This is a great way to work with fate.
I’m running an event called Women of Cashflow, and I’ve taken it upon myself to really help women get on top of their finances.
For whatever reason (and there are a few), women tend to fall well behind men in terms of financial security and wealth. There is absolutely no reason why we need to accept that.
Anyway, as part of all this, I’ve also been researching bad-ass women of history.
I actually think I’ll write a book about it. Why has no one ever written a book about it?
(Because history books were written by men while their wives (or mothers!) cooked them dinner.)
We’ll probably only ever know about a millionth of all the amazing women who have ever lived – who deserved to be as famous as the men of their age – but oh well, that’s what we’ve got.
Anyway, this week I was reading about St. Catherine of Siena. Have you heard of her?
She was canonized in 1461, declared patron saint of Rome in 1866, and of Italy (together with Francis of Assisi) in 1939.
She was a great philosopher and the second woman to be declared a “doctor of the Church. She was also proclaimed patron saint of Europe in 1999 by Pope John Paul II.
She was a pious person, but also an esteemed philosopher, which was rare given the times she lived in, and the dance she would have to have danced to have her voice heard and her head not cut off.
But she did it.
There’s a story that the people of Siena wanted to have Catherine’s body after she passed away in Rome.
Knowing that they could not smuggle her whole body out of Rome, they decided to take only her head which they placed in a bag.
When stopped by the Roman guards, they prayed to Catherine to help them, confident that she would rather have her body (or at least her head!) in Siena.
When they opened the bag to show the guards, it appeared no longer to hold her head but to be full of rose petals.
Totally bad ass.
But the reason I came across this was because of a quote someone shared with me.
“To a brave person, good and bad luck are like her left and right hand. She uses both.”
I love this.
I love how it says that if you have courage, then whatever happens to you is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to grow or to capitalise.
Or maybe you don’t even know what it’s an opportunity for. Maybe it’s just something you roll with, trusting that your courage will deliver you to your destination eventually.
This is a great way to see the world – not as a place where ‘bad’ things happen, and ‘bad’ results occur.
Rather, the world is a place that is constantly alive and dancing, and there’s always an opportunity to dance with it, and to take whatever life serves up, and find a way to put it to use.
The good and the bad are the same – like your right and left hand.
So be a bad-ass like St Catherine. Dance with the world and whatever it offers you.
(And leave a corpse that turns to rose petals).
DB.