Here is the full interview by Womanfluence on Julia Tiffin and how to nurture the feminine energy as a female entrepreneur. Womanfluence focusses on supporting female entrepreneurs. For the condensed, published article 13 September 2023, click here.
‘In the world of personal development and empowerment, Julia Tiffin stands as a shining example of a woman who has charted her own unique course. She shares her journey, her proudest achievements and her insights on empowering women, mindfulness and living life to the fullest.’
Could you briefly share your journey and your proudest achievements in your field/industry?
I stepped into the field of personal development after seeing the results of certain sessions & training in my own life from one of the seven Ancient Mystery Schools (The Modern Mystery School), and they were so undeniable, that I stepped away from a successful multi-prong career in various visual arts fields. I am – still to this day – proud of my achievements in the visual arts which included successes in academia – running a Fine Art Photography Department at a University in KwaZulu Natal, successes in the Film Industry, and multiple successes on the world stage as a Fine Artist with global publications and exhibitions.
However, I reached a crossroads on a very specific day (February 2005) and I just couldn’t justify working on more commercials for people to buy more toothpaste, insurance, cars, and yoghurt (!) when the sessions I had started offering (on the side) were so profound. These sessions moved people to get on track to follow their correct internal GPS to lead their own lives forwards in a good direction and to stay on track! I knew nothing about the field of spiritual personal development other than I had a good heart, good intuition and good intentions to help people, and with plenty of personal history to re-write & re-frame.
From knowing nothing, and with no existing guide ropes to run a wellness practice, my first proud achievement would be building a countrywide personal practice that was self referring and filled with flow – actually that expanded to satellite practices in 4 other countries too. It was not easy to manage nay-sayers in the earlier days as these teachings and sessions were entirely new to the South African arena, but the results kept speaking for themselves. There was no existing industry for Life Activations in South Africa, but through persistence, and a deep belief in this session, there are now successful practitioners operating in South Africa today.
More than that achievement, it is the leaders that emerged from this work that I am very proud of. I was able to find people with a passion to learn the deepest mysteries so that I could then bring higher metaphysical training to South Africa allowing people to grow from strength to strength. I ran large programs teaching advanced spiritual training 4 times a year (with sometimes 70+ students in an individual program) and from there leaders emerged to continue the foundation of what I had built. Today there is a strong, streamlined team that continues to empower people to grow within and without.
A key reality of working on a path of personal growth and transformation is that you yourself cannot be outside of this. Possibly the biggest leap I have made is the leap to move to the UK and work with a team of globally recognised leaders in the same ancient Mystery School to make even more impact in personal development. My personal mission within this is to bring metaphysical teachings into the fields of the Arts that have become increasingly disconnected from Spirit (certainly in the visual arts) and wrapped up in purely intellectual explorations since approximately the 1970s. The tide is turning in the Arts and I’m excited to jump into this with the depth of 20 years of metaphysical training & a foundation in working within the Arts. I am currently developing courses that merge these two fields. I also have a depth of experience in the re-framing of death and the power of the grieving process and am completing a book Light as a Feather to assist people with this massive growth opportunity using the perspectives of metaphysics.
How do you see your work contributing to women empowerment, mindfulness and living life to the fullest?
The sessions and training that I have offered are all about empowerment, mindfulness and living life to the fullest. I have worked extensively with people of both genders but it is a personal passion to assist in the improvement of family life, so when moms are more empowered, this flows down to the whole family. Of course as a female entrepreneur, creating something with your own hands puts you in the driver’s seat of creating the life you want, so teaching mindfulness and living life to the fullest to women leaders and business owners (as well as men!) is something I have supported a lot of women to do.
At the moment within the metaphysical training realm, I am continuing with foundational training & sessions, but I am focusing on teachings and healings around EnSofic Ray. This is a complete training where you shift your approach to life. There are deep teachings and formulas in this training to live life alive! I am offering classes in the United Kingdom and Europe, and they bring you not only multiple ways to heal yourself and others, from your body to your mind and to your emotions, but you receive a formula to invite miraculous living and to shift your entire way of being. It’s truly a remarkable series of classes, and these teachings have not been released to the public from the ancient Mystery Schools until recently as people were not asking for or ready for this next level. This is probably something that is the most exciting to me as it allows you to see your life as a blank canvas and to attain the correct spiritual & mental state to live from that place!
What challenges have you faced, and how have they shaped your perspective on choices for women and empowerment?
I would say the biggest challenge for me has been an internal challenge: the balance between running masculine and feminine energy as an entrepreneur. Being a woman and constantly creating and driving can be challenging. The feminine’s power is in observation, allowing, flowing, shaping, amongst others, whereas the core power of the masculine energy is in driving, setting goals and single minded focus. It’s about the percentage of energy that I have to flow – as a woman my energy is predominantly feminine but with a smaller percentage of masculine energy, so when I have to drive all the time, which is more of a function of the masculine, it can drain me and tire me out. Learning how to balance working with flow and maintaining focus on goals is truly a dance.
