Chapter 1-Totally Powerful and Totally Loved

Every woman has the potential within her to be totally powerful and totally loved. Just imagine for a moment what it would be like to be respected and loved for your talents and your intelligence by a man you respect and love.

Imagine being seen and known and accepted as your whole self, with no need to hide your greatest gifts or your quirkiest quirks? Imagine what might happen if you were given free rein to follow your dreams with a partner who is your head cheerleader?

We women all know what it is like to be the head cheerleader for a man. We've been playing that role for ages. What if your man did that for you as well? Imagine how wonderful your life would be and what great things you could accomplish. Imagine the kind of world we could create if all our dormant female power were unleashed to do good!

Imagine being seen and known and accepted as your whole self, with no need to hide your greatest gifts or your quirkiest quirks. This kind of relationship is no pipe dream. It is possible and it is an everyday reality for many women, including me. This can be your everyday reality, too.

If you already think of yourself as a strong and powerful woman, but that exceptional relationship has so far eluded you - take heart. It is indeed possible to create a rewarding relationship using the information in this book.

“Many women have more power than they recognize, and they're very hesitant to use it, for they fear they won't be loved.” -Patricia Schroeder

If you are a woman who doesn't yet think of herself as strong and powerful, who is afraid that becoming powerful might make you less attractive to men, let me assure you - that old stereotype is no longer the case.

You may not have the type of personality that needs to be the leader in your marriage. However, if you ever hope to be in an equal partnership where your opinions and desires hold just as much value as the man's, you still need to develop your feminine power in a positive way.

The great thing about being a woman who knows her power is that you then have the tools to create a relationship that's right for you. The power in your relationship can be properly balanced and both partners will be free to work out the responsibilities according to individual strengths and weaknesses. For example, if your husband is a great money manager, the two of you can decide he will handle the bill paying and checkbook balancing. However, you must make sure that you have sufficient influence over how that money is spent. Your feminine power, when exercised correctly, will not only insure that your influence is felt, but that it will also be enjoyed and welcomed by your man.

The dictionary definition of power is: 1. The ability, skill, or capacity to do something, 2. Control and influence over other people and their actions. A great many of us have been working too hard toward the first definition while paying too little attention to the second. I believe that the best way to wield power is to influence others and their actions - this is the way of feminine power.

“True power comes from within, and it has a spiritual rather than a material foundation.”-Deepak Chopra

Have you ever noticed that there are some women who seem to have a certain knack with men? I've seen women who are not exceptionally beautiful but are treated like queens by their partners. They have a quiet, not boastful, self-confidence, and a kind and cheerful manner. Genuine serenity seems to radiate from the center of their being. This kind of woman is never rushed, driven, or stressed out.

Seeing one of these women at a party, I would initially think: “What a weak little pushover she must be! I could never be like that.” Then I'd see her attentive husband happily bringing her a drink and asking if he could do anything else for her. “Hmmm,” I'd grump to myself, “What's she got that I haven't got?”

Then I'd try to rationalize my doubts away. “Well, she probably just sits at home with the kids all day. She doesn't have to run a business like I do. I've gotta be tough!”

I began to see that acting like a man was not winning me the kind of man I thought I wanted. However, I was still buying into the idea that to make it in the business world, I'd have to lead with the most masculine traits I could find in myself, and suppress those I thought too soft and feminine. Back then I didn't understand that feminine power is about being; masculine power is about doing. Feminine power is inner directed; masculine power is outer directed.

Feminine power is about being; masculine power is about doing.

Most of our problems with men stem from the fact that we act too much like the old traditional male. We are caught between two worlds. We don't want to go back to the old world where women depended on men to bring home the bacon. Being financially self-sufficient is a goal to which most modern women aspire. Certainly we don't want to go back to the days when women weren't supposed to work outside the home. Our mental picture of a powerful person is based on what we know of powerful men. We think that the only way to win is to beat men at their own game.

