Women RISE

"Leading from Source", with Meis Thewissen

April 19, 2023 Claire Molinard Season 1 Episode 7
Women RISE
"Leading from Source", with Meis Thewissen
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Meis and I explore the importance of self-awareness, intuition, and emotional literacy in leadership and how personal crises can prompt us to question our leadership identity. We discuss the need to evolve the conversation on gender equality in leadership away from gender polarization and rather in terms of qualities and values. We also discuss how sustainability begins with personal energy management and the need for a shift in perspective from looking at differences to finding unity. Finally, we evoke ways to reclaim our personal power, how the world is a mirror for our inner consciousness, and what becomes available when we lead from our inner truth.  

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Claire

My guest today is Meis Thewissen . Meis is Dutch. She lives in Nimegen, near the German border in the Netherlands. Meis is a therapist, a writer, and a journalist. She has worked in several companies as a leader for many years before she started her private practice 15 years ago.  I am delighted to welcome you Meis on this podcast. 

Meis

Good morning Claire. Thank you for inviting me and I love to make this podcast with you. 

Claire

I'm super excited.  

Meis

Yeah, yeah. Great. 

 Claire

So Meis,  as we talked before we started recording, what we want to explore together is how do we lead today as women? And how do our life experiences inform the way that we step into that role “from within”? 

 

Meis

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Claire. While you were formulating your question, something came to my mind and that was, why I left company life. And, this was what I often meet in therapy your personal life goes into a crisis. I mean, all your securities break up. And I remember that I was in a successful career. I was doing well, and then my dad died, which was hard. My marriage broke up and something went wrong and , until today I still can't figure out what I, what I did wrong, but something in that company happened and , I just didn't feel well anymore. 

You know, there was conflict. I don't know. But there were three big things in my life and it was too much for me to handle. So, I had to walk into a different direction because my own securities didn't work anymore.

 And that's how I started my journey to become a therapist.  To find answers. And, actually this is still a very big core of how I want to lead, not by asking the questions, but by finding the answers. 

 Claire 

Hmm, in order to find answers, you need to have questions though. And  there must have been questions that were core, to you  taking this decision to leave and, I'm curious, what were these questions? 

 Meis

Well, the biggest question was who am I? Because , looking back I can see that I let a life that was investing in trying to fit into systems. The school system, the system of company life, the system of making a career, the system of getting a mortgage, getting a house, getting, it's all systems. So, and then I too much felt like being a product of a system or of several systems, so I ended up feeling that I lost my way.

 There must be, the biggest questions were, what is my path?  which direction is mine? 

I can fit into any system. I'm very competent in that. I developed several capacities like everybody else. But in the end, it doesn't answer the question, who am I? So, this is the actual answer I was looking for.

 But how about you, Claire? Because you have been, in a role as a model. It's also a system you get yourself into. How  do you feel about that  in hindsight? 

Claire

Hmm.  I was in several systems, but I found my identity in not belonging to systems, so I went against the systems quite early in my life. But as you were talking Meis, I was thinking of the women that are listening to this podcast. Most of them are in systems today because they want to change the systems and it's a very interesting role to be into. They are in the systems and becoming aware that they are the change makers who, through their leadership have the capacity to change the systems and they won't do it in the ways that we tried to do it. You by fitting in, or me, by going against, or all the ways that women have tried to become better leaders than men by trying to be better than them. 

 So that's kind of interesting. We're in a transition right now where as women, we are feeling into and finding ways to subversively change the systems without working against them, but by becoming more of who we are. And I think that whether you, by leaving your organization or me, you know, finding my own leadership by seeing the ways in which I didn't fit in the old models, these ways  were birthing a new way of leading a new paradigm of leadership. And that's what I'm interested in. So tell me more about what you learned by actually seeing what didn't work in your organizations. 

 Meis

Yeah, I can relate to what you were saying. You know, not being the outsider, but being the rebel. Like, you know, the examples that were offered to me by my mom or my grandmother, and they were subdued women you know, that were very obedient to their husbands and did their role, “mother raising kids”. 

