The Goddess Diaries

Annie Gersh is Goddess of the Week!

January 12th, 2012 · 2 Comments

Annie Gersh (third from left) with some of her fellow Girl Up Teen Advisors at the “Unite for Girls Tour” in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of Annie Gersh.

Annie Gersh is a Teen Advisor with Girl Up, a United Nations Foundation campaign designed to harness the energy and compassion of girls in the United States to help girls in developing countries. Annie is 13 years old and attends Marlborough School in Los Angeles. Her school is an independent all-girls school for grades 7 through 12 that is dedicated to helping young women develop self-confidence, creativity, moral decisiveness and a sense of responsibility as active global citizens. Annie is one of 16 young women from around the country that was chosen by the United Nations Foundation to serve as a Teen Advisor for the Girl Up campaign.

I had the pleasure of meeting Annie this fall at The Feminine Light in the Middle East Conference in Los Angeles, where I moderated a panel called “Girls Make a Difference.” Annie was on the panel and spoke about the impact of social media and how girls her age can make a difference in the Middle East, and for that matter, in the world.

What follows is my recent interview with Annie.

Tabby Biddle: Why do you think girls’ leadership is so important for our world?

Annie Gersh: Girls’ leadership is important because girls are half of the world’s population. When they are given the opportunity to be educated, they strive to make a difference in their communities and change the paths their families will take in the future. There are a few statistics that stand out to me: Girls reinvest 90 percent of what they make back into their families as opposed to men who reinvest only 30 to 40 percent; when a girl is educated she is more likely to marry later, have fewer children, and educate her children; and a child born to an educated mother is 50 percent more likely to reach the age of five.

It’s important that girls here in the U.S. take a stand and raise awareness for their counterparts in developing countries because we all have the same dreams and aspirations. We all desire to go to college, have productive jobs, and raise healthy families. Our only difference is the place that we were born. It’s not fair that a girl who is born in the rural areas of Ethiopia or the slums of Malawi doesn’t have the same chance to fulfill her dreams and aspirations.

TB: As a Teen Advisor, you are a leader in the Girl Up community. Tell me about some of the ways you have expressed your leadership.

AG: Since my tenure began with Girl Up in September, I’ve already taken action in a variety of ways. I helped form a Girl Up club at my school, Marlborough. We engage girls at our school by learning about the issues and doing activities – such as encouraging them to write letters to girls in Malawi, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Liberia during lunchtime. [These are the four countries where Girl Up is currently engaged.]

Additionally, I attended a private event and spoke to about 80 elementary school girls about the campaign and how young girls can get involved. I also spoke at a conference called The Feminine Light in the Middle East, which was hosted by the Institute of Women’s Enlightenment. I participated on a panel and my role was to focus on how girls can make a difference in the Middle East and how social media has an impact.

This fall I had the opportunity to plan my own fundraiser for Girl Up. I came up with the idea for the event and then planned, organized, and sold tickets to teens to attend a private movie screening of a recently released film. The evening was hosted by one of the young actors on the hit TV show “Glee.” I had solicited a popular local clothing store to donate several items that were raffled off to raise additional funds. Girls enjoyed the film, learned facts about the campaign and wrote letters to their counterparts. I was excited to hold my first fundraiser and to have it be a success. We raised over $800.

TB: Congratulations on the success of your fundraiser. Can you explain what happens to the money once it is raised?

AG: The way it works is that Girl Up raises funds to support UN Foundation programs on the ground to take them to scale in the four countries [Malawi, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Liberia]. There are already programs there established through groups like UNICEF and UNESCO. We raise the funds to take them to scale – to make them bigger, better, and to make sure that they have all the resources they need.

“Glee” cast member Max Adler teamed up with Annie as the celebrity host of Annie’s first Girl Up fundraiser. That night Annie raised over $800 for the Girl Up campaign.

TB: What are some of the most pressing issues facing girls in these four countries?

AG: In Ethiopia, which is right next to Somalia, there are a lot of issues with the refugees. There are so many girls there, and because they are refugees, they don’t get to go to school. Not being able to go to school is really hard on the girls in all of the countries. Tons of girls are not able to go to school because they are spending 4 to 6 hours a day getting water, because they are getting married so young, and because if there family doesn’t have a lot of money, and they have just enough to send one kid, they are going to choose to send the son.

“Men don’t reinvest in their families as much as women do. In these countries that are so impoverished, women are a huge part of the solution because if women are educated and can get good jobs, they’ll reinvest in their families.”

TB: What inspired you to get involved with Girl Up?

AG: About a year ago, I attended a Girl Up “Unite for Girls Tour” at my school. Queen Rania of Jordan gave an inspirational speech about the importance of educating girls and how to get involved. I was blown away to learn that there are girls just like me that lack opportunities, which I have always taken for granted. For instance, I never realized that some girls my age can’t go to school because they spend hours a day retrieving clean water – or that girls my age are forced to marry. It was almost unimaginable to me. Two former Teen Advisors spoke about their role with the campaign. Immediately I was inspired to become involved. I followed up with the community service director at my school and asked how I could play a role in the campaign. She suggested I help start a Girl Up club. A few months later she urged me to apply to become a Teen Advisor.

Annie was captured in this photo admiring Queen Rania at the Girl Up “Unite for Girls Tour” at the Marlborough School in Los Angeles. This photo was then published in the Los Angeles Times. Photo credit: Christina House.

TB: You recently met up with your fellow Teen Advisors from around the country. Tell me about that.

AG: One of the highlights of my involvement with Girl Up was attending the San Francisco “Unite for Girls Tour”. It was an unforgettable experience. I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with my fellow Teen Advisors who I had only met on video during our monthly webinars. I never imagined I could grow so close to a group of girls in just three days but we all share the same passion and interests. I had the chance to sit down with United Nation Foundation’s staff and learned a tremendous amount. We listened to several fascinating speakers and hosted our own Unite for Girls Tour for local San Francisco teens.

TB: What is a “Unite for Girls Tour” exactly?

AG: There have been seven in major cities across the U.S. Basically what happens is that it’s a big pep rally where there are five kiosks – four for the four countries we focus on, and the fifth one is the U.S. You are given a passport, and at each kiosk you do an activity and write down a fact that you learned about each country. You don’t get your passport stamped unless you write down the facts. For instance, at the Unite for Girls Tour in San Francisco, I was at the Ethiopia kiosk. So I was telling girls about the Stop Child Marriage Campaign, and about how in Ethiopia 1 out of every 7 girls is married before she turns 15. I was telling them just how crazy it was that girls who are close to their age are getting married to men that are the age of their fathers. To take a stand against child marriage, we had petitions at the kiosk that said: “I don’t,” instead of “I do.” So I encouraged all the girls to sign them.

Also at the Unite for Girls Tour a group called Project Girl Performance Collective performs. They are a theater group that raises awareness for women’s rights issues through their music. There are also celebrity speakers. The tour is just a great opportunity for girls who don’t know about the issues to learn and have fun by going to all of the different kiosks and participating in the activities. It’s great for girls to do these interactive things to understand what’s really going on.

TB: In terms of getting involved with the girls’ and women’s rights movement, were you influenced by any one in particular?

AG: Yes, my sister. She is 25, and she is a teacher at a charter school in Newark, New Jersey. She is a huge education advocate here in the U.S. She really inspired me to help. In my family, I’ve been so fortunate to get such a great education, but there are so many people who aren’t given that opportunity. She helped open my eyes to the fact that not only in this country, but also in Malawi, Ethiopia, Liberia, and Guatemala, the girls aren’t as fortunate and don’t get to go to school every day.

“To know that as a young girl I can be making a change means so much to me. It fuels me to want to continue to do more, to keep doing things in my community, and to tell more people about Girl Up.”

TB: What do you think is the key to motivating girls in the U.S. to get involved with helping girls in developing countries?

AG: I think the biggest thing is opening their eyes because most girls don’t know what’s going on with their counterparts. I think that once girls are aware, once girls know the facts and hear the statistics and the stories, they’ll be more inspired to make a change. I think raising awareness is really the biggest thing. And then once girls know, they can easily post things on their Facebook and on their Twitter, do lemonade stands, ask for five dollars, ask people to sponsor them, and make GirlRaisers.

TB: The UN Foundation uses the term “philanthro-teen” to describe the young women involved with the Girl Up campaign. How would you describe a philanthro-teen?

AG: A philanthro-teen is a girl who is motivated and inspired to make a difference. A girl who is globally minded and fascinated by what is going on around her. She is confident that she can make a change and strives to get her friends involved in the cause by using her voice and social media to spread the word. I believe I am a philanthro-teen and hope to inspire many other girls to be the same.

“It makes me really excited to know that I’m part of this huge women’s rights grassroots movement with not just people in my own country, but people all over the world,” says Annie. Photo courtesy of Annie Gersh.

TB: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

AG: Hopefully going to college [laugh] … Definitely going to college. I think I’m going to stick with women’s rights and civil rights. I’ll hopefully be going into politics so my voice will really be heard. More specifically, I’m probably going to want to go into Foreign Affairs. I’ll probably want to continue my work with the United Nations, maybe as an intern. If Girl Up isn’t still around, probably with other women’s rights and civil rights campaigns that are a part of the UN.

TB: How do you see the future of Girl Up?

AG: Hopefully in 10 or maybe fewer years all of the programs will have taken off and some of these issues will barely be issues anymore. That’s just all I can hope for – that there won’t even be a need because so many girls will be represented in these countries. They’ll be able to go to school and to have regular health check-ups. I really hope one day there’s a world where girls all over the world can go to school and get wonderful opportunities.

TB: If you had a loudspeaker that could be heard by girls around the world, what message would you want to impart?

AG: I would want them to know that because they are girls, they are all important. I want them to know that although they may be going through tough times, they will definitely overcome them and make it through if they persevere. I want them to know that there is a big group of girls in the U.S. that are fighting for them – for their rights, for their education, and for their safety. I want them to know that one day we’ll all be able to unite and all be able to have amazing educations. Although we may look different and speak different, we are all girls.

TB: What are some different ways people can get involved with Girl Up?

AG: First off, I urge everybody regardless of age, gender or anything else to go on the website and learn the facts and read some stories. Visit the Facebook page and Twitter page. I also urge people to make GirlRaisers, which are personalized web pages that you can post on your different social media and ask to get donations for Girl Up. Also there is the Girl Up Gear. You can buy it on the website. I think it’s neat when people walk around wearing their “Ask Me About Girl Up” pins or their Girl Up t-shirts. It’s a really good way to spread the word, and they are cute things.

To find out all the ways you can get involved with Girl Up, visit www.girlup.org.

All photos courtesy of Annie Gersh.

