how to create a soul-expanding "mastering your mean girl" book club
Melissa Ambrosini is the bestselling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, a keynote speaker, an entrepreneur and self-love teacher. In her signature straight-talking style, Melissa teaches women how to master their inner Mean Girl, smash through limiting beliefs, and ditch the self-doubt so that they can start truly living the life of their dreams.
Here she speaks about how to create a soul-expanding Mastering Your Mean Girl book club.
"One of the biggest things I LOVE about what I do is connecting with like-minded soul sistas. Over the years of doing my work I have made some of my very best friends and for that I am super grateful.
Veronica Lee Drayton is one of those women whom I have met through my ‘work’. I coached Veronica one-on-one over skype years ago when she lived overseas, and then when she moved to Sydney she came along to my book launch and my Goddess Groups and has not missed a Goddess Group since. What I love about her is her fierce dedication to personal growth, her desire to evolve and grow, and her drive to be the best version of herself possible. It seriously inspires the heck out of me. She is so damn committed, which is awesome for me as one of her teachers.
So it didn’t surprise me when this beauty decided to create a Mastering Your Mean Girl Book Club (Of course she wants to dive even deeper, I thought). I love people like that!
Herself and the other beauties in the book club have had such massive breakthroughs working through the book and Mastering Your Mean Girl 10 Week Activation Program, that I wanted to share with you exactly how you can create your own MYMG Book Club. Plus, because I have had so many people ask me how they can create their own MYMG Book Club, I thought I would ask Veronica to spill all the beans so you can get your sistas together and start your own in your area.
So let’s dive in. First things first...
Find your tribe:
Round up all your like-minded girlfriends to support and keep each other accountable as you master your Mean Girls. Maybe create a private Facebook group where you can all connect, share insights in between sessions, and stay in touch. If you don’t already have a soul squad, don’t worry. This is the perfect way to attract your soon-to-be soul sistas. Post your intentions on your social media of choice and see who’s interested, or go old school and put some flyers up in your community, maybe at your local yoga studio or juice bar (if you build it, they will come!).
Make a plan to meet:
Decide how often you want to meet. Two weeks is a good time frame to read each chapter and start acting on it. Then pick a day and time, stick to it, and keep it the same each week so there is no confusion. Then when you come together, you can talk about what came up for you reading the chapter and/or with the Inspo-Actions. It’s also useful to discuss how it felt actually putting it into real life action (because that’s what it’s all about), what challenges you faced, and also all the times you mastered your Mean Girl (make sure you celebrate every time someone mastered her Mean Girl, this is super important!). At the start of the night, you can reflect back on the last two weeks and write down all the times you mastered your Mean Girl and share it loud and proud with the circle.
Find/Create a Sacred Space:
Getting together with your soul sistas to do this work is so much fun, but there’s some deep digging that’s going to happen, and it’s important to have a space where you feel comfortable and safe to share some private and potentially emotional stuff. You can keep it simple by hosting it in your home, and even try sharing the duties by rotating the host house. If you’re in a private space, you can spice it up with some beautiful candles, flowers, rugs, sage, or have some essential oils burning in the background. You can even have different oils burning each week to align with each chapter topic, which will add a really beautiful touch.
Speaking of Sacred Space:
You might think it goes without saying, but it never hurts to officially declare your space one of trust, confidentiality and zero judgement, so again everyone can feel safe to go deep and share openly and authentically. So before you begin the night, the host might like to say something like, ‘Bless this beautiful sacred space, know that whatever is expressed in this space is confident and held in our hearts. This is an open, loving space where you can express freely and it will be received with love; there is no judgment here’.
Hostess with the Mostest:
A Book Club is a collective, so there’s not quite a leader, but it’s great to have someone nominated as host who can start the night with some guidance, maybe the blessing above, one of the Mastering Your Mean Girl guided meditations (you could do the meditation that correlates to the chapter of the book you are working on that night), or simply a short welcome to any new members to the group. It’s also great to have someone in charge of housekeeping to organise the night and as a point of contact in case anyone can’t make it or is running late. Which reminds me: don’t be late! Our time is precious, so if you’ve decided on a 7 p.m. start, get everyone to arrive at 6:50 p.m. on the dot so you can dive straight in. Honour each other's time!
