Wonder Woman is my spirit animal. I became a super fan of this super hero when I was a 14, when the Wonder Woman series with Lynda Carter debuted. Watching a woman running around rescuing people, fighting evil and kicking ass thrilled me. It was such a departure from the typical damsel in distress story line, it was surprising. It made me think, “Why couldn’t a woman be a superhero? We can do anything!”
I love the story of the creation of Wonder Woman. Psychologist William Moulton Marston, the inventor of the blood pressure test and polygraph machine, through many experiments came to believe women were fundamentally more honest than men, and that the future of humankind lay in the hands of women. Recognizing comic books as a way to influence people, Marston created a female answer to Superman, to represent what he considered feminine values of kindness and compassion, without being seen as weak.
I draw deep inspiration from this character and what she embodies for me: a woman who owns her power and uses it for good, not evil. She fights for those who can’t fight for themselves. She never gives up in her battle for justice. She can stop a war with love. She has empathy for people and animals. Wonder Woman is not just a fictional character. Wonder Woman is a mindset.
In getting ready for the afternoon session that Julia McBride and I will present at the Know Your Worth Women’s Leadership Conference on September 29, I’ve been thinking a lot about superpowers and how we can discover what ours are. After lots of contemplation and research, I’m thinking that when we determine our values, talents, strengths and gifts, we can hone them into superpowers.
Our values, the principals we hold at our core to guide us through life, are powerful. Knowing what we stand for reduces unfortunate choices and regrets, helping us make decisions we can live with. Our natural abilities, or talents, are hard-wired into us from birth. They are instinctive and come easily to us, which is what makes talents different than knowledge and skills. Talents help us understand our strengths. Cultivating our strengths, rather than trying to convert our “weaknesses” saves time, takes the focus off the negative, and brings us closer to finding our superpowers, rather than our kryptonite. Our gifts are what we are made for, the talents that help us achieve our spiritual goals and purpose in life. It only makes sense that our superpowers are a combination of these attributes.
I’m hoping to find a short cut to finding my superpowers this weekend at our Discover Your Inner Goddess workshop on Saturday at the Finishing School with co-teacher Creative Bliss Therapy. In this interactive class, we’ll explore art therapy techniques and guided visualization, to imagine and create a visual representation of our own inner goddess. There is still time to register, but if you can’t make it this weekend, don’t worry. We’re doing it again on Thursday evening, October 12. I can’t wait to see the superpowers we reveal in this fun class, and how it brings us closer to the divine goddess inside each of us.
In the words of Lynda Carter, “Our number one job is to honor the goddess within! Your secret self is a true Wonder Woman…so let her shine!”