I have focussed specifically with women on this, as I see that a common challenge with women business owners or leaders, is attempting to run your life by leading with the masculine energy. Looking around in the world, this imbalance has really made a mess of interpersonal relationships, and it needs to be understood that it is a positive thing to allow the masculine to lead and the feminine to shape within the relationship.
I notice this in Latin American dancing – when I am solely in the feminine energy, when I am dancing and am just flowing, not even thinking, everything works. But when I begin to pay attention to the logic of what my dance partner is doing, it’s as if my brain switches over, I become conscious of how I am being led, as if I want to micromanage how I am being led, and I totally get my feet messed up. I basically shift into the masculine within me and stop being in the flow. When the masculine leads in a dance, they have to do directed moves to shape a woman’s body in a way that makes the dance beautiful. So when you can surrender to that energy, it creates tremendous beauty.
When women overuse the masculine, because we DO need to use this function as we all have both energies, just different percentages as per our gender, that is where we get out of balance and are ineffective in all areas of our lives. We need both the masculine energy and the feminine energy to create as we see in biology & in metaphysics that this is how things work, but we need the correct balance of these energies to be effective in creating what it is we want to create, whether we are male or female.
What advice would you give to other women who are striving to make a positive impact?
Remember to take care of your internal world. Women notice the nuances, the emotional & spiritual landscape of what happens around them – the nurturing of this feeds the inner world of a woman. When you are working and striving, it is easy to be super goal oriented and run the action orientated masculine energy. This is a good thing as we all have a percentage of masculine energy so we can drive, but it can exhaust women if we are only driving and striving, sometimes we literally need to re-arrange those flowers, talk to our girlfriends, enjoy some shopping, sense our inner world and the world around us, and anything else we can do to just be in the flow.
Women have been conditioned to think that the feminine energy is not an effective or even worthy energy, but it has been shown via neuroscience that in a boardroom, the presence of just one woman in a corporate meeting opens the intelligence of the group in an entirely different way. Feminine energy is a powerful energy and it is important to nurture and honour this and to bring this to the masculine force so that together these two energies can create something incredible.
So for now, to all the beautiful women out there, there are ‘soft skills’ or ‘soft qualities’ like the ability to create structure, to see the bigger picture and to connect the dots, the ability to hold space for projects, creativity, collaboration, nurturing, sensitivity and empathy, the ability to create a safe space, the ability to be present and truly listen, and intuition – these are invaluable and critical to shape a positive world, and they are invariably the skills of the feminine. (Yes, men have these qualities too, because they also run a smaller percentage of feminine energies). As women, it is time to own these qualities and skills, to value them and to understand how they shape and help to bring positivity, and to allow them to stand in their strength, in the full sunlight.
What’s your personal motto for life, and how does it drive your daily actions and decisions?
Rather than a motto, there are specific values and concepts that drive my daily actions and decisions.
The most important, I think for me, is care: it is important for me to care about the people, plants, animals and spaces in my life, and to check in with my inner garden and care how I am feeling. When my plants are unhappy, it affects me on a level I don’t even realise, but when I tend to them, the energy in my physical space totally changes and it ripples into my inner world and changes the energy around me that supports me. When I take care of myself, friends, family, animals, spaces, clients and just people in the world who are asking for care, it provides a creative flow and keeps me connected to my goals and what is important.
Care is a core value that leads me in my life, and the second one that keeps my life very clean and simple is honesty and transparency. I find it is so much easier to just say what is going on and I strive to find the words to match the nuances of what is honest for me. Then I find if something needs to be course-corrected or if something needs clarification, it is so much easier to move forwards when things are honest and transparent. It is not always easy for me to bring up things to get something clarified but the freedom that comes with exercising this skill is a driver for me to master this.
As an addendum to care, creating beauty really feeds me – I have my own preferences as to what creates beauty for me, but taking the time to do that, whether it’s the colour co-ordination of my wardrobe, the design for a flyer, putting flowers in my home or colour coordinating my cat’s accessories (colour does feature a lot!), this creates a flow in all areas of my life, in how I communicate, how I teach, how I work with clients and so much more!
Fourthly, partnership – I love to build partnerships so that I can do things together with people – whether it’s building a home, building a system, building a project, it really is so much more fun as a creative, leader and entrepreneur to co-create things. This has been something I look forward to enhancing more and more as this brings me so much joy!
About Julia Tiffin
Julia is a Modern Mystery School Speciality Teacher working globally to share ancient teachings to help you find your unique you & your navigational system within to live your most fulfilled life. She has trained since 2004 within the Modern Mystery School and specialises in the ancient arts of Healing & Sacred Geometry. She has a background as an international Fine Art photographer, exhibiting internationally and lecturing at tertiary institutions in South Africa.
Find out more: https://juliatiffin.com
Instagram: juliatiffin
Facebook: Julia Tiffin’s Practice
Pinterest: Julia Tiffin’s Practice