This is an outrage

Are you intelligent, witty, dependable, loyal, self-sufficient, and confident?

And are you also exhausted, guilt-ridden, anxious, sleepless, self-doubting,

irritated, resentful, and/or burnt out?

Today’s “empowered” woman can cycle through these emotions faster

than the Mad Tea Cups at Disney.

I looked up the definition of empowered, and it was just as I suspected:

Merriam-Webster defines it as “the act of empowering someone or something: the granting of the power, right or authority to perform various acts or duties.”

Liars!!! This false definition is why many women don't feel empowered but why we're really good at looking like it. (If a tree falls...?).

Here's the deal:

I see the whole women's lib thing as a gigantic misunderstanding. The workforce consisted of men when women were “empowered” to be, do, and have it all.

So naturally, it was reasonable for women to conform to the present norms to strive to be like...well... men in skirts.

Goodbye, stereotypical feminine traits; hello, stereotypical masculine traits.

We began to pride ourselves on being badasses. We threw up a little in our mouths at the thought of being weak or needy (FYI - "weak" and "needy" are the post-feminist era's weaponization of "authenticity" and

"femininity").

Can you imagine a vibrant mango tree with its supple branches and broad leaves swaying in the wind, trying to become a sturdy, rigid trunk with a sprawling canopy?

In either case, the one conforming would undoubtedly become depressed, subjugating its natural majestic qualities.

After years of hiding its true self, wilted and droopy, the most a mango tree could hope for is marginally resembling an oak with its exhausted, listless, bare trunk.

When people fail at stuffing, airing, or kicking their authentic selves to the curb, they often feel ashamed and frustrated because they can’t do it.

That’s because it’s impossible to feel good when you negate your own power —the power within.

Here's the important part: Even if you put a mango tree in its own environment, if that Mango tree fails to align with its own beauty, it will wilt

just the same – even if you have a forest full of Oaks doing backbends to make it feel welcome.

As I said in my TEDx talk, all the legislation in the land can’t empower a woman who thinks, feels, and acts disempowered.

And that’s why Women’s Liberation (and any liberation for that matter)

is An Inside Job ... and why the dictionary is full of shit.

So how do we rewire to think, feel, and act empowered? That's a longer conversation,