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INTRODUCTION
The Heart of the Matter

Women are incredibly strong. Most women are inherently able to overcome whatever life throws at them in order to accomplish what is needed, often under dire circumstances. Along with a woman's ability to be strong is the capacity to do so without sacrificing the feminine qualities of wisdom, compassion, and empathy. Innately, women know how to balance strength with caring and respect. When we act from our hearts, which we often do, our strength is guided by kindness and sensitivity to the needs of both ourselves and others.

Society desperately needs the tempering and respectful energy of feminine strength. School shootings break our hearts, stories of abused women and children haunt our dreams, and elitist disregard for the feelings and rights of the vulnerable leave us seething. With good reason, our hearts are aching to make things better. Since our empathy and fury run so deeply, what keeps us from acknowledging and acting from our unique strengths? Why are we hesitant to use our gentle yet forceful power?

Two reasons: Conditioning 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.