Writers Launch Essay Collection to Celebrate Womanhood, Benefit a National Nonprofit, YWCA.
On Womanhood: Connecting and Thriving in Every Season, is an anthology featuring personal essays penned by women ages 21 to 72.
Just in time for Women’s History Month, the 11 writers are sharing a collection of experiences and musings on topics ranging from caregiving and decision making to family
dynamics, self-care and leadership.
The joint effort culminating in the publication of On Womanhood began in January 2021 as a mastermind course of how to write and publish a book, and was conducted over a 13-month period via teleconference calls, emails and Zoom meetings. Writers for the project are based throughout the United States, including in Richmond, Virginia; Savannah, Georgia; Houston, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada.
“This anthology project started as a way to help members of my Focused Writers mentorship program understand the process of going from book idea to book publication,” said Stacy Hawkins Adams, an award-winning, multi-published author and lead editor of the project. “The bonus has been the way this process has knit us together, with members of the group not only writing essays, but also helping with editing, formatting and the cover design. It has been gratifying to produce this project with this group of amazing women, and we hope it’s going to inspire and encourage many readers.”

Learn more about On Womanhood here: OnWomanhoodBook.com.
Rita Flores Moore is available for interviews, guest blog posts and speaking opportunities. Contact her at 720-SPEAKER or RitaMooreSpeaks@gmail.com.

The Focused Writers Membership Community was founded by author Stacy Hawkins Adams in 2015 as a way to mentor aspiring writers around the world. During their regular online and virtual interactions, Adams offers participants specific guidance on their fiction and nonfiction writing projects and general guidance about writing, publishing and author branding. Learn more about Focused Writers at focused-writers.com and about Stacy at StacyHawkinsAdams.com.

Many people go through life, without stopping to define themselves or take stock of their values and beliefs. This leads to confusion and, eventually, we settle for less than what we want. As a Life Coach I am trained to help people upgrade their lives. One of the most important tasks as a life coach is to help your client pinpoint what they want and take responsibility for examining and improving their life.

Being human can sometimes be difficult and challenging. Each one of us has a different set of needs, fears, and insecurities that express themselves within many stages of life.

A life coach can help clients to avoid feeling drained, bored or uninspired by responsibilities that are not important. Clients are able to reshape their lives around their values and make their lives less stressful and more relaxing.

People need guidance in the form of life coaching when they need to resolve confusion, dismiss self-doubt, make decisions and pave the path towards the realization of their dreams and goals.

Life coaching is a gradual process. A life coach helps someone to dig beneath the surface of their thoughts and beliefs and helps them understand internal obstacles to their success and wellbeing.

An Exceptional life coach is trained to ask you key questions that help unlock your potential and offer clues to your inner motivation and beliefs. Life coaching also works to ensure that we follow through on our commitment to a better life and become accountable for our actions.

Some of the important actions that I want to carry out for my clients are:

• Helping them identify and uphold their values
• Listen to their complaints, concerns, and challenges, and act as a non-judgmental sounding board for their ideas
• Provide empowering and motivational support, especially during crucial decision-making phases
• Help them form a clearer and more realistic vision of their future
• Work with them to formulate an action plan, and motivate them to stay committed to their progress towards their goals

The American Institute of Stress identifies workplace stressors as a major contributor to stress among American adults. In addition, a surprising number of people are living with depression. During this pandemic many are emotionally unstable or just uncertain about choices. “Where does it hurt”? “What can you do about it”?

One thing I know for sure, if your mind is strong and at peace your reaction to situations in challenging times will be different. You are not alone. Some may chose a therapist or counselor to develop positive thinking and coping skills. Some chose a coach. Coaching helps you analyze what’s important to you. While you will make all the final decisions on your own, a life coach can help you clarify issues.

Let’s Talk About It, click the link to schedule a consultation.

I did not write this post, it was spoken by Sarah Jakes Roberts. I am sharing it because it spoke to me and related to how I’ve been feeling lately. I am not a victim, I am a Blessed Woman of God, and I will begin again.

……..