Is it at all surprising that women have trouble creating a good relationship these days? A woman who is ambitious, smart, and competent at work does not want to be in a relationship that requires her to stifle her talents at home, so that the man in her life won't be upset or feel inferior. The good news is that there are good men out there who want a powerful woman to love. And these men aren't weak or wimpy or losers. They are men who have a deep and abiding respect for women in general, and whose greatest pleasure in life is making their women happy.

The good news is that there are good men out there who want a powerful woman to love. Any woman who sincerely wants to have a fulfilling and supportive relationship with a good man can have it, providing she is willing to make the changes needed within herself to attract and hold the right man for her.

There are many reasons why your relationships aren't bringing you the satisfaction you seek. In the coming chapters I will shed light on these problems and, more importantly, show you how to overcome them. As I see it, these are the top three mistakes we make in relationships:

The number one mistake people (both men and women) make is clinging to the idea that if they just had a perfect partner everything would be great, all your problems would be solved, and you'd finally feel okay about yourself. I can assure you that it actually works just the opposite way.

When you are happy with whom you are and your life is good and in balance that's when you'll attract (or maintain and enjoy) a great partner. This is the Law of Attraction - one of the most fundamental Universal Spiritual Principles in this physical world. The people and things that you attract into your life are like a mirror of your consciousness. You can only attract someone who is on your same level. If you are desperate and fearful, the man who is attracted to you is going to be desperate and fearful, too. However, if you are emotionally healthy, kind, and loving (that is the kind of man you want, isn't it?), then men who are emotionally healthy, kind, and loving will be attracted to you.

The people and things that you attract into your life are like a mirror of your consciousness. It's smart to put off even thinking about looking for a man until you can honestly say that you truly embody within yourself the whole laundry list of qualities that you want in your man. First you need to be the right person - to know what your values are and to live by them. Next you need to understand your personality archetype and the personality archetype of your most compatible mate, which we'll cover in Chapter 3. If you know what to look for in a man you will be able to attract the right man for you.

There are very few role models of women who are strong, capable, feminine, and successful both personally and professionally. High profile women who make it to the top in politics or business, like Margaret Thatcher, often appear to be even tougher than the men they beat out to get there. Oprah Winfrey is one of the most accomplished and admired women in America, but she doesn't have a husband or kids making daily demands on her.

Like many women in my generation, I've been involved in numerous short-term relationships. I'd meet someone new (or give an old beau another go), be happy for some period of time and then watch the relationship crumble. Yet I sometimes ran across women who were happily married or in a satisfying long-term relationship. What did they know that I didn't know? Was there some secret to having a good relationship that no one was willing to share?

As much as I loved and respected my mother, I didn't want to be like her. I dreamed of having my own business and knew I would never be happy “just” being a mother and homemaker. My mother had plenty of feminine power and strength, but as a child I did not understand or appreciate those qualities. I saw a world where men were in charge and thought women had to be aggressive to make it different. None of the men (or women) in my family ran their own businesses or even had a position of real leadership or authority at work. We were blue-collar working class, salt of the earth sorts.

Where was the role model of a woman who was powerful, successful, AND feminine? I couldn't look to my mother for my model. A product of the Depression and World War II, she was a stay-at-home Mom (for which I am very grateful ¬- but, to be honest ¬- I lacked respect for her quiet achievements of grace and family survival. But that's another story!). She genuinely enjoyed the domestic arts of cooking, decorating, sewing, and gardening. Her skills as a homemaker were outstanding. Her whole life centered on the family.

Not until my Dad became unable to work because of a heart condition, did Mom go to work. He died when I was thirteen and my mother kept the family going as a single working mom with a job as a salesperson in a department store. I was the first in our family to go to college, graduating from Syracuse University in 1969 at the height of the Flower Child Era.

Back then we thought that we could slough off the old limiting ideas about women as easily as a snake sheds its skin. We fully expected to charge off into the adult world and make our dreams a reality. The world of “equal pay for equal work” was just around the corner. We were free, weren't we?

But we didn't realize the stranglehold that centuries of cultural conditioning still had on us. On the surface it looked like we were free, but we weren't.

