The idea for The Risen Woman has been in the making for many years, because I've always wanted to show other women in abusive situations how to change their lives for the better. Circumstance sometimes finds us in dark places, in places where the light of hope does not shine very often, or very brightly. Sometimes when a woman or girl is suffocating under the domination of an abuser, it's difficult to find her own strength.
We all crave inspiration to grow and learn. Wise words from a teacher, the security of guidance from one who has tread a path or knows the way when we are uncertain. We share quotes from revered thinkers and doers; the Dalai Lama, Oprah, Socrates and Plato, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou. We even share quotes from movies and books; works that make us think, give us a new perspective, a new way to think about things, to learn how to handle the tough spots, and to grow. These ideas change us, encourage us, and because of them, we oftentimes change our lives because we want to live better.
It's just this same way with The Risen Woman. Who better to help women and girls out of dangerous and difficult places than women who've been in those same places, gotten out and changed their lives to a point that it has become successful? Who better, indeed.
People live at every level of life; we live with what we will accept. There are some who flat our refuse to live in abusive situations, and there are some to whom that is an acceptable way of life, because it is all they've known and all they've been taught. Some even, who hate that life and do not want it, but do not have the strength or the courage to try to change it.
Abuse happens when one person is dominant over another person. The abused, in this case, is in a hole; a deficit, and has the daunting task of not only climbing up out of that chasm, to get onto an equal ground with the abuser, but then must overcome the abuser to rise above that situation and get away from it. That kind of fortitude is not easily kept when one is being beaten down. It is at those low points when one finds it most difficult to believe that change could ever happen; that brighter days will come and life could be more than a hated misery.
I've not only lived in those dark places, I've worked and volunteered at women's shelters and I've seen so many women and children who are trying to change their lives and extract themselves from the cycles of abuse. It is not an easy thing to overcome, and having something or someone to believe in or emulate can make a tremendous difference. For the women and girls in abusive environments, sometimes the strongest inspiration can come from seeing other women who have extricated themselves from the same and succeeded. Something very much like, 'If she can do it, maybe I can too...'.
Women, whether they know it or not, are inherently strong and are absolutely capable of rising, like a phoenix from the ashes of despair, into a new life of health, happiness and vitality. This is what The Risen Woman is doing. It is a compilation of stories of women who have been abused, who overcame it and have changed their lives into positive success.
If this work touches your heart and you'd like to help bring this project to life, please contribute by donating to The Risen Woman at the Gofundme link on the top right side of this page. Together, we can change lives.
If you have a true story of abuse turned to success that you'd like to have considered for publication in the book, please email it to me at therisenwoman@gmail.com.
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