Lindy: Recovering Alpha Female

It’s not unusual for God to wake me up at 3 a.m. on a regular basis. In my Alpha Female days, I would get sooo irritated by this. After all, I needed to get up early the next day and get things done. Waking up in the middle of the night meant that I was not going to get the rest I needed, and so I would toss and turn in my frustrated state, trying in vain to fall back asleep. Instead, I would lay there and go over my checklist. The wheels would spin, and I’d find myself adding more and more items to it. As a Recovering Alpha Female, though, I’ve come to appreciate those 3 a.m. wakeup calls. God, the Universe, my highest self — whoever it is tapping me on the shoulder and whispering that I need to wake up now is really giving me the quiet time I need to hear my own intuition. So often, I find in the stillness of the night that there is some sort of thought flitting around that really deserves my attention and focus.

Now, when I wake up in the dark, I’m almost impatient to find out what it is. What are you trying to tell me? It may be necessary to take a breath and talk myself down so that I can have a little visit with God or whomever and hear my heart whisper. Lately, those wakeups have centered around how to share my journey with others so that they may embark on their own.

On one night in particular, awoken from my sleep, I stayed very still and waited for what would come. I had been constantly worrying about how best to communicate my story with others, and it seems that my subconscious had been working on the problem for me. The answer, and the thing that led me to compiling these ah-ha’s, came in the form of a story of how this all began.

When I was a little girl, I would use fingernail polish to make signs on bark from trees. I would decorate them with words like “love,” “peace,” and “happy.” Wanting to preserve these words and the wood beneath, I would cover them with clear nail polish. A little purple yarn was added so that the signs could be hung, and then I would gift them to my mom.

These were sweet gifts from a 10-year-old girl, to be sure, but I see that there was a deeper desire in giving the signs away. They were an outward, tangible manifestation of my loving nature. It felt important to me to give flowers and little painted signs to others to share the peace and love that I felt in my heart.

The signs were not just about self-expression; they were also a way for me to have that aspect of myself acknowledged by the outside world. Around this same age, I also began to condition the Alpha Female that I would become. The child who was so swept up in peace and love was still sweet and special, but these little projects were no longer an effective means of being recognized for the “right” things. These little pieces of art-and-soul didn’t fit into the productive standard of our culture. In fact, the very concept of trying to spread peace and love was counterproductive in a society that was always comparing us using a completely different measuring stick. The signs were cute, and the traits were admirable, but they weren’t going to get me anywhere when it came to academia or the accumulation of the physical “stuff” that supposedly proves our worth and value.

Over time, the little girl that I was changed into someone else. As I determined that my dreams of peace and love weren’t valued externally, I began to redefine my self-image. It became incredibly important to me to perform for others in order to get their approval and be deemed “worthy.” Painting with nail polish and hanging messages of hope was replaced by getting a good spot on the volleyball team or winning ribbons on horseback or being one of the best water skiers around. These were the things that I thought others valued in me, instead of the loving, giving spirit that I learned to squelch.

It is only after engaging in the work I’ve described in this book, in discovering these ah-ha’s for myself, that I have been able to come full circle back to that little girl who merely wanted to spread peace and love in the world. I had to buy wholeheartedly into the cliché and take a leap of faith. In doing so, I have been able to uncover my authentic self, and part of the essence of who I am leads me to want to help other women to uncover the aspects of themselves that years of distraction and “productivity” have buried. The best way that I know how to do this is to share my own stories that inspired and supported the journey of softening and awaking to my own inner beauty.

This has required my Alpha side and my Recovering side to collaborate, which has provided many lessons in itself. I have allowed the Alpha Female within to take the lead on things like collecting stories, setting deadlines, and doing the work to bring this to fruition. The Recovering side, however, has allowed me to step into this project with grace and humility. It has allowed me to forgive myself when things haven’t always come together exactly as I pictured in my mind. The two sides are working together, even integrating themselves into a version of me who can be both soft and strong, both tough and feminine.

This is me living the idea of “progress, not perfection.” This is me making mistakes but being OK enough to continue moving forward. Choosing progress over perfection has allowed me to do things like taking some time for myself. In the past, this made me feel incredibly guilty, because I felt that every moment should be devoted to my children, my job, my home, my community obligations, etc. I was constantly trying to make everything else perfect, and really preventing my own progress at the same time.