Growing up in New Jersey, I had a feisty side to my personality that I named Jersey Girl. She was a beautiful, badass chick that was super fun, and nobody messed with her. She was an influencer and held leadership positions in her school. She was funny and popular, unaware of how powerful she was. She manifested precisely what she desired until she switched careers and stopped manifesting, and life became increasingly frustrating.
To understand Jersey Girl, one must first get to know me. I grew up in a neighborhood where I was the only girl. This included my two brothers and all the boys I played football and army with. I went on all the boy adventures. I was a tomboy and continued to play football until it hurt to be tackled because at nine years old, I had my period and became "a woman," and my mom suggested I stop playing.
Maturing Too Fast
Even at nine years old, I became bewildered over my place in the world. Why couldn't I play with my guy friends? How do I make friends with girls? Why does everyone (boys, men, girls, women) look at me so funny? I had boobs and a shape, and I was the only girl with her period in fifth grade. My mom would watch my ever-maturing body and say on each birthday, "Thank goodness, she is 10….11….12….13….14.
Finally, the other girls began to catch up with me in late middle and high school. I missed playing with the boys and became sexually active much earlier than I was emotionally ready for. I became very popular and was voted president of my high school class twice and voted Miss Junior Class and Miss Senior Class. I did the bare minimum to get good grades and relied on my class officer positions to get into college.
During high school, I was part of a group of kids that got stoned all the time. I discovered that I could have the munchies, eat like a pig, and then throw up my food. This led to a 40-year addiction to obsessive-compulsive food disorder and bulimia. Bulimia became a form of self-humiliation to protect me from the humiliation I felt as a young woman and the reaction of others to my fully developed body.
Before the #MeToo Movement
I went off to college and experienced deep, passionate love. I had my heart shattered into many pieces by my college love due to an immaturity that led to cheating. I left college shaken and unsure of how to take myself into the real world. After graduating from college, I entered the workplace in a small public accounting firm. Two of the partners took a strong interest in me.
One of them would ask me to accompany him to lunch as a showpiece, and the other would sexually harass me by rubbing up against me while showing me how to do an accounting worksheet. This job lasted one year, and I was fired for embarrassing the more handsy partner by calling him out in front of the other partners. Because I was unsteady in my power, I was sexually harassed and then fired. This was before the "me too" movement and, frankly, just the way it was. But Jersey Girl was getting madder.
Entering the Masculine Corporate World
I picked myself up and went further in the corporate world with Jersey Girl in tow and was met with a blast of unprecedented masculine energy. This masculine energy of corporate America in the 1980s was ruthless, underhanded, and bold. How would Jersey Girl, in her proper badass way, shift to accommodate this new level of competitive energy in corporate America? She would adapt, and she would become successful.
She would use her beauty, brains, and feminine energy to get what she wanted. She would learn to become underhanded and shift blame. She would learn to "play with the men"—as she played with the boys in her neighborhood. In the 1980s, women had to beat men at their own game at work and be twice as tough to get ahead. Jersey Girl was in charge of my corporate life
For example, my first husband and I worked at a bank in downtown Hartford. One of the salespeople he worked with was trying to steal him from me. As an expense accountant, I audited her and got her in trouble for improper expense padding of her reimbursement account. This was the first time Jersey Girl came to work with me.
Jersey Girl would continue to influence me, this time in my personal life. In a divorce conversation with my first husband, he thought he deserved more than me in the settlement because he made more money than me. I fought for my rightful half of our assets. He was shocked because he had no idea I had that level of tenacity. Perhaps I even shocked myself!
Finding My Way After Divorce
After our divorce, I began a 20-year career at a major insurance company, but this also started a period of dating anyone interesting, partying, and having fun. Unfortunately, because of many nights out during the work week, I began to fail at my job, but a supervisor asked if I wanted her to retrain me to get me back on track. I am forever grateful to this co-worker who saw my value. After that, I decided to get serious about my career and manifested ten promotions in 20 years.
During this time, I met a man who wanted to marry me, and I wasn't sure. He and I went to Las Vegas to visit my brother, who worked in the casino business. I prayed to God for a sign that I should marry him. My brother brought us to a casino and agreed to split the money three ways if any of us won. He won $258,000 on a progressive slot machine.
Sure, that was a good sign, but he decided he did not want to share the money since he had been poor his whole life. I convinced him to give my brother a monetary gift. After all, he would not have been in Las Vegas without my brother. Ultimately, I realized he was not a man of his word, and I broke up with him. He could not believe I would break up with him after he was "rich," but Jersey Girl stood firm about needing a man of integrity. Until then, I did not realize how vital the standard of integrity was in my life.
Jersey Girl was present in my successful career in corporate America, ensuring that I had all the same opportunities as the men and fighting for equal pay for an equal position. While I loved her, she was not always well-received in the workplace; she was considered aggressive and not assertive like her male counterparts. Nevertheless, I was part of an army of working women who thought we could have it all.
