I’m on what’s known as a "Deload week", and man, have I EARNED it. (This is not the confession. It's just a little self-aggrandizement before the public humiliation.)

I’ve finished another round of Rebecca Kennedy’s Hilit+ program on Peloton Strength. If you watched my keynote, you’ll remember Rebecca, the fitness instructor I use as my example of the Seductress archetype, whose gift is making you fall in love with your own progress. (Didn’t watch the keynote? It’s right here!)

Anyway, ten weeks of her peppy, cheerleading, Seductress energy had me lifting heavier than I have ever lifted in my LIFE. So yes, I needed recovery before my hamstrings rebelled and decided to retain legal counsel.

For the non-lifters: a deload week isn’t “do nothing.” It’s scaling back workouts for a few days so your nervous system, muscles, tendons, and joints can clear out built-up fatigue. Mine is basically a lot of long, easy walks, some mobility, and a full-body day of lighter lifts.

A deliberate week of less, so you can go harder after. (Americans... this is why you need VACATION DAYS, just FYI!)

My favourite bit of my deload this week was the walk on the very last day of the Hilit+ program.

It is pure Rebecca.... Maximum cheese, maximum millennial cheerleader pep, the poppiest playlist, and against every one of my instincts, a joy. It’s a 45-minute walk where you throw yourself a parade.

Yes. A parade. For Yourself. While you strut around your neighborhood.

I KNOW.

When she first said it I went “…wtf? No!” out loud.

Moody, teenage, goth Sylvie would have been appalled, and even more appalled by the playlist, stuffed with the exact 90s/2000s pop I loudly pretended to despise at the time and now get nonsensically excited about when it comes on at Trader Joe’s.

It seems the final stage of teenage rebellion is becoming a middle-aged woman who sings The Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” while buying organic courgettes.

Annnnnnyway…. I did the parade. (See, told you this was embarrassing!)

The session has you briskly walking outdoors to twelve tracks, and for each one, Rebecca asks you to imagine bringing a different special person into your celebratory parade.

So, the person you’d road-trip across the country with. (Or the continent, if you live somewhere small…. Hello, my Belgian readers.)

The person you’d go out partying with….

The one you’d let dress you and give you fashion advice….

She even gives you a float for your haters, people whose opinion used to matter and now doesn’t. Mine was a very large float, just FYI 😉.

There was also the friend you could call at 2am to help you bury a body, no questions asked. (I am reliably this friend for a number of people, and I think it’s the combination of not judging anyone for their choices AND having the biceps for digging. I do, however, draw the line at supplying my own shovel.... because.... Boundaries.)

There’s the person you can be completely unfiltered with, without any performance or show. The person you'd let into your house even if it was a mess, you're still in PJs and you haven't brushed your hair.

The friend who always builds you up....

…And the person you miss most in the entire world, the one you’d give anything to hear just once more.

I cried at that one. Brisk-walking around my own neighbourhood in my fluorescent activewear. Absolutely ridiculous. People must have thought I was unhinged.

Anyway, 2^nd embarrassing confession. I fricking loved this entire parade walk.

I found it beautiful for two reasons….

First, you spend 45 minutes thinking about a dozen wonderful people in your life (I DEFINITELY overran; some floats had to share space), and by the end, it's impossible not to feel incredibly uplifted.

But the second reason is that it sent me straight to Archetypes.

Look at that parade. Not one of those people is the same person….

The 2am body-burying friend is rarely the one you’d let pick your outfit.

(Please do not let me pick your outfit… seriously.)

The person you go deep and tender with is almost never the one you would cringe-watch Emily in Paris with, high on gummies, giggling at nothing, surrounded by gross gas station snacks.

The shoulder to cry on and the kick-up-the-arse friends are probably different people, although if you've found someone who can do both, marry them. Or at least give them a key and put them in your will.

Because we need different people for different things.

Different friends scratch a particular itch, summon a particular version of you, and let a specific part of you come out and stretch its legs. We contain multitudes, and we go looking for the people who draw those multitudes out.

Just look at parenting....

A good parent has to BE the whole parade.

Children are still figuring out who they are and what they need, so they need you to be the Mother, yes, but also the Teacher, the Authoritarian who holds the line, and the strategic Queen (I see you, parents project-managing college applications). Sometimes they need the Goddess who says, “Everything happens in its own time,” or the Seductress-energy parent shouting, “You are AMAZING, I am so lucky you’re mine!!!” from the sidelines of their pickup basketball game.

Even with just one kid, with one bedtime, you might find yourself pulling four of those in one evening.

Archetypes are universally useful and you already HAVE all of them inside you. Every one.

You’re just only fluent in one or two, while winging or dodging the situations that call for others.

It's like having six employees on the payroll but making the same two do absolutely everything. No wonder they're exhausted.

That’s the heart of my course, Domme Your Clients, and my upcoming ebook, The Dominatrix Principle….

Knowing how to read what the person in front of you needs, and meeting them with the right version of yourself, without playing a role or faking it.

These archetypes are all authentically, already you. You just haven’t learned to wield them expertly yet. In the course, I show you how.

And yes, it’s called Domme Your Clients, but even if you have no “clients”, it’s really for anyone who wants to show up anywhere… in any relationship, in any hard conversation, as the version of themselves that moment requires.

​👉 CHECK OUT THE COURSE ​

If you want to dip a toe in first, there’s a little taster unit called The Mother Tax. It walks you through two versions of the Mother archetype, dominant and non-dominant, and shows you what the non-dominant one has been costing you.

​👉 START WITH THE MOTHER TAX

That’s all from me today. Go throw yourself an embarrassing parade.

Bonus points if you snotty cry at some point in it.

Also.... tell me (if you want a special discount): if your friends were putting YOU in their parade, who would you be? What float are you? What are you known for in your crew?

Hit reply and tell me. I want to know what you’re famous for.

Lots of love,

Sylvie