And my mom was still of that generation that had to stop working in a job when she got married. You know, just imagine that our mothers, were forced to stop their jobs because they were pregnant. So the main job in life was mother. So, you know, that's the rebel in me. I didn't become a mother in my life and it's not with regrets. I say this, I feel it really to be a very conscious decision. So that is the first thing that I thought. And I'm a mother in very many ways, being there for my clients. I write for children. And so , I found a very different way to be mom in my own kind of how to be a mom. So this is quite unconventional, but I love it. And I feel mother. It's a universal feeling.

 Claire

I have to bounce on that, Meis, because what you're speaking to, and it moves me to hear it,  this beautiful, nurturing quality. The caring. We need that energy today for the Earth, for the planet, for the future generations and that quality lacks so much in today's leadership , we wouldn't have the systems that we have if we had had that quality in leadership in the past  hundred years. In this very dramatic time, even 50 years, that has changed the face of our planet so much. So you're speaking to a quality of motherhood that has nothing to do with raising children, but which is  universal and so lacking and so needed. So thank you for bringing that in. Cause if it really feels important. 

 Meis

Yeah. Well it's like if you look at women, it's the first talent every woman has. And it doesn't have to mean you become pregnant and you raise kids. I mean, it can and often will, but if you don't, if you take a different journey. You can still bring so much motherhood to the Earth. And what you say, the Earth  really needs it right now. But that brings me to another point. The Earth also needs fatherhood. And that's where I want to take, my opinion on leadership too. 

 Like we saw  in our generation that this big difference between men and women, it was not equal. Like we have been fighting our generation for equality, like in wages, in, you know, having a voting right, all in 50 years. So much changed.  In the battle of the sexes. And now, if I look at women that are 20, 25 right now, the differences between the sexes has disappeared in a way. 

 So I hope the next generation will come to. Just leadership and the leadership that is needed for earth and not, you know, connected to male or female leadership, but just what is needed right now. And, so for me that would be, let's bring the Earth or society, life or the economy, the talented leaders that is needed for the situation we are in and not by the ones who have the power, the background, the money, you know… 

 Claire

I wanna go back to what we were saying earlier about mothers and nurturing  and what I see happening now in the young generation of women leaders is that they want both. They want to have the space to be mothers, to raise a family and , they want to work in their organizations and not have to make so many sacrifices as we did women of our generation,  in order to make it in a man's world, often had to sacrifice being mothers, or taking care of our children because it was just too hard to do both. 

So that's really important I think  to raise, because I see that women are trying and struggling sometimes still, in their organizations to navigate this, terrain. It's still hard to do both and young women are asking for it. They feel that they deserve it. So that's a progress, I think.

 

Meis

Let me ask you, Claire, how did you do that? You were a working mom. How did you do that? 

 Claire

Well, I had to compromise a lot as a young mother. I stopped working, I let my first career, my acupuncture career, I gave up my practice in France to follow my husband, to go in expatriation with him. And I chose not to work there because I wanted to take care of my young daughters, and then, I started working again. So, for five or six years I stopped working. So I made a lot of compromises. I also never give up my desire to serve and to grow, that's for sure. 

I wanted to go back to fatherhood because we evoked that archetype of the mother and the nurturing qualities that the Earth needs today and that we need to embody as leaders. And in terms of the archetype of the father, I think that what you were pointing to,  and correct me if I'm wrong, but  when you said that, I thought of the need for values to be back on the table.As we look at leadership,  father is the holder of values, right? The holder of principles. And, that sense of principle and value in leadership is important because if we have no values and no principles, we're just, you know, elbowing people pushing against and going for more power over. 

And that's what we're seeing that's not working today in leadership. It's that tendency to do that, which has brought us to literally existential risk. We are on the precipice right now. And so when you say that we need, not just more mother, but we also need more father. Yes, we do need to have an integrated, masculine and feminine leadership. It's, it's not that feminine leadership is better than masculine, it's that we need more mature feminine and more mature masculine leadership to come together in order to address what we're facing.   

