What My Ancestors Told Me

✨ There is a throng of unseen yet kind and supportive ancestors* —

Namely, women ancestors whose names went unwritten and unrecognized for millennia —

Who are now ABSOLUTELY delighted to see you and me, their beloved descendants,

And they are head over heels in love with the fact you and I have the privilege of being our own persons, not subjugated to men as they had been,

That we can work at a desk — no longer imprisoned to a lifetime of housework... 

Premodern Korean women wearing traditional dress (hanbok) and apron, hanging out on an open porch...

perhaps taking a break from doing laundry, cooking, and scrubbing the floors by hand. Source: Pinterest

And these good ancestors of ours, they are so, so dang proud that you and I get to make money with our wits, then save it, spend it, and invest it pretty much any way we like.

I imagine my good ancestors clapping their hands in joy, and they pat me approvingly on my back.

They tell me, “Keep helping other women have more and more of this awesome experience.“

And that’s one of the reasons why I do what I do:

Helping women like you become bolder, braver and better paid —

Because it creates ripples of change for generations forward and back.

With abundant gratitude,

Jamie 

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P.S. * If the idea of your ancestors has you cringing from thinking about nosy Aunt Nancy, miserly Grandma Mimi, or even pervy Uncle Paul... please know we all descend from countless generations of humans who existed before the nasty relatives you'd much rather forget about.

And we can also consider the ancestry of non-blood-related mentors, allies, and friends as part of this group of good ancestors. We all have plenty of good ancestors. 

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P.P.S. If we can entertain the thought of intergenerational blessing, we can also acknowledge the impact of intergenerational trauma. 

After all, we all descend from people who have both inflicted violence and endured violence in the 200 thousand years of raucous human existence on earth. 

According to my colleague Amy Babish, intergenerational trauma can impact our ability to cope with stress and speak up for ourselves. And the work we need to do around it is called embodied equity. 

So in the latest podcast episode, she and I discuss 

• What embodied equity is, and why it matters to high-achieving women who want to speak up, advocate, and negotiate for ourselves

• Practical tools that can help us build resilience and nervous system capacity for dealing with stress in our careers, and 

• How to identify, heal, and prevent burnout through somatic exercises 

Yours truly at my first birthday party, wearing hanbok and already flashing my steely look of ambition

#makingmyancestorsproud