“Preparing for you took me an eternity.” ~ Thayne Ulschmid

What does it mean to be a “Queen” in today’s world?

There are no kingdoms, and no royalty, and most of us don’t come from a royal lineage.

My friends used to refer to me as “Queen D,” and I loved being called this. When I asked them why Queen, I was told it’s because I (appeared to) have my sh*t together. I had a great job, I wore amazing clothes and always presented myself well.

Being a Queen meant, to us, someone who had their sh*t together and had a life that was sorted: great job, perfectly fit and shapely body, property owner, and have loads of money—and have an adoring partner.

Sounds spookily familiar to the stereotypes you see in magazines, TV and movies.

What they didn’t know is that I faked the life of a “Queen” big time. I faked it by pretending to be this woman I saw in magazines, TV and in movies. A woman who had it all together, looked perfect all the time and said the most appropriate things and appeared happy and in control.

I pretended to love the job I had. I starved myself and beat myself at the gym to have this perfect body, and I pretended that this was okay too. I wore designer clothes and shoes that I could not afford because, “I deserved it and was worth it.” I also acted like I was in the most divinely satisfying marriage and relationship.

They say fake it till you make it, right?

I faked it and faked it good, and I was surrounded by other fakers and we all faked it really good—until one day we broke.

I faked it till I broke myself: my body, my soul, my heart.

I spent the last six years piecing together these broken parts of me.

Through this exhilarating, freeing and excruciatingly painful process, I realised that happiness, love, peace, contentment, courage and compassion can’t be bought with money or be reflected in material objects. These qualities can’t be faked through reading, attending workshops and pretending to be “conscious” or “spiritual.”

These jewels came to me through deep and confronting moments of truth when I finally met the real me:

Me at three who felt abused.
Me at six who felt abandoned.
Me at 18 who was bullied.
Me at 20 whose heart had been broken for the first time,
Me at 30 who had enough of an empty life.
Me at 34 shivering with fear that I may never be a wife or a mother.

I sat with myself for many nights, feeling the pain and crying for the losses of these past lives.

Through these parts of me, I learned how to love myself and others.

Only when they trusted me with their secret and their pain is when I knew I had learned how to love myself properly. Because they know when I fake it and they are only interested in speaking to me when I am real with myself.

They made me a Queen.

I realised that it’s easy to be a Queen when I am on top of my game,
When I am in a relationship with a man that adores me,
When my body is in the shape and weighs a certain weight,
When I have money and property,
When I am surrounded by friends and family that care for me,
When I have a job/career where I earn loads of money,
It’s very easy to feel like a Queen when we have it all.
Truth is I am no Queen because of my status, wealth, beauty or perfection.
I am a Queen when I can love myself when I have nothing and feel like I am nothing.
From this place of nothingness I created myself and my kingdom.
I turned my pain to my power and my experiences into medicines that can help and heal others.
I want you to know what it is to be a Queen because you might be one and not know it.
You may be a Queen that is still being measured up against old out dated versions of Queendom by yourself or by others.
I want you to wake up and see it for yourself that you are a Queen.
You are a Queen that has the heart to hold a friend lovingly even when your own world is crumbling,
A warrior Queen that stands up for friends and loved ones when they are in pain. Someone who lifts them up when they fall.
A Queen who will gladly give away her last dollar to someone more in need, even if it means that she may have to starve.
This Queen who has the heart to forgive those who hurt her the most; She considers them her teachers and they’ve contributed to her becoming a Queen.
A Queen is a queen because she has complete faith in herself and in her kingdom and these are jewels that can’t be bought at Tiffany’s or Bvlgari.
She who pours all that she has to create a legacy into what she believes in most.
Having learned how to love herself she now embodies love in her every move.
She is a Queen of hearts, diamonds, spade and flowers.
Her life experiences are her most precious jewels, her diamonds.
Her compassionate loving heart is her biggest weapon.
Her blade, her sword is her razor sharp intuition.
Her inspiration and desire and devotion to life and her purpose is her flower and offering to the world.
She is not perfect.
In fact she does not give a f*ck about perfection.
She is happy to stand naked to be seen just as she is—sometimes whole and magnificent and some other times broken and crying.
Judgements and sniggers don’t matter to her anymore. They haven’t lived the life.
Having arrived here she is burning with passion, inspiration and she feels the weight of the work she’s here to do.
She has a war of materialism and hatred to end.
The most important virtue of a Queen is that despite all this fire and power she is gentle and loving to the people around her.
Never using her power to force outcomes and push people around. She keeps herself grounded and humble never letting any of who she is get to her head.
She surrounds herself with people who speak the truth as that is all she is interested to know.
She is looking to join other Queens and Kings to build cities of love and clean up the mess that we’ve all created.
She knows this is not external, it’s not the planet and not the world.
The mess exists inside us all as our ego, as greed and as hatred.
She sees that our mind represents consciousness, our heart is humanity and our bodies are nothing but the planet we live in.
This transformation within cannot be faked with meditation and yoga, you don’t get here by not eating meat or becoming vegan and you most certainly don’t do this by “being wise” or “spiritual.”
The revolution and the work begins and end with us.
When you get this, you become the path, your kingdom finds you and you are the Queen.

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Author: Deepthi Amin

Photo: Flickr/Johnny Silvercloud

Editor: Travis May