 Meis

Yeah. I want to say again that, you know, not to depersonalize it, but take it away from men and women. I mean, take it to talents and values. Take it to different energies. Not impersonated on people like you are a bad male leader. Like male leadership has been ruling for a long time, which is not for nothing. And if you look at the bigger picture, you know, you can ask yourself, what can we learn from the situation? I just read an article that says that in the first quarter of the years, we already used the natural resources of the Earth for a whole year. So, we are down three quarters of a year on our natural resources. That's frightening, you know, to just read that. 

And there's no red lights, you know, sirens that go off.  No, it's just, I'm flabbergasted by that and it frightens me, but I don't want to put it on somebody, on some kind of leadership. We are all part of this. It's not that, you know, if you start pointing your finger, they did that. You know, if you start accusing. Somebody, it only has one thing as a result. It makes you a victim and then you are out of the game. You're on the side, you're an onlooker. 

So, I try not by trying, but by really feeling that I cannot accuse somebody or the whole wide world for the situation we are in. Why? Then we start a fight and then the energy goes to a fight. You know, so, it's so conventional to think a male and female, it's not true. We are all human and that's also a cliche. Mm-hmm. But we, the Earth shows us as a human race, what we are doing wrong, and it's not that we are doing wrong, is something we are not aware. 

We are using our energy. The Earth shows us what we are doing as people. We are using our energy up. We spend already more , than what would take us throughout the year. So , if you look at the earth as a mirror, for us, it's easy to see what we need to learn. We need to manage our energy.

We need to invest it wisely. We need to be with others, , to recharge again, we need to give energy to others. You know, it's, it's all about energy. Einstein already said that all US energy, so if you split energy, which has led to atom science, you know, the energy of splitting something is. But it's not energy that will last. It's just one explosion and that was it. So we are looking for energy that will last. So the last thing we want to do to find that energy is to split.

 

Claire

This idea that just as we're taxing the earth energy and we're also spreading ourself too thin, really speaks to me. And obviously creating sustainable sources of energy for the planet is necessarily related to how we are taking care of our own energy. I think that's what you're trying to say here, that sustainability begins in our own. 

And, what I hear and what you're saying as well is this idea of reclaiming our power and not power over, but power with we're together in this It's now longer, my village or my town, or my country or my people. It's about  the whole planet as one village.That's what it's become in the past 50 years, 

 

Meis

Yeah. But it doesn't have to be either this or that. It is, it is my house. So, and you know, if somebody attacks it, I will defend it. I will fight for it. That's part of my being. See, and I've been fighting for many things in my life. So, but the whole option of, “what you see is where you're looking”. If you look at differences, you will find differences. If you're looking for, you know, when you fall in love with somebody, that, that drives a black Volvo, this particular type of Volvo, then you see this particular kind of car everywhere all of a sudden. It's just where you look, you know? And if you look at differences again, you will find them. 

 And if you look for unity, you know, I don't think the world is already at that point, but if you can look that everything around you is a mirror. You know, if you say to your partner, which is like, nowadays it's very modern to be with a narcissistic partner. You know, everybody all of a sudden has a narcissistic partner. But I, I really had one, and I went into the old system of the drama triangle, like, Oh, this person, da da da da, and I'm the victim. You’re learning nothing from that. You lose your autonomy to think somebody has so much power to influence your life in such a way that you become so unhappy that you can't look over yourself anymore.

It's not true. It's what you do. You know, so, if you're able to step out of this drama triangle and gain your personal power again, then you can see, hey, something was offered to me. My ex-partner offered me a mirror to ask myself, what can I learn here? What is the reason that this is in my life. Which direction does it want to push me into?

 And when I started looking at things from this angle, it all of a sudden made so much more sense. Like, hey, it's not the world as it is, it's the world as I see it, and I have a choice there. And I think, you know, to make it as big as possible, everybody has this possibility as a person. So just imagine, you know, when everybody in the world would step out of this drama triangle, so everybody would stop accusing somebody else for your unhappiness, for your misfortune, but see it as something that was meant to happen in your life, to get you on into the right direction.

What happens then, Claire, if you could lead your life learning? Life is a learning process. And the question for you is, are you going to lead yourself? Can you see yourself as a pupil of your life? That life is mirroring what you have to learn. And it's up to you to pick the right angle to learn from your life experiences. And that for me is the core of leadership. 

