Well, certainly by now you’ve had the chance to see the movie Wicked. And I bet you cried. If you’re a wise woman, this is a movie that made you cry. And there are three major reasons why you cried when you watched Wicked. And they’re the same three secrets as to why now is the time when we women are rising into our power.

And I don’t just mean our power as executives or our power as pretty girls, or our power as wealthy—although those have their power. I’m talking about our magical power, just like in the storyline in Wicked. And the reason why you cried. So let’s look at these three reasons, okay?

Reason number one why you cried your eyes out at Wicked: The movie is because you too have been teased for your magic. You’ve had people, probably since you were a kid, give you a hard time for being dreamy, for having too big of an imagination, or for not being tough enough.

And this sensitivity, you know now—this empathy and this imagination—all point to your intuitive power. Yet, these are the things that you may have gotten teased for, derided for, or condescended to about. You might have felt like, when you grew up, you had to put them away. You had to study hard, be a straight-A student—ask me how I know, a valedictorian who went to Stanford—because those other gifts, your deeper gifts, weren’t seen or known.

You may have even convinced yourself that they would never be seen or known. It’s a lonely feeling, and it’s a reason why, when we see in Wicked the final recognition of deeper magic—of the potent connection we have in the eyes of Elphaba, and yet also in the eyes of Glinda—we cry out of recognition.

Reason number two why you cried at Wicked: It’s because you too have been tested. Your integrity was tested. Have you noticed that every time you felt yourself expanding in spiritual power, you felt your intuition or your visionary sense growing, you were tested? Would you use that ability just to get what you want? Would you use it out of greed? Or would you share it? Would you use it to help others?

Would you use it not just in the secret of your own personal practice, but would you bring it outward and attempt to help others with it? Did you notice that when you did bring it outward, in an attempt to help people, your power increased? It’s like your clearance level went up.

This is the same kind of testing we saw Elphaba go through in the movie, right? She was tested. It wasn’t easy. The path of spiritual growth and intuitive development is not the easiest path. It’s a path of karma, constant shadow dancing, and constant willingness to step up, take a leap, and try to do it the right way in accordance with the highest good.

If you get lazy with your spiritual power, it just becomes shamanic party tricks. It doesn’t drop into this deeper ability as a co-creator, as a channel of genius. If you’ve been tested, if you can think back and even point to those times in your own life where you knew you were being tested and yet you stayed true to your intention for the highest good, you stayed true to your values, you stayed true to your service and your path—boom. That’s when you got the upgrade. That’s when you got your wings.

Reason number three why you cried: If you were like me, you cried like a blubbering idiot during Wicked. And the third reason why is because it’s time to heal the web of sisterhood. It’s been so long that women have been subjugated and discriminated against—not just women in our societal roles, but also our power.

Our deep, intuitive knowing, our empathetic, compassionate, nurturing, hormonally based mentality. In other words, our hormones are built for care. Our hormones aren’t built for constantly spiking adrenaline and conflict. Our hormonal systems are built for nurture and compassion. And we have power in that nurture and compassion, especially when it drops into a connected, empathetic, pulsing connectedness with all things.

Our deep and abiding knowing rises from the earth—our rather shamanic, fueling collaboration with nature. These are all women’s feminine powers. It doesn’t mean that men can’t utilize them or don’t have them, but our bodies and our nature are ripe and fertile grounds for these gifts to rise.

And yet, as they’ve risen in the past, in a culture that doesn’t value them—a culture that has left women feeling desperate to clamor for the few spots of glory or wealth—we women have often turned against one another. That teasing, that derision, has often come from women on women because, as an oppressed class, we’re competing for the scraps.

In this story, we see Glinda representing the privileged golden girl, and Elphaba representing the embodiment of this poignant depth and profound connection of both the dark and the light—both held up in integrity for the highest good. True magic. True intuitive intelligence.

We see it playing out in this story in a way that does make us cry because there’s a part of every one of us—perhaps there is a Glinda riding the privilege that we’ve been leveraging from a patriarchal, extractive culture. And we also have a part of ourselves that is Elphaba—the one whose gifts are so palpable and beautiful and strong, but also vulnerable and forces of nature.

We have both of these parts in ourselves, and we have each played the part on either side in our lives—this lifetime and other lifetimes. So when we see the reconciliation happen, the coming together of these feminine archetypes, we cry. We’re not even sure which of the two we are because, in many ways, we’re both.

Somewhere deep inside of us, we know that it’s the healing of that relationship—the relationship, feminine to feminine, the sisterhood connection between women who are leaders, whether from the entrenched, intrinsic, privileged side or from the emergent, potent, intuitive side.

The justice side. The righteous rage that we all have for justice and to let magic come back again into reality so that intellect and intuition can finally work together in full partnership. That’s the power of the healed sisterhood.

And that’s why you and I and others connect in circle, why we are creating communities like my Wisdom Collective, like the work that you may be doing to create opportunities to come together and rise. Because this is the year for us to rise.

Amidst all this tumult, amidst the appearance of increased stifling, this is the year where we wake up and recognize there’s no time to wait. These are the times we’ve been waiting for. And we are the Elphaba and Glinda we’ve been waiting for.

So thank you for doing what you’re already doing. And thank you for crying at Wicked!