Queen Killing

The queenly woman has a shadow as all humans do.
Realising our potential and moving towards wholeness requires us to acknowledge and work with our shadow. This includes our shame, which often means we don't feel worthy or good enough. Unhealed, these feelings lead us to compensate for them in unhealthy ways.

We are all familiar with the concept of the Shadow Queen we hear about in Fairy Tales. These queens can be mean, wicked and evil. As women we all have the potential to display these characteristics and to act in unhealthy ways towards other women. This unhealthy and even cruel behaviour is usually an attempt, albeit often unconscious, to cover up the fact that we don't feel worthy or loveable. When we have not healed our wounds enough to feel truly whole, and to embrace duality, we can display behaviours linked to our underlying fear that others will find out who we really are underneath, and consequently we do everything in our power to remain in control.

Although we can appear charismatic, attractive and confident, we very often use unhealthy behaviours such as manipulation, triangulation, and gossiping... in an attempt to strengthen our power and influence. At these times, our wounded masculine energy is often at play. We can be aggressive, and even cruel to others around us, and don't appear to be intimidated by anything. Our aim is to get others to do what we want, in order to be right, even if that means we ignore or exclude others. We use our power over others to argue them down, even those who think we are their friend.

We will stop at nothing to win, and won't take responsibility when we hurt other's feelings. If we think we've been wronged, we seek revenge. We make stuff up about people and others believe us. We often define right and wrong by whether others are loyal to us or not. These behaviours enable us to gain power and control over our environment and be the centre of attention.

This kind of Queen, often called the Queen Bee, has no real sense of self.
She is so busy maintaining her image that she loses herself in the process.
She is incapable of having meaningful relationships with others, because she believes that relationships are all about her own image. She won't ever admit that she's wrong and finds it hard to show empathy to others, and can be intimidating. She has the power to make others feel good or bad. She cannot walk as a queen among other queens. On the contrary, she metaphorically kills other queens, diminishes them and has them feel unworthy.
Have you known women like this?

Take a moment to journal about the following:

• Can you yourself admit to any of these behaviours?
• Do you know other women who display any of these characteristics?
• How do you feel in their company?
  
• Do you remember experiencing or displaying any of these behaviours when you were a child in the school playground?
• So how do we combat this behaviour or our potential for this behaviour?

Speaking about our Shame, healing the younger, disconnected parts of ourselves who have made up these stories of shame in order to make sense of what they were experiencing, and then choosing new Empowering Beliefs is key. You can go back to Module 4 and use the tools I teach there to break through your inner glass ceiling to do this healing work.

And this is also where Feminine Qualities and Values come in!

Let's align our behaviour with Feminine Qualities and Values such as being:

inclusive, creative, collaborative, connecting, and vulnerable.

Let's practise self-leadership, and do our inner work, be kind, loving and generous,
deepen into our EQ and SQ, acknowledge and honour others.

And let's sponsor and uplift others, be accountable,
be compassionate, surrender to what is, and be trusting.

Let's accept that we don't have all the answers, let's be fully present,
self-accepting (even of imperfections), and curious. receptive and authentic.

This will help us to go a long way to shifting this shadow behaviour of the queen archetype, and enable us to live from a place of wholeness

Take time now to consider where you might be out of alignment with these Values and Qualities, and explore (with a partner) how to realign.