One thing that Venus has really taught me is how to have fun.
I feel that shouldn’t be something you have to teach a twenty-something. By the look of it, we are all off partying at festivals all the time, going out clubbing, that sort of thing.
(Here’s a secret – I have never been to a music festival. I did my 20’s wrong somehow.)
But I spent my twenties stuck in a weird, working all the time, no fun, never-good-enough kind of space.
I can say now that I am a workaholic.
I used to think you could only be called a workaholic if you were some kind of barrister or CEO or app developer who worked from dawn till midnight being all fancy rushing around in power suits or filling out forms and writing important documents or mainlining coffee while writing code.
I thought (hilariously) that I couldn’t be a workaholic, because I like to procrastinate a lot and because I simply wasn’t making enough money.
Truth is, I was never much of a smart worker. I was always more of a worry-a-lot-that-I-am-not-good-enough kinda worker who does busy work but shrinks from the things that would really move me forward and make me money and happiness.
When you are self employed, not only does it means that you are on the front line with your inner demons every day, but everything at work depends on YOU, and so it’s easy to fall into a trap of workaholisim every day.
I would say I was a workaholic because I put work above everything else. I would use work as my means of deciding how worthy I am as a human being, and if I hadn’t reached some point of financial or professional success in my work, I was completely undeserving and let it ravage my self worth. (I used this as an excuse to not enjoy myself for years. I haven’t worked hard enough, I don’t deserve any fun, I should do more work instead – spoiler, this method really DOESN’T WORK!)
In fact, for years the only dimension to my life (other than goddess) was work – I wouldn’t allow myself to do anything unless it had a knock on beneficial effect to my finances. And I mean anything. Holidays. Buying sandwiches. Going and hanging out with my friends.
Eeeeesh. I was no fun at all. And it really doesn’t feel good to be in this place.
Enter Venus.
I started working with Her intensely a year and a half ago. I’d already started the process of allowing myself to have fun – I think after about eight years of you-don’t-deserve-any-fun-keep-working my brain just went, aaaaah fuckit, let’s just buy a nice sandwich and go on fucking holiday – and was beginning to learn that, actually, the more I enjoyed myself, the better everything was financially.
When I started working with Venus, I started to really reorient my priorities towards my work with HER – honouring Her, looking for the presence of the Goddess of Love in my life.
And you can’t be a devotee of Venus without surrendering to pleasure.
Venus is ALL ABOUT pleasure.
I would describe pleasure as being fully present to enjoying something. Being totally lost in the moment while dancing to Bieber. Being fully there to smell the scent of cherry blossom, or watch the sun set, or get all involved in singing along to Mamma Mia on Netflix.
Honouring Venus, bringing Her into your life is very much an embodied process. Like much of Goddess Spirituality, it has to be FELT in the body. Her worship is in the actions you take, the priorities you focus on, what you love and and actively honour in your life.
This means, in my opinion, you can’t worship Venus, or spend a lot of time with Her in your spiritual life without beginning to open yourself up to more sensuous fun and pleasure in your life.
She is the Goddess who rules love and sex, of course, but don’t forget She also rules parties, social gatherings, friends, great dinners, good wine and the feel of fresh cotton sheets. She loves luxurious things, relaxing into wealth, silk bathrobes and indulgence.
Honestly, since I have been working with Venus, I think I have worked less than I ever have. Last summer, instead of having a gruelling hustle-and-gig season, I spent most of the time lounging around in parks in the sunshine, eating strawberries with my new lover.
And since I have been working with Venus, I have finally begun to truly understand how to put into practice this old chestnut –
work to live, don’t live to work.
Thanks to Venus, I now know that work isn’t everything, that if something doesn’t get done the world doesn’t collapse and it doesn’t mean I am a lazy jerk of a person. I now know that the JOY of enjoying the fuck out of my life is WAY MORE SATISFYING than trying to work hard – and, actually, I make more money having fun anyway.
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If you are jonesing for a little more Venus in your life, then join us for The Venus Working: my six week spell working for saturating your life with Venus deliciousness. Perfect for all kinds of witches who are ready for the luscious, luxurious, loving and lavish touch of Venus in their lives! Registration is open till April 27th 2018, but if you miss it, join our Mailing List to be notified of when it happens again….
…. and if you are longing to reconnect your work with your spirituality and invoke some feminine PLEASURE in your career and give the old patriarchal struggle/hustle ways of being the finger, join me and my biz bestie Kris Oster for our magical Spellbound Retreat and mentoring program for entrepreneurs who happen to like things witchy. Linky here. It’s the bomb.