The Power to Rise Above

By Sandy Davies

Editor Sandy Davies has gathered 30 women from around the globe to shine a light on the various ways in which life circumstances can destroy a person. These women also share how they found their own light, despite those circumstances, and have grown up to become powerful voices, best-selling authors, award winning leaders, and amazing healers for others in their community.
This book shows you the remarkable power to rise above any circumstance that is inherent within our spirit, if only we let ourselves rise.
When a woman pens a story that connects her to her deepest truth, she not only heals herself from any residual pain from her past to create her own bold new future but she also has the potential to right the wrongs done to generations before her.
These women from Australia, Nigeria, Micronesia, the Philippines, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Peru, the UK, Indonesia, the Hawaiian Islands, and the United States mainland prove your past lived experiences do not define you.
The authors of The Power to Rise Above take all our hurts and help us to heal, to rise as one. These incredible women rekindled their resilience as a reminder to each of us that no one can extinguish our fire, the inner light which burns deep within us, ultimately refusing to be silenced and finding joy.
The Power to Rise Above has a profound message: you are the creator of your destiny and you have the power to envision the life that was meant for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandy Davies
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645548914

Sandy Davies

Sandy’s mantra is it is never too late and we are never too old. Sandy has finally found the time to pursue her lifelong dream of authorship. In addition to writing, an allergic reaction to a treatment for intimate dryness during perimenopause launched Sandy out of semi-retirement to become the Queensland based formulator and founder of award winning HappyPauseTM Balm. When not writing and heightening menopause awareness, Sandy enjoys helping others and spending time with her husband and their rescue dog Karma hunting nautilus shells along the fringing reefs on the edge of The Coral Sea. Sandy’s latest anthology The Power to Rise Above about resilience and teenage bullying will be available in September this year. Sandy was also a contributor to My Menopause Memoir by menopause specialist Tracy Minnoch Nuku anc co-authored Courage & Confidence: What It Really Takes to Succeed in Business and Sacred Promise.

Book preview

The concept for The Power to Rise Above

began deep in the rainforest

on Eastern Kuku Yalanji bubu,

whose Elders past, present, and future

we acknowledge with deep abiding ongoing respect.

We recognise the continuing connection

to land, water, country and community.

Equal respect is given to the First Nation people

on the land upon which you read our words.

Dedicated to the girls of the world with aloha.

You matter. You are visible. You are heard.

May you speak your truth

with your head held high

and leave behind unwanted baggage

with more haste than many of us did.

Acknowledgement

Dedication

FOREWORD by Dr Tererai Trent

A Caring Statement - Trigger Warning

You Are Strong Enough by Sandy Davies

What I Have Endured Doesn't Create Who I Am by Becky Paroz

My Toolkit for Knocking Over the Bucket ~The Strength of Me by Tahlia Burchill OBrien

What I Know Now That I Wish I Knew Then by Lisa Cox

Your Voice, Your Power by Jehzan Exclusive

Making Peace with Your Body by Sally Bartlett

Jamaican Gyal From Yaad to Abroad by Dana Saulter

The Stories We Carry by Donita Richards

Shoes Too Big For Me by Faith Agugu

Living The Dream by Donna Ghoussain

Be Who You Are by Chelsey Cruz

From Surviving to Thriving by Sandy Lowres

Mama Cake by Nicola Mills

My Soul Finally Smiles Back to Me By Jasmine Marshall

Small Town by Lucy Cooper

Jenny - a Poem by Sarah Klaiber

Puberkwalen (Puberty Sucks) a Visual Journey by Lana Vissers

Love the Skin You’re In By Danielle Novytarger

A Purpose-Filled Life By Vanessa Atienza Hipolito

Ho'oponopono - Forgiveness When the Teacher is the Bully by Tara Coyote

The Book of Mel - Making the World More Understanding of Transgender People Through Being Brave, Confident, Empathetic and Vulnerable By Melissa Griffiths

Healing with Aloha By Deslynn Jaquias

Go Your Own Way By Lesley Van Staveren

This Is Me - A CEO’s Life of Purpose By Ally Kelly

Just Keep Walking By Annette Densham

Author of Your Destiny By Elizabeth Grace

Bitches of Eastwick: Stand Tall and Release Generational Trauma By Susan Jarvis

Don’t Look Back – You’re Not Going That Way By Sandy Soerjadhi

The Gift of My Failed Suicide Attempt By Karen Gibson

Be a Warrior- You, Too, Will Rise By Rena Scott

Closing Comments by Laura Pena

Support Resources

About the Publisher

Foreword: The Power to Rise Above

This book, The Power to Rise Above, was written by an amazing group of women from around the world. I am delighted to write the foreword for this book, as the authors speak to the power of women on a journey to rise above their circumstances.

