The following quotes are excerpts from interviews by WWIT founder Marianne Schnall.
“Let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness. So that we don’t have to wait to get sick and then try to find a way to heal ourselves. Let’s be on our own side: Get the mammograms. Have all the chances with our doctors and our health officials. Go there and see how we’re doing physically, how we’re doing on our own health. I think that that’s the wisest thing—to prevent illness before we try to cure something.”
— Maya Angelou —
Poet, Writer, Civil Rights Activist 1928-2014
“In our society, there’s a belief that a good, nurturing woman gives and gives and gives until she drops. If she takes time for herself, she is selfish. Too many of us buy into that belief and give and give and give until we’re so exhausted we can hardly move. Then we give some more!”
—Loung Ung —
Author, Activist, Screenplay Writer
“The point of power is to be willing to realize that you, personally, as a woman—by your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and beliefs—have more ability to influence your health than any doctor, insurance company, drug, or healthcare plan. And that is because every thought we think creates a metabolic cascade in our body that is either creating live messages or die messages.”
— Dr. Christiane Northrup —
Women’s Health Expert, Author
“I schedule things. I schedule time with friends, I schedule time to meditate, and I schedule time to do some kind of working out, even if that just means walking. ‘Discipline is liberation,’ that’s Martha Graham. So when you’re disciplined, then you can make sure that the things that are important to your psyche, to your life, to your well-being actually happen. It liberates you.”
— Jane Fonda —
Actress, Activist
“I have worked to integrate certain practices into my day—meditation, walking, exercise — but the connection that conscious breathing gives me is something I can return to hundreds of times during the day in an instant. A conscious focus on breathing helps me introduce pauses into my daily life, brings me back into the moment, and helps me transcend upsets and setbacks. When I use my breath to relax the contracted core of my body, I can follow this thread back to my center.”
— Arianna Huffington —
Founder of Huffington Post, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global
“You know what happens if you’re completely still? Your mind—that little tape that’s running ‘bup, bup, bup,’ all the noise — it eventually runs off the reel. And you have nothing left to think. All of a sudden, the answers are just there. I think we are way too busy, we are way too noisy… and we need some stillness in our lives.”
— Melissa Etheridge —
Singer/Songwriter, Activist
“It is amazing how even ten minutes without your cell phone or computer or TV or iPad—just you and silence—can wake you up and fill your empty well. Just shutting the door and telling everybody, don’t bother me for ten little minutes. That’s your sacred time to either sit nice and tall, breathe or stretch, or do some physical exercise that awakens the energy inside of you. Even ten minutes a day is really helpful, and I absolutely do not believe that anyone doesn’t have ten minutes a day.
— Elizabeth Lesser —
Author, Cofounder of Omega Institute
“Connecting with nature is really important. Unfortunately, we don’t get to do it very often in the nature that is truly nature. But go to the park. I love going to the park. Whenever I’m in a city, I always go to the gardens, and I’ll just take off my shoes and put my foot right on the ground. It does connect you in a totally different way.”
— Cameron Diaz —
Actress, Producer, Activist