This interview was published last week in The Huffington Post.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, writing coach, and consultant dedicated to amplifying the voices of women changemakers. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband, Lee Schneider, and kitty, Max Frederick. For more information, visit tabbybiddle.com.

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Exclusive Interview with Nicholas Kristof: Women Hold Up Half the Sky

December 19th, 2011 · No Comments

Javaria lives near Lahore, Pakistan. Her mother, Saima Muhammad, was routinely beaten by her husband. Then Saima started a successful embroidery business. Her newfound prosperity won her husband’s respect and transformed her family’s educational prospects. Javaria is now in school and ranked first in her class. Her father, once disdainful of girls, says, “Girls are just as good as boys.” Photograph by Nicholas Kristof.

Two weeks ago in Los Angeles the Skirball Cultural Center launched their “Women Hold Up Half the Sky” exhibit, inspired by the acclaimed book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. The book was co-written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and husband and wife team, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and addresses the oppression of women and girls worldwide.

Two years ago, Dr. Robert Kirschner, Museum Director at the Skirball, saw a remarkable photo of an African woman on the cover of the New York Times Magazine. The accompanying articles were written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, based on their their recently-published book, Half the Sky.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, Dr. Kirschner said he wanted to use the book’s message to create a vehicle to engage the community and spur action to address the crimes and cruelties that are inflicted upon women and girls every day. He believes, as do Nicholas and Sheryl, that the oppression of women and girls is the human rights cause of our time. “I had the temerity to make a cold call that actually found Nick and Sheryl, and they immediately embraced the idea,” said Dr. Kirschner. Nick and Sheryl have been working with the Skirball over the past two years to develop the exhibition.

What follows is my interview with Nicholas Kristof, who writes an op-ed column for the New York Times that appears twice a week. Nicholas was in Los Angeles for the opening of the exhibit.

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn tell the stories of women and girls from around the world who have changed their lives through education, economics and self-determination.

Tabby Biddle: You write tirelessly about the atrocities facing women and girls around the world. Why are you drawn to this subject?

Nick Kristof: A couple of reasons…maybe three reasons. One is that some of the worst human rights abuses seem to me to involve gender. Second is that these tend to be neglected, and I think that we in journalism tend to do the most good when we shine our spotlight on issues that are neglected. And third, on a purely practical level, I think it’s hard to find a more effective way to make a difference on issues like global poverty, peace and justice without empowering women and turning them into catalysts for change.

TB: You are one of the few voices out there at a major media outlet championing the rights of women and girls. Why is this?

NK: Traditionally what we in the news business do is cover what happened yesterday. These kinds of abuses tend to happen every day. Things that happen every day are frankly what we in the news business aren’t good at covering because there is no one day in which they are news. So I think that’s part of it. I think that there is also a lot of inertia in terms of what we consider to have news value. If there is something that we have been covering, we continue to cover it because it’s on the global agenda. If there is something that we haven’t covered, then we think of it as something that isn’t newsworthy. So I think it’s the combination of inertia and the fact that these are part of the backdrop, and also they are typically issues that politicians aren’t quarreling about. I think the result is that they tend to get neglected.

TB: Why aren’t politicians quarreling about these issues?

NK: Partly it’s because we in the news business and the people in politics tend to reinforce each other in terms of what issues are on the agenda. More broadly these issues tend to be perceived as soft, peripheral issues that don’t have easy political solutions and that voters don’t usually care about. To some degree the extent of these issues are international ones. I don’t think that voters are particularly clamoring to address some of these issues, and likewise I don’t think television viewers are clamoring for networks to have more coverage of these issues, which is unfortunate, but I think that’s the way it is.

TB: At the launch of Women Hold Up Half the Sky, you said: “Maybe we in journalism spend too much time focusing on the terrible things that happen. They are very real, but you also have these triumphs like with Goretti and Saima.” [Nick was referring to two women who started their own businesses.] How do you feel covering the triumphs affects public consciousness?

NK: I do think that humanitarians and journalists alike have focused on all the things that go wrong, and that they sometimes leave the perception in the public that the war on poverty has been lost. That Africa is just a bottomless pit of despair. When in fact really the opposite is true on both fronts. There’s been enormous progress in the global war on poverty – stunning declines in the number of kids that die each year, for example. Most of Africa has been growing pretty quickly over the last 10 years or so. I do fear that we focus so much on the disaster areas that we mislead people to the perception that this is hopeless – and as a result, they tune out.

Nick with Somaly Mam from Cambodia. Somaly has dedicated her life to battling forced prostitution. After being sold as child to a Cambodian brothel, and enduring tortures and rapes, Somaly escaped and became an anti-trafficking activist.

TB: Do you think covering the triumphs makes a difference?

NK: I think humanitarian organizations should acknowledge the progress more than they do. I think that one reason people are reluctant to provide more help to Africa, for example, is this sense that it’s just hopeless, in a way that I think is untrue. The Gates Foundation has been trying to send that message out that there really is progress.

In the case of journalism, it’s harder, and I’ve sort of struggled with this. The basic problem is that we in journalism cover planes that crash, not planes that take off. So it’s sort of natural that we are drawn to war in Congo, genocide in the Sudan, AIDS in Southern Africa more than we are to economic development in Ghana or efficient, corrupt-free government in Rwanda.

In my travels I try to periodically do a column that acknowledges the progress, but I also have to say that I have done an awful lot more columns about Darfur or Eastern Congo than I have about the success stories. Then again it also seems to me that at the end of the day Sudan and Congo were still usually under-covered problems. So I struggle with that question all the time.

TB: Speaking of the success stories, the past couple of columns you did were quite positive. In the one that you did highlighting Room to Read and John Wood, you said: “The humanitarian world is mostly awful at messaging.” Can you say more about this?

NK: I think that humanitarians think that marketing is something that corporations do to pedal products, and they flinch at the idea of serious marketing of important causes. I don’t really care whether Toyota and Nissan market effectively, but it matters hugely to the world whether humanitarians can get the message out about malaria or about girls’ education. It frustrates me no end that every day I get these very professional pitches from corporations trying to sell products that don’t matter at all to the world. Then I see the most inept pitches from organizations about issues that would matter immensely to the world. I think the basic problem is that humanitarians flinch at the idea of marketing because they think that these issues are too important to be treated like that. But where lives are at stake, I think they are too important not to be treated like that.

TB: Do you think there is a new path in journalism in terms of helping these humanitarian organizations? In other words, do feel there is a place for the marriage of journalism and advocacy?

NK: I think one has to be really careful. It’s certainly easier for me as a columnist to dance with advocates, if you will. But I also think we need to keep a certain amount of distance because I want to be able to criticize forthrightly any aid group that deserves it. I think there is a built-in tension in that I think that a lot of us went into journalism in part to try to make a difference. And yet you can’t have everybody covering a city council meeting while trying to make a difference. There are some occasions when the issues you cover and the way you cover them that really leave you feeling you are doing some good and are leaving the world a better place. But you have to be very careful about the way you do that and the times you do that.

TB: You and Sheryl have a daughter and two sons. Are the rights of women and girls ever a topic of discussion at family dinners?

NK: Oh absolutely. We take family trips periodically and see these things firsthand. I think it’s been great for the whole family to talk about these issues and to travel together.

TB: Who are the women in your life who have been strong influences?

NK: My mom was a university professor, now retired, at a time when there were not a lot of women becoming professors. She cares passionately about human rights, about activism, and plays second fiddle to nobody. Then Sheryl is a good example of a strong woman who is a pretty strong argument for men and women joining forces to hold up the sky together.

TB: Speaking about men and women holding up the sky together, do you feel there is a difference between feminine leadership and masculine leadership?

NK: I don’t really know. I do know there have been a bunch of studies that have looked at this issue. They argue that male leaders tend to be more confrontational and conflict-oriented, and women more consensual. Maybe that’s true. When we were writing Half the Sky we did look at women national leaders. It seemed to us that, at least so far, it had made no difference to countries whether they had female prime ministers or presidents on issues like female literacy or maternal mortality. Having an extra x chromosome at the very top of the country didn’t really matter for those carrying extra x chromosomes at the bottom. But there is some pretty robust evidence that shows that it does matter when you have women leaders at the local level. In India, in particular, there is pretty good evidence that having a female village chief means that there’s less corruption. Probably because women are outside of the traditional networks to get pay-offs, and also that they pay greater attention to water, probably because collecting water is women’s work.

Nick Kristof in Congo. “One of the challenges in writing about this broad issue of women around the world is that there is a tendency to think of this as a worthy subject, but sort of a soft one. A little bit peripheral to the central issues of international relations,” says Nick.

TB: That’s interesting that there’s more of a difference when women are in leadership at the local level, as opposed to the head of a country.

NK: At least so far. One can make the argument that that’s partly because the first women to become national leaders tend to be either widows or daughters of male leaders from elite families. Or alternatively that tend to be very tough conservatives like Margaret Thatcher, for example. Maybe as we have more experience with women leaders it will be different. But at least so far I don’t think there is any compelling evidence that women leaders at the top make much difference for women at the bottom.

TB: In terms of more women coming into leadership, it seems obvious that we need to continue to create a global culture where women and girls are respected and valued. What do you think are some of the most effective ways to help make that shift?

NK: I think girls’ education is the single most important thing one can do. I think there is abundant evidence that educating girls changes almost everything. It not only helps those individuals, but it really does help the community as well. There is an African expression that if you educate a boy, you produce an educated man. If you educate a girl, you raise the whole village. I think that is true, and ultimately you are bringing women from the margins of society into the mainstream when you promote education like that.

TB: You emphasize the importance of educating girls in Half the Sky – in both the book and the exhibit. What do you hope happens as a result of the exhibit?

NK: I think the thing that excites us most is the possibility of it becoming a traveling exhibit and reaching people all over the country, and ultimately all over the world. One of the challenges with a book is that at the end of the day you have to have some pre-existing interest in the subject to pick up a book and read it. In contrast, you can go to a museum exhibit by accident, and then it can nurture an interest in the subject and awaken one to an issue. Eventually it leads one to perhaps read the book or at least get engaged in these issues. For Sheryl and me, it’s very important that we reach beyond the choir. We think that a traveling exhibit will be a great way to do that.

TB: What’s your outlook for the future in terms of a global culture valuing and respecting women and girls?

NK: I’m optimistic. I think that illiteracy is on the decline. More and more boys and girls alike are going to schools, and that is transformative for both genders. I also see that issues like sex trafficking are rising on the agenda – that people are beginning to pay attention to them. I see that family planning is steadily making more inroads around the world. Ultimately the benefits to countries of having women out of the margins and in the mainstream of their country and fulfilling an economic role – the benefits are so enormous that for purely pragmatic reasons, they can’t afford to leave girls uneducated and women outside the labor force. I think that this is a battle that the world is actually winning. I just wish that we were winning it a little more quickly than we are.