When Sandy told me she was creating a book of hope written by First Nations women and other women from across the globe, I clapped my hands with delight! Something resonated with me. I strongly believe that our stories as women need to be told, by us. If not, we remain stuck as characters in someone else’s story and eventually give too much power to others to own our narratives. More importantly, I know that when a woman pens a story that connects her to her deepest truth, she not only heals herself from any residual pain from her past to create her own bold new future but she also has the potential to right the wrongs done to generations before her.

The Power to Rise Above sings back to us what our soul already knows: we have the power to rise and right the wrongs done to generations before us.

These women from Australia, Nigeria, Micronesia, the Philippines, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Peru, the UK, Indonesia, the Hawaiian Islands, and the United States mainland prove your past lived experiences do not define you.

The authors of The Power to Rise Above take all our hurts and help us to heal, to rise as one. These incredible women rekindled their resilience as a reminder to each of us that no one can extinguish our fire, the inner light which burns deep within us, ultimately refusing to be silenced and finding joy.

Despite the trauma and pain these women faced from bullies and abusers, their stories courageously give us hope, and liberate us from our own wounding. Moreover, The Power to Rise Above has a profound message: you are the creator of your destiny and you have the power to envision the life that was meant for you. Despite their own soul wounding, many of the younger writers here are pursuing their degrees and some have recently completed studies. I am proud of them. These women are our leaders, our hope and part of our bravery. Their resilience and the way they are pursuing their dreams will warm your heart as it does mine.

Amongst these sacred stories, you will not only find hope for all our future generations to come, but also powerful stories of intergenerational healing and release. Chapters like those by Chelsey and Susan heal not only this generation, but heal the hurts of our grandmother’s grandmothers.

Tara introduces us to the Hawaiian practice of ho’oponopono which revolves around forgiveness. Without forgiveness, we cannot be at peace with ourselves. ‘Without ho’oponopono, we give too much power to those who hurt us,’ declares Tara.

Karen garnered the courage to share a deeply personal moment with a gentle spirit of aloha. Like all the stories in this collection, if you are at a low point in your life, Karen will touch your soul, reignite your inner fire and remind you that you are not alone. Her mantra this too shall pass is true.

If you are yearning to discover your greatness in this life, this book is for you.

If you are going through some rough patches in your life, then this powerful anthology is proof that each of us as women has the power to rise above.

If you are struggling to find your voice, I hope these stories of healing and strength will resonate and empower you to live the best version of yourself. These brave storytellers have broken the silence by providing us with an architectural template to own our voices. What a powerful collection of stories showing us that when we are brave enough to break the silence, we break it for other women, too. These thirty women have interwoven their fingers to form a collective circle to promise you that you are not alone and you, too, can rise.

Tinogona - it is achievable.

Tererai Trent, PhD

Oprah’s favourite guest of all time

Author of The Awakened Woman

Founder of The Tererai Trent International Foundation

Trigger Warning

These women have come together to bravely share their stories of resilience as a reminder that we are not defined by our past or by those who caused us pain.

The stories contain references to trauma, child abuse, sexual abuse, self-harm, rape, control, PTSD, suicide, suicide ideation, violence, drug abuse, body dysmorphia, transphobia and IVF.

These women share how they overcame their circumstances to live beyond what life gave them.

Resources for support and crisis are available at the rear of the book.

You are not alone. You, too, have the power to rise.

You are Strong Enough

By Sandy Davies

I was physically and verbally bullied for almost the entirety of seventh grade. Little did I know that year of bullying would cement my character. My resilience, my confidence, my inability to take no for an answer and my knack for almost always finding a solution all trace back to that year as a crucial formative part of me being me. I never gave that moment in time enough credit until at age fifty I found myself face to face with a relentless bully cut from the same cloth as my middle school nemesis. My rose-coloured-glasses-self hoped that bullies like I’d faced in the twentieth century were done and dusted. The fact that in the twenty-first century women still undermine other women rather than lifting one another up leaves my heart heavy. We should know better. And do better.

