Gail Straub, a leader in the human potential field, had helped thousands around the world find meaning and purpose in their lives, all the while sensing that something fundamental within her was missing. Many years after the premature death of her mother, she undertook a period of soul searching and came to believe that, like her mother and so many women of our time, she had overcorrected in the direction of the masculine, her "successful" life of outer accomplishment and committed social activism having come at the expense of a rich and satisfying inner life.
Her search took her around the globe--to Africa, Bali, Russia, China, and Ireland--where she encountered the longing to retrieve sacred female wisdom among the women she met. Finding her way back to her innate female wisdom restored a sense of balance between external and internal worlds, activism and contemplation, and public and private realms and gave her a sense of equanimity that had eluded her for decades. Gail's poetic and heartfelt story is for anyone who has ever struggled to build and sustain an interior life in our driven and fast-paced society--and for mothers and daughters everywhere.
Library Journal--In this feminist memoir, Straub, a writer and teacher of empowerment principles, memorializes her mother's unfulfilled life. Soon after she grew up, went into the world, and began teaching, her mother died a premature death from heart disease. At one point, Straub, overworked and burned out, realized she had given up her "feminine" life--one of contemplation and intuition--for a masculine one of overachievement and workaholism. As she untangles these threads, she processes her grief over her mother's death. For those interested in women's issues and spirituality.
"
Returning to My Mothers House is Gail Straub's poetic, heartfelt, and very personal journey story, but it is also my story, your story, and the story of a culture in desperate need of taking back the wisdom of the feminine. I came away from the adventure of reading this book full of hope for the restoration of the feminine in each of us, and our world."
--Elizabeth Lesser, cofounder of the Omega Institute and author of Broken Open and The Seekers Guide
"There isn't a woman alive who won't be able to relate to this lyrical, poignant, and beautifully written story. Like Elizabeth Gilberts
Eat, Pray, Love, Gail's story will help women gain insight and wisdom that not only will help heal their relationship with their mothers but could, quite frankly, help save their lives! Bless you, Gail, for doing work that heals all of us."
--Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and Mother-Daughter Wisdom, from the Foreword
Gail Straub is coauthor of the best-selling Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life as You Want It and the author of the critically acclaimed The Rhythm of Compassion: Caring for Self, Connecting with Society, as well as Circle of Compassion, a book of meditations. Considered a leading authority on empowerment, she codirects the Empowerment Institute, a school for transformative leadership. Over the past thirty years she has trained thousands of people worldwide in empowerment, engaged spirituality, and the wisdom of the feminine. Straub lives with her husband, David Gershon, in the Hudson River Valley in New York.
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Distributor: Chelsea Green Publishing
Publication Date: 10-15-2008
Pages: 264
Measurements: 9.5in X 5.5in X 16.8oz
