the world as if we healed this shit. And I want to put in the caveat that I am not one of those drowned with the men kind of person. I actually really love men and I love masculine energy and I love masculine dynamics.
I just feel like there needs to be more of a healthy balance or a healthy incorporation of both in order for us to feel really good and whole and feel really amazing when we show up to our lives and our work. So I did not take notes for those because I was getting writer's block around this hole, this whole thing. And the reason why is because it's complicated to talk about.
It's scary to talk about. And it's also painful. It's painful to talk about because we are all entrenched in some of this these beliefs and the rhetoric around not being available for one another.
And it just perpetuates. I'm watching my boys go through life right now and the sisterhood wound among their girlfriends, the friends that are girls is so alive and well. And my poor boys are just kind of like confused as all get out because they were raised by a pretty self-aware woman. and who doesn't have her, like not completely healed, let's say, but has definitely done a lot of healing along the way and they just don't understand why the dynamics have to be so unhealthy and toxic, really, and they're having to figure out how to navigate life and friendship and relationships with people who have all this unconsciously written within them.
So for you, I'd love for you to just think about the relationships that you've been in that haven't served you, what the patterns were, and how would you like to see it go differently? How would you like to see your relationships and work go differently? How would you like to see your relationships and your friendships go differently?
And you can't change other people, you can't force other people to change. And so when you're in a relationship and you know that it's a dance that their moves might stay the same, but what could your moves look like? How could you move differently?
How could you show up and then what kind of energetic presence could you show up? That would feel different and feel more healthy and more aligned to you? And where can you create safety in your mind and your body and your soul to know that you're okay?
The one thing that I have learned is that the friendships that were the most entrenched in sisterhood wounds, I was operating out of a sisterhood wound, they were operating at a out of a sisterhood wound. They all ended. It was very heartbreaking.
I was really, really wounded by the sisterhood wounds. till I decided I didn't want to be anymore until I decided that I was no longer going to show up in that energy. And that's not to say that women come into my life and they don't have sisterhood woms. They do. I'm just I keep those people at an arm's length. I'm still connected to them. I still show up. I'm just not available for the sisterhood wound stuff. And if that means that we're not going to have a a deep friendship because of it, that's okay. We don't have to. I'm just unavailable for playing out that story ever again. And so that actually creates a new dynamic and a new dance for me so that my expectations and my boundaries are different. And if I'm not going to show up in that energy, then they can see that they are not going to be able to show up and that energy as well.
Inside the Sacred Femme Experience, we dive into this so much more deeply because we can. And if you feel like this is something that you'd love to grow on, you'd love to heal. I'd love for you to come in. It's such a beautiful experience. It really is actually a lot of fun. Great way to end the year. Next year it'll be coming out at a much higher price point. So get in now, come join us. If you want the Whole She Bang, let's do it all. I would absolutely love to walk besides you as your're creating a whole new paradigm for yourself in your work, in your legacy, in your life, all of it. I'm sending my love. Thank you so much for listening.
And if you love this, please leave a five-star reading and review. If you did not, please do neither. I say that and I laugh, but honestly, there's so many critics out in the world and I appreciate that we're not all going to be for everyone. So if I'm not for you, just unsubscribe, it's all good. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you have a wonderful day. Be well. See you soon.
Bye.
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