My first experience with vicious bullying at age thirteen took place in the Midwest of the United States. Four decades later an incredible life journey placed my second experience in a tropical paradise in the top end of Australia along the edges of the oldest continual rainforest in the world. Be it on the Great Plains or the edge of The Great Barrier Reef, bullies are the same across the globe: speaking up diminishes their power.

The modern adult bully I faced took great predatory delight in trying to destroy the confidence of younger capable women full to the brim with potential. I arrived to work one day to find the current target literally trying to break a broom into the floor, too angry for words. I did the only thing I could think of until calm could re-enter the room: I grabbed a broom and joined in my workmate’s mission to destroy the floor.

With the floor finally pounded into submission, my colleague’s inner strength returned, ‘As if she thinks she can break me. This is nothing compared to…’

What followed was an almost exact carbon copy teen bullying story to mine. We became two women from two continents raised in two different eras sharing the same story on yet another continent. What a powerful life moment.

Upon chronicling my similar bullying story from before she was even born, my workmate, who had folded her arms atop her broom and rested her face against her hands to listen to my story, lifted her head and exclaimed, ‘Bullshit! You!?! No way!’

In that moment I realised not sharing the awful moments from which we rise is a disservice to the incredible women who follow us. That a woman three decades my junior assumed my confidence, my happiness and my irrepressible joy came from the luxury of no obstacles hit me like a lightning bolt. We must share the power of our stories of rising above to ensure others don’t feel isolated or alone when facing adversity. Together we are infinitely more powerful than our bullies.

‘I’m not going to be a victim;

I’m going to be part of the solution.

And when I rise, I rise with others.’

Dr Tererai Trent, Your Dream Life Podcast

Throughout my teenage years and early twenties whenever a DJ boomed Elton John’s 'I’m Still Standing' through the speakers, I’d drag my friends onto the dance floor. When the song came to an end, I always felt bulletproof. I was never consciously aware of why I loved that song so much, but the fact that it was released at the start of year eight might have something to do with it. The horrific bullying of year seven was behind me and I believed, like YAZ, the only way was up. But for now, let’s go back to that annus horribilis shortly before 'I’m Still Standing' hit the charts.

In the eighties in America, primary school finished with grade six. Then in preparation for high school, grades seven and eight attended a stand alone middle school or junior high school.

By middle school, life had thrown a number of twists and turns at my parents including a move to another town. Seventh grade brought with it a new school and a new chapter in a much larger town.

As a kid, I was oblivious that my new school was the place where burned-out coaches and ineffective administrators were sent to wait out retirement. Toxic work culture was an adult concept beyond my years. Beyond my years or not, it did not take long to figure out that seventh grade was going to be one heck of a long year.

Basketball and music were my pre-teen passions.

The summer before seventh grade, I rode my bike to summer band practice every week. I loved the vibrato that resonated from my clarinet and would practice hours on end. The week before the new school term commenced, audition times were posted to the band room door to compete for the top chair for first term. I scribbled my name onto that sheet quicksmart. I sat for the audition and felt confident I’d nailed it. I couldn’t wait for school to start.

On the first day in band class, there was my name taped to my seat in the clarinet section—First Chair! Woo hoo! This was going to be the best year ever. The head of the second clarinets was an eighth-grader seated directly behind me. She kept nudging my chair. And she swore. I had no idea the chair taps and swearing were directed at me.

Then came basketball practice after school. Again, I couldn’t wait. I’d been shooting hoops all summer. Oh, the swish of that net. Heaven! For the most part, grade eight kids comprised the ‘A’ team and grade sevens usually made up the ‘B’ team. But not this year. We’d hardly hit the court when Coach bumped me up from the B- Team to the A-Team point guard. The benched point guard was NOT impressed. Coach was male, which meant no supervision in the shower room after practice. As soon as we hit the showers, my new nemesis wasted no time putting me in my place.

The next day her dad came to practice to have a word. Coach telling her father in front of all the girls he wanted a natural leader at the helm of the A-Team added more accelerant to her already nearly roaring fire.

You guessed it, the clarinettist and the point guard were one and the same: Justine. Yup, it was going to be a long year.