Jersey Girl at Home
Soon after, I met my man of integrity, my current husband, and the father of my children. I knew right away that he was my true earth mate, we are both powerful and loving, and yet, he, like no other, can bring out Jersey Girl's feisty nature. When I looked up the definition of Jersey Girl in the Urban Dictionary, I read, "Almost always a lady until you mess with her, and then she will kick your butt. But she is the best kind of friend and mother."
Jersey Girl was always welcome at home; my husband loved my tenacious caregiving of our family and my ability to stand on my own two feet. He loved my being the working mom—making a living while raising our two children. About 17 years into my last full-time job, I began to hear the calling to live and work more spiritually. Unfortunately, this spiritual lifestyle was incompatible with the corporate environment. I had to leave my cushy job to follow my spiritual path to a career in the healing arts.
Jersey Girl Became Burnt Out
My spiritual mantra became "Bring it On," I studied with spiritual masters and began healing my traumatic past. Jersey Girl added a level of tenacity to my spiritual path, but she unconsciously decided to take a break from the business side of making money. To be honest, I was tired of Jersey Girl's aggressive masculine; therefore, I withheld my masculine, and my business suffered.
In my frustration, I blamed others for my lack of success and continued to punish myself through overeating and bulimia. I also began a deep study of the Law of Attraction. I even organized four events a year over 12 years for the spiritual community to share the teaching of Abraham Hicks—a leading voice in abundance. Then, one day, I received a message from a spirit guide, "Even though you are an expert in the Law of Attraction, you really suck at it." I was unclear about what was missing from my formula for success.
Jersey Girl and the Spiritual Path
If we defined Jersey Girl from a spiritual perspective, I would describe her as the masculine energy of my Soul. My feminine energy was creating a spiritual business, but I was failing in manifesting abundance in the business. Our masculine energy only responds to us when we uphold our feminine energy standards with impeccable integrity. Therefore, I would never make money in my business until I welcomed back Jersey Girl (i.e., my masculine energy).
For many years in my spiritual career, I went overboard in the feminine, believing that going with the flow and partnering with Spirit would make me successful. Unfortunately, what was missing was my masculine energy of relentless pursuit of my goals. I needed to take whatever action needed and not excuse a lack of profit as a message from Spirit to shift gears. The bottom line, I had to become accountable for my success.
This meant becoming the perfect integration of my high feminine (creativity and compassion) and my high masculine (action and abundance). This also meant I needed to hold exacting standards with impeccable integrity in my personal and professional life, stop blaming others for my lack of abundance, and, most importantly, be clear on what truly matters to me in my life. Only then could I manifest the life I most desire.
Jersey Girl Returns
Jersey Girl returned with a vengeance when my 95-year-old mother began her decline, and the end of her life was drawing near. I was busy trying to manage family personalities and the care from Assisted Living and hospice, and it became apparent to Jersey Girl that my mother was receiving conflicting care.
I remember the exact moment Jersey Girl returned. I was standing outside taking a stress break at the Assisted Living facility, when Jersey Girl declared, "I am taking over your mother's care; enough with spiritual Robin, she is being ineffective."
Once again, I became tenacious and tough but fair and developed the authority most needed for my mom's care. It was difficult because my stepdad was in denial, and my mom was dying. Meanwhile, spiritual Robin was watching Jersey Girl and liking this version of herself.
I began to ask myself how I could bring back Jersey Girl without being aggressive and snarky. Because I have always been Jersey Girl, but perhaps I didn't like the version of her that I knew before in my corporate days.
Honoring Your Jersey Girl
As you read this chapter, I hope you can recognize the Jersey Girl or Guy in yourself. The tough, tenacious "get it done" aspect of your life. I am confident that there is room for assertiveness and abundance on the spiritual path. However, for many spiritual business people, it takes an effort to move beyond the vow of poverty that is the perception in our community.
To have a successful life, I invite you to see where you are not honoring yourself or not creating a lifestyle of abundance and find out why. Unfortunately, we often blame others for our lack of follow-through and use their negativity to influence our outcomes.
How would your life be different if you lived in the flow of life, released your inner conflicts, held yourself accountable, and did not enable others to sabotage your dreams?
Here are the changes you would quickly begin to notice in your life, you would:
1. Value yourself deeply and apply that in all parts of your life.
2. Be in a relationship with only others who support your vision.
3. Speak your truth in both your personal and professional lives.
4. Seek the answers to your life from within, not Spirit or others.
5. Trust your intuition, wisdom, and genius.
6. Figure out what truly matters to you and manifest it.
Becoming the Divine Warrior
Today, Jersey Girl is not aggressive but a confident combination of assertiveness, action, and attraction. My integrated feminine and masculine self has correlated to a more peaceful environment at home, growth in financial abundance in my business, and higher standards in all parts of my life. I am now in long-term recovery from food addictions, and I honor Jersey Girl—the Divine Warrior who is here to be of service to her family, the world, and herself.
