Lean in (Anastasia’s version) versus “lean in” Sheryl Sandberg version

Also posted on New Horizons' Small "Zones of Peace" blog site.

I am very pleased with the progress we (i.e. New Horizons, Lisa, board member and steering committee member for our radio show, Jack Slattery, my show co-host and myself) are making on our Possible Society in Motion show. Of course, we will need to keep growing and polishing up our act to get to the level of sparkle to which we aspire. But even the most critical (and I do have a few of those in my court) can see evidence of the progress we are making. And, the impact we are cultivating.

As evidence of that forward motion, heading to our own best possible, last week’s show brought me to place of multiple epiphanies, if no one else. So here it is Thursday morning and I am readying myself for more of the same on tonight’s forthcoming show.

Tonight's episode is titled "the vicious physiology of stress." Tonight, again, Jack and I will draw from the treasure trove of my research, clinical and organizational treatment strategies and published and unpublished writings on these plus a most impressive body ofresearch by "the brilliant" Dr. Rajita Sinha, director of the Yale Stress Center.

A warrior woman, strong and in balance, is a beauty to behold.

I hope you will join us for tonight’s on-air broadcast as well as our conference call-in discussion that follows. To tantalize your appetite, below is a summary of our last week’s Possible Society in Motion Show episode, titled “The Art Of Leaning In,” an on-air discussion that drew from both my professional expertise, research and writings, contrasted with what I have read, so far, about the Facebook CEO, Sheryl Sandberg’s new book.

Show summary description follows below, excerpted and edited from our Possible Society in Motion Show description for Thursday, April 4.

“Jack Slattery asks Anastasia to elucidate how her version of “leaning in” contrasts with viewpoints offered in the recently controversial best-seller “Lean In: Women, work and the will to lead” by Facebook CEO, Sheryl Sandberg.

An intriguing dialogue ensues in which Jack invites Anastasia to elaborate on her “Surviving Addictions” unpublished manuscript material, based on her still relevant research on contemporary women and their survival-driven adrenalin addictions. (WMST, UMCP, 1985.)


Stressing that her research findings strongly empathize that contemporary women now override outmoded addictions to relationships with the traditionally male addictions to money, power, status, righteousness, Anastasia urges all to, instead of these destructive patterns, strive for a balance between excessive strivings and fulfillment, derived from harmonious affiliations.

To drive her points home Anastasia recounts a poignant story of a keynote speech she gave to key women executives in the Washington, D.C. area that concluded with participants in tears, as if at a consciousness-raising group. High profile achievements were bringing complications along with them with too high a premium in their relationships with family members, begging the question where is the gain not worth the pain.”

Again, I do hope you will join us for our show tonight on the “vicious physiology of stress” as Jack and I continue our conversations on how to overcome polarization in our country and be that “possible society in motion” of which I/we are dreaming.