Kay:

Hello, Questers welcome back! It’s Wednesday, March 10th, (we’ve got a hump day here), episode 308 and we have a Mary Shelley quote for you today. She is the English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, which is considered an early example of science fiction, like a Sci-Fi writer from the olden times.

Shi:

Yeah. She also edited and promoted the work of her husband, the romantic poet, and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. So clearly an artist at heart and Mary told us, “I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves.”

Kay:

Boom! What a powerful quote. Love where this is coming from and I think it really speaks out from the spirit of our discussion yesterday, about feminism not being down with men, up with women, but being up with women and up with men.

Shi:

I love that she talks about this idea that we want to turn the spotlight internally and that oftentimes our biggest critic is ourselves and our biggest obstacle is ourselves and our biggest challenge is ourselves. So, by recognizing how often we end up spending time thinking about others or looking at the oppression outside of us rather than wondering what can I do internally or within my scope of influence that can help the situation, or that can help myself, my own experience. Not even talking about changing the world and helping poor kids or any of that, but help yourself have a better experience means that we want to have power over ourselves and that takes intention and attention.

Kay:

Well, physicians heal thyself.

Shi:

Indeed.

Kay:

It’s really about finding that power within yourself and understanding that you are the only person over which you have direct and immediate control.

Shi:

The only person.

Kay:

Literally the only person.

Shi:

Not one other..

Kay:

Yeah, the ONLY.

Shi:

Take it from a couple of moms.

Kay:

A couple of ladies and also leaders and the leadership census can be difficult, but if you are 100% responsible for one thing and one thing only, (and that’s your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions), women who have taken that power into themselves have helped to blaze the trail and change the world for the women around them.

Shi:

We look at that word, “responsible,” able to respond. You are the only thing you have control over the responses that happen, immediate control. You certainly have influence in other areas of your life and with other people and with organizations and your environment and those kinds of things, but control like hand on the wheel control that’s you baby, and nobody else.

Kay:

Literally, no one else. However, when you do really take and harness that internal power, what ends up happening is you become more powerful because you’re cultivating the energy within. Because you now have more power, you’ve got the power to give. That’s when you start seeing that internal cultivation. The women, the suffragettes, had to cultivate a lot of internal courage before they could go out and march on the streets. They didn’t just wake up one day and say, you know what, on Friday we’re organizing a women’s march.

Shi:

It took discipline and a decade of this kind of ideating and then meeting and then wondering, and then moving slowly, painfully in that direction of societal progress on the mass scale. But it takes that individual holding the torches for themselves, their own power for themselves. Because if you’re focused on somebody else’s control, then you’re not focusing on your own experience and that means it’s left to its own devices or its own defaults as the human psyche goes. This is where Mary is really reminding us that by grabbing our own flame, by grabbing our own control and all of us doing that, we’re unleashing the most amazing thing in the world, which is the unlimited power of human potential.

Kay:

Now, from a societal level, there are some things that have made a really big difference for women in having control over themselves, especially in the last 50 to 100 years. One of those things is, did you guys know that women couldn’t purchase property in the US so much as 50 years ago? Could not purchase it without a signature from a man by their side. They also could not apply for, or gain a credit card or have any form of a line of credit until the seventies, thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsburg going forward and helping us to blaze that trail. In addition, wherever you stand in the life choice section, the addition of birth control into women’s lives has a huge effect on a woman being able to plan her pregnancies. Being able to decide when it is that she can work, go to school, and raise children has created this modern woman who as Mary Shelley says truly has power over themselves. So, just a reminder, she told us that, “I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves.”

Shi:

All the liberated ladies, all the liberated ladies, all the liberated ladies, all the liberated ladies. Alright, today is a Power Quest. Activate your power today by participating in some sort of movement that makes you feel powerful. We recommend the Wonder Woman pose, hands-on hips standing firmly with your chest out. But whether it’s some power pushups standing in that power pose, looking in the mirror, painting, or engaging in another passion that makes you feel empowered or anything else take some time to intentionally embrace your power today and remind yourself of how capable you truly are. Are you ready?

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!