How doing your inner work is the path to true success

Rewiring patriarchy’s influence on our wellbeing

Aug 21, 2022

An area that fascinates me to no end is the concept of “success.”

One definition is success is:

“Having achieved popularity, profit, or distinction.”

Which I think is what most people think of when they hear the word success. A big house. Money in the bank. A lucrative career. Fancy vacations. A Tesla. Stuff like that.

Another marker of success that’s been around longer than you can say “4-hour work week” is the idea that the epitome of success is being able to work the least amount of hours and make the most amount of money.

But there’s a major reevaluating happening in my closest circles.

People are starting to value new types of currencies:

Ability to rest when needed or before a crisis demands it.
Inner peace.
Deep connection to others.
Trust.
Healthy collaboration.
The ability to simply exist and know one's worth.
Having a solid community.
Being able to take time off when there’s a birth or a death (literal or metaphorical).
Ample time in nature.
Space to reflect.
NFTs and crypto.

(I know absolutely nothing about the last things there, but I have friends who're super into it. Especially crypto.)

The old “success paradigm” relies heavily on the values of capitalism, such as:

✅ Accumulation of assets and resources.

✅ Individuals are primarily defined by their relationship to business and the market.

✅ Competition and winning.

✅ Giving individuals status through market-driven identity markers.

These values have given rise to valuing behaviors like:

💰 Striving to produce as much as possible as cheaply as possible.

💰 Ability to push through anything for the sake of delivering results.

💰 Idealizing youth since that is when we are the most “fertile” and productive.

💰 Prioritizing profit over people.

💰 Working hard at all costs.

I believe it’s a huge reason we see needing to rest and aging as a pathology.

I’m so tired - what’s WRONG with me?

I’m looking old - I need to FIX my face!

It also contributes to the fixation on consuming happiness, youth, and energy. Which leads us back to the fact that the beauty industry grossed $511B in 2021 — and with an annual compounded growth rate of 4.75% worldwide — it's predicted to exceed $716B by 2025.

So, it pays when we feel like we’re not good enough. In other words, the race for MORE or looking YOUNGER continues if we’re only as good as what we produce and accumulate.

Beyond capitalist success: The best things in life are free

As Herero patriarchy and mono-theistic religions took hold with a male God at the top of the pyramid, we somehow lost this Truth:

The wildest of riches and blessings rest firmly in our hearts.

But that’s not all! The heart has energetic roots connecting deeply into the earth and far into the ever-expansive universe. This heart-centered existence makes us feel like we belong here on earth and connects us to something bigger and more potent than our puny existence.

A whole heart – an empowered heart – can also connect to the hearts of other loving beings and form relationships at such a breathtaking depth.

Somehow, at some point, we stumbled and fell on the tripwire of patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism. And as a result, an onslaught of trauma rippled through the generations.

We must ALL grapple with the wound in our hearts at varying degrees (except if you’re bloody Elkhart Tolle). The wound that says we’re alone, broken, and abandoned by God and our very self.

It freaking hurts. And we create all sorts of defenses, coping skills, and avoidance patterns to deal with it. But, whether these survival mechanisms lean toward codependency or narcissism – the wound is the same.

Thus, true success lies in finding our way back to our Source, our true self, and our hearts.

As I healed, I tasted the sweet fruits of being, staying with myself, and feeling how loved I was, and the old success metrics and goals began crumbling like the house of sand it was all along.

And luckily, I’m not the only one waking up to this truth.

My clients show me what’s possible in the new success paradim

When I imagined my career as a child, not in a million years would I have thought I’d end up in… Marketing?! Psychologist, dancer, Health Coach, energy healer, maybe. But marketing and business development? No way! Yet, I am now building my feminine and feminist online marketing services as I write this.

I was lying in my new hammock the other day, gazing up at the sun rays playing through the leaves, when it dawned on me that ALL my clients, in some capacity, are helping humans heal their deepest wounds (and hearts).

🔥 Bethany Webster
There’s my longest-standing client, mentor, and dear friend of 3,5 years, Bethany Webster, the world’s leading expert on healing the Mother Wound. The Mother Wound is the pain of being a woman passed down through generations of women in patriarchal cultures. And it includes the dysfunctional coping mechanisms used to process that pain. Bethany teaches a PROFOUND 7-step process to heal it.