The vision of equality for women advocated by feminists in the last half of the 20th Century is still far from the everyday reality of most American women. We are now at the beginning of the 21st Century. We have entered a new millennium, and yet the way that men and women relate to each other is not significantly better than it was before. We didn't realize the stranglehold that centuries of cultural conditioning still had on us.

After several decades of attempting to do it all and have it all, some women are closer to being paid equitably. More women are in leadership roles in business and politics. But most of us still have the same problems and complaints about men. Only now the men expect us to work full time, bring in the money, take care of the kids, and run the household too!

In the name of equality, we traded in the last vestiges of respect for feminine sensibilities. We believed that the way to be equal was to act like a traditional man.

The feminist movement also affected men, many of whom are deeply committed to the traditional mentality, but a growing number of men are “modern men,” striving alongside feminist women for a more egalitarian world. And they have lost their way in the unknown chaos of our changing society, just like women. Trying to do battle in the workplace under men's rules does nothing but turn women into tough, hard-boiled, stressed-out pseudo-men. Among other gains, women are also having more heart attacks and suffering from increased stress-related diseases. We believed that the way to be equal was to act like a traditional man.

Everywhere you turn, the media presents images of abrasive women, ready to cut down any man with a punch, a kick, or a verbal slash. We've been acting this way for decades now in the mistaken belief that the only way to get what we want in a male-dominated society is to adopt male-style tactics of violence and aggression. This “win or lose” mentality is unnatural for women. When left to our own devices, we find ways to cooperate with each other and create “win-win” solutions.

Most women who work in the business world competing with men in traditionally structured hierarchical organizations believe they have to play by the rules invented by men. The problem is that when you've been acting that way all day, it's difficult, if not impossible, to shift gears in your personal life after work. We come home battle-weary and exhausted to face the “second-shift” of childcare and household duties. Have you ever wished you could have a wife?

“Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”-Gloria Steinem

Is it any surprise we're having trouble in our relationships with men? We're trying to behave like them! But both traditional and modern heterosexual men want to be with a woman, not another man. They all want to enjoy their woman's sensuous side. But who has time to relax enough to feel sexy? Doing it all has just about done us in. Are you fed up enough to consider doing it a different way?

Doing it all has just about done us in.

Back in the 1930's, psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, first proposed the concept of the “collective unconscious,” which means that there is a common field of human thought to which we are all connected on a deep subconscious level. This consciousness holds all the stereotyped beliefs and thoughts of the entire human species. It influences the ideas we accept to be true on a deep level. These unconscious beliefs are so powerful and pervading that we don't even realize they are operating within us. We simply act on them as being “the truth.”

Throughout the ages, human beings thought slavery was an acceptable practice. The idea was so ingrained in the collective unconscious that it never occurred to our freedom-loving forefathers that slavery was wrong. We finally abolished slavery, but the descendants of those freed slaves still suffer from the remnants of those beliefs. It takes a long time to impress a belief into the collective unconscious, and a long time to change it once it is established there.

On the surface women have made progress. We're able to work in just about any field we desire. We've made some strides in getting paid on a more equal par with men that do the same work. But our Western culture is still dominated by the values of the traditional man.

Western culture is still dominated by the values of the traditional man.

Now we see new images of women being thrust on us by the media. These ideas are just as destructive as the old ones. They are simply at the other end of the spectrum. We've now gone from the “female = weak and powerless” model to the “female = tough and violent” model.

One of the earliest examples is Princess Leia in the very first Star Wars movie. She was always putting down the males with a wisecrack or a derisive look. With her tough-cookie demeanor, she'd grab a weapon and show the guys how it should be done. But her antics are kindergarten level compared to what we see in movies and television today.

Later came Thelma and Louise, the story of two women who are fed up with being used and betrayed by men, and decide to get their revenge. Their newly discovered power is expressed by robbing stores and killing. On the run with nothing left to lose, they choose to drive themselves over a cliff to their own destruction, rather than surrender to the pursuing lawmen.

Another kind of “Killer Woman” is the woman who uses her sexuality in a cold-blooded, calculating fashion as exemplified by Sharon Stone's character in Basic Instinct. Giving her interrogators a fleeting glimpse of her private parts completely unnerved the men and thus accomplished her goal.