Nick Kristof with school children in Zimbabwe. “Sometimes there’s the danger that the problems are too vast and too depressing that one tunes out. I think it’s important to remind people that change is not only possible, but it’s under way,” says Nick.

TB: If you had a loudspeaker that could be heard by all men around the world, what message would you want to impart?

NK: First I would sort of push back at the question in that I think it’s a mistake to think of the problem as basically men. I think that very often women do extraordinarily nasty things to other women. When you look at opinion polls, there is a modest difference in men’s and women’s attitudes on gender issues. If you look at attitudes toward wife beating, for example, women tend to be slightly more against wife beating than men are, but only slightly. The best predictor of whether someone is for or against wife beating is not whether they are male or female, but whether they live in an urban or rural area, and whether they are educated or not. So I guess I would try to adjust my loudspeaker so I could reach everybody.

In this case my message would be – putting aside the moral issues, at a purely pragmatic level that if one wants a stronger country; if one wants to address environmental issues; if one wants to chip away at global poverty; if one wants to reduce the threat of civil conflict and terrorism; then there are no quick fixes to any of these problems. But in general educating girls around the world, and bringing those educated women into the labor force tends to work better than just about anything else. At the end of the day women aren’t the problem. They are the solution.

To help end the worldwide oppression of women and girls, join the Half the Sky Movement.

Learn more about the Women Hold Up Half the Sky exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center here.

All photos courtesy of Nicholas Kristof.

*This interview was published last month in The Huffington Post.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed. is an experienced journalist, teacher, blogger and writing coach with expertise in women’s issues, feminine spirituality, and the empowerment of women and girls. For more information, visit www.tabbybiddle.com.

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The Real Heroines in Media

November 3rd, 2011 · 2 Comments

Written by Tabby Biddle

Courage in Journalism Award recipients (L-R): Adela Navarro Bello of Mexico, Parisa Hafezi of Iran, Chiranuch Premchaiporn of Thailand, and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Kate Adie of the U.K. Photo by Tabby Biddle.

In the United States, many of us take the freedom of the press for granted. But in numerous parts of the world, freedom of the press is not the norm. Journalists face political harassment, threats of imprisonment, violence, and even death, simply for doing their jobs and reporting the truth. Many of these journalists are women, but all too often we don’t hear about them.

Fortunately the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) takes the time to honor and celebrate the incredible, brave work of these women.

Last week in New York and Los Angeles, The International Women’s Media Foundation recognized four women journalists for their courage and willingness to risk their lives to cover the news in order to shine a light on repressive governments, corruption, injustice and crimes against humanity.

In many instances these journalists are still under threat.

Take for instance Adela Navarro Bello of Mexico, who is the general director of Zeta magazine in Tijuana. Adela covers the corruption and escalating violence of drug cartels in her home of Tijuana. Investigative journalism is a very risky profession in Mexico when you look at the fact that over the last five years, nearly 50 journalists have been gunned down, including two of Adela’s editors.

Adela says that in Mexico it’s possible to kill a reporter and never be sentenced, arrested, tracked down, or even accused of your crime. Despite repeated death threats, Adela refuses to stop covering the drug wars. “If you don’t report what’s happening, you are an accomplice to these people,” says Adela.

“The thing that led me to journalism was the seeking of social justice,” says Adela Navarro Bello, general director of Zeta Magazine in Tijuana. Photo by Vince Bucci/PictureGroup.Parisa Hafezi, Reuters Iranian bureau chief, covers political unrest in her country. After Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tehran. While Parisa was covering the news, riot police attacked her and beat her with electric batons. Later, her office was raided by the Revolutionary Guard, she was abducted, interrogated, and accused of being a spy. “I kept thinking ‘My God, I’m just trying to do my job, and I’m being punished,’” says Parisa.

Despite having endured violent attacks, beatings, harassment, interrogations and detainment to report the news, she has never thought about leaving. “I love my job. I’m creating a difference. I’m doing something,” she said in an interview with me. “As a woman, I think I have a part in this fight and I shall continue it for the future of my daughters.”

“I keep thinking that maybe as an Iranian woman I can take this opportunity to help other women. I can help other people and help them be heard. That calms me down,” says Parisa Hafezi, Reuters Bureau Chief in Iran. Photo by Vince Bucci/PictureGroup.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn of Thailand is on trial for allowing visitors to her independent website, Prachatai, to post comments criticizing the Thai monarchy. She faces the prospect of a 20-year prison sentence for failing to delete the critical remarks.

In Thailand, the media has been tightly controlled by the government over the last 70 years. Chiranuch says she started Prachatai (“Free People”) in 2004 to ensure the rights of people to access information and to express themselves. In March 2009, 10 policemen raided Chiranuch’s office in Bangkok, ceased her computer equipment, and harshly interrogated her.

Despite the political harassment and threats, Chiranuch remains determined to speak out about Internet freedom. “Some of my family members want me to resign from my job,” she says. “But I try to let them know that the thing that I did is the thing that I believe in – courage in journalism.”

“Everything in Thailand is politicized. That’s why we turn to the Internet to find the truth and to speak out,” says Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director and webmaster of Prachatai online newspaper in Thailand. Photo by Vince Bucci/PictureGroup.

These women don’t let anything stand in their way of telling the stories that need to be told. They don’t back down. They won’t be silenced. These are the real heroines of media.

The International Women’s Media Foundation aims to increase women’s voices both as journalists and as sources. They have developed programs to cultivate women leaders and provide grants to media projects led by women. You can learn more and get involved here.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a journalist, writing coach, and consultant dedicated to amplifying the voices of women changemakers. Her writing has been featured by The Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, UN Dispatch, NPR, Current TV, Gaiam and other popular online media. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband, Lee Schneider, and kitty, Max Frederick. For more information, visit tabbybiddle.com.

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Joanna Lindenbaum is Goddess of the Week!

October 20th, 2011 · No Comments

“The inclusion of women as spiritual leaders in cultures and religions, in my opinion, is really what’s going to bring about the change in the world. ”

- Joanna Lindenbaum, Founder of Soulful Coaching for Busy Women & Creator of The Women’s Intuitive Leadership Program

Joanna Lindenbaum, founder of Soulful Coaching for Busy Women & creator of The Women's Intuitive Leadership Program, says anytime you move onto something new, you have to let go and leave something behind.

Joanna Lindenbaum is on a mission to help women reclaim their intuition and power in the world. “I believe with every fiber in my being that women have the power to transform the world,” says Joanna. As the founder of Soulful Coaching for Busy Women and creator of The Women’s Intuitive Leadership Program, Joanna has coached and taught thousands of women how to accomplish their big dreams and goals in alignment with their soul.

Joanna has participated as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and has presented over 200 thought-provoking workshops internationally, including seminars at Omega Institute, Renfrew Center, Womb & Belly Conference, Womongathering, among others.

This Brooklyn-based Goddess is committed to healing the world, one woman at a time.

Tabby Biddle: You have supported thousands of women to achieve success in their businesses and careers by teaching them to tap into their feminine wisdom and connect to their power. How would you describe feminine wisdom?

Joanna Lindenbaum: Your feminine wisdom is really the brilliance that is stored inside of you intuitively, and it’s been there since you’ve been born. It’s your birthright. It’s that part of yourself that knows exactly what’s right for you no matter what anyone or any institution from the outside is telling you. It’s that part of you that is innately connected to your body.

What I mean by that is that as women we have built inside of us this beautiful cycle. Each month we start something new in our wombs – we plant, and then it grows, and then something comes to fruition in one way or another, and then we release. That exactly mimics the cycles of nature and the rhythms of nature, which have innate wisdom. We have that built inside of ourselves. Those rhythms not only connect us to nature and the greater world, but also connect us to deeper truths and understanding.

Tabby: Many women come to you because they haven’t been able to fully claim their worth, their creativity and their highest level of talent. Why do you think women are challenged to claim their worth?

Joanna: I think that it’s because of the pervasive voices that are outside of us. For some women that starts at a really young age, like when they are infants, and then for other women who are a little more blessed, they don’t get exposed to this until they are in school. There are so many shoulds, have tos, need tos, and ought tos that come at us. Sometimes they seem so innocent. For example: “Oh you really should be a professional.” Or “You really have to wear your hair in braids because it keeps things neater.” Or “You really should finish all of your dinner.” As innocuous as some of those might seem, what that does is slowly eats away at that knowing we have inside of us – that feminine wisdom.

Sometimes it goes against what our bodies are telling us about when to stop eating, or what to eat. Then when we lose the confidence in that, we lose the confidence in ourselves. Or sometimes it goes against who we naturally feel attracted to, or who we are friends with, whatever it is – when the outside voices come in and tell us otherwise, we lose our sense of worth, and we lose our sense of self because we stop trusting ourselves.

Tabby: Do you think it’s different for women versus men, or girls versus boys?

Joanna: I think it is because of this one reason: So often those outside voices – the ought tos, the have tos, the shoulds – even if they are being told to us by women like our mother, our teacher, our sister – have really been handed down to those women via men at some point. So the whole game is slanted toward more of a valuing of the masculine, and a little bit of an undercutting of the feminine. With that being said, I think it happens to boys as well, just in a different way.

Joanna Lindenbaum at Energy Rich Conference

Joanna says that women are creating a new paradigm of power in the world.

Tabby: You use something in your coaching and your programs called “Woman Wisdom Success Principles.” What are these and where did they come from?

Joanna: The Woman Wisdom Success Principles are based on ancient principles of the feminine, which by and large have been lost in today’s culture because of years of keeping them hidden and prioritizing masculine principles. The Woman Wisdom Success Principles are actually a mixture of masculine and feminine principles. It’s about bringing back a lot of the feminine, and showing how they can really work well with the masculine.

Tabby: Can you give me an example?

Joanna: Yes, for example, one of the principles we look at is befriending your fear. There was a time when it was understood that fear was part of the process of growth and change. Women innately knew that because of the ways their bodies changed either monthly, or through labor and birth. But through the centuries and millennia, fear has become kind of a taboo word, or something you are supposed to hide from or not look at. But the truth is that when you don’t look at your fears and understand them, then they sabotage you.

Another example is the Destruction Principle. For a long time – if we look at Goddesses from around the world – people understood that destruction was a natural part of life. Letting go. Releasing. Getting older. Death. Letting things fall apart that aren’t meant to be anymore. All of this is a part of life. But through the millennia, that became hidden. So that it’s become all about “new” and production, doing more and building up, holding on and safeguarding against loss. I’m all about new beginnings and creating more. I love those masculine principles, but you can’t have one without the other.

Tabby: I saw you recently posted on your Facebook page a quote by Erica Jong that says: “Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.” What is your interpretation of this?

