Season 2 Episode 5 | Your Declaration of Independence

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 5 of the Women’s Leadership Podcast with Gaia Project for Women’s Leadership Founder and CEO, Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin.

Join us weekly for all things related to women’s leadership, equity, advancement, inclusion and success in alignment with your values.

The next installment of our Women’s Leadership Summer Masterclass Series is coming up Tuesday, July 10, where we’ll be focusing on career transition and upleveling.

Women often start out their careers on a fast trajectory of success and then hit a wall. The glass ceiling is still all too real for many, and the danger of the narrative that it has been shattered is that we turn the blame on ourselves. We end up sticking it out in abusive work environments where we are not being supported or advanced, over-worked but not given the chance to move into the levels of leadership that we are capable of.

Whether you are looking to uplevel in your career, or to make a transition to another role, company or industry by choice or external circumstances, we invite you to join us for Session 2: Growing Big Opportunities, or sign up for an all-access pass to all six sessions!

There is never a bad time to offload all the things that are not serving you.

In this episode, Elizabeth describes several opportunities she’s had to declare her own independence, in an effort to live by the sage advice she got from her father: “It is your sacred obligation to yourself to make decisions that propel you forward.”

Sometimes declaring your independence means letting go of thought patterns that have held you back or relationships that no longer serve you. Declaring independence may mean breaking the hold of ancestral patterns in your family history that you don’t want to pass on to your children, or leaving a place or a job or a life that no longer meets your needs.

During this 4th of July week, Elizabeth invites you to consider what you might need to declare your independence from. Write it down, and then take the time to grieve it.

When we leave behind a place or relationship or pattern or life that no longer serves, we have to grieve the story of the future that might have been. We process the grief in order to get to the light. On the other side of the grief is the liberation.

All of this is also a strong metaphor for where we find ourselves right now as a nation: finally fully seeing our past, grieving what has never really been true, and moving forward into the vision we want to create.

If you like what you hear, please support us on Patreon where you can get access to bonus content.

And don’t forget to check out the Women’s Leadership Summer Masterclass Series to gain the support and tools that you need to change your professional and personal life, and help make the world a better place for all, including the most marginalized among us.

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