So you are curious about the name for this vision/ business?

I’m glad you are curious because it is curiosity which makes the difference between lives lived in a box and ones that are fully lived.

The Story of this name is a story of a journey.  Honestly, there are no explanations that could fully encompass a total answer to the question — there are some things that are beyond us – in the end it is both a personal journey and a collective one.  We are still on it!

The name was and is a gift.  I believe it is a signpost to know when we are living OUT LOUD.  What I mean by that is — being BIG — in our music, our art, our healing, and our visionary soul.  If you aren’t pushing the envelope of what is acceptable and moving past your own limits- what are you doing?

The word malevolent is described in the dictionary as meaning “evil.”  The Queen in Sleeping Beauty for example, Maleficent is the shadow Queen Archetype.  If you take her role in the fairy tale literally – she is evil incarnate.

In pagan mythology, evil does not exist.  True harmony is a balance between the dark and the light.  The yin and yang.  The summer and the winter.  The dark and light halves of the year are constantly revolving and have their purpose.  One is outward and expansive, the other inward and introspective.  We need both to truly be present and to learn our lessons.  Nature needs both to replenish and rejuvenate.  The cycle of life is the death/rebirth paradigm.

I was in the middle of my extensive healing journey, when I took my first coaching class with CTI (The Coaches Training Institute).   In their Fundamentals course, there is an exercise in helping people discover under-utilized qualities in themselves.  Often these qualities are ones that have been put-down by others or shut down personally in order to fit in with preconceived notions of what is “right.”

These qualities are “shadow” qualities because they are often personal strengths that have been subjected to judgment and banished into the darkness.  If these shadow aspects are uncovered, liberated and accepted on the surface, a person could see them as strengths and utilize them in an expanded awareness of personal expression.

My fellow group participants along with the instructors, would pick a “name” that they felt embodied qualities you were not really expressing but which they would like to see in you.  I got to wear the name tag “Malevolent Empress.”   Now this was in direct contrast to the usually quiet, serene and not willing to rock-the-boat Gina I had been in class up until that point.

I had a great resistance to this concept of wearing the tag with this name.  Me?  Evil?  I mean, I am nice, I want to be liked and I want to be accepted.  I don’t want to be bad, hurt people’s feelings or make waves.   In fact, I’d rather not be seen at all.  This class and this exercise made me feel uncomfortable!

Can you hear the little girl in me crying out to be held by Mom and Dad and just loved?  And the empress part — oh my — I wanted to hide in the back of the classroom and not reveal my true identity to the 30 or so people in class with me that day, after all doing that could get you hurt.  I didn’t want to stand out from the crowd — I mean, I get attention for being beautiful and that attention is scary not cool!

Can you understand then, that much later, down the road, after much more healing and self-love, that I would then embrace the name I once feared?  How awesome is that to feel like those parts of yourself you thought would end your life, are actually strengths and that people need them from you.

If you are a coaching client or even a friend, you NEED me to be just a little bad sometimes, to rock the boat, to call you on your shit, or you wouldn’t grow.  The world needs strong empowered women and people, not wall flowers who are too afraid to stand out and be counted, or heard.

In pagan mythologies from different traditions, the dark goddesses are revered for their ability to destroy paradigms and outmoded beliefs that are no longer useful.  Kali Ma, Pele, Hekate and the like.  The Financial Alchemy coach, Morgana Rae has her clients give their lessons from last year to Hekate to recycle the energy and accept their new lessons for the year.  Very powerful work, I might add!  Hekate does not let you get away with false promises.

Under this goddess model, Maleficent is not evil incarnate at all but the representation of sleeping beauty’s shadow qualities — those aspects of self that are hidden or shut down.  When sleeping beauty vanquishes the Queen, she is transforming from a princess into an Empress, a leader of people, a person who is at one with her own power.  She is accepting those qualities, which she had cut off from into herself and becoming whole.  In Shamanic healing this process is called Soul Retrieval.

In history, evil acts as described or experienced by human beings have been conducted by those who hold false self and are shadow leaders.  They are often silent but deadly.  They pretend to be there to serve when in fact; they are self-involved, narcissistic, and broken.  We fall victim to shadow leaders when we don’t want to face our own fears, and prefer to put our head in the sand.  We allow words and fancy speeches, hearing what we want to hear, and platitudes to take the place of the truth.

Prior to World War II, the German people were suffering, broken and living in abject poverty.  They had been abandoned by the entire world as a punishment for World War I.   When Hitler showed up, he was a breath of fresh air.  He promised food when there was none, change, a better society.  What was the price?  A lot…but many people didn’t care.  They walked by the concentration camps on a daily basis, lived near the smoke stacks and pretended NOT to know what was happening under their noses.

True evil, perhaps is not a thing but a disease of fear.   What we fear the most manifests itself as reality in the form of a person, a movement, an ideology and a system.  Sometimes it manifests itself as an illness that kills us.

If you are confronted by powerful feelings when you hear the magical name The Malevolent Empress – what is it that you fear the most?   What is it that you are not facing?  What are you NOT giving yourself that you really need to be a whole person and live a vibrant life?

What is it about the idea of a powerful woman or a priestess that challenges your conceptions of what being a woman really is?  Most people are shut off from the divine feminine within – so it becomes scary.  When we accept the needs of all parts of ourselves — we will truly be empowered to love.  If it is the spiritual components of the name, or the priestess concept – what’s your own relationship to source energy like?  Do you allow inspiration to flow for your art or your life purpose or do you find yourself frequently blocked and/or sabotaging the work you do?

This is the purpose of the vision of “The Malevolent Empress” — the EMPOWERMENT of humanity in LOVE.

The full expression of creativity in the light – when you are fully expressing your divine gifts in your chosen art form the world will be a better place for it.

Trust your process.  Trust yourself.  Love completely.

Rev. Gina Micek (@EmpressGina1)