Sister Goddess Spotlight: Emily, Ellie, and Molly St. Denis
Can you imagine the courage it takes for a woman, turning 50, freshly divorced and raising two cranky teenage daughters, to reach for her pleasure? And how it would affect those girls years later... (I bet you can.) Meet Sister Goddess Ellen St. Denis and her daughters, SGs Emily and Molly.
SG Ellie began her journey at the School of Womanly Arts “knowing there was something there that could possibly transform me from a scared middle-aged divorced housewife in Connecticut into something else.”
Her daughters didn’t quite approve or make it easy for her. It was confronting to see their mom exploring pleasure and discovering her feminine self. “It was very freaky for them. They were at the worst of puberty. All of a sudden, my clothes were different, my friends were different, I was going out. I was having too much fun and I knew it was Ellie time, so I just persisted despite their disapproval.” Six years of courageous pleasure training later, she now describes herself as “a happy camper.”
When her daughters went off to college, SG Ellie sent each of them a copy of Mama’s book and the two girls opened up to the work for the first time. The books helped SG Molly navigate the world of men after her relationship of four years came to an end. She says, “I totally understood why [my mom] was taking these classes and I had a newfound respect for her.”
When SG Emily began having a hard time her second year away, her mama, having experienced the benefits of pleasure first hand, gently offered to enroll her in the SWA Mastery program. “I felt like I was going through some kind of transition period. I was pretty depressed because I didn’t know what was going on and I didn’t want to hang out with the same people anymore,” says Emily.
Mastery opened Emily’s eyes to how much she had been disapproving of herself and helped her shift gears.
“I realized that a lot of what was making me miserable at school was that I hated my body, my personality, myself, and the way that I looked at everything. Learning in Mastery that you are perfect in what you think are your faults--that helped me so much. Like if you do something embarrassing, instead of getting mad, saying to yourself, ‘Oh, I’m so cute.’ Those kinds of things helped a lot. I’d go back to school from Mastery weekends so high I felt I was contagious.
And at school, I started to become friends with a completely new group of girls who were really fun and who liked to do things that I liked to do. I stopped thinking that something was wrong with me. I just realized that my old group of friends just liked to do different things than I like to do. It’s so hard to find a group of girls who will actually love you and encourage you. It was so great because I had a community in Mastery and at school.“
SG Emily is most excited about her relationship with her mom. “My mom and I danced on the bar together at the graduation party! We both look at the world the same way now—we look at each other and say ‘I am the party!’ I don’t think it’s weird or feel threatened by it anymore. And we support each other in using the tools.”
What’s it like having three goddesses in one household? “[My Mom] used to yell at us to clean up. Now our house has become so much nicer to be in, because whenever anyone wants anything to be done, we say it, ‘You know it would be so great if you could do this for me,’ or ‘it would make me so happy if you…’. Our house is a loving place. It’s not like those crazy households where everyone is yelling at each other.”
SG Ellie’s solid commitment to herself and her pleasure led her nineteen-year-old daughter to this beautiful place:
“Before Mastery, you are so scared to jump completely into love or jump completely into pain. I think everyone is used to living in this numb medium all the time. The best thing about Mastery is that it showed me that I am a goddess in any condition, not just when I am on top of the world. This is the richest that life has ever been. To have every day and soak it up in whatever form it is coming to you. That has been a huge thing for me.”