In advertising, movies, and TV we see more references to the leather-clad, stiletto-heeled dominatrix, an image of female sexual dominance that many men find titillating. But all these concepts of female power are clichéd versions of women acting like men or women dressing sexy for men. There is no pure feminine power there. The original goal of feminism was to achieve gender equality. In his book Killer Woman Blues, Benjamin DeMott says, “releasing the sexes from imprisonment in fixed gender roles would mean richer, more amply imagined lives for all.” The way to accomplish this goal is to accept that both sexes are capable of a full range of emotional and intellectual expression. Individuals have differing combinations of traits and talents, and none are the exclusive property of either men or women. But our culture finds it too difficult, too challenging, or simply not profitable enough to present us with images that support gender equality and flexibility. Instead DeMott says that in the media “smart, career-minded, theoretically liberated women are depicted as driven by rage to scorn and humiliate men.”

This may sound discouraging but there is some hope on the horizon. The media has also begun to report on other trends that are happening now, which show promising signs of a shift in our culture. About 1/3 of top women executives and CEO's surveyed recently reported that they had stay-at-home spouses who handled domestic duties, so they could manage the demands of their careers and still have an intact family. Women are outpacing men when it comes to college enrollments too. More and more colleges and universities are finding that over 50% of their students are now women.

Changing our male-dominated culture is a slow process, but an inevitable one that cannot be stopped. New definitions and models of women, men, and relationships are being formed right now and you can be part of this new world.

Which Relationship Fits You?

Consider yourself lucky if you are single right now. Single women have an advantage because they will be able to magnetize the right kind of man once they have completed the plan outlined in this book. If you are already dating a man, you will be able to test him to see if he is the right kind of man for you. And if he isn't, you'll have the courage and the confidence to move on. Do the work to become the real feminine woman who resides in your heart, and you will attract a man who has the desire and the ability to make you deliriously happy.

Married women may have a more difficult task ahead of them. First, you need to determine whether the man you are married to is a keeper. If you love and respect your husband, but have a few issues that bother you, you certainly don't need to break up your marriage. If you have small children and your husband is a good father, you certainly don't want to break up your family. You may have to proceed slowly in developing and exercising your power. One thing is for certain. If you are making changes within yourself, your relationship cannot stay the same. And you will not stay the same.

Maybe your man is a keeper but your marriage has lost that spark and you feel disconnected from him. Do not try to change your partner; that never works. Just work on yourself. You may be pleasantly surprised at what happens with your man when you begin to believe and act differently. A woman who is unshakably centered in the power of her femininity is a woman who is irresistible to a man.

A woman who is unshakably centered in the power of her femininity is a woman who is irresistible to a man.

If you or your children are being physically or verbally abused, then do whatever it takes to get help and GET OUT! No matter how bad you think being alone could be, you will survive. If you stay, it's not going to get better; it's only going to get worse.

An abusive man is not worth the dirt under your heel. You will never be able to build a healthy sense of self-esteem as long as you are under his influence. Ask God for help and your prayer will be answered. A better life is waiting for you, but it will not happen until you make your escape.

I hope that reading this book will help you find the courage to do what you must do. There is a better way to live. I pray that you find the strength to take that first step toward the light. I was physically threatened and abused in one of my marriages and I know how difficult and frightening it can be to make that break. I found the courage with the help of professional counselors and friends, and I know you can too.

Now is the time for women to come to the forefront. It's time for us to discover our true potential and the enormous power we have to influence the people and the world around us. It's time to change the balance of power between men and women, and the purpose of this book is to show you the way.

We have outlined the basic individual problems and cultural influences that make it difficult for men and women to develop good relationships. Let's start learning how to overcome these difficulties and develop satisfying relationships. Before we look at a new way of understanding men (which you'll find in Section Two), we first need a new way of understanding ourselves as women. That's what Section One is all about.

The next chapter explores how to find and embrace our feminine power. Are you ready to deepen your appreciation of your inborn feminine qualities and widen their expression in your life?

That's just what we're going to do next!