 “I’ve gotta start over. I’m not gonna die hungry. I gotta live. I gotta find joy. I gotta find peace. I gotta be a good person. I gotta have character. If people have to leave me in order for me to do it, then that’s what it has to be because I gotta begin again. I’ve gotta snap out of this thing that makes me feel like a victim and say Whoa is me every time I look in the mirror, and I have to start looking at obstacles as an opportunity to start over. I gotta begin again. God is going to cover you when you can’t connect with people the way you used to. God is going to cover you when you risk the vulnerability that comes with surviving. God is going to cover you when you start to heal your heart so you can love again. God is going to cover you as you begin to go in the workforce again.

You’re not in this thing alone. There’s gonna be a hedge of protection around you when you begin again. What keeps us from beginning again is that we don’t want to hurt again. I barely survived the first time. It took everything I had to survive the first time, and now God you’re telling me that I have to begin again, that I have to start over again. And God says that I do not want you to make your comfort zone your God. I am your God, and I can only show you the power of me being your God when you step out of your comfort zone and dare to begin again, to live beyond the moment of surviving and to dare to live again. It’s time to begin again. It’s not just gonna happen. You’re not just gonna wake up one day and feel like it. You’re gonna have to pick yourself out of that bed and force yourself to begin again. You’re gonna have to force yourself to forgive. You’re gonna have to force yourself to forget those things that are behind you. You’re gonna have to start over. But God says when you start over you’re going to slay a giant that your family never has to face again.” ~Sarah Jakes Roberts

This article was sent to me a few months ago and I found it to be very relatable, so I am sharing it on my Blog.

The Mistake I Made With My Grieving Friend
The author of “We Need to Talk” reveals how she learned to help — and not help — a friend with loss.
Celeste Headlee Oprah.com

A good friend of mine lost her dad some years back. I found her sitting alone on a bench outside our workplace, not moving, just staring at the horizon. She was absolutely distraught and I didn’t know what to say to her. It’s so easy to say the wrong thing to someone who is grieving and vulnerable. So, I started talking about how I grew up without a father. I told her that my dad had drowned in a submarine when I was only 9 months old and I’d always mourned his loss, even though I’d never known him. I just wanted her to realize that she wasn’t alone, that I’d been through something similar and could understand how she felt.
But after I related this story, my friend looked at me and snapped, “Okay, Celeste, you win. You never had a dad, and I at least got to spend 30 years with mine. You had it worse. I guess I shouldn’t be so upset that my dad just died.”

I was stunned and mortified. My immediate reaction was to plead my case. “No, no, no,” I said, “that’s not what I’m saying at all. I just meant that I know how you feel.” And she answered, “No, Celeste, you don’t. You have no idea how I feel.”

She walked away and I stood there helplessly, watching her go and feeling like a jerk. I had totally failed my friend. I had wanted to comfort her, and instead, I’d made her feel worse. At that point, I still felt she misunderstood me. I thought she was in a fragile state and had lashed out at me unfairly when I was only trying to help.

But the truth is, she didn’t misunderstand me at all. She understood what was happening perhaps better than I did. When she began to share her raw emotions, I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say, so I defaulted to a subject with which I was comfortable: myself.

I may have been trying to empathize, at least on a conscious level, but what I really did was draw focus away from her anguish and turn the attention to me. She wanted to talk to me about her father, to tell me about the kind of man he was, so I could fully appreciate the magnitude of her loss. Instead, I asked her to stop for a moment and listen to my story about my dad’s tragic death.

From that day forward, I started to notice how often I responded to stories of loss and struggle with stories of my own experiences. My son would tell me about clashing with a kid in Boy Scouts, and I would talk about a girl I fell out with in college. When a co-worker got laid off, I told her about how much I struggled to find a job after I had been laid off years earlier. But when I began to pay a little more attention to how people responded to my attempts to empathize, I realized the effect of sharing my experiences was never as I intended. What all of these people needed was for me to hear them and acknowledge what they were going through. Instead, I forced them to listen to me and acknowledge me.

Sociologist Charles Derber describes this tendency to insert oneself into a conversation as “conversational narcissism.” It’s the desire to take over a conversation, to do most of the talking and to turn the focus of the exchange to yourself. It is often subtle and unconscious. Derber writes that conversational narcissism “is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in America. It occurs in informal conversations among friends, family and co-workers. The profusion of popular literature about listening and the etiquette of managing those who talk constantly about themselves suggests its pervasiveness in everyday life.” Derber describes two kinds of responses in conversations: a shift response and a support response. The first shifts attention back to yourself, and the second supports the other person’s comment. Here is a simple illustration:

Shift Response
Mary: I’m so busy right now.
Tim: Me too. I’m totally overwhelmed.

