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and fear.

      THE HEART OF THE MATTER

      The heart of the matter is that women have been conditioned to play small and downplay their strength and wisdom in order to protect the status quo of male domination. We have been trained to hide our light and been curtailed by laws and customs. No more! The Chinese proverb “When sleeping women wake, mountains move” is being affirmed by societal shifts throughout the world. We are awake and deeply aware that our strength, wisdom, and compassion are needed. For our world to survive—for Earth to remain a beautiful, bounteous, and healthy environment—and people to live happy, productive, and cooperative lives, feminine energy must be acknowledged, honored, and empowered individually and globally.

      LIFTING OUR VOICES

      As I write this, a fatal shooting at a high school is being reported, the twenty-second in twenty weeks according to National Public Radio. Another heartbreaking example of the world's desperate need for feminine qualities and values to have a greater voice in planning, power, and leading. A voice that understands basic human needs for safety, education, and mental and physical health. A voice whose heart advocates for the well-being of all. My prayer for Strength: Meditations for Wisdom, Balance, and Power is that it helps women courageously claim and act from their inherent strength and gentle power. Although feminine strength has been downplayed and dismissed for eons, that must end now. We are called to find, and use, our natural feminine gifts of inclusion, wisdom, civility, respect, and acceptance privately and publicly. Women's gifts promote connection instead of separation and build up rather than tear down. Feminine ideals and ethics care for children rather than make it easy for children to kill children.

      It is my fervent hope that Strength: Meditations for Wisdom, Balance, and Power helps women own their deep-seated strength so completely that no amount of bullying can make them doubt it or keep them from acting on it. Feminine strength is a mighty and loving power that is greatly needed in order to civilize and humanize our dangerously out-of-balance world. It's up to us. And we can do it!

      WHY THIS BOOK?

      All my books begin in the fertile soil of my own growth, and Strength: Meditations for Wisdom, Balance, and Power arose from a steaming pit of outrage. Infuriated by huge injustices in the world and smaller ones I dealt with personally, I stewed and seethed and resisted and blamed. Prompted by deep unhappiness and gently persistent spiritual nudges, the therapist in me eventually kicked in, and I realized I'd succumbed to old patterns of downplaying my wisdom and giving my personal power away. Recognizing I was much angrier with myself than I was with “them,” I could figure out why I'd lapsed into self-sabotaging behavior, forgive myself for doing so, and begin the process of owning up to, and acting from, my innate strength and power.

      Because I have grown increasingly able to relate to myself and others from a place of Sacred Feminine strength, the last couple of years have been the happiest and most peaceful of my life. The same is true for many women I am privileged to know who are on similar paths. Since those of us activating our strengths and owning our wisdom are laughing more, sleeping better, reveling in life, and kicking some butt along the way, it was natural to want to share the journey with you.

      USING STRENGTH

      This book is a compilation of bite-sized meditations, stories, and musings on becoming stronger, happier, healthier, and more bodacious. Accepting, honoring, and activating sacred personal strength and wisdom facilitate change within us and encourage (or demand, if need be) the world to become a better place.

      Please use Strength: Meditations for Wisdom, Balance, and Power in ways that feed your soul, whether that is reading it cover to cover, opening it at random, choosing topics from the table of contents, or keeping it as a bathroom buddy. No matter how you are inspired to play with it, I hope Strength becomes your ally and you can hear me cheering you on as you courageously, compassionately, and gently become stronger and more empowered. I also hope it will make you chuckle on occasion.

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      DEEPENING CONNECTION

      Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.

      —HARRIET LERNER

      When we are connected to our essence, women can create magic. And our mystical heart-centered—yet extremely practical—strength is urgently needed now to right a world disastrously out of balance.

      Many women I know have had enough of heartless imbalance, inequality, righteous meanness, and downright disgusting behavior, and are committed to connecting with their feminine power and flooding the weary world with its constructive energy. To truly right the wrongs, privately and publicly, we must embrace the heartfelt feminine strengths of inclusivity, compassion, fairness, understanding, and the ability to be present and listen.

      As women, we have a deep and holy hunger to be connected to our authentic selves and to the hearts of others. We long to live in a world filled with balance, harmony, and happiness. For this to happen, head and heart energy must integrate and equalize. Because feminine wisdom understands and embodies heart qualities, we are the ones who can bring that crucial balance to fruition, and we are. Only when heart and mind complement each other will equal pay, equal say, and complete respect for all become reality.

      FACING FEAR

      One of the hardest things I've ever done is come face to face with how incessantly fear ruled my life. Love connects us to self and others and fear divides us. I believe all feelings and philosophies are on a continuum between love and fear, and for the first few decades of my life, I hung out at the fear end. Since babies are born more curious than fearful, how did I get to be such a scaredy cat? Partially, I was taught to be fearful, but mainly I absorbed it energetically from the circumstances and people around me. I was born on the only day that week my dad had found work, money was tighter than today's jeans, and war was on the horizon. With good reason, uncertainty was rampant.

      Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Society is once again in a time of transition, and it is not an easy one. Domination and imbalance need to change—in self, society, community, business, and home—and dominating people in entitled positions are not going to make that easy. However, facing and moving through fear will help us have the strength to bring about fairness, equality, and freedom for ourselves and others.

      The first step is to courageously face our fears. Everyone has fear. The faces of fear change as we journey through life, but one thing is undeniably true: unexamined fear has the upper hand. Unacknowledged fear weakens, diminishes, and silences us. Hidden fear dampens happiness and hobbles us to self-sabotaging behaviors. Let's disempower fear by gently becoming aware of it.

      During your day . . .

       With no judgment, courageously begin to notice big and little fears.

       If you think you don't have any fear, tenderly dig a little deeper.

       The fears we don't face become our limitations.

      —ROBIN SHARMA

      COMPLETING THE MOTHER CIRCLE

      My in-a-nutshell definition of completing the mother circle is accepting the mothering you received, no matter its quality, and then becoming your own good mother. My years in private psychotherapy practice affirmed my belief that a troubled relationship with her mother can become

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