 Claire

That totally speaks to me. I've always considered that my life is my school ground, and yes, this idea that life is a mirror and that if I see myself as a victim, all I'm going to see in that mirror are prosecutors. And so, reclaiming my power is about stepping out of victimhood. And that's not to say that sometimes we're not victims, because sometimes that's just true. But there is a moment when I must step out of that identification if I'm to reclaim my power. And that's only when I start reclaiming my full identity outside of victimhood because victimhood never can be all that I am. That's when I reclaim my leadership.

 And also, when I'm in this place where I feel as a victim, I noticed that what comes up for me always is that, I come to the conclusion that I'm alone. That's my wound. And what I found is that by actually challenging that belief. Challenging that sense of aloneness and finding others to share. For example, often other woman. Creating a support system around me realizing that I don't have to do it alone and that I'm not alone and that I need others that's really the shift here. I do need others. That's really helped me move out of that victimhood and reclaim my power. I wonder how does that resonates  for you Meis?

 Meis

Well, I, I sort of connected the words, loneliness alone, being alone, being out on your own. And I have given it a lot of thought over the last two years. And, in short, I can say, life picks you up and there's a lot of activity. You travel, you work, you learn, you have a social life, you have whatever, and then something happens and it all drops in a way.

 And then you have these periods of being without all those resources. I put it a bit black and white because it can be a moment on a day that you feel it or, one evening on your own at home and you start feeding that alone. But if you look at great leaders all over the world, like leaders that were banned from their position and they were an exile. When they came back, they were the best leaders ever. 

 I was on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was for 27 years at prison. That was his exile. See how he came back and who he was when he came back, because he had all this alone time to go soul searching, to find deep truth within himself and all that exile time helped him to stick to it.

You know, when he came back in a leadership position, like he went for a walk at 5:00 AM every morning, he just wanted to have this salary for his job, you know, and he learned how to make a collective. I mean, he's one of my, well, not female, but he's one of my examples. So be spending time on your own is like doing homework on your  humanity.

And if you start feeling like I am alone because I am without somebody, that's a whole different game.  

 Claire

That is a whole different game. And I was actually speaking to the feeling of being alone.  The distinctions that you're making is really what, I like to play with the words: “Alone versus all one”. And you're speaking to that resourcing feeling that one gets when you go deep into that aloneness. 

And that is the journey, right? It is the journey from “Aloneness to all oneness”. It’s the shift of perspective we were talking about just earlier. That's  the journey  of reclaiming one's leadership, the shift from the wound to being empowered. 

 

Meis. 

Of course, I totally agree. And, you know, things like sadness, pain, disappointment, anger, they're all emotions. And, I've been, and I'm still, I still am quite an emotional person, so I feel that I also have to lead myself there. I have to be the best manager I can think of to lead myself in my rich emotional life, which is often a hard task to do. So it's never complete. It's never finished. You know, it's never like, okay, I've learned my lessons now for the next 20 years, I will just be happy, you know, every second. 

That that isn't how life works, you know? So, Yeah, of course I know that loneliness, where you feel weak and you have a hunger for intimacy. You know, somebody, that hugs you right now, right here, et cetera. But that's also a human condition and it's also the child in us. And that's another thing I see as an arch between the two sexes , that are on Earth is like, we all stay children in a way. You know, we all have this inner, inner child, men, , as well as women.

Yeah. So, , yeah, I'm, and I'm not clear about this topic. You know, I do a lot of inner child work, of course, in my practice, but this is an area where there might be a need to be more connected to each other. Not as adults, but from the inner child. Because that's a whole different level. But I'm still trying to figure it out. You know, I'm still working on it. Of course.  I notice when I train groups, you create a field where you feel there's a higher energy and wonderful, miracles happen. You know, people get insights. People go through growing stages, they digest stuff they have been sitting on for years. They go through trauma and heal. It's, it's beautiful work. I love it. That's the work I feel I'm born to do. But, as I see, you know, it's work from the inner child. As I see in a group, when they start a training I give and you know, after six days, they are family because they have seen each other doing their individual work.