Joanna: The way I see it is that in any process of up-leveling or expanding, there is going to be fear that comes up. In other words, let’s say that you are a business owner and you really want to expand your business. You want to make more money. You want to bring your message out to more people. Inevitably, that’s going to bring something up for you.

Depending on who you are, it might bring up your fear of visibility. Or it might bring up your money story. Or it might bring up a fear of losing your parents because you’re letting go of some of their beliefs in order to expand, or you are surpassing them. Or it might just lead you to experience loss.

When you follow your talents and you bring your message out to the world, it ultimately creates so much, but you do have to move through those dark nights of the soul because that’s really your healing. That’s really the road to expansion.

Tabby: Speaking of healing, your Facebook Fan Page is called “Women Healing the World with Joanna Lindenbaum.” Tell me about the premise of this, and more specifically your view about women healing the world.

Joanna: I believe it’s the women who are primarily the ones that are leading the way right now. I believe the feminine principles of being, collaboration, and looking honestly at fears, and so many more, are coming up stronger and stronger in the world. I believe those are the principles – hand-in-hand with the masculine principles – that are really going to lead the change.

And of course men can do this as well, and there are men out there that do. But what I have seen is that it is primarily the women who are awakening the men, and leading the way.

Joanna was recently a guest teacher at the EnergyRICH BE Event in Florida.

What I’ve noticed in my coaching practice and speaking to so many women is that whether they are focused on their business, or their career, or their children, their family life, their marriage, or maybe a Board that they are on in their community – whatever their soul-centered project is – so many of the women are engaged and passionate about it not just because they sense how it’s going to change their lives, but because they see the ripple effect out into the world.

I believe you can be a woman healing the world whether you have a multi-million dollar business, or a book on the New York Times bestseller list, or if you are chaperoning on your kid’s field trip. The ripple effect is there and palpable.

Tabby: In your work, you talk about finding your inner voice and listening to your intuition. What has the process been like for you to find your inner voice?

Joanna: A little over 10 years ago, I was a curator in the art world. I loved what I did. I loved working with artists and putting together exhibitions. At the young age of 25, I was already in an amazing place in my career. I had just curated an exhibition, which landed my picture on the front page of the art section of the New York Times with a full-length article about it. I was publishing. I was traveling all over meeting artists. It was pretty amazing.

And yet, for all of this good in it, I was waking up day after day, knowing that there was something that wasn’t quite right. I was enjoying what I was doing, but I was also sleepwalking through a lot of it. I was rushing all the time. I wasn’t eating well. I was abusing my body a little bit. I was overworking, and things were a little meaningless to me. This went on for awhile, but I just ignored it.

I kept on having these voices that said, “This isn’t it. This isn’t it.” I knew that I was meant to work in a different way, and that I was meant to coach people and mentor people. But I just wouldn’t listen to the voices. I wanted the glory that came with being a curator at a major New York City museum. I wanted a salary that I could count on. I wanted health insurance. I wanted vacation days.

Until finally one morning I woke up, and the whole left side of my face wouldn’t move. I couldn’t close my eyes. I couldn’t smile. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t open my mouth to eat.

I thought I had a stroke. I went to the doctor, and they took one look at me and said it Bell’s Palsy.

Tabby: Wow.

Joanna: They said it’s a neurological disease, and we don’t really know where it comes from. But the only way that your face will look normal again is if you take these drugs. It was a whole cocktail of drugs. I was in shock. I had never heard of this disease before. There I was 25 years old. Looks really mattered a lot. I took the prescription crying.

That evening I took the first round that I was supposed to take. And as soon as a I gulped them down, a voice inside of me came up, and thank goodness I listened to it. It said. “This isn’t it. This medication isn’t going to do anything for you. It might make your face look better, but it’s not going to fix the problem.”

It was so difficult, but I decided to follow that voice and not take anymore of the medication. This was terrifying because the doctor said that there was a 99 percent chance that I would not recover unless I took the drugs. But I just I knew it was way bigger than that, and next time it was going to be something else.

I decided instead to do acupuncture, and start practicing yoga, and to change my eating habits. I also decided that I needed to take a look at what was going on with my career, and my life as a whole.

So I listened to that voice, and the more I listened to it, the more it told me to slow down, to trust myself, and that it’s okay to move careers and be in what I was sensing was my sacred purpose. The more it told me that it was okay to not do what my parents wanted me to do or what anyone else wanted me to do.

It did take a little longer for my face to recover than if I had taken the medication, but it recovered. Within eight months of having that experience, I left my job and I have never looked back.

Joanna with her husband, Jon, and daughter, Penina. "Motherhood has been the greatest teacher in my life up to this point," says Joanna. "Spending so much time with a vibrant child has reminded me to prioritize fun, curiosity, play."

Tabby: I know from our earlier conversations that you used to spend a lot of time leading Goddess Circles and Ritual. How did you first connect with the Goddess?

Joanna: I was in my early 20s. In New York, we have a place called the Open Center that has awesome workshops and lectures. I was flipping through the program for the upcoming season, and there was a description for this 8-week class called Woman Ritual. It was a very short paragraph description. I don’t even remember exactly what it said, but it said something about women have been the keepers of ritual for millennia, and something about opening to the sacred. Whatever it was, when I was reading that short paragraph, something inside of me woke up. I remembered the magic that I felt about myself and the world when I was a little girl.

I had to take the course.

"I am a total Lakshmi woman," says Joanna. "She's been with me for the last 7 years."

In that course, I learned about how women are inextricably connected with the earth, and how that related back to the Goddess cultures, and how every religion on the earth at some point has had this, except for maybe Christianity. That was really my entrée into the Goddess.

And through this program, I went to my first woman’s ritual. It was for the Winter Solstice. We were invoking the dark goddesses. I remember sitting in that room and just saying thank goodness this isn’t just about the light part of me. This is something that touches all of me. It was one of the first moments that I accepted the darker parts of myself because I could see how innate it was, and how it went hand in hand with the light.

I fell into that community and it changed my life.

Tabby: You are participating as an expert in an upcoming telesummit called “The Prosperity for Women Telesummit.” What advice can you offer women in their approach to prosperity and abundance?

Joanna: Number one, when you are looking at abundance, no matter what your money story or money situation is – the first thing to do is to look at your fears around money. What are the fears? Are you scared of not having money? Are you scared of having money? That’s a huge one! Are you scared if you have a lot of money you are not going to have enough time for yourself or your family? Or you’ll lose touch with yourself? So number one is befriending your fears about money.

From there, what’s of utmost importance is to learn the feminine art of reception. You can have the best business plan in the world. You can be making a great salary. But if you aren’t comfortable with receiving, then the business plan is either never going to work, or you’ll bring the money in, but you’re going to squander it away or lose it.

We’ve been taught the side of do, do, do; more, more, more; and go, go, go. We haven’t so much been taught a part that goes hand in hand with activity, which is the being … the opening up to being a vessel … the being happy to receive, and to take in. Not feeling less than because of it, not feeling bad about it, and not feeling like you cheated somehow because you get to receive.

Tabby: Do you think it’s different for women and men?

Joanna: I think it’s more how we use the feminine and masculine principles. So for sure there are men out there that don’t know how to receive. I think it’s more that the feminine principles haven’t been honored in society.

What I will add is that traditionally women in the family have been the givers, not the takers. They are the ones providing support, but they are not the ones necessarily receiving support. Support goes hand-in-hand with receiving. So if you’re just used to giving, giving, giving — giving out more than you are taking in – that’s going to affect your ability to receive.

Tabby: You are co-chair of the Board and Director of Programs for the REVEAL conference. I loved reading on the website: “REVEAL wants for nothing but complete justice for women in the world especially in the realm of the sacred.” Can you say more about this?

"I believe wholeheartedly in the power of women's intuition and women's community, and it's ability to propel women to their biggest dreams as well as contribute to healing the world," says Joanna.

Joanna: I think there are at least two aspects to that. The first is that for a very long time, in anyreligion you look at, either all of or most of the spiritual leaders have been men. That’s definitely changed a lot in the last 20 years, but there’s so much more to be changed there. The inclusion of women as spiritual leaders in cultures and religions, in my opinion, is really what’s going to bring about the change in the world. Bringing in that feminine wisdom. Bringing in the feminine principles is necessary – not that they are kicking out the masculine ones – they need to be there together – but women need to be there.

Then related to that, it’s important that women can see a reflection of themselves in God. However you want to define God – Spirit, Universe, Buddha, whatever it is – there needs to be a feminine face in it so that women are able to hold their bodies more sacred. So that they are able to hold their experiences more sacred; hold their emotions more sacred; and hold what they know inside more sacred.

Tabby: If you had a loudspeaker that could be heard by all women and girls around the world, what message would you want to impart?

Joanna: You matter, no matter what. You are sacred, and who you are is important.

To learn more about Joanna’s programs and events, visit www.soulfulcoach.com.

To sign up for Joanna’s bi-weekly newsletter filled with pearls of wisdom, intuitive tools, and powerful methods to move forward with your soul-centered project, click here.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, writing coach, and Goddess retreat leader dedicated to amplifying the voices of women changemakers. Her writing has been featured by The Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, UN Dispatch, NPR, Current TV, Gaiam and other popular online media. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband, Lee Schneider, and kitty, Max Frederick. For more information, visit tabbybiddle.com.

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Girls Not Brides: A Movement to End Child Marriage

October 6th, 2011 · 2 Comments

Photo Credit: Graham Crouch|The Elders

Every year 10 million girls are forcibly married, some as young as five years old. They become slaves to their husbands and often suffer sexual abuse and domestic violence. It’s terrible enough that these girls are being forced into marriage, but it’s even more horrific that they are also being forced to become mothers at such a young age. Did you know that the leading cause of death for girls between ages 15 and 19 is childbirth?

“People don’t seem to talk much about child brides … but I can not stay silent,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu last month at the Social Good Summit in New York City. Held during UN Week, the Social Good Summit was a partnership effort between the United Nations Foundation, Mashable, and the 92nd Street Y to bring global leaders together with a live audience in New York City and thousands around the world participating via Livestream.

At the Summit, Archbishop Tutu spoke about the launch of a new global campaign to end child marriage within a generation. It’s called Girls Not Brides. The initiative was established by the Elders, a group of eminent global leaders, of which Archbishop Tutu is the chair. “Once you have women liberated, it’s amazing how many other problems get resolved,” he said to a full house at the 92nd Street Y.

Agreed. Research shows that the practice of child marriage contributes significantly to core development challenges, including poverty, education, maternal and child health, HIV and gender equality. “Yet disturbingly, it has remained on the sidelines of the mainstream development debate,” said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and a member of the Elders.