As if things couldn’t have gotten worse, the next day in the lunch line Ella, one of the kids from the intellectual disability class, had a seizure. The teachers hated lunch duty, so there wasn’t a teacher in sight. The line-up order was the kids with intellectual disabilities first, then the eighth graders, followed by us seventh graders.

Justine stood a few people back from Ella. The demoted point guard jumped out of line, waved her arms to get everyone’s attention and shouted, ‘Have a look at this!’ and pulled Ella’s trousers & undies to her ankles. The boys laughed, rendering the ex-point guard more than pleased with her mean self. And no one did a damn thing. Except for the natural leader at the back of the line - me.

It still baffles me forty years later that the person all the way at the back was the only one willing to do right in someone vulnerable’s moment of abject terror.

‘Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.

Right is right even if no one is doing it.’

-Apocryphal St. Augustine

in actuality a modified quote by G K Chesterton, 1907

I raced to the front, pulled Ella’s plaid pants and knickers back up, gave the dacker a mouthful which quashed the boys’ laughter, and eased Ella’s distress. Along with her classmates, we shrouded her in love, kindness and safety until her seizure passed.

Back then kids of all abilities were not integrated into the classroom. Instead, the kids with varying intellectual disabilities were placed in one lone classroom under the stairs. This was the classroom nearest the lunch line, so Ella’s teacher heard the commotion. He was thunderous; and, of course, Justine was marched to the principal’s office. Her parting words to me?

‘You haven’t seen the last of me, Bitch.’

True to her word, it wasn’t the last of her. Justine and her gang of girls set up camp between classes in the bathroom, on the stairwells and anywhere I might pass to deliver kicks to my knees, ankles and shins every day for the next eight months.

Because I’d rushed to the front of the line to help Ella, her classmates looked up to me and called me their friend. I had a responsibility not only to myself but to them, too. I had to be bigger than my bullies; I had to dig deep to find the power to rise through a very difficult year.

I sought help from both the coach and the principal to no avail. My mother tried, too. Both men patronisingly insisted, ‘Mrs. Skelton, girls will be girls. We’ll only make it worse if we get involved.’

I didn’t see how it could get any worse.

I found ways to minimise my encounters with the gang. It took every ounce of reserve to not strike back in anger.

I’d hide my bag in the stadium bleachers after suiting up for basketball practice so I could grab my bag and ride my bike home while everyone else hit the showers.

Ella’s teacher was male, but half of the class were female. Other kids picked on Ella and her classmates if they went to the bathroom alone. Different era. Plus this was a dysfunctional school with an abysmal principal long before the days of adequate provision of teacher aides/carers in schools. Rather than stopping the behaviour of the mean kids, the solution was for me to become the appointed student to take the girls to the bathroom during classtime before the bell. I would leave English class early, duck into their dreary subpar classroom under the stairs, then take Ella and her female classmates to the bathroom. This duty meant there was one break in the day where I would not have Justine and her gang kicking my shins and ankles up and down the stairwell just out of sight of the teachers monitoring each floor. In addition, I could also have a quick wee without the gang throwing wet paper towels over the stall, banging on the stall door or slinging verbal abuse.

The girls in the gang cottoned on to the bathroom break arrangement. Justine made Paulette, her second in charge, cut class and hang out in the bathroom to lay wait. This day, Ella’s classmate Laura had her period. That meant I had the stall door open so there was enough room for me to help Laura with changing a pad. Ella was at the basin and started making fear noises as Paulette snuck out from another stall. Paulette was about to lay into me when she saw what I was doing. Her fist was raised when I looked over my shoulder and made eye contact. I mouthed ‘please’ and then turned to Ella to explain in a smiling voice that belied more confidence than I felt, ‘Paulette has come to help us today.’ I handed Paulette the pad, swapped places to go to the basin, and literally felt an energy shift in that moment as Paulette rose to her better self. That day Justine’s gang fractured. Paulette and her most loyal followers left the gang. From thereon in, I only had to deal with Justine and the two remaining members of her vicious posse: Lyndal and Doreen.

The American school year starts in August and runs through ‘til May. Paulette and her followers left the gang shortly before Christmas. It was easier navigating three bullies rather than an entire gang, but it was still awful. After Christmas, some classmates became more empathetic and understanding, yet no one was willing to stand up to or challenge Justine.

