The Goddess as a Role Model for Who We Are Meant to Be

A softly glowing feminine figure stands before a mirror of light, seeing a more radiant version of herself reflected back, symbolizing becoming through alignment rather than striving.

Finding Alignment, Inner Authority, and Reflection Through the Goddess

For much of my life, I searched for role models who could show me how to be both strong and whole. I wanted someone to guide in being powerful without hardening, wise without losing tenderness, and spiritual without leaving my humanity behind. The models I found, whether in leadership, culture, or spirituality, often felt incomplete or unreachable, shaped by values that didn’t fully reflect my inner knowing.

The Goddess offered something different.

Rather than an abstract ideal or distant archetype, the Goddess became a living model—one that reflects back who we are capable of becoming. Through her many faces and stories, she embodies qualities we recognize in ourselves: creativity, compassion, sovereignty, courage, transformation. Working with the Goddess isn’t about worship alone; it’s about relationship, resonance, and remembering.

Illustration of a young girl looking up at a confident feminine figure, symbolizing the search for role models and healthy models of feminine power.

The Goddess as a Living Role Model

In this essay, I explore how the Goddess can serve as a model for who we are meant to be. This isn’t by telling us who to become, but by awakening what already lives within us.

In broad terms, the concept of the Goddess can be called the Great Mother, the Feminine Divine, or the Feminine Avatar of Source. But these are difficult to connect to on a personal, daily basis or to fully understand. However, we can connect to individual deities like Isis, Inanna, Brigid, Hecate, or Cerridwen. We can come to understand ourselves, improve our lives, and change our world when we work with the Goddess.

When I was growing up, there weren’t many women in leadership roles that I could look up to. The only one that comes to mind is Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel. I saw strong women on television, such as Samantha Stevens in Bewitched, Jennie in I Dream of Jennie, Diana Prince in Wonder Woman, and Charlie’s Angels. But they weren’t role models. (Yes, I’m aging myself 🤣.)

Role models show us the way to be better people. They have qualities we admire and want in ourselves and in our lives. We can observe how they do things to guide us in succeeding in life. They influence and motivate us to discover our authentic, true self and live our potential.

The Goddess is an excellent role model. She can help us become better people, reach our full potential, and succeed in life. Every Goddess has qualities we can admire and bring into our lives through resonance.

As a spiritual role model, the Goddess offers a feminine model of growth rooted in alignment, inner authority, and becoming who we are—rather than striving or self-improvement.

Two tuning forks vibrating in harmony, illustrating spiritual resonance and alignment rather than striving or force.

Resonance, Alignment, and Becoming

Resonance is when two things, like tuning forks or piano strings, vibrate at the same rate, or frequency. An interesting science experiment placed two pianos across from each other in a large room. When they struck the “E” key on one piano, the string for that key vibrated on another piano. This happens with tuning forks. When you strike one tuning fork and hold it near other forks, the one attuned to the same vibration as the one struck will vibrate.

Humans respond to vibrations in the same way. If you’re like me, you’ve had the experience of meeting someone and their energy immediately felt “off” or comfortable. You liked the “vibes” of the person who felt comfortable, and quite often you discovered they believed in similar ways as you did or liked similar things.

This principle of resonance applies to the Goddess and her divine qualities or attributes. As humans worshiped and worked with the Divine Feminine, we recognized—or assigned—different things to that deity and energy. One became known for creativity (Saraswati), while another for compassion (Kuan-Yin), and another for being free-spirited (Diana/Artemis). These Goddess became the epitome of that quality (or qualities). They hold this quality for humanity in its purest, truest vibration.

Abstract flowing sound waves connecting and overlapping, representing energetic resonance, alignment, and becoming through attunement.

When we enter the presence of the Deity, those aspects within ourselves begin to vibrate in resonance. This is our authentic, divine, natural state, and our bodies and souls want to vibrate in harmony with it. But after years of conditioning by society and our families—even well-meaning ones—our true state is hiding under all that debris and grime. If we use a radio analogy, we’ve tuned our receivers to FM 95 while the Goddess is transmitting at FM 105. The Goddess is the radio tower. It isn’t going to change what frequency is going out on the radio waves. It is up to us, the receivers, to dial into it. We have to turn our dials or tune ourselves.

When we do, we fully activate the Goddess’s qualities and attributes within us. They are already there. We just have to uncover them and allow ourselves to BE our authentic, divine Self.

A woman seated calmly with her hand over her heart, surrounded by soft concentric rings of light, symbolizing tuning into inner frequency and spiritual alignment.

How We Align With the Goddess

How do we attune ourselves to be in alignment with the Goddess’s frequency? There are several ways we can clear the static and adjust our dials.

Prayer and consciously connecting with the Goddess
Meditation and meeting the Goddess in our sacred places
Deconditioning through tapping, journaling, somatic therapy
Work with a therapist if we need to heal deep trauma
Affirmations to shift our conscious and subconscious beliefs—and to attune our energy
Movement with intention, chanting or toning shifts our body’s energy

We can connect with various Goddesses to awaken and activate those qualities in ourselves, or deepen those we already have.

Working With the Goddess in Daily Life

For example, if we desire to be more creative, we can connect to the Goddess Saraswati or Brigid. They have the quality of creativity, which we can emulate and bring into our lives. If I want to be a better leader, I can study and align with the Goddess Epona. Chanting Lakshmi’s mantra will create the vibration of prosperity and abundance in me, so I can attract it into my life. To understand time and the necessity of endings, I can work with Kali.

