{Get Your Joy Back!}

"How Shonda Rhimes Got Her Joy Back" by Neil Parmar for OZY is a look into "the most powerful woman in TV" ...and her passions, work ethic, creative inspirations, family life, relationship with her daughters....and the meaning of "play." 

"...for a woman who vulnerably acknowledges she would have rather been busy at work than busy at home," during her 2016 TED Talk, then faced the harsh consequences to her own creative juices and to her daughters....Neil shares that this is "why it's worth listening to how this work addict triggered a transformation."

Listen to Shonda's transformative TED Talk, "My Year of Saying Yes to Everything"...including how she started to slow down and go play with her daughters!
En-Joy...!!

{Acknowledging Women in Your Life}

"In farewell speech, President Obama delivers poignant remarks about Michelle and daughters," wrote Women in the World staff writers for the New York Times. 

"....for the past 25 years, you have not only been my wife and mother of my children, you have been my best friend," Mr. Obama said to Michelle. And to his daughters: "Of all that I've done in my life, I'm most proud to be your dad."

The article has a link to the President's entire address....

This is how you speak with grace....and this is how you honor women.

{Talking to Daughters With Respect for All}

I appreciated an article that was published on Yahoo.com soon after the presidential election in November featuring a series of interviews with President Obama conducted by The New Yorker's David Remnick. 

The focus was how the president talked to his teen-age daughters, Sasha and Malia, about the outcome of the election and about a man who had spoken so viciously about him, so crudely about women, so maliciously about the disabled, and who had so little respect for telling the truth. 

Once again, President Obama, an articulate and thoughtful man, focused on "kindness and respect and understanding." 

What I say to them is that people are complicated. Societies and cultures are really complicated…This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop…You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward. 

"The President’s words can certainly help in a time when many parents are wondering how to talk to their children about what the future holds in the face of a Trump administration," Remnick remarked.

{Embracing the Uncertainty}

Happy, Holy Winter Solstice! Thanks to Self Healing Expressions for this lovely image and quote. A beautiful message for all of us...and certainly something "to tell our daughters"....!

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

{Dads & Daughters}

Did you see this on Huffington Post? "Watch These Dads Read Inspiring Affirmations They Wrote For Their Daughters" is a delight, first posted by The Scene.
"I'm confident." "I am little, but I'm a force." "I am kind." "I am fearless." "I love myself." "I believe in myself." "I am beautiful." "I'm loved, and I love others." "I forgive." "Love never fails."
Don't miss it!

{What I will tell my daughters about.....}

Read Mary Elizabeth Williams article "What I will tell my daughters about Hillary Clinton's loss and Donald Trump's victory" published on Salon.com, November 10, 2016.