💛 Katie Gray
Then there’s my old friend but new client Katie Gray who teaches The Empowered Heart Methodology. The work of The Empowered Heart offers a methodological approach to assist people in identifying and healing from emotional pain, struggle, and suffering. Kate is the real deal and is helping people through her book, courses, and music.

❤️ Katrina - Owned by Love
There’s also one of my dearest friends Katrina of Owned by Love, who shares tools and inspiring ways to use the teachings of Christ to heal from life’s painful experiences. She is a powerful catalyst of love and healing and the closest person I’ve ever met to embody Jesus’ teachings.

🌿 The Verdant Collective
And my brand new client, The Verdant Collective, a radical – and radically safe – place to remember (and failing that, to invent) what your free, embodied, deeply nourished, and sovereign female looks, sounds, and feels like. They teach women what erotic wellness looks like through live and online courses and experiences.

All these women share one unique thing in common: They have committed their lives to doing the inner work necessary to heal, and their commitment to their work is expressing the gifts of who they ARE as an act of service.

These are women of impeccable integrity and fierce capacity to hold space for whatever comes up as they have healed and when they are helping others heal.

They are all letting me have the enormous privilege to support them as they are actively redefining what success means to them. To have front-row seats to these powerhouses and their evolution is one of the greatest joys of my life.

These are the old markers of business success that I am experiencing and witnessing juxtaposed against the new markers of success.

👉 Want to win ⇌ want to serve

👉 Want to accumulate wealth ⇌ want to be in the flow of resources

👉 Want to collect status symbols ⇌ want to purchase things are are beautiful and deeply meaningful or release things that don’t resonate

👉 Want to have a “multi six or seven-figure business” ⇌ Want to relax into being cared for by Source

👉 Want to have as many clients/customers as possible ⇌ Want to serve as many people as possible as long as it’s sustainable and provided by flow state not pushing

👉 Want to have boundless energy to produce ⇌ want to embrace the cyclical nature of the internal and external world

👉 Want to look successful on social media to attract paying customers at all costs ⇌ want to set personal standards of success, and it is more important to feel grounded and at peace

Only this past week, I’ve heard from three incredibly brilliant female entrepreneurs with sought-after skills and offerings that they are burned out and need to find a new path. There is a reservoir of these women alive right now, and I can feel that the dam is about to burst! Their pain is an echo of what is NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE.

Success is an inside job

In my opinion, true success comes from WITHIN.

It comes from doing the daily, often tedious, and sometimes painful labor of doing the inner work, then USING the new hard-won understanding of yourself and then practicing with other humans.

Dang! This process can be messy (understatement of the year…those who have been through this know what I’m talking about!) AND incredibly liberating.

But a genuinely committed person to this path of healing the heart, the inner child, the Mother Wound, the patriarchal wound, the split, the disconnection from God or Mother Nature or the body – whatever you call it – can find something entirely NEW. Something holy, whole, and true.

We get there by going TOGETHER. Taking small steps. Holding hands – energetically or IRL. Breathing deeply. Going slowly.

When success means embodying a whole heart everything else is gravy. And you are finally safe knowing a recession, a breakup, a loss, or your status does not impact your true success: being and living from who you are at your core.

What’s your definition of success? Any questions that come up as you read this? Let me know in the comments.

I also invite you to share this article with anyone who wants to break free from the old capitalist success paradigm!

Much love, Karna 💜

Note:

I’m speaking from a place of privilege. Money IS important. So is access to food, water, shelter, etc. I believe it’s of utmost importance that we do our inner work as well as take part in maintaining democracy and creating a functioning society through voting and other actions that we are inspired and able to do. I’m deeply aware that not everyone have access to mental health care and all the myriad of resources I had when I walked my path to healing. See the bottom of this article for free healing resources that can help.

One organization I support is Equip for Living run by my sister-in-law Tara Nau to help their brother Aaron and other people with special needs. If you’d like to join me in the mission you can DONATE here.

Their mission is to support individuals living in Maine with special needs and improve their quality of life by: Providing a resource hub where people can give and receive funding for adaptive equipment and technology, receive education relating to what services and activities are available in their area, and swap equipment with others in the community.