Show Up For Your Calling
I will never forget how I felt after I performed my first burlesque act in front of a real audience, in a real, and legendary cabaret joint (Madame Jojo’s in Soho, sadly and to the massive dismay of fans recently closed and sold to a property developer). It was called Out of Office and it played on the idea of a power hungry corporate executive who secretly craves to surrender. I was as ready as I could be after countless hours of rehearsing. I had a stunning, made-to-measure suit on, with a slight retro twist and slightly bigger than I’d normally wear, to accommodate an elaborate costume made of leather belts and chains (and even a dog collar with a ball gag!) carefully hidden underneath the suit.
Everything was just perfect. My hair was slick and tied to the back. I had leather gloves and a leather bag I tossed on the floor as soon as I got on stage. In the act I’d just come back from a busy day at work, lounged on a sofa and made a quick pretend phone call to tell someone I was firing him for not getting good enough results on the sales team (he’d just had a baby which impacted his performance but who was I to care). I then started singing to the tune of Why Don’t You Do Right famously performed by Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I changed the lyrics though which started with “I’ve had my way since the age of 23/I wrap men ’round my finger, they are fools for me.”
As the act went on I could feel the electricity between me and the audience. Their full attention was completely on me, nothing else mattered in that moment. And I felt like a pure channel of fire, light flowing through me. As soon as I was finished I just knew I completely and utterly nailed it. Not because of the applause, which was super generous. It was an inner knowing: I had managed to enter a state of complete flow in the moment, to the point that I barely knew what was happening. I had absolute trust in every action and movement that came to me. And when I was done I felt completely elated. I’ve never taken heroin, and don’t intend to, but I imagine that’s what the first hit might feel like. It’s only that our bodies are perfectly capable of getting there naturally, when we stumble on what we truly love doing. In that moment, I knew that being in front of audiences, as a performer and also as a speaker, was my calling, and it brought the kind of aliveness I couldn’t possibly experience elsewhere. And it was my conscious decision to act on what called me all those months ago to give a burlesque course a try, that got me there.
While my key interest in this book is an exploration of leadership from the feminine perspective, there’s a time and place where the masculine (or animus, using Jungian language) needs to take the reins. In its nature, the feminine part, or anima, is passive as opposed to dynamic. It is its male counterpart that’s an agent for change, restless where she is restful. That’s why in his lectures spiritual teacher Osho recommends employing the animus to grow, and the anima to make your growth an established fact, to embed it in your very being.
In connection with this, there’s fire in me, and even judgement, directed towards those who feel a calling, particularly around changing the world of work, but don’t show up for it. Or don’t show up for it in a way which is pragmatic, tangible, courageous and well-thought through (read: coming from the masculine principle within them). Some would say they have a talent for envisioning but not for delivering things. Personally, I don’t trust that. We all have a capacity to do both, it’s just that often we grant one side (in this case the feminine) more room to exist within us than the other (in this case the masculine). Note: delivering doesn’t always mean rolling up your sleeves to do everything that needs to be done by yourself. It can mean getting together a team and resources, attracting the right sponsors and supporters. It means manifesting something in the material world and there are a thousand ways of doing so.
In the world we’ve built, on the planet we’ve been granted, the feminine principle cannot and will not rise without the support, and the grounding, of the masculine principle. If the feminine is a deep lake with hidden currents, the masculine is the banks around it. If the masculine is the agent of change, the feminine embeds and sustains that change. I see examples of this every day. A vision that doesn’t become manifested in the material world is worth next to nothing in terms of its potential to transform the reality we live in. As they say in startup circles, ideas are cheap, execution is everything.
An entrepreneurial idea not backed by a strong masculine leadership which can help deliver on it turns into a mirage, a romantic longing but hardly anything more. I’m speaking to a lot of entrepreneurs I’ve met on my way, and to myself, also, here. There are definitely projects and ideas waiting to be born through me but in one way or another I’m not ready to let them live. Mostly because the fear and imposter syndrome kick in: who am I to make Project A happen in the world? Surely there’s someone better equipped or qualified. And sometimes, I delay out of sheer laziness or wanting to stay in a bubble of relative comfort. It takes commitment, disciplined channelling of energy and a potential heartbreak waiting to happen in order to birth anything that has any significance.
Depending on where I’m at in life, the creative power of this kind doesn’t always feel available to me but when it is, and I choose to ignore the call, sooner or later I feel a contraction, a blockage of my life force and generally a diminished sense of trust in myself. This can also manifest as lack of freedom and/or authentic self-expression in my life that I desire above all else. In essence, it’s entirely up to me – and you – to follow the calls that life offers us. There are endless opportunities to create the kind of reality, and the kind of life, which you desire. And regardless of your gender, your inner man is here to help you.