Support Response
Mary: I’m so busy right now.
Tim: Why? What do you have to get done?

Here’s another example:

Shift Response
Karen: I need new shoes.
Mark: Me too. These things are falling apart.

Support Response
Karen: I need new shoes.
Mark: Oh yeah? What kind are you thinking about?

Shift responses are a hallmark of conversational narcissism. They help you turn the focus constantly back to yourself. But a support response encourages the other person to continue their story. These days, I try to be more aware of my instinct to share stories and talk about myself. I try to ask questions that encourage the other person to continue. I’ve also made a conscious effort to listen more and talk less.

Recently, I had a long conversation with a friend of mine who was going through a divorce. We spent almost 40 minutes on the phone, and I barely said a word. At the end of our call, she said, “Thank you for your advice. You’ve really helped me work some things out.” The truth is, I hadn’t actually offered any advice; most of what I said was a version of “That sounds tough. I’m sorry this is happening to you.” She didn’t need advice or stories from me. She just needed to be heard.

I am a Distinguished Toastmaster and I enjoy writing speeches. On my blog I will be sharing some of the speeches I have written.
“All You Need Is Time” is a true story, but it didn’t happen to me. A friend shared her story with me and I put it in this speech.
Here it is:
When I was a young girl, I was taught the example of the good angel on one shoulder and the bad devil on the other. Were you ever taught that?

Had you been there 30 years ago you would have thought, she has lost her mind. You see, I was in a battle with my mind. I was very depressed, and while looking out of a seventh floor window I heard the good and the bad. My mother was just an arms length away. She didn’t know what was going on in my mind. The devil was saying jump, the angel was saying step back. I heard jump, step back, jump, step back. I felt her touch as she pulled me back and said, “All you need is time”. I still remember that time of my life, years ago, after graduating from High School, my first love and I decided to get married. When I told my mother, she said, this is not the right time. You are too young to get married, you can’t even cook! We got married anyway, we were in love, well, at least I was.

Less than two years later he filed for divorce. Totally unexpected, he just decided he didn’t want to be married anymore. Still loved me, but didn’t want to be married. I was shocked. I cried for days, I thought my heart stopped beating, but I was still alive. My mother had to stay close to me, she was really worried about what I might do. I wasn’t acting normal, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping. She tried to comfort me by saying, “all you need is time”. I can still remember how she held me and whispered in my ear, “Time heals all wounds”. You are still a young woman, “This too shall pass”. And she was right; I got over it, as soon as I found a boyfriend! I was fine:-)  I went on with my life, never looked back, and have been happy ever since. I realized that until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Time is on your side. Don’t ruin your life with hasty decisions based on what’s happening to you now. Remember, as long as you have breath in your body, you have time.

My mother passed away a year ago. She was well loved and we had many visitors come to pay their respect. While sitting with some of our guests, I noticed my sister staring and giving me a weird look, but I couldn’t figure out why. I finally got up and took her to another room and asked what’s wrong? She started to answer, but then stared beyond me. I turned, one of the guests had followed us, I asked him, is there something you need, can I help you? I saw something familiar in his eyes and little pieces of my life flashed before me. He said, “You don’t know who I am, do you? I haven’t changed that much have I? My mother’s favorite phrase was “All you need is time” and if ever I understood it’s meaning it was on that day. Thirty years ago I stood at that window and considered ending my life because of this man, and now, I don’t even recognize him. Imagine, if my mother had not been there for me, I would have missed having this wonderful life. All you need is time. Think about it, how many times have you done something and later said, “If I had just waited”. No matter what the problem is, no matter what the situation may be, it applies, have you considered that “All you need is time”? Say it with me, “All you need is time”.

I loved my mother and I miss her very much. Now when I have a tough decision to make, and I have the angel giving good advice and the devil giving bad advice, there is a third voice, my mother saying wait, “All you need is time”, and you have all the time you need.

I’m starting over without a main theme. I will blog about whatever my heart is feeling. Stay tuned for something different.