September 4, 2009
Kathy

Early on in my Junior Varsity Basketball days, I've love motivational quotes. I pored over the pages of The Edge - The Guide to Fulfilling Dreams, Maximizing Success and Enjoying a Lifetime of Achievement by Howard E. Ferguson, trying to find the appropriate quote to serve as my team's pre-game motivator. Now looking through the book, 15 years later, I can't help but notice all the images and quotes from males. I do thank the Feminist Movement and Title 9 for giving me all the opportunities in sports that my fore-sisters did not have the luxury of having. Let's continue this movement so that the next wave of female athletes has a motivational quote book filled equally with men and women. Go WILD Women!

Here are two of my particular favorite quotes:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
- Quoted in the Movie Coach Carter, and often attributed to Nelson Mandela who used it in his 1994 Inaugural Speech, actually from Marianne Williamson's book A Return to Love - Reflections on the Principles in A Course in Miracles.




When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
-Audre Lorde