I think it’s pretty obvious that if girls get a chance, in the form of education, they can be much more than child bride slaves. In fact, each year a girl stays in school, it boosts her future income by 10 to 20 percent. “And since girls and women are likely to invest 90 percent of their income in their families — as opposed to a man’s 30 to 40 percent — the education and empowerment of girls and women has an impact that ripples across a society,” says Jennifer Buffett, president and co-chair of the NoVo Foundation. Indeed, research shows that when girls in the developing world have access to education and are therefore able to earn a living, they move their families, and often their entire communities, out of poverty. This ripple effect is called “The Girl Effect.”

So what is Girls Not Brides doing about this?

They are bringing together organizations from around the world to tackle child marriage at the grassroots, national and global level. There is a wide rage of players, from community organizations on the front lines to international agencies. Together they will help mobilize all necessary policy, finances, and other support needed. Some of the specifics include defending the rights of girls to health and education, and providing them with opportunities to fulfill their potential.

Girls have been at the bottom of the power pyramid for far too long. They have also been at the bottom of the human rights agenda. As you might imagine, the practice of child marriage violates several international human rights agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. While the practice of child marriage has been rooted in the traditions of many communities for generations and has remained largely unchallenged, this is all about to change.

To join the movement to end child marriage, visit the Girls Not Brides campaign.

Become a part of the 2011 Girl Effect Blogging Campaign. This is a collaborative effort of hundreds of bloggers coming together to write about The Girl Effect during the week of October 4th-11th, 2011. Your voice will make a difference!

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, teacher, and women’s empowerment advocate dedicated to raising awareness around issues affecting women and girls and helping young women develop their political voice. She received her Master’s degree in Education from Bank Street College of Education and her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Colby College. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and kitty cat.

An earlier edition of this blog was published in The Huffington Post.

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The Paradox Around Female Sexuality

September 29th, 2011 · No Comments

In many parts of the world women are valued based on their chastity. Whether you are in India, the Middle East, or even in the United States, there is a religious and cultural obsession with female virginity. The irony is that if a woman is found to not be a virgin (whether true or not), the punishment is often rape, or even worse, a stoning to her death.

Can we really be living this way in the 21st century?

The chasm between men and women is a sad one, and in many cases, horrific. But we have the power to change this, and I believe are in the process of it right now. Last week in New York City at the Clinton Global Initiative I listened to President Bill Clinton talk about how the power differential between women and men really has to do with one group defining themselves by power over the others. “For too many of us, our identity is focused too much on whether we have control over someone else’s life,” he said. “That’s still the fundamental problem for women and girls all over the world.”

Bride burnings, genital mutilation, mass rapes, acid attacks, sexual slavery, and domestic violence are happening every day to women on a large scale. Did you know that an estimated 140 million women and girls are living right now with the consequences of genital mutilation, and globally, at least one in three women and girls has been beaten or sexually abused, or will be in her lifetime?

If we continue to turn our attention away from this, we are in for a long haul of global instability, war and poverty.

Photo Credit: Pius Lee

Think about it: Women are the ones who bring new life into world. Both physically and symbolically, we are the vessel of life. We are also the nurturers and caretakers of our families. If a woman or girl’s body is violated, her spirit becomes violated too. She suffers, and in turn the world suffers with her.

So what do we do about this?

I believe the first step as a Western woman starts with honoring ourselves. What I mean by this is that in order to have the power and capacity to help our sisters around the world, we need to first make sure that we are honoring ourselves as women on a very personal level.

Here are two important things you can do right now:

How to Reclaim Your Feminine Power

Honor and respect your body. You are a beautiful woman with tremendous power and potential. Start to recognize this in yourself. As you do this, others will treat you with the same respect. You will also help other women claim this beauty and potential within themselves. Make an honest effort to love your body and give Her positive attention. Your body is a sacred vessel of feminine wisdom. Whether you birth children in this lifetime, or birth ideas into being, your body is the divine vessel.
Learn about the history of the world when the feminine was honored and revered. From 30,000 B.C. until around 3000 B.C., the Goddess was the primordial power. It has only been in recent history that a male God and man were considered superior. A great book I recommend to learn more about the history of the Goddess and the later transition to patriarchy is called The Chalice and the Blade, written by Riane Eisler.

At the same time you are reclaiming your own feminine power, you can help other women reclaim theirs. Here are three things to choose from:

How to Help Other Women Reclaim Their Power

Use your voice to help women come out of silence. There are too many women suffering in silence, afraid to speak out, or conditioned to think that it isn’t even a choice. You have the ability to speak out against the atrocities happening to women. Use your voice in your community through social media, blogging, radio, television, presentations, etc. The more you use your voice to speak up for the rights of women and girls, the more you step into your feminine leadership and encourage other women to do the same.
Join with V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided funding that opened the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq; sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan; convened the Confronting Violence conference of South Asian women leaders; and so much more. Join the V-Day movement here.
Join the UN Women campaign, UNiTE to End Violence Against Women. There is power in joining forces with others, especially joining together as women. Whether you want to start an action, join an action, or manage an action, you can get involved at some level. Join UNite the End Violence Against Women here..

I believe that if we as a human race are going to evolve to the next level and make our way out of global poverty and into a more peaceful and prosperous future, we need to re-define our relationship with each other, and with female sexuality.

The old version of the dominator and the dominated cannot exist anymore. Today the world is calling for us to work as partners, honoring the feminine and masculine within all of us. This I believe is the ticket back to our real power as a human race.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, speaker, and women’s empowerment advocate dedicated to raising awareness around issues affecting women and girls and elevating female representation in the media. She received her Master’s degree in Education from Bank Street College of Education and her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Colby College. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and kitty.

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Reclaiming Aphrodite

August 25th, 2011 · 6 Comments

Written by Tabby Biddle

Truth be told, I never considered myself an Aphrodite-type of Goddess. I am more of an Artemis, Tara, or Saraswati. Action goddesses. Doers. Seekers. Creatives. Even though I am well aware that we contain every single aspect of the Goddess within us, Aphrodite always felt like an archetype for someone else.

So when my friend Amanda Young suggested a few months ago that we co-lead a Goddess retreat together (Amanda is the founder of Urban Goddess), I didn’t imagine the next words out of her mouth would be – an Aphrodite Retreat. But then again, why wouldn’t I? Amanda oozes with Aphrodite energy, and that’s also the way the Goddess works. She always brings us challenges to reawaken the sleeping parts of ourselves.

Now I have to give myself more credit. I have always been a romantic; have always been about the body and being embodied; and have always loved sensual pleasures such as massage, physical touch, dancing, movement, good food, beautiful surroundings, nature, flowers and more flowers. Where I have lacked in my Aphrodite-hood (yes, I’m making up a word), is feeling completely comfortable in my feminine sexuality. I’ve actually been a little intimidated by it, and frankly, unsure of the powers that might be unleashed if I fully embrace it.

Does anyone else relate to this?

The reality is that when we were young girls, we flaunted our Aphrodite energy with a twirl of our skirt, a shake of our hip, and our complete presence in our body. We didn’t question this natural energy that ran through our body and spirit. But at some point it got violated. Either physically, or even through one look. For some girls it was subtle and for some it was severe. But it all counted. Of course we would close down this part of ourselves if we felt it would put us in danger in any way. So we did.

But today, we can’t afford to hide this part of ourselves away anymore. I believe that without full access to our feminine sexuality and feminine sensual nature, we are cut off from a sacred and wise part of ourselves and ultimately, our true power.

I believe it’s time for us to embrace our feminine sexuality and sensuality, full tilt.

I am grateful to Amanda for inviting me to co-create this beautiful retreat together. Throughout our process I have been blessed with opportunities to continually awaken and reclaim my inner Aphrodite. Each day I step further and further into my femininity as I bellydance, do my morning hip swirls and sensual yoga flow, swim in the juicy nectar of the ocean, spend delicious time with my husband, nap and cuddle with my sweet, sweet kitty, and connect heart to heart with women friends, celebrating ourselves as the sensual goddesses that we already are inside.

Our sensual feminine bodies hold the key to so much wisdom and compassion that the world is calling for right now. Giving ourselves permission to explore this part of our nature is a great gift to ourselves and frankly, I think, to the rest of humanity.

While this may sound a little overboard to some of you, I promise you, it’s not. I have seen woman after woman come more fully into her power and creative potential as she embraces her sensual Goddess nature. (This includes me.) We are happier, our life has more flow, our relationships improve, and we are clearer about our vision for the future and our purpose in the world.

While it may have served us in the past to reduce our experience of pleasure and our own feminine sexuality in order to protect ourselves from unwanted attention, from danger, and for a host of other very good reasons, today I believe this denial of our feminine nature is actually harming us.

It’s really up to us as women to support one another in rediscovering, reclaiming and revaluing our Aphrodite nature. I believe so many gifts will come from this – for ourselves, and for our world.

Amanda Young and Tabby Biddle will be hosting the Aphrodite Goddess Retreat in Malibu, CA on Saturday, October 15.

Learn how to enroll and secure your spot today.

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Tanya Paluso is Goddess of the Week!

August 5th, 2011 · 5 Comments

“The inner game of building your tribe is that we have to share our souls with one another and we have to get that we are not alone. When we connect with that part of ourselves, and then tell on ourselves essentially, that’s when people feel most connected to us, and that’s how we build tribe. It’s through our truth telling and through our vulnerability.”

- Tanya Paluso, co-founder and CEO of Tribal Truth

Tanya Paluso, co-founder and CEO of Tribal Truth, says feminine leadership is about leading others to find their own answers from within instead of telling people what to do.

Tanya Paluso is on a mission to help women reclaim their true expression and shift the planet to a new paradigm of feminine leadership, partnership and collaboration. She is the c0-founder and CEO of Tribal Truth, a national community of spiritually-conscious women entrepreneurs empowering, collaborating, and supporting one another as they share their message with the world through online social networking and live events. “Tribal Truth puts a tribe behind women’s dreams,” says Tanya.

With her lifelong passion for community building, Tanya has become known to many as “The Tribe Builder.” Check out the wisdom coming through this inspiring Goddess …

Tabby Biddle: You are on a mission to help women reclaim their true expression in life. Why are you so passionate about this?

Tanya Paluso: I’m a truth seeker and have been on this path since I was little. For me, we are on this earth for a reason and it is so important that we step into our purpose. We each have a unique gift to share and it’s our duty in this lifetime to find out what that is and express it in the world. I am passionate about women being empowered and awake to share their gifts as a way of us ending our suffering.

Tabby: Can you say more about the suffering you are talking about?

