Lisa Marie Rankin [00:00:00]:

Today on the God of School podcast, I'm exploring the highlighting the archetype of feminine sovereignty and wholeness, we'll look at how romantasy heroines like Farah, Nesta and Aelin go from outsourcing their authority to reclaiming their power. We'll also bust some myths about what it really means to have it all as a woman. So if you've ever outsourced your authority, doubted your instincts, or felt torn between softness and strength, this episode is your invitation to reclaim your crown and take seat on your throne. Let's dive in welcome to the Goddess School Podcast, a space for women who want to reclaim their story, awaken their archetypal power, and live mythically. I'm Lisa Marie Rankin, author, teacher and your mythic guide. I help women step beyond self help and into soul work by weaving together Jungian psychology, storytelling, ritual and feminine wisdom traditions. In each episode, you'll find personal reflections, mythic frameworks and soul stirring conversations designed to help you re enchant your everyday life and become the heroine of your next chapter. This isn't about fixing yourself, it's about becoming the woman you are meant to be.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:01:20]:

The veil is parting. The ship is setting Sail. Let's begin. Welcome back, beautiful ones. Over the next few weeks here in the podcast, I'm exploring romantic archetypes, symbols and tropes. Because art mirrors the collective unconscious and yes, that's your psyche, and offers surprisingly creative strategies for navigating conflict and becoming the heroine of your mythic life. Today I want to introduce you to an archetype I've come to deeply love and respect. The High lady, the archetype of wholeness, sovereignty, sacred responsibility.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:00]:

So we're going to dive into what it really means to become the High lady of your own life. The High lady isn't a role that you're just handed. You are not coronated. The High lady, she's not born into power or chosen because of her beauty or birthright. She earns her crown through trial, training and transformation. She is whole. I like to think of the High lady as the personification of what Carl Jung would call the self, and that's the self with a capital S. He would define the self as both the center and the circumference of the psyche.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:02:40]:

It's the totality of who you are, not just your ego, so who you believe yourself to be, or the roles that you play mother, healer, lover, warrior, but also everything that's underneath, everything that's in the unconscious. So all of the shadowy, wild, contradictory parts of you that you've hidden or disowned. The High lady embodies it all. She is integrated. And wholeness doesn't mean perfection. It's integration. It means becoming a woman who is one unto herself. Not because she doesn't need anyone, but because she knows who she is.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:03:22]:

Unlike a queen who may hold political power because of her rule or lineage, the High lady holds inner authority. She knows what she values, what she's willing to fight for, and also what she's willing to walk away from. She wields her power wisely. If you want to see this archetype in action, you can just crack open any romantasy novel. These heroines almost always start out with a pretty crummy hand of cards dealt to them. But they don't let their circumstances define them. They use them as a catalyst for growth. So I wanted to give you a few examples, and if you're not familiar with the books, that's okay.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:04:03]:

I think you're still gonna be able to get get a lot from the examples. In A Court of Thorns and Roses, Feyre, the main female character, begins the story illiterate, starving, and responsible for her family's survival at a very young age. In Throne of Glass, Aelin wakes up beside her murdered parents and is raised by a man who trains her to be an assassin. She was a very good assassin. Manon, also from A Throne of Glass, is told she's incapable of love and raised to kill without question by her evil matriarchal grandmother. Violet, in the Fourth Wing series, has a rare condition that makes her bones fragile, and yet she's chosen by dragons. And Nesta, also from A Court of Thorns and Roses series, she spirals into rage, drinking and meaningless sex before deciding she wants more for her life. In all these stories, we don't see heroines pathologize their emotions or sit home feeling sorry for themselves.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:05:09]:

They've all had very traumatic circumstances, but they engage with life, they train, they risk, they create, and through that, they transform. Now, for me, the path to the High lady started with reclaiming my own authority for reasons I'm still untangling. And I did this for a very long time. I always used to defer to men for answers, even when I knew mine were just as good or I knew that I had just as good of an idea as the man. So whether it was how to handle an aggressive dog, maybe respond to a passive aggressive email, or navigate some legal mess, I wanted someone else to make the call. Looking back, I can start to see that it Wasn't because I didn't know or even doubted my knowledge, but it was more like I didn't want to be responsible for it. If the choice didn't work out, I wanted someone else to have some skin in the game or someone else to take responsibility. But here's the thing about becoming the High Lady.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:06:10]:

It requires radical responsibility. You have to reclaim all that you've outsourced. And I think for many of us, that's been quite a lot. Whether it's your intuition, your aggression, your voice, you need to call it all back. Now, that doesn't mean that everything goes perfectly, and of course it won't, because here we are in this earthly realm. But it means that you take responsibility for it, that you can. You can shoulder the outcome. Power doesn't lie in the outcome.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:06:44]:

It comes from our decisions, our ability to take authority and to step into this role. Now, as I mentioned, some key attributes of the High Lady. One is not letting her circumstances define her. So really using the trauma, the challenges as a catalyst for growth, it actually made them stronger. And the other is to take radical responsibility. So to stop. Stop outsourcing your power and to feel rooted in your knowledge, in your power, in being able to make a stand from that place again, separating that from the outcome, because we don't have any control over the outcome, but we can be an active participant in the divine drama of our life. So as you start to think about these qualities of the hi, Lady.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:07:38]:

Take a moment and ask yourself, what if your circumstances weren't a punishment, but a path? Another way that we can think about this is how did you need the circumstances in your life, as traumatic or as challenging as they might have been, so that you could become the woman that you are today? How have they acted as a catalyst for change and growth? And if they haven't yet, that's okay. How could they act as a catalyst for change and growth? Consider what if every challenge, heartbreak or frustration was actually designed, was actually created by the divine to hone your power? Sort of interesting. As an author, I know that every scene that I write, there needs to be tension. There needs to be conflict. The protagonist needs obstacles. Otherwise the plot doesn't move forward and the character doesn't grow. Go. And yet, in our real lives, we often try to avoid challenge at all cost.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:08:47]:

We choose comfort routine in peacekeeping until our soul starts whispering through anxiety, burnout or discontent that there's more, that we were made for more. That's your inner High Lady. Calling your High lady is not complacent with the status quo, but she's able to to overcome challenges, to step into her full greatness. I also want to bust a few myths about the high lady archetype. I think sometimes when we're working with archetypes like the high lady or the queen or the warrior, we can tend to think that they are almost very isolated. And that's not the case. So one myth is that it's not about doing it all on your own. Yes, you are going to reclaim all these missing parts.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:09:34]:

You're going to reclaim your responsibility for your life, for your authority. But that doesn't mean you need to do everything on your own. And in fact, if we look back to romantasy, you will see that most high ladies have partners. And yes, they are usually sexy, brooding and lethal who support and strengthen them. But the high lady doesn't reject connection. She actually thrives in conscious partnerships. So you can be in a relationship, you can be playing with the polarity of masculine and feminine energy and still be high lady. The second myth, it's not always about gaining more power.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:10:15]:

So the high lady doesn't need to be a C level executive, a top medical professional, or have a high status job, lots of money. It's not or however you think of power. It's not always about gaining more power, especially if we think of power as these external measures of success. In fact, again, when we look at romantasy, some of the heroines actually give up their magic to become the high lady. Aelin and Nesta actually have to give something up, really precious, to protect something more important. So sometimes, as a high lady, you might have to walk away from the prestigious career or a relationship or an identity that no longer fits. So sometimes it's not about getting more, it's actually about giving less so you can fully become the totality of who you are. In the third myth, it's not about being perfect.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:11:12]:

In a court of thorns and roses, Feyre, the main female character, faces the Ouroboros mirror. I think I'm saying that correctly. So this is a mirror that will show you all the parts of yourself, even the ugly parts. And they say that people go insane when they stare into it. But Pharaoh is able to do that. And this is that process of reclaiming all parts of ourselves, not just the nice pretty parts, but even the parts that we've pushed aside because we don't think think that others would accept them because they are not aligned with our ego and who we believe ourselves to be. The true high lady integrates her Shadow. She recognizes her capacity to be ruthless, vengeful or selfish.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:11:55]:

But she's no longer ruled by it. She knows it's there. As Carl Jung has said, I'd rather be whole than good. The High lady doesn't argue for her limitations. And I see a lot of women doing this and I've done this myself, we you why we can't be in this relationship, why it's not the time to start the business, how we're not that good of a writer. So you say things like, I can't write the book, I can't start the business, I can't fall in love again. But the High lady doesn't argue for her limitation. She actually advocates for her desires.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:12:28]:

She can say, this is what I want, here's what I need, and here's how I'll begin. The High lady embodies it all. She is kind and ruthless, resilient and soft, powerful and yet deeply, wildly human. So take a moment and consider the High lady archetype. Consider her qualities, characteristics, and then think of the different areas of your life. Maybe it's your health, your relationships, your career, your finances, and where have you been showing up as the High Lady? And where have you been maybe avoiding the High lady again. Sometimes we avoid archetype because it does require taking radical responsibility, taking back our authority and the other things that we have outsourced. So think about the different areas in your life where you've really embodied the heart High lady archetype or where you may have avoided her and where there's opportunity to show up, to start really embodying, moving into this archetype of wholeness.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:13:35]:

Now, if you've liked this series on romantasy archetypes and tropes, I really invite you to come join me on Substack. This is where I explore modern myths, archetypal magic and romantasy tropes and themes. We do this through journaling, active imagination and monthly live gatherings. It's a space where the mythic meets the practical and you get to enchant your life from the inside out. The link to join us in Substack is in the show notes and I hope to see you there. Be well, beautiful ones. Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Goddess School podcast. I hope it sparked your imagination and expanded your vision for what's possible.

Lisa Marie Rankin [00:14:20]:

If you're ready to explore these concepts more deeply, reclaim your personal myth and live with greater creativity and enchantment, I invite you to join me inside enlivened my divine feminine mystery. School and and sacred community where we bring these teachings to life through ritual, story coaching and of course real world action. You can find the link to learn more in the show notes. And remember, the Goddess isn't a deity outside of yourself. She's an aspect of your highest self. You are the Goddess. Until next time.