Today is International Women's Day. The day we celebrate women, a glimpse of what could be - before patriarchy goes back to normal tomorrow. Kind of like this snow temporary sculpture from a local park a few weeks ago.

Alas, here we are - living in a time when so many women and girls across the world suffer IMMENSELY at the hands of men - an unconscious, childish, immature masculine.

Today, I think of my mother, my grandmothers, aunts, cousins and all the women of my own lineage. I sit with both the pain and the gifts I’ve inherited. I sit with the gift of my own life, because they dreamt me into being. All of their wisdom has been passed down to me and is now being passed down to my children.

I also think of the women whom the world continues to exclude and underserve - especially black women, indigenous women, trans women and women of the global majority. So many are marginalised, killed, abused and gaslighted. I am thinking of the women in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan... Some of whom are my clients and colleagues in places across the Middle East, and are living through things we cannot even imagine. You are in my heart every single day. ❤️🔥

And I think of the Epstein ring victims and their incredible bravery to continue to stand up and demand justice - and every trafficked and abused woman out there, haunted by what happened to them while the men walk free.

So it feels appropriate on a day like today to honour the lineage of women from the global majority whom I’m learning from. There are many who have, over the years, supported the dismantling of my own white supremacy and colonial, patriarchal, capitalist conditioning.

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Women who have directly shaped my becoming

Firstly, I want to name Charmaine Roche and Zayaan Buffkins, who skilfully and beautifully led a critically reflective practice for a group of coaches interested in social justice, anti-racism, decolonisation, and the cultivation of a different, more historically, contextually, and ethically grounded coaching relationship. Being in this space revealed so many uncomfortable truths about me, about coaching, and I’ve written many reflections along the way. It felt truly like a space that facilitated my evolution into a different kind of coach and finally removed the veil of neutrality from my approach to my work. Charmaine created this podcast on social justice and decolonisation in coaching, through which I learned about her work. I can highly recommend it to my coaching and leadership peers.

​Simone Seol, my business mentor - an all-around amazing, sharp and witty human who taught me so much about what it means to practice business-making as community care. Some of the ideas I percolated in her space are only just finding their way into being now.

I initially joined to learn about non-abusive marketing, and got so much more than that - a global community of fellow change-makers all working towards collective liberation. Simone has recently partnered up with Dr.Joey Liu, who works with liberated self-expression and storytelling. Together, they help people from the global majority build ancestral wealth, and their whole approach gives me the chills, because wealth needs some serious redistribution and because I’ve been digging into my own ancestry simultaneously, and it resonates even though it's not a space for whites. Simone’s fiery podcast, Liberatory Business is great, too.

Another program I have been part of since 2024 is the Decolonised Coach Community (DCC), led by the brilliant Emily Anne Brant, who supports coaches in their decolonisation process. It was here that I first heard Shirin Eskandani talk about the colonial legacy of coaching, which kick-started a rabbit hole I haven't yet come out of.

DCC really opened my eyes to all the ways the coaching industry had co-opted indigenous wisdom and methodology, sanitised them, and is now selling them, repackaged through various certifications and often at insanely inaccessible prices. It’s a juicy topic that we’ve only just scratched the surface of. The community calls were full of compassion and accountability, and I can’t recommend Emily’s work enough for coaches who are questioning the way we’ve been taught.

My current allyship “auntie” Rashida Bonds and her community The Liberated Life Community, is an anchor during these crazy times. Rashida is like that auntie everyone should have in their life. You know the one - who holds you with fierce love and asks the questions you’ve been avoiding. Who shares the stories you won’t find in a book - the ones that sometimes crack something open in you and other times crack you up. She doesn’t let you get away with excuses and makes the discomfort feel like a gift.

Rashida role models community love at its best. She is an ally to her local trans community, and from that work, she is teaching us what it means to be an ally in spaces where marginalised people are not represented.

Besides, her love is the kind that I like:

“I lead with love. But love doesn’t always look like a hug.”

​Carina Lyall, my storytelling teacher and fellow regenerator, whose spaces have nourished my hunger for the mythical and the Earthy, ecological dimensions of my work. Her own story of being of two different cultures and lands and looking for belonging echoed in mine, as I map my own existence to a land that is not my own. Her spaces are grounded, full of beauty, poetry and aliveness - just like her podcast Becoming Nature.

​Dra.Rocio Rosales Meza, who we’ve had the privilege of having as a teacher at Regenerators Academy, works with decolonisation at the intersection of psychology and spirituality. Her fiercely loving and compassionate approach to addressing some of the most dehumanising violence in the world is a soothing blanket for the heavy work that decolonisation is.
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Women I learn from at a distance

Layla F.Saad, whose book Me and White Supremacy started a more serious approach to my anti-racism work, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

​Dr Lyla June - a scholar of indigenous food and land management systems, a musician and a speaker. I love her TEDx talk on indigenous land management and can’t wait for her lecture at Regenerators Academy this year.

Nikki Blak, an anti-racism teacher, culture builder, podcast host and creator of the program Interrupting White Womanhood. Check out her short series on Breaking Up with White Feminism.

Environmentalist and ecofeminist Vandana Shiva and her work on building the indigenous seed bank. If you haven’t yet, watch The Seeds of Vandana Shiva.

Arundhati Roy, a writer and political activist and her book War Talk, (free reading on the Internet Archive), offers something fierce and necessary in times like these.

Robin Wall Kimmerer and her essay The Serviceberry on indigenous gift-based economics and radical reimaginings of our currencies of exchange.

The late Nawal El Saadawi, whose work on intersectional feminism I am only just learning about. A medical doctor and later the Director of the Ministry of Public Health in Egypt, she published works on the lives of Arab women and their oppression by corrupt men and their systems. This conversation is absolutely amazing and explains why we need men-inclusive feminism that is historic and socialist - if we want to change the world.

What is all this for

The way to change the world is by changing ourselves. Because our lives are the microcosm of the world we want to live in, to paraphrase Simone Seol. And, as Rashida said:

“I control the shit out of my 6-foot sphere around me. Everyone is seen, heard and valued - and affecting the other 6-foot spheres around me, where we can be humans together safely and comfortably. And at some point, maybe that sphere expands to the whole world.”

This is how we build the new - through circles we already inhabit. And the closest circle to me is my family. So, last but not least, I think of my daughter Stella, who is soon turning 16 and the kind of world I want her to live in as she enters womanhood. I am dreaming her forward into the world where she can walk freely and know that she is worthy. A world where she remembers to stand in a circle - with women and people from different corners of the world, different stories, different soils - and to build a shared future together. A world where diversity is a source of richness and a thriving ecosystem. A world where the patriarchy has been metabolised, and we’ve learned to create a more beautiful and gentler place.

Now over to your microcosm:

What kind of world are you dreaming of, and what role will you play in building it?

In feminine power, 💙🌊

Martina

Hi, I'm Martina. I coach creative leaders, change-makers and teams through defining transitions. My approach is relational and focused on growing vibrant, trusting cultures full of life. Our work together serves a systemic paradigm shift towards a regenerative, life-affirming worldview. ​ I am committed to anti-racism and decolonisation, and all my paid client work enables me to support impact leaders and communities of the global majority through scholarships or pro-bono work. ​ And as for me - I am wildly intuitive, ancestrally rooted and happiest in treetops. 🌳 ​

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