Wholeness Healing Center

Book Review: To the Women

A friend recently read and then suggested I read To the Women, by Donna Ashworth. Ashworth is an author and founder of Ladies Pass It On. The book is a compilation of poetry and short personal essays, and the positivity abounds in this book! From the first section “shine your brave light BRIGHTLY & your people will find you” to the last section, “don’t live your life against the wind, let go and see where you’ll fly” the book is uplifting, sometimes humorous, always packed with wisdom.

I especially loved “WHEN YOU SAY GOODBYE TO A PARENT” near the beginning, which then hooked me in. Tagging lines, re-reading parts, and then putting page markers on several different parts kept me going back to this one, as did returning to IF YOU ARE A WOMAN WITHOUT HER MOTHER. Tears of sadness, then of joy, then just accepting the reality of the beauty of having loved someone so deeply – places we’ve all been and feelings we’ve all felt.

In the section, “look how far you’ve come, you are a WARRIOR and you are NOT DONE YET” is a great read titled SET IT DOWN. From the beginning, “You must feel so heavy, With the weight of all that expectation. Set it down” to farther along, “You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are full of yesterday’s trash. So, Set it down my friend. It was never yours to carry anyway.” Absolutely! (Ashworth, p. 85) Not just the wisdom, but the phrasing, the rhythm of the words beating the truth home gently, shines through the pages.

In the final section, “don’t love your life against the wind, let go, see where you fly”, I especially liked CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE, a great lesson in shifting perspective. From “I don’t have scars, I have symbols of the strength I was able to find, when life got tough” to “I’m not old, I am blessed – with a life of great length – something not everyone can say.”, Ashworth takes a normally negative perception and gently caresses it to reveal more beauty and appreciation of a life well-lived. Oh, the superb power of just a gentle re-frame!

I really liked this book, this perception, this sharing of how we can find, see, and appreciate the beauty of our lives. Read it. Read it again. Quote it. Enjoy it. But most of all, live it.

Works Cited
Ashworth, Donna. (2020) to the women. Donna Ashworth.