It's not to work together. It's being together in a field where everybody goes through their own process. And that's what is intriguing me, you know, less individuality. We are from the age of individuality, personal independence. You know, being financially independent. It's all based on in individuality. I'm interested in how individuality and the collective works together. That's more like how men and women work together. It's more like, okay, I'm this individual, but you know, I plus up, I double when I'm in the collective and there is a field. 

 

Claire

Yes. I love what you're saying and I think this is where we are right now and this is what we're trying to bring in leadership. And that's the right question to be holding as we enter  this transition phase of having to change the systems, upgrade our infrastructures so we can,    actually face the crisis that we have.

 We are in a porous time. The situation is porous. There are things that are trying to come through us that are not quite defined yet. I agree with you. There is this sense of, okay, we have to show up with our vulnerability. We have to stop suppressing our emotions. And we need to learn how to not be ridden by them, but how to come to the workplace with our emotions? To allow for that to be a part of what energizes us towards the choices that we make, the ways that we lead. And there are women and men that  have showed us the way, but  it's a new paradigm. It's a new embodiment. We're in it together. That's how I feel about it. 

 Meis

Yeah. Wonderful. We're in this together. I mean, that's very beautifully said. Yes, we're in this together, but it's not what people think on a daily basis. We're in this together. 

Claire

And so to bring it back to our topic, which is, you know, I'm really speaking to this women who are working in organizations today and they're bringing something new in their leadership. They're allowing for their sensitivity, their emotions, their spiritual intelligence to inform them in their daily decisions, in their daily actions at work. So , what we're wanting , to bring in their awareness is that they can lean into this field, 2% more. 

You know, they can actually trust a little more, like resting on a chair. Just like, feel the field behind you. This is happening already. You can just rest 2% more every day in this field, in this cushion. You know, you're not doing it alone. There's some energetic pull toward this right now. How's that?  

Meis

Beautiful. Wow. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it. What you're saying, I mean, the word community comes to me like, create your own little communities that nurture you.  

Claire 

Find your sisters, find the womensisters that are doing this too

 Meis

And even fight your sisters in men.

Claire

Totally, totally. Yeah. 

Meis

I mean, create, create a nurturing field where you can act from, I have several little groups, also friends. And the first thing you have to nurture is yourself. So you can,  double it up what you can. As a nurture to society, to the world, to the earth, to ewhatever you're doing in life, however small or however big, you know, it's all about nurturing energy. And see if you can nurture yourself in the way you need it. Not in toxic dependent relationships, but just, acknowledging who you are, trusting your inner impulses. This is a very important thing, like, always trust your inner impulses because you have this talent.  s

 You know, more than trying to fit in what the norms or the systems say to you. Trust your inner impulses and don't bring them with a fight. Bring them as your truth. Something you just found out or something you just realized, bring it to something you offer and don't expect anybody to pick it up, but you, you need to pick it up. And that's your leadership, right? Like, trust your inner impulses, trust your instincts, your intuition, you have a very free contact connection to that. And if you don't, work on it, get it because it's your source and it's the source you can always resource.

It's always there because it comes from a collective. It comes from frequencies and energies. There's so much more around us than we know. And I'm not in esoteric, you know, I'm not on a spiritual bypass. I'm talking from my own experience. And, so this would be the first thing, you know, to start your leadership with wherever you are, wherever you are working, you know, even if you're in a hospital.

Just tune in to that inner impulse that tells you what this is about, what you are about, what is about to happen, what you already know. So many times in my practice, I tell my clients, even if I do readings and healings, I tell my clients, there's nothing I can tell you that you didn't already know. Maybe you forgot about it, but everybody can connect to their inner truth when it's offered. So offer your inner truth. Maybe it rings a bell for somebody. 

Claire

Yeah. I think this is a good time to end this podcast. We said a lot here and wow. Thank you so much. 

Meis

It's so inspiring to talk with you, Claire. It's so inspiring to talk to you. I love it. Thank you. So thank you for inviting me. Thank you for inspiring me, and thank you for following your inner impulse to make this podcast.

Claire

Yeah, it's wonderful. Thank you.