Valentine’s Day was more violent than usual. After school, I rode my bike to the District Office of The Superintendent of Schools and demanded to show the superintendent my fresh bruises and bloodied legs. His secretary, Mrs. Meckwith, was mortified but the superintendent’s only action was to call my dad to complain about his outspoken daughter causing a fuss, which apparently the middle school didn’t really need during the principal’s retirement year. It is no surprise here I am forty years later, still as outspoken as ever.

Thank goodness for that secretary. No one in visible power positions took action, but Mrs. Meckwith used her power. The high school hired a new head football coach that year who had a reputation as a hard arse. I was only a kid, so I still to this day don’t know how she managed the switch-er-oonie, but in the final quarter of the school year, Mrs. Meckwith persuaded Coach Relarek to swap timetables with a middle school teacher.

Boom! Coach Relarek stood in the middle of the stairwell on his first day, busted the bully and her sidekicks, and enforced gruelling detentions until they gave up. It didn’t even take a fortnight. The last few weeks of seventh grade became a normal school experience for me.

I remember other teachers later telling my mother how proud they were of Coach Relarek, but come on: if he eradicated the behaviour in less than a fortnight, what a pity no other teachers were willing to step up to the plate in the eight months prior!

To this day I swear Mrs. Meckwith was my guardian angel. When faced with a similar moral dilemma, be Mrs. Meckwith. Be that angel. Be that coach. Be the outspoken one. Be the person of action who makes a difference in someone else’s life.

Bullies only have the power to continue when bystanders and those in positions of authority do nothing.

Looking back, I am thankful for the second-in-charge gal in the gang, Paulette. Paulette did not go on to become my friend, but in a dark moment she chose light. That decision symbolised hope that the human spirit is redeemable, and we can choose a new direction. A malicious bully may not change her spots, but others trying to find their way can.

In adulthood we may find ourselves in toxic workplaces where those with power refuse to change the work culture. In those workplaces, quite often whether we are the victim of workplace bullying or a team member trying to support the bullied, exit is the only choice. When such is the case, have the courage and the self-preservation to walk away. More and more workplaces endorse anti-bullying procedures with genuine policies of non-retaliation. If you face adult bullying, I hope your workplace is the latter. But either way, you are not alone.

You are more significant than your bully. You have a rumbling resilient power deep within that will rise, even if you cannot always see it. If you find yourself on a journey like mine at thirteen where the first coach takes no action, keep on talking. There is a better coach out there who will believe you, blow the whistle, call time and become a part of your team to ensure right is done.

We all have within us the strength to be. Be our own coach; be our own cheerleader; and, be our own champion. Once we realise that, we engender the power to step up to be the coach, be the cheerleader and champion others.

I have had so many other life moments since my experience with teenage bullying. I forgot along the way to credit the role that specific bullying experience played in formulating my rock solid inner strength until I had an a-ha moment in my fifties.

Don’t wait until you are in your fifties to share your moments of overcoming adversity to lift up others. Start sharing them today. You never know who needs to hear your story in this very moment.

Even the strongest of us have moments where someone pricks our armour. We all occasionally need a reminder that we are strong enough from someone who has walked in shoes similar to ours.

You are strong enough to rise above. I know because I am, too.

Long before publishing books and formulating HappyPause™ Balm, Sandy Davies was born and raised in the American Midwest in the state of Kansas. Sandy immigrated to Australia to do her master’s degree in social policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney as a Rotary Fellow and Ambassador of Goodwill for Rotary International.

After graduate school, tourism beckoned. Sandy operated an adventure tourism business with her partner on World Heritage Listed Fraser Island for decades. Later they semi-retired to the tropical idylls of Far North Queensland… or so they thought.

An allergic reaction to a treatment for intimate dryness during perimenopause launched Sandy out of semi-retirement. She is now the Queensland based formulator and founder of the award winning HappyPause™ Balm. As a bit of a rebel who struggles taking ‘No’ for an answer, Sandy turned the lack of a simple, preservative-free natural solution for intimate dryness into her mission.

When not processing HappyPause™ orders and heightening menopause awareness, Sandy enjoys writing and spending time with her husband and their rescue dog Karma along the fringing reef.

happypause.com.au

Insta @happypause_menopause