What if I tell you that in order to take care of others, you must first take care of yourself.

What if I tell you that learning to stand up for yourself (often against yourself) is one of the most important things you can do in your life?

What if I tell you that standing in your power simply means standing in your integrity

 What if I tell you that if you wimp out, take the easy road, follow the beaten path, and listen to everyone and everything but your heart’s passion whispering to you that you will leave the world a weaker place?

Does it make a difference in how you see your world and your own next steps?

What if I tell you that you can act on your own behalf and that it will make a difference.

Will you believe me?

If you get this on a day when the world seems gray will you sneer and delete or will you see it as grace falling gently into your life with a message your soul has called to you?   Do you see the dragons as friends or enemies?

If you get this on a day when everything is humming will you say “of course” and delete or will you save it for the day when you are surrounded by screaming silence and need a friend?  Is is flowing because you’re growing and learning new things?   Or is it flowing because you know this territory – been over it for years – and are very comfortable with perfection and no mistakes?

Because everything passes:   the gray day and the flow.  Not because you are good or bad or deserving or not, but because that’s life.   Every day the sun comes up and goes down.   Every day the moon comes up and goes down.  Even when we can’t see them for clouds and weather.   They’re there.   Flying through space just like you and me on this great blue planet.

I’m writing this today because now more than every we women need to step into our power, get over the cultural disinclination to say woman and power in the same breath unless it’s praising a woman in a male paradigm of corporate power – which is not the kind of power I’m talking about.

I’m talking about power with each other and all our sisters and brothers on this planet (which is increasingly smaller daily).  Not power over.  Power over keeps everyone in bondage:  the one over and the one under.  Out of fear.  Fear has no place in true power.

True power, lasting power, comes from love.  And before you can truly love anyone else, you must love yourself.  If you don’t love yourself, you have no power to share with others except that based on comparison, judgement, fear and hate.

I wish I could wrap this up in 5 easy steps.  I can’t. I just know that it is important to get us all thinking and all in balance.  The ground is shifting under our feet.  If we don’t pay attention, we’re going to fall.  Now is not the time to be lulled into thinking that someone is going to take care of us.  We are not here for that.  We are here to learn to take care of ourselves and to share what we’ve learned about that with those still searching.

Today I’m a conduit – I had no idea where this post was going when I started and I’m not sure it’s finished (maybe because I can’t give you the 5 easy steps).  I’d like this to be a dialogue.  Won’t you share how you step into your power in the comments?

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

A people is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground.   Cheyenne saying

There is the power we’re all familiar with — power over. But there is another kind of power — power from within. For a woman, it is the power to be fertile either in terms of having babies or writing books or dancing or baking bread or being a great organizer. It is the kind of power that doesn’t depend on depriving someone else.  ….To live with integrity in an unjust society we must work for justice. To walk with integrity through a landscape strewn with beer cans, we must stop and pick them up….We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.   Starhawk