Hello beautiful soul
Last week we talked about the power of saying no — how discernment is one of the most courageous acts of self-leadership.
But beneath every brave no lies something older, deeper, and wiser: the Alchemist.
If you’re new here, welcome to Women Who Lead — a place where we explore the cyclical, archetypal, embodied intelligence that women bring to leadership and the WORLD.
Each of us holds four distinct energies — four archetypes — that shape how we rise, root, release, and return:
The Explorer — spring energy, full of curiosity, courage, and new beginnings. She says yes before she’s ready.
The Creator — summer energy, grounded, generous, magnetic. She builds, sustains, and holds what’s growing.
The Alchemist — autumn energy, truth-teller and refiner. She discerns, edits, and transforms what no longer fits.
The Visionary — winter energy, quiet wisdom, deep intuition. She restores clarity and reconnects us to purpose.
These archetypes are not separate parts of you — they are you.
They move in rhythm like the seasons. They move regardless of whether we still have a bleed.
Our life and our months cycle through seasons, where a different energy becomes dominant. Sometimes the energy is dominant regardless of what nature is doing - me leaving my husband for example - had me staying in the Alchemist and the Visionary for a long time.
But even in nature, right now, the one at the front is The Alchemist.
The Alchemist isn’t here to make life easy — she’s here to make it real. Yikes.
She arrives when truth wants to be seen.
She’s the one who whispers 'this isn’t it' long before your mind can catch up.
She helps you shed what’s no longer aligned — jobs, roles, relationships, identities — not from bitterness, but from reverence.
Your Alchemist can literally turn the hard experiences you face into gold.
But here’s the part most people miss:
That gold only comes when you’re willing to face the fire.
This is the season of refinement.
Of burning off the excess.
Of saying no, so something truer can emerge.
That time when life asked me to use my own medicine 🙃
At the end of 2023, something in my life didn’t feel right.
I didn’t think it was my marriage — not at first.
But deep down, I could feel my higher power calling me to use my own framework: The Bloom Method.
It’s the same method I use with others, but that season invited me to use it on myself.
B — Beliefs: What do I believe about who I am and what’s possible?
L — Love: Am I loving and honouring myself fully?
O — Ownership: Where do I need to take responsibility for my truth?
O — Operating System: What rhythms and environments am I living by — and are they serving me?
M — Manifestation: What do I want to create from this clarity?
At first, I didn’t find answers — I started to see the truth of my marriage in my dreams.
Dreams that showed me what my body already knew.
That something in my marriage wasn’t true.
My body spoke before my mind could.
And when I finally followed that truth, I left.
That no became my most powerful yes.
Yes to alignment.
Yes to freedom.
Yes to the next version of myself.
That wasn’t the first time I’d had to say no to something I once loved, but it definitely hurt the most.
I’ve said no to workplaces that eroded my values.
No to roles that demanded performance instead of purpose.
No to systems that silenced my intuition.
Each no was a threshold. A death. And a rebirth.
Because every time we say no to what’s false, we create room for what’s real.
That’s The Alchemist’s magic: transmuting endings into beginnings.
No isn’t rejection. It’s reclamation.
This week, I had the joy of seeing Michelle Obama and Tracee Ellis Ross in conversation — two women who embody power with grace, humour, and heart.
Their energy was electric — not performative, but deeply present.
They reminded me that energetic authority is what leadership really is.
You don’t have to harden to hold power. With power you can love even bigger.
You don’t have to shrink to keep the peace. By taking up space, you make the world even better.
Boundaries, discernment, and rest are not weakness — they are wisdom.
This is what The Alchemist teaches us:
To stop striving and start refining.
To trust that when something no longer fits, your work isn’t to fix it — it’s to let it fall away.
If something feels off right now, trust that feeling.
Don’t rush to explain it. Just start listening.
Ask yourself:
Where am I saying yes when I mean no?
Where am I holding on out of fear instead of faith?
And what might open up if I stopped performing and started telling the truth?
Because walking away — from what no longer fits, from what no longer feeds — is one of the bravest acts of self-leadership.
It’s the moment your nervous system exhales and says: home.
The next group of Women Who Lead starts this January. Hit reply if you want to be first to hear about it.
Rooting for you always
Ruth x
Ps. Next week inside The Sisterhood, we’re deep in Alchemist energy — nourishing, releasing, and refining.
Join our New Moon Circle on Thursday 20th at 12pm EST — a simple reset to reconnect with your rhythm, reflect, and set one intention that matters.
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