Tanya: There’s suffering of people in third world countries that are starving and going through wars – there’s that type of suffering. But what I’m talking about is people who are living in a first world country who have material wealth, and are still suffering. What I am seeing in the world is that we have people the most disconnected, lonely and unhappy in probably all of human history. I think it’s when we start to consciously wake up and live on a path of purpose, we find that happiness, that connection, and that fulfillment.

Tabby: You talk to women about putting a tribe behind their dream. Why do you think a tribe is so important for women?

Tanya: Tribe is critical right now for our success in transitioning to the new paradigm on this planet. The new paradigm is full of love, abundance, peace and collaboration. There is no separation. We are all connected. We are all one tribe. There will be some subsets of the global tribe that resonate with your message and purpose. We want to find those people to leverage our message and make more of an impact. When you do things on your own, it’s like you forget the connection piece. You lose out on opportunities for growth expansion and community. There is something also very powerful about tribe because of the friendship with purpose.

Tanya with her Tribal Truth co-founder, Novalena Betancourt, in a Tribal Truth sistership circle. "It's the deep relationships that develop from the sistership circles are really the glue of Tribal Truth," she says.

Tabby: You describe the new paradigm on this planet as full of love, abundance, peace and collaboration. Where does your “knowingness” of this come from?

Tanya: Are you familiar with the Pachamama Alliance? I did the Awakening the Dreamer facilitator training program with them this weekend. Their whole quest is bridging the indigenous from the Amazon with modern technology so that we can save the planet. They have what’s called a Symposium. It’s a 3 to 5 hour workshop teaching people about where we are right now in terms of environmental, social justice, and spiritual fulfillment on the planet, and then what we can start doing as individuals, and as a community to start developing a more sustainable world.

We did an exercise this weekend where they said: “Many of you have been on this path since you were children and you’ve had this inner knowing.” Most of us started crying in that moment. I’ve always known. It’s just that intuition, that inner knowing, and that connection with spirit that we all have. I know that there is a better way of doing things versus all of our systems and institutions that are starting to crumble. War just doesn’t make sense. As I go further on my path and with Tribal Truth, I’m more and more in that knowing. It’s becoming more and more ingrained in every cell of my body.

Tabby: You mentioned that you’ve been a truth seeker since your were little. Tell me about that.

Tanya: In middle school my mom basically yanked me and my brother out of Sunday school and said: “You believe in whatever you want.” She grew up going to Catholic School, and said, “I don’t want you to do that. I want you to make your own decision.” That left a profound mark. I started to do a little research and reading. I didn’t have a spiritual practice, but I had this interest in Asian medicine, in acupuncture, and in Buddhism.

Tanya with her family in San Diego.

In high school, I was sick a lot. Pretty much through all of high school I dealt with illness. I remember crying to my mom, “I’m sick of being sick.” I just felt so lost. I was surrounded by community, but I felt so lost and unhappy and was suffering so much. That continued through college, and continued through when I moved to New York when I was working in Corporate America. I just felt really lonely. Then someone introduced me to Landmark Education. That’s when the spark went off for me.

“I immersed myself in the work there, and that completely opened up the path for me. It was like I was unveiled.”

And so from there, I went to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. In that program where you are learning how to become a health counselor, I was working with this woman who was highly spiritual. She was the first one to teach me about the connection between the mind and the body, and how any pain in my body was a manifestation of some thought or some feeling. That really opened me up. I just wanted to eat up every little spiritual lesson. Then I went to Vipassana meditation as I transitioned from New York to California. That took it to a whole new level. I’m actually going this month. Since I’ve moved back to San Diego, I go every August.

Tabby: Aside from founding Tribal Truth, you founded a non-profit called Play 4 Life. Tell me about that.

Tanya: Play 4 Life is a non-profit to teach inner-city kids about health and nutrition. It is still in existence, which is exciting to know I started something, gave it away, and it was sustained. The way it started was that when I was working in Corporate America, I started a community project for the women in the sales team to mentor girls. I loved the work, and wanted to do something bigger. It started as an idea to bring yoga into schools. Then I found out about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I started school there a few months later and started down the path of holistic health, spirituality and making a difference for others.

Tabby: What does being a feminine leader mean to you?

Tanya: Being a feminine leader to me means finding the balance between feminine and masculine. We need the masculine in business — the structure, accountability, results. We need the feminine so we can tap into our internal power and intuition so we don’t burn out our adrenals and thyroid from “pushing” too much. Feminine leadership is really about getting our needs met so we can make a difference for others. It’s about speaking our truth and connecting with others. It’s also about leading others to find their own answers from within instead of telling people what to do — where sometimes I go when I’m super passionate. So this is a work in progress.

And most importantly, it’s understanding our connection to Mother Earth and awakening ourselves to the issues on this planet and how we play a role in it and how we can soften people away from hate, oppression, aggression and war to a more loving, peaceful and collaborative place.

Tabby: Your community is called Tribal Truth, you encourage women to speak their truth, and your blog is called Truth Telling Tuesday. Truth is obviously a big theme for you. What does Truth mean to you exactly?

Tanya: You know what’s so cool? I didn’t even name the company. Novalena came up with the name Tribal Truth. It didn’t really make sense to me when she made it up. Why Tribal Truth? Then she transitioned out, and Tribal Truth has become such an expression of who I am. As we transitioned out of our partnership, that’s when my voice really came alive. It’s just starting to dawn on me what’s been created and what an amazing download that came to Novalena. I am so grateful for her.

The Truth Telling Tuesday – that’s who I am. What I mean by that is authentic, vulnerable, wear my soul and my heart on my sleeve. I’ve always suppressed my voice, and now it’s coming out in such a major way. But that’s always who I’ve been – the seeker, always looking to go deeper. It’s so funny because I’ve just kind of discovered that, but that’s how everyone has always known me. It’s like an unconsciousness that then reveals itself.

“This weekend I shared about my breakup and I was crying. And people said, ‘Oh my God. That’s so beautiful to see you open up.’ Their hearts went out to me when I shared that vulnerable place in myself.”

It’s those emotions we think we can’t share, and think we have to hide them because people are going to judge us. It’s not about airing your dirty laundry, but it’s about sharing that inner part of yourself that you don’t necessarily want people to see. That’s when you heal and that’s when people feel connected to you. It takes so much courage. I am not telling people that it is easy. But you are going to have the most healing when you do it.

Tabby: Did you ever struggle with finding your purpose?

Tanya: Of course I’ve had challenges on my journey to find my purpose and I think it is important for women to know it’s taken me since 2004 on this path of self-development to finally come to Tribal Truth. Here’s the thing: I always stayed in action, kept searching, growing and developing myself, and kept evolving. My advice is just get started. You will eventually find your perfect fit. And even then, it will continue to change and grow as you do.

Tabby: What does being a Goddess mean to you?

Tanya: There are different elements. The first is the connection with the planet, and the connection with the earth and nature. I think of myself as a kid walking barefoot in the forest. That’s the first image I get of the Goddess. The second is the softening – the listening, the stillness, and the sadness. The Goddess is like our compassion for Mother Earth and for all human beings. And then nurturing. There is the nurturing element. And then of course there is that aliveness, and the dancing, and coming together in community and celebrating. I see all of these as different aspects of the Goddess.

Tabby: Do you feel there is an awakening of the Goddess going on in both women AND men?

Tanya: Oh yes, absolutely. It’s interesting all the conscious men coming about right now. I call it men stepping into being the peaceful warrior. There are so many men who are coming on this path and are aching for it. They are on this quest for their purpose, and then they are trying to figure out how to interact with us. It’s an amazing conversation that’s happening. I think there are a lot of men who are starting to see the connection between taking care of Mother Earth and taking care of that feminine energy that is starting to emerge on the planet.

Tanya in a fashion show in San Diego, raising money for Jeans 4 Justice, a non-profit dedicated to ending sexual violence through creative awareness campaigns and education programs.

Tabby: If you had a loudspeaker that could be heard by all women and girls around the world, what message would you want to impart?

Tanya: You are not alone, and don’t try to do it on your own. Find your tribe where you can be fully self-expressed, where you feel safe, and then connect. Allow yourself to be part of it.

To learn more about Tribal Truth and find out what is happening near you, visit www.tribal-truth.com.

To participate in a Tanya’s FREE Tribe Builder Teleclass on August 10 – How to Apply The Oprah Effect to Inspire Your Tribe Into Action – click here.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, writing coach, and Goddess retreat leader dedicated to amplifying the voices of women changemakers. Her writing has been featured by The Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, NPR, Current TV, Gaiam and other popular online media. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and 4-month old kitty, Max Frederick.

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Suparna Bhasin is Goddess of the Week!

July 7th, 2011 · No Comments

“I feel the common denominator of what it takes for someone to be successful is faith. There’s just simply faith in your abilities when you move forward in a direction that doesn’t feel certain. There’s faith that you’re going to be okay. I think the people that have faith in something bigger than themselves, in themselves, in their Goddess, are really the ones that end up going forward.”

– Suparna Bhasin, Founder & CEO of She Creates Change, President of the Board, Women’s Education Project

Interview by Tabby Biddle

Suparna Bhasin, founder & CEO of She Creates Change, says as women we don't actually have to work so hard or figure everything out. We just have to surrender. "But we can't surrender when we our in our victim. Then we are just passive," she says. "So when we stand in our power, we need to stand in our Goddess."

Suparna Bhasin is on a mission to help women find their voice and true calling in the world and build a global network of women who support, encourage and collaborate with one another as they pursue their passions and create change in their work and the world. She is the founder and CEO of She Creates Change, a women’s empowerment company based in New York City, and is President of the Board of the Women’s Education Project, a non-profit dedicated to helping young women in India move out of poverty and into college and careers that are meaningful to them.

This visionary Goddess is building bridges to empower and connect women from around the world. Just watch as She Creates Change …

Tabby Biddle: You are committed to helping women find their voice and true calling in the world. Do you believe everyone has a calling?

Suparna Bhasin: What a great question. I do actually believe that everyone has a calling. This is based on the idea that we all have a higher purpose to serve and there truly is a reason for all of us to be on the planet at this time. The distinction inside of my work is that not everyone is paid to do their calling. For instance, I believe being a parent or grandparent is a calling.

Tabby: How do you help women come to peace with the fact that they might not actually be paid to do their calling?

Suparna: The truth is that the women who find me typically are. That’s actually why they find me because my work is centered around women monetizing their calling. I was just reading this book called Goddesses in Every Woman. The author talks about all the Greek goddesses, including Hera, Demeter and Hestia – which are the goddesses of marriage, motherhood and the hearth. These kinds of women are not typically drawn to me. The woman that is drawn to me has a lot of Artemis energy, which is that warrior energy. She is out there making things happen.