The Goddess shows us what we’re capable of doing or being. Sometimes, these encounters are gentle, and it’s easy to see ourselves in the mirror she holds up. Other times, our work with her changes the course of our lives.

While working with Amaterasu, I realized it was time for me to come out of my cave and share my love and knowledge of the Goddess. She helped me find the courage to shine my light, even though it was scary to share my innermost thoughts. As I looked into Amaterasu’s mirror, I saw my own inner beauty. I wouldn’t be doing this work now if Amaterasu hadn’t shoved me from my cave. She showed me that I had something of value to share with the world.

A grounded woman stands beneath a moonlit sky with a soft halo of light, representing inner authority, sovereignty, and becoming through alignment.

Relationship, Choice, and the Many Faces of the Goddess

The Goddess has many aspects we can work with, and we aren’t limited to just one or two, or even a single pantheon. My Goddess Council, whom I work with daily, consists of twenty-five Goddesses from many cultures. These Goddess choose to work with me, just as I choose to work with them. When a Goddess shows up in a meditation or in my thoughts, especially when I don’t expect her, my response is, “Welcome.”

If a Goddess doesn’t want to work with me, she won’t. I’ve had some Goddesses choose to leave my council while others show up unexpectedly. Some stay for years, like Hecate and White Buffalo Woman, who have been at my side for going on forty years. And others come into my awareness to teach me a specific lesson, then leave.

I enjoy connecting to the Goddess from around the world and from many cultures. When one comes in or I start to work with a new-to-me Goddess, I do whatever research I can to learn not only about her, but about her culture. I don’t follow any one pantheon like Greek or Egyptian, nor do I follow a specific path such as Hinduism or Wicca. Although many of my rituals and practices are similar to and grounded in modern Wicca, they aren’t the same. They are my personal practices developed from listening to my intuition and the guidance I’ve received from the Goddess.

A woman walking a moonlit forest path, symbolizing relationship with the Goddess and becoming through guidance, resonance, and reflection.

What Working With the Goddess Has Shown Me

The Goddess has become the role model I turn to over and over again to learn more about myself and to become the best version of myself. I’ve worked with the following Goddesses and how they’ve helped me. (This isn’t an exhaustive list!).

The Celtic Goddesses Cerridwen, Minerva, and Brigid guide my transformation, wisdom, and crafting.
The Hindu deities Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga, and Kali help me understand abundance, creativity, being a protector, and the cycles of life.
Amaterasu and Uzume, from Japan, guide me in being the sovereign of my life and audaciously embodying my feminine divine presence.
Kuan Yin helps me to have compassion and patience, especially in taking care of my elderly parents (93 and 97!) and in dealing with their various geriatric issues.
Then, of course, there’s Hecate, who keeps me on track in walking the Sacred Goddess Path.

Each of these relationships has shaped me, from subtle shifts to complete transformations. My exploration of the many aspects of the Goddess in Her many forms has helped me become a much better person. I’m more confident in myself and my abilities, and I’m living a more joyful, fulfilling life. I enjoy connecting to the Goddess from around the world and from many cultures and learning about them.

Over the years of working with the Goddess, my relationship with her has grown and transformed as I’ve changed and matured. I would absolutely not be the person I am today without my deep connection with the Goddess. During the past 15-20 years of my life, I’ve gone through intense personal work, transformation, and healing—all of it guided and directed by the Goddess.

From my experience, when I attune and align myself and my energy with the Goddess and Her qualities, I bring them into my life. I invite you to welcome the Goddess, in her many faces and forms, into your life to discover your full potential and remember your Divine Nature.

Becoming Through Alignment

Over time, my relationship with the Goddess has taught me that becoming who we are meant to be isn’t a matter of striving or “fixing” ourselves, but of alignment. When we attune ourselves to her qualities—creativity, compassion, courage, sovereignty—we begin to embody them, not because we force change, but because we remember what is already true.

Nearly fifty years of walking with the Goddess have shown me that she doesn’t demand perfection or devotion to a single form. She meets us where we are, reflects our own potential back to us, and invites us into a deeper relationship with ourselves and the world around us. Through resonance, we reclaim our inner authority and learn to trust the wisdom of our own becoming.

For those who feel drawn to work more intentionally with the Goddess, I’ve created a series of Goddess Mindset Transformation Guides. They’re designed as companions—offering practices, reflections, and support for integrating the qualities we awaken through resonance and relationship.

My invitation to you is simple: welcome the Goddess, in whatever face or form calls to you. Listen for what resonates. Allow her to show you what you are capable of—and remember your divine nature as you step more fully into who you are meant to be.

The Goddess often speaks through quiet recognition rather than answers. These journal prompts are offered as a way to continue the conversation—within yourself, and in your own time.

1. Where in your life are you striving or pushing to become “better”? If you approached this area through alignment and resonance instead of effort or self-correction, what could shift for you?

2. If the Goddess held up a mirror to you right now, what part of yourself is she inviting you to see more clearly—or more compassionately?

3. Using the radio metaphor from the essay, where do you sense static or misalignment in your life? What practices, relationships, or choices help you tune more clearly to your authentic frequency?