My business is seven this week. I have been a business owner for seven years! Me! Yes, me! An entrepreneur. A female entrepreneur. I have a thing about proving myself as a female business owner – I don’t know where that came from, but I knew right from the start that I wanted to be respected as a businesswoman, running a successful company. And here I still am, proving that you can get over the lean years and flourish – financially and emotionally.
As I celebrate this milestone, I’ve been reflecting on the number seven. It is a pretty significant number, in all sorts of ways.
In Pythagorean numerology, the number 7 means spirituality. I have noticed my own spirituality increasing recently. After having coaching for myself the other day, I described the coaching as enabling me to grow into my soul. Now if that isn’t spiritual, I don’t know what is.
In music, there are seven notes in every scale. Those seven notes are used in so many different ways to create so much different music, no one tune being the same as the next. This reminds me of coaching – no individual is the same as the next, even if they want to talk about something similar to someone else. The way forward for one person will not be the same way forward for another, each of whom play their own unique tune in life.
Seven is a prime number, not divisible by anything other than one or itself. There’s something about that wholeness that resonates with me. We are all whole. We are not divisible. We are one.
There are seven days in every week. And on the seventh day, thou shalt rest. Hmmm, I sense a message in there for myself. I need to be more still. To pause. The Sabbath is the day of rest, and Sabbath takes us to sabbatical. If I were to take a sabbatical, what would that look like and feel like?
Shakespeare wrote of the seven ages of man, and in China, there are believed to be seven stages in a female life. According to those seven stages, we women come into menopause in the seventh stage at the age of 49. At the age of fifty, I really noticed a shift in my belief in myself and my own way of being. As we transition through the menopause, our bodies are going through an ending and making a new beginning (albeit with a very messy middle for some women). I feel that emergence from the chrysalis for myself in this seventh stage.
The stages of the moon are in 7 day periods, amounting to a 28 day month from New Moon to Full Moon and back. I have been tracking my energy with the moon over the past six months, and I notice how different tasks are easier at different times of the lunar month. I get more done in the waxing moon, I take stock more and (supposedly) take more rest during a waning moon. I’m experimenting. I can’t say I have it all figured out, but these 7 day periods are useful barometers for me.
There are seven deadly sins. Hmm, I hope I don’t fall into any of those, but as I have said before, I am by no means perfect. Gluttony sometimes, as I love cake! And will be enjoying cake on this seventh anniversary.
I could go on, as the internet tells me so much more about the meaning of seven. But I will leave it at that, with my celebratory cake. No seven-year itch for me – though it has to be said that I am looking to evolve my business in my eighth year, in 2023. Seven years of marriage is marked by copper. I don’t know what to make of that! Answers on a postcard maybe!
I hope you take the time to celebrate your milestones this year, however great or small they are. I’ll celebrate with you, all the way.
