The Seduction Of Power

More Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street: In The Era Before Watergate excerpted

This past week of holiday revelry still left time for me to arrange dinner meetings with some heavy hitter women I admire. Interesting outcomes came of these scheduled dates. 

On one level there was some fallout from these meetings that was a bit exasperating. On another the upshot was that I was left with compassion for these women by what occurred and how we handled ourselves that moved us from "snags" to "synergy."

Yet the bit of disturbance we encountered on the way to that harmony reminded me why I thought it best for me to exit, long ago, the fast track world of my fifteen minutes of fame.  

The intensity and stress of that world takes a back seat for me to the birds outside my windows and sounds of silence other than the rustle of the trees. So I couldn't help but muse on the following personal observation, as a momento of my past.

When women today think of breaking through that glass ceiling of “a man’s world” all the way to the top, sky high, they seem to be striving for, I wonder if they really understand the price they are paying.

My reflections also reminded me to get back to my writing and in gear to move the manifestation of My Prophecy forward a step or two, knowing full well that when YOU get to know the back story I have to tell in its fullness, you will be glad you got to hear/read it. 

Especially if you are a woman, I am hoping my story will inspire you to see some new ways to break that glass ceiling if that's what you're after with a few less bumps and smashes of the ouch kind.

I have been carrying this story around on my back for decades like a turtle carrying its house; the one about how the striving to break that upper limit can end up breaking you, if you don't have your priorities in order. body, mind and spirit.  

Unfortunately, the world around you is going to challenge those priorities regularly, no matter what you have in mind.

As for me, I want to park that story I've been yearning to tell in its proper place and unload it by sharing it.

It will do us all a bit of good, I trust! At least in the long run. Not surprisingly it's a lot about beating the stress.

Now I am particularly glad that over this holiday break, I began preparing to make the entirety of my story available as quickly and completely as I am able. 

Not only at long last, the unpublished manuscript material of my Random House Trilogy with the launching of our Exploring YourDark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime blog site, but more and more of the memorabilia, including newspaper articles of the time; about me – and – others – and the times -- and -- what they taught me that I, personally, can pass on to you.

Especially about transforming the Dark Side into the Light; the Dark Side being the stressed side and the Light Side the side that can carry us through it.

The graphic piece shown here to the right is an example of one of the ways I, apparently, looked to some (but not to me) when I was at the peak of my own stress city life.  Who would have thought I even had a brain! In retrospect I am surprised I got so much credit for my gifts and talents as a businesswoman with that costume.

But I did!  So I still contemplate, now and then, how I was lucky enough to have both sides of me so recognized.

Yup! That be ME! Circa late 1960s. (See bottom of this article for an expanded version where you can read the text.)

For more of my views on the situation of stress of high achieving woman -- and -- the ills of this society at large -- as I see it today, January 2, 2015, keep reading what I have in store for you here. 

And, pay particular attention to what the new blog site, Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime, offers in terms of really, truly getting to the nitty gritty of my message!

For starters, read this article, One Key Fits All Doors, to help ready yourself for the adventure of a lifetime I am proposing. If you haven’t already yet begun to dig into the treasure trove the new site affords, this one article is the place to start, if you read no other. One Key Fits All Doors.

In the meantime and all along as we go, have a happy and blessed New Year, 2015!

Anastasia, circa 1966