So when these women come to me they have something they feel they are here to do professionally, but they are not doing it. They are stuck in jobs that are very masculine, that are depleting, that are toxic, and that they hate it. They are looking to do something where they are giving their feminine creative goddess gifts. We want to help them understand how to monetize this so that they can actually be doing it in a full-time way.

Suparna says the best part of her work is when a woman takes her coaching and comes back and tells her about a miracle that has happened in her life. "Nothing makes me happier than watching her get it, and do it, and have it happen," says Suparna.

Tabby: What have you found to be some of the most common things that get in the way of women discovering their calling?

Suparna: Society as a whole is moving into a new day where people are looking for more fulfilling, meaningful work rather than work that is based on an old model of survival. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs outlines this as well by pointing us from the bottom of the pyramid from survival-based needs to self-actualization at the top of the pyramid. The educational model in place today doesn’t support this newer quest so we as a collective are in a new place and our system has not lined up with it. To add more frustration to the process, women as a whole are also new to the world of work so they have not had proper time, nor training, to find work that aligns with their authentic self.

“Many women have ended up in very masculine-based roles and are left feeling depleted and discouraged with nowhere to turn.”

We also live in an economic time where risk is now more discouraged than ever before. Many women come to me in tears expressing how much they hate what they do but they are being told to “buck up” and “be happy” that they have a job at all. This type of rhetoric doesn’t leave space for someone to feel safe and empowered to pursue their dreams. Because they have nowhere positive and supportive to turn where they feel they can actually find answers, they stay.

Tabby: Why do you think that masculine-based roles deplete women?

Suparna has spoken to thousands of people around her work of helping women find their calling.

Suparna: What’s happened in the world on a macro-level, and of course we are living it individually, is we are overwrought with our masculine. As women it’s not actually healthy to be running more masculine energy than our feminine energy because it is not our true essence. That’s not to say we don’t have a masculine side and that it’s not worth developing. But when it’s overdeveloped at the expense of our feminine, it’s not our natural state so it’s depleting.

Couple this with the fact that oftentimes not only are women in a job that is not truly aligned with their essence, they are in a job that is in the wounded masculine environment. They are being asked to be in an arena that is so far away from their true nature it literally depletes them from an energetic, karmic soul level.

Tabby: Can you say more about the wounded masculine and what you mean by this?

Suparna: If we think about it there’s the light masculine and the dark masculine and then the light feminine and the dark feminine. The wounded masculine is that energy that took Wall Street down in ’08, and we also see it a lot in government. It’s that greedy, aggressive, power-struggle ego energy. The mindset is: I’m not going to win unless you lose.

The wounded masculine is that energy of scarcity and domination, but the light masculine isn’t. There is nothing wrong with corporate America. Corporate America is not inherently evil. It’s the shadow of what’s been created that is actually the problem.

Tabby: And the wounded feminine?

Suparna: Where the women have fallen down in terms of the wounded feminine is when a woman gives her power away and becomes passive. It’s when she becomes a victim. So the way to counterbalance this is for us as women to take our power back out of the shadow feminine and into the Divine Feminine to create equilibrium in the world.

“I say to my clients: Don’t stand in your wounded masculine. Stand in your Divine Feminine.”

Tabby: You serve as the President of the Board of Women’s Education Project. In terms of finding their purpose, what similarities do you find between the women you work with in the U.S. and the women you serve in India?

Suparna: I actually chose the Women’s Education Project because it was so aligned with the work I do with women here in the United States. Essentially the work parallels because both groups are looking to follow their hearts and create a life based on their authentic selves. The women are relying on the generosity of others to support this endeavor because they live on less than a dollar a day. Many to most of our women in She Creates Change support themselves but have also found themselves disadvantaged in a different way.

Suparna serves as President of the Board of the Women's Education Project, a non-profit dedicated to sending young women in India to college and into careers and a meaningful future.

Tabby: You are bridging women in the U.S. with women in India through hosting events that support the Women’s Education Project. Can you talk to me about the power of women helping other women around the world?

Suparna: I think it’s incredibly important because I think as women when we help each other we actually help the world. When you help a woman in India – when you save her life – you save the community because she is the one that really runs the community so to speak. It’s the idea of this Gaia energy – a woman overseeing the family. It’s a very familial community-based world, in India especially.

"It only costs $250 to put a woman through the program for an entire year," says Suparna. "That's about the cost of a dinner in New York ... It's a small ask, but it makes a big difference."

Eventually when my business can sustain it, I’d love to give $250 for every woman that goes through my program here. For example, say the program was $1750, $250 of that would go to the Women’s Education Project. That’s the cost for a woman in India to go to college for a year, so it becomes a one-to-one model.

“We just more than doubled our revenue from the previous year. We want to triple our revenue next year. The more success my business has here, the more leverage I have to do that over there. We have plans to expand the Women’s Education Project in other parts of the world.”

Tabby: Did you struggle with finding your purpose?

Suparna: Wow, in 10 years of doing this work no one has ever asked me that. I will answer the question this way — growing up and all through my mid-twenties I had no idea what I wanted to “be when I grew up.” I was highly motivated to find the answers and felt empowered and safe to pursue my interests and dreams, so by my late 20’s I did know what I wanted to do. In my 30’s the work I have done has taken several different forms but ultimately I found my way. There were definitely though a couple of sustained periods of time where I loathed what I was doing and suffered greatly. I sometimes feel I needed those experiences so I could truly empathize with my clients.

Suparna enjoys some time with friends on the Hudson River in NYC.

Tabby: Did you grow up in India?

Suparna: There’s actually a name for people like me. They call us ABCDs (American Born Confused Desis). Desi is an Indian/South Asian person. I was actually born in Cleveland, Ohio. I am American born, but of India descent. I’m first generation. My parents were born in India and came here in the ‘60s.

It’s a very interesting question because I really do identify more with being Indian – but for a long time I didn’t want anything to do with India or Indian people. Then I sort of had a knee-jerk response to that when I was 30 and turned that around. I became more proud of being an Indian woman than anything else. I now feel its one of the best parts of me.

Tabby: What was the knee-jerk turning point for you?

Suparna: I was doing a summer share in the Hamptons in my late 20s and it was with a group of 40 Jewish kids. My friend Jodi and I were sitting at a table with these two Jewish guys and they were fighting over which of their guy friends they were going to set her up with. I was just sitting there and it was literally like I wasn’t even there. I started to question myself at the end of that weekend: Here I am in a house full of 40 Jewish kids, why am I not in a house full of 40 Indian kids? What had me do that? So I skipped the next Hampton weekend, and went to an Indian event and ended up making some friends. One of my best friends in the whole world came from that network. Now I have a balance.

Suparna launched She Creates Change on her 38th birthday. The company's two-year anniversary is coming up in August. (This means a very special birthday is around the corner for Suparna.)

Tabby: What does being a Goddess mean to you?

Suparna: The timing of this invitation came at such an interesting, synchronistic time. Every month as part of a membership program that I run, we choose a topic and a book. In June the topic was “The Goddess Within” and the book assigned to my women was Goddesses in Every Woman. The same week you asked me to be Goddess of the Week, I was scheduled to speak on this topic for the first time in my career. Had you asked me this question a month ago I wouldn’t have been able to give the kind of answer I can give now.

“What a Goddess means to me is to be fully alive in my power and operate from a place of self-love. What it also means to me is to embrace many different aspects and facets of who I am as a woman — a lover, a leader, a warrior, an aunt, a daughter, …”

Tabby: What are some things that nourish you?

Suparna: Thank you for asking this. There’s something I do called a morning practice. This has been lifesaving for me, and if you interviewed 100 of my women, they’d tell you the same for them as well. This is the way I describe it to people: Do you brush your teeth? Of course you do. Do you brush your hair? Of course you do. Well, do you brush your soul?

It’s taking the time in the morning to actually brush your soul. It includes a spiritual reading, journaling to move through emotional stuff you could be holding onto, then meditation, then exercise (whether its yoga or stretching), then a nourishing breakfast. No radio. No TV. No noise.

“The faster you want to go, the more you need to slow down. I find that to be true every time for me.”

How you start your day is going to be an indicator of how your day goes. For me typically, you won’t see me doing too many meetings or calls before 11am. Ninety-nine percent of the time if I have a meeting or call in the morning, it’s for my personal growth. And weekends are totally off limits. My mornings and weekends are sacred.

Tabby: If you had a loudspeaker that could be heard by all women and all girls around the world, what message would you want to impart?

Suparna: Don’t be afraid to use your voice and stand up for yourself. Don’t be afraid to say who you are and ask for what you need, and then move forward from that place. The second thing I want to say is that you don’t have to do it alone. Isolation is not good for the soul.

To learn more about She Creates Change, visit www.shecreateschange.com

To learn more about the Women’s Education Project, visit www.womenseducationproject.org

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, writing coach, and workshop leader dedicated to amplifying the voices of women changemakers. She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post on issues affecting women and girls, and leads Goddess retreats and workshops to help women find their feminine voice. Her work has been featured by the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, NPR, Current TV, Gaiam and other popular online media. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband and new kitty.

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Amber Krzys is Goddess of the Week!

June 2nd, 2011 · 9 Comments

“I think that any major issue that anyone struggles with all boils down to the same thing, which is ‘I don’t feel worthy. I’m not loveable.’ It all seems to boil down to that crisis. Inside, we all just want to be loved – and we put these barriers in front of us because it’s also kind of scary.”

– Amber Krzys, founder of bodyheart

Interview by Tabby Biddle

Amber Krzys, founder of bodyheart, says that most people don't believe that it's actually possible to love the body that they have. "They think they need to change their body in order to have value," she says. photo credit: Courtney Lindberg

Amber Krzys is on a mission to change the way women relate to their bodies and to ultimately bring more balance to the world by celebrating femininity and the ‘ART of a woman.’ Amber is the founder of bodyheart, an educational program and movement encouraging women to celebrate the ART of their own form.

Growing up as a dancer/actress and working professionally on Broadway, in television and in film, Amber experienced firsthand the pain of negative body image and trying to fit an “idealistic mold of beauty.”

During the process of receiving her Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology from The University of Santa Monica, Amber overcame her cycle of body punishment and negative self-image and developed the core curriculum for her signature workshop, bodyheart 101. From there, the bodyheart campaign was born.

Tabby Biddle: Bodyheart is devoted to healing body image issues and celebrating the female form. Why is this so important?

Amber Krzys: I believe this is important on so many levels. Our body is our vehicle in this life. It houses our spirit and, quite honestly, is full of it’s own wisdom if we take the time to get to know it. Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn’t support this concept, especially for women. Many women cut themselves off from their bodies early on in order to succeed or even because they learn at an early age that their body is shameful and/or not good enough.