The Rules:
There are no rules! Make it whatever feels right for you and your sistas. But if you want a little guidance to start, a good way is to go one chapter at a time and — like I mentioned earlier — you can kick it off by having everyone talk about how they felt about the chapter (was it an emotional one? Surprising? Or maybe it’s an area that they’ve mastered with ease?). Then you can go through some of the Inspo-Actions and share whatever feels comfortable. I’m sure you’ll find once you get going, the conversation will flow.
*Hostess Tip: Some people are great sharers and can get really passionate (which is amazing), but this is a good place for you to use your skills and to ask some questions from other members of the group who don’t speak up as easily — sometimes they have the juiciest nuggets to share and you don’t want to miss them.
Talking Stick:
Like I mentioned above, some people (like myself) love sharing but others might be more reserved, so to keep things flowing you can use a talking stick (or crystal). To do this, you all sit in a circle and whoever is talking places the crystal in front of them. This signifies it's their turn to speak and everyone just listens and holds space for that person without interruption. Our role is to practice conscious listening. You will want to interrupt and give your advice, but please resist the urge and practice conscious listening.
*Hostess Tip: Some of us could talk under wet cement, whilst others don't want to talk at all, so it’s good to keep a time frame on each person. Depending on how many people in the circle, 10-15 minutes per person is a good amount of time. So when they are approaching the end of their time you can politely (and softly) remind them that 10 minutes has gone past. Sometimes, when we start expressing, it can feel like we have only been speaking for 2 minutes when really 30 minutes has gone past, so it’s nice to have one person mindful of the time, otherwise you may be there all night — not that there’s anything wrong with that! After the person has finished expressing, they can ask for feedback if they wish or move on to the next person. Whatever feels right for them.
Food:
Soul Work is hungry business. Make sure to honour and nourish your bodies as well as your souls by choosing a place with delicious healthy food, or have everyone bring a little something to share. Organic herbal teas, water, treats, green juice and activated nuts are also a hit.
Capture the Memories:
Take photos each week of the group and your sacred spaces as a beautiful keepsake of your journey together, and share them to inspire others to master their Mean Girl by using the hashtags #masteringyourmeangirlbookclub and #mymgbookclub. Let’s inspire women all over the world to have the courage to master their Mean Girl and live their dream life!
Odds & Ends:
◦ Tissues are great to have on hand — ‘cos there will be tears! Some from the harder stuff that comes up, and some from laughing so hard… but they’re all good!
◦ BYOB! Have everyone bring their book to the party. I can’t really explain it, but it brings a special energy to the gathering.
◦ Make sure you attend... even if you didn’t do the ‘work’. Sometimes life shows up and we fall a bit behind on the reading, but show up anyway — you’ll definitely have something to give and receive no matter what.
◦ Two IS a club! Don’t worry about having a huge group; start with whoever is ready and willing to show up. Then let whoever else join whenever they wish. All are welcome in this sacred space. And keep sharing it on social media to attract your tribe.
◦ Have a Graduation Party. Do something special after you have done all the chapters, modules and meditations to celebrate all the incredible work you’ve done and how far you have come.
◦ Don’t stop when you're finished! You can find your next favourite book to work on, or just keep in touch through meet ups or online in a you Facebook group (this is great to have from the start to support each other as you go along!). Even though you’ve made it through the book, Mastering your Mean Girl is going to be an ongoing process and having the support of your tribe is going to make it a much sweeter one.
So there you have it, sista! Now you know how to create an epic, soul-expanding Mastering Your Mean Girl Book Club.
Please, please, please tag me in your photos on social media, as I love seeing them so much... and you never know, I might just pop into one of them one day! Now I would love to hear from you. This one’s a two-parter:
1. Have you ever been part of a book club before? If yes, do you have any tips to add to our epic list above on how to create an awesome book club?
2. Are you feeling inspired to start your own? (I sure am.)
Share with me in the comments below. Thank you so much for being here, you mean the world to me. I love writing for you.
Love Melissa." Article by Melissa Ambrosini: http://melissaambrosini.com/
Aquí el blog en español.