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Once upon a time there was a husband with 4 wives. Each of his wives held special powers and a question they excelled in asking and answering, but the husband knew nothing of their questions, only his own – “How do I fix it?”
Harry, the husband, was great at seeking and seeing solutions, at avoiding and overcoming problems. He also really like to Hustle, and push and strive for greatness. But in always asking his question, he was never able to develop an intimate relationship with most of his wives, because they too only knew one question, and they rarely matched up. His only wife that connected with him was Ovanna, she too asks “How”, but instead of how do we fix it, she was asking “How do we create it?” This “How” focus was different to Harry and it was not unusual for their brief encounter each month to pass by quickly and be filled with other shiny things as Ovanna tried to take care of creating all the things that the other wives weren’t because they were so focused on their own questions.
Ovanna is outgoing, determined, passionate, a dynamo. She feels no limits; she gets in and takes action. She loves being busy and filling her days. She is exploratory and tries new things. She is often misunderstood as being flighty, unfocused, attracted to shiny-things, distracted. Ovanna’s core driving question is “How can we create this?”
Harry would spend 3 days with Ovanna in the middle of the month. He was drawn to her at this time, and found her very physically attractive, but because he was looking to fix, and she was looking to create it was only once in a blue moon they connected and the passions were shared freely.
After Ovanna, Harry would spend time with Lilly. Lilly is a truth speaker. She sees things clearly. She has opinions. She speaks the truth. She says it as it is. She is pragmatic. When she isn’t heard she turns to expression through anger and rage. She is most connected to values, moral codes, ethics. She creates benchmarks and rules. She is a designer, an architect planning for the future, looking over the mistakes made in the past and seeking to become better. She is often misunderstood as being nit-picky, finicky, overly-analytical. Lilly’s core driving question is “What went wrong?” She would also ask questions like What is happening? What could we do better? What are the benchmarks we could aim to meet? What are the steps we need to take?
Harry would hear Lilly speak, and instead of looking into the details, looking at how things were messed up, he would look at how he could fix it. This would infuriate Lily and after 10 days she would go into a deep rage, and Harry would revert to all he knew, throwing chocolate and running. He would often refer to his time with Lily as duck week. Because all she did was point out flaws, and never seemed to want to hear his solutions. After 2 or 3 days of raging and storming Lily would leave. And Penny would arrive. Cautioned by the behaviour of lily Harry would walk on eggshells with Penny. He wouldn’t come near. And as Penny is a dreamer, a visionary, looking to the future she was content to be left alone.
Penny likes to explore what we’ve been doing well, she’s pulled towards why we are doing what we are doing, she loves to explore the purpose. Harry would feel frustrated, he didn’t want to know why, he wanted something to fix so he could feel manly and needed. Penny wanted to explore why things that weren’t serving were there, focusing on releasing the negativity, the patterns that held her back, literally cleansing her soul. Letting go of life that wasn’t meant to be because the reason no longer aligned with the mission she was on. When her dreams, her visions, her realisations aren’t heard by Harry, she defaults to pain and sadness. She hides away from the Harry and the world because it hurts too much to see the path, to see the light and have it ignored and shamed. It hurts too much to hold onto patterns that don’t serve, and she tries to release them through tears. She is often misunderstood as being withdrawn, self-focused, aloof, dangerous as she creates change. Penny’s core driving question is “Why?” Why are we here? Why are we doing this Why did we learn that? Why aren’t we letting go?
Penny hangs around fro 4-5 days, and then leaves again. At which point Flossy arrives.
Flossy is a people person, she loves to work together, to share passions, to walk on a path together, pulling together people with different strengths and creating an amazing team. She sees the gaps in herself and reaches out to others to fill them, to close them. She is the ultimate collaborator. She is often misunderstood as being needy, overly-reliant. Flossy’s core driving question is “Who?” Who can we ask for help? Who has the skills we need? Who can I become? Who do I want to be? Who understands me?
Flossy and Harry build some connection, but again, Harry misses the mark, he is trying to be the answer to all the Who questions, and Flossy, while gentle and patient, doesn’t feel a deep connection because he never see’s her, he isn’t asking who he can become, he is focused on how he can fix things just as he his. He doesn’t want to change, and doesn’t want Flossy to seek out other people, because it hurts him that he isn’t her one and only “who”.
As Flossy leaves, Harry is feeling hurt, rejected and ignored, and so when Ovanna comes and they could meet and be together bonded by the How focus, he withdraws and shuts down. When he comes back he battles with Ovanna about how he can fix the problems, and Ovanna wants to be taking action herself.
For many years Harry, Lily, Penny, Ovanna and Flossy lived in this way. Never wanting to leave, holding on to hope that they could connect, asking their own questions thinking it was the answer, the wives never speaking to each other. Harry lost in his own world occasionally giving it a crack to connect through offering how he could fix things.
Until one day Harry realised he had four wives. You see Ovanna, Lily, Penny and Flossy all reside in one body. A woman through her natural cycle moves through each of these characters. A time when she is focused on Why, What, How and Who. Alternating between the Visionary, the Architect, the Dynamo and the Collaborator. For some women they will be associated with different times in their menstrual cycle but for the bulk of them they align as follows:
Penny = Period = Visionary = Why Flossy = Follicular = Collaborator = Who Ovanna = Ovulation = Dynamo = How Lily = Luteal = Architect = What
Harry realised he had four distinct characters in his wife. He worked out that Penny liked to be left alone to reflect and dream, and was there when she wanted to share. He started to listen more to Flossy and help her reach out to the people she needed help from in the moment, he began to be the fixer by offering her resources and connections. He empowered Ovanna to tap into her creativity, to take action on the plans she had made, and as a result found he got far more intimate and orgasmic moments. Lily is still a bit of a mystery to him, exploring asking what, diving deep into details without being focused on a solution, but he tries to be more patient. To listen to what is being spoken about, to hold back his desire to fix, and allow her to discover what she wants for herself.
The next breakthrough was when Harry’s wife also realised she had four characters within her. For years instead of embracing Penny, Flossy, Ovanna and Lily she had tried being the same person, doing the same things, following the same routines, building habits decided on by one of the characters and making them all comply. Her breakthrough came when she hired a period coach and realised within her was four characters, each with strengths, each with stretches, each with a focus question they excelled at, by leveraging each of them, in their time, she started to live and work in flow.
The more deeply she learned to understand her cycle through the living with FLO course, the better it got. As she embraced each character, uncovered her own patterns and cycles, and truly aligned her body, mind, and soul, she was able to create a life she loved. You can access the ever growing Living with FLO course here: https://grounded-goal-guidance.thinkific.com/courses/Living-with-FLO