Negative body image and self-loathing create such a heavy burden in the mind and body. This culture is so obsessed with perfection and ideals that we have lost ourselves in the process. Young girls today are being affected as early as age 6. I’d like to get back to a time where children are free to be children and women are free to be women, and bodies are considered valuable no matter their size, shape, age or color.

“I personally believe that the final step in embracing our femininity is owning and celebrating our body as the magnificent, pleasure-filled creation it is and is meant to be.”

Tabby: When women start to love their body, what are some of the other benefits that come along with this – for the women personally and for all of us as a global community?

Amber: I talk about this in my workshops quite a bit. The obvious benefits are increased confidence and freedom. Many women don’t realize how much space is taken up inside their heads thinking about their body and what they are going to eat, what exercise they will do, or how they are going to lose weight. If those thoughts of punishment, blame and criticism went away, what amazing creation could appear? I know because this is what happened to me. Once there was space for more – that’s when bodyheart came into existence.

“Most people do not believe it is actually possible to love the body they have. They think they need to change their body in order to have value,” says Amber. photo credit: Courtney Lindberg

My life is totally different now. Instead of restriction or meanness, I have space for compassion for my body. And, that transfers to all other areas of my life. My relationships have improved because I now believe I have value. When we know we have value, we walk around differently in the world. We are more centered … more at peace.

"I love my appendectomy scar. It is a daily reminder of my process of learning to listen to my body," says Amber.

Regarding the global community, I believe that the microcosm affects the macrocosm. Many women are walking around every day in an abusive relationship with themselves and their bodies. They are at war inside. Fighting on a battlefield everyday. Personally, I feel there is enough war in the world, so I put all my energy into ending the war and finding peace inside myself. I believe that does affect what is happening out there. I may not serve in the armed forces, but one thing I can do is stop the fighting inside myself. That IS one thing I can control.

Tabby: You grew up as a dancer/actress and worked professionally on Broadway and also in television and film. How did this career path affect your relationship with your body?

Amber: I was highly affected by my choice of career. The entertainment industry can be extreme and very harsh. The dance world thrives on competition and comparison. You are literally in class in front of a mirror for hours on end. Of course comparison is going to flow out of that. At least it did for me.

Amber performing in the musical "Chess" with Matthew Morrison (Glee) at the Ford Ampitheatre in Los Angeles.

Since I can remember, I’ve always had a desire for perfection and have really pushed myself to be that in all areas of my life. But, I didn’t become super obsessive about my body until after I moved to Los Angeles. I can remember sitting with an agent who asked me to lose weight around my thigh and hips, and spending time in a relationship where my boyfriend told me he wished I were taller, thinner and had bigger boobs.

These, of course, were all of my own insecurities rising to the surface, but I didn’t see it that way at the time. It became an opportunity to blame, torture and punish my body. I treated her — my body — like a child who was misbehaving. She deserved to be punished because she wasn’t what she was supposed to be, which was taller, thinner and with bigger breasts. The career intensified these feelings because there are certain expectations associated with the entertainment industry. So, if I didn’t book a certain job it was because I was too fat. And that meant the next day a whole new round of punishment would ensue. I am so grateful to be out of that cycle now!

Tabby: You have been a devoted student of S Factor for the past three years, and have gotten to the point, you have said, where you call S Factor class “therapy.” Tell me more about that.

Amber: Yes, it is definitely a form of therapy for me. It is one of the only places in my life where I give myself permission to get lost in the present. I actually leave my brain and let my body lead. My senses are so super alive. I’m aware of everything … my hand moving across the cool floor, the softness of my skin, the scent of my shampoo, the lyrics and emotion of a song, the pleasure I am experiencing inside my body as she becomes electrified.

Amber says S Factor is a form of therapy for her."I can let my guard down there and be seen," she says.

S Factor is also a sacred, safe space for me. There are no mirrors and class is led in a dark room. But more importantly, the connection with the other women in class is 100 percent supportive. I can let my guard down there and be seen. I am accepted and embraced whether I wear make-up or not … whether I’ve gained five pounds or not … whether I’m happy or sad. It’s okay there. I can cry or scream or be sexy there. That is very much like therapy to me.

Tabby: Right now women’s leadership is such an important topic. How do you feel a woman coming to love her body could help her as a leader?

Amber: I think there is great significance in this. For most women, when you are not comfortable in your body, you tend to want to hide it. You want to not only hide your body … you want to hide your voice. You don’t want to be seen. So as a leader, you are dimming your light. No one is getting all of you.

I think there is a real link to empowering the whole woman. How you are showing up in the world has a lot to do with your body. You have all of these things – your mind, your feelings, your connection to spirit — that come together inside the physical form. The body is really the link. If women are hiding, it’s a disservice. In this day and age I think our world really needs femininity. It needs to bring back a balance. I think one of the final steps of really moving that forward in this world is owning this body as enough.

Tabby: You talked earlier about women being at war inside. As women come to love, appreciate and respect their bodies, what do you think is the effect on men?

Amber: What I really notice with my clients is that there is a dynamic in relationships where if women are not comfortable inside of their body, they are basically blocking off access to pleasure and they want to hide – so the physical intimacy inside of a relationship can be challenging. I did a survey that asked men if they have ever been in a relationship with a woman who is very self-critical of her body. A good number of men wrote back and what I found out was that for them being in a relationship with a woman who is very self-critical was so tortuous for them. This is because they look at women and they see beauty. They see this amazing work of art that most women aren’t willing to see inside of themselves. When a woman is willing to stand forward and say, “I am perfect right now just as I am,” what happens inside of a relationship is a greater bonding, more closeness, and a deeper intimacy.

Tabby: Speaking of women as amazing works of art, you are using your voice to grow a movement of celebrating the ‘ART of a woman.’ What have you had to overcome in order to use your voice in this way?

Amber: In many ways, I have been very lucky. I have never had an issue talking to large groups (thank you acting training), or sharing my truth. I have always found value in hearing others’ stories, so I try my best to share mine as honestly as possible with those wanting to hear. I think it’s important for us to know we aren’t alone. So, I am so grateful for this gift.

I guess the biggest challenge for me has been getting the message out into the world. It’s definitely not easy going against the grain and that is what bodyheart does. Most people do not believe it is actually possible to love the body they have. They think they need to change their body in order to have value. When the truth is if our bodies need to change, they will do that pretty easily when we start respecting them and taking care of them.

“There is also a readiness factor to this work. I do not offer a quick fix. bodyheart is a daily commitment that takes great courage, honesty and vulnerability. Some women are ready for that and some aren’t. I trust those who resonate with this material will take action and join the bodyheart army. That’s how I like to view us … a force in the world setting out to reclaim our true beauty and worth!”

Tabby: You are growing awareness of your work through the bodyheart campaign. How does the campaign come to be?

Amber: The bodyheart work started as the educational program. That’s the workshops and coaching that I offer. But then I realized, some women are ahead of the game and are walking the walk and taking care of their bodies. I started to ask some of my friends that I admire – who put themselves and their bodies at least in their top five priorities – if I could photograph them. So I started taking pictures of women with hearts on their face and their favorite body part. I did it for two reasons. The first is because I really wanted to get a conversation started about what we love about our bodies. We are so good at telling people about what we hate. Telling ourselves, telling our reflection in the mirror, telling our friends, I wish this were different. I don’t like this about my body.

The bodyheart campaign is dedicated to capturing the truth of how beauty really does come in all shapes, sizes, colors and ages.

What we focus on expands. So if we switch to focus on what we love, then maybe we will see more of what we love, not only in our bodies but in our life. Then secondly, I wanted to show how gorgeous women are – purely on their own, without any retouching. Every photograph we see in the media is completely retouched, so the message we receive from that is: This is what is beautiful. And more subtly, You are not worthy. I wanted to break that with the bodyheart campaign and say: Look for the truth. This is the truth. These women are gorgeous.

“The campaign is open to every woman, anywhere in the world. We take self- submissions. If you are inspired to honor your body, you are welcome to stand forward and say: This is what I love about my body, then draw a heart on your body and send that picture to us. We will gladly display it. We will be so thrilled to honor you and your process.”

Tabby: Amber, what does being a goddess mean to you?

Amber: To me, it means a carrying forward in the world the concept of femininity. This world that we live in values productivity so much – What do you do? How do you get it done? How much did you get done? I think the qualities of the feminine are different than that. Feminine qualities are nurturing, softness, gentleness, and generosity … It’s much more about letting things be. It’s about having space and holding space for the answers to come instead of trying to fix.

bodyheart collaborated with the Lineage Dance Company in Pasadena, CA last month to create a delicious event celebrating 'The ART of a Woman.'

“The ‘ART of a Woman’ event was such a goddess day for me because I was not only celebrating who I am as a woman, but I was stepping forward and owning my body and celebrating my body. I wore a dress because a dress makes me feel just deliciously yummy and like a goddess.”

If I curl my hair, it’s about enhancing what’s in my heart. It’s about enhancing the beauty that’s within me. So on the physical level, I stepped forward on that day. But even beyond that – I stepped forward spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. There was such a celebration of ‘woman’ in general. That is what a goddess is to me. Embracing those elements, leading with those, and being an inspiration for other women to see those and say, Oh I can be that too.

Tabby: Speaking of stepping forward, you have created a video series called a bodyheart BIT. Can you share about this?

Amber: Sure. bodyheart BIT a short one-minute video tidbit that I do weekly. It’s very new. I am sharing something that has inspired me during the week, or something that I’ve decided to take on, or something that I’ve read that is really fantastic. When people watch it, they will either find value in it or they won’t. But that’s the thing, if we all led with “What I have to share is valuable to someone,” then that’s going to effect how we are in the world and also the person who has receives it. Even if just one person takes that on and tries it and experiences one thing new inside their body or in their life, then it’s worth it.

Courtney Lindberg, bodyheart campaign photographer, and Amber celebrating their femininity. Photo credit: Courtney Lindberg

Tabby: What is your biggest vision for bodyheart?

Amber: It sounds kind of silly, but I believe that I am on a mission to change the world. I think that women have barely tapped into the collective qualities of the femininity that we have. I want to be a part of tapping it and making it come alive. I want to change the way a woman shows up not only in her body, but in her life. When I think about bodyheart, the big dream is to change the world.

Tabby: If you had a loudspeaker that women around the world could hear, what message would you want to impart?

Amber: You are worthy just by existing on this planet. Being here, even though it sometimes doesn’t feel like winning a prize, really is. This life is a gift. By being here, we are worthy. What would happen if we led with that?

To learn about bodyheart workshops and coaching, visit www.bodyheart.com.

To join the bodyheart campaign, visit www.bodyheart.org.

To watch the latest bodyheart BIT, click here.

Tabby Biddle, M.S. Ed., is a writer, speaker, writing coach and goddess workshop leader dedicated to amplifying the voices of women changemakers. She lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband.

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