Wake Up, American Women, The Five Myths That Threaten Our Health and Sanity is an invitation to the most blessed women in the world to stop for a moment, look around with fresh eyes, and wake up to what we are unconsciously allowing to happen in the United States.   It is a heartfelt report from Andrea Riggs, a woman who loves her life and her country.  This book sets the record straight on how far we’ve come and what we have yet to overcome.

Shockingly, in 2011, here in the United States, all of the at-risk statistics for young women are on the rise:

• The average age for eating disorders has plummeted from 13 to 9 years old;
• The number of women 18 and younger choosing breast enlargement surgery has escalated 500% over the past decade;
• 51% of Seventeen Magazine readers have practiced some form of self-mutilation;
• Teen pregnancy rates in the US remain among the highest of the world’s industrialized nations;
• 1 in 4 women will be in an abusive relationship;
• 1 in 3 women will be sexually abused;
• 1 in 2 women will experience divorce

In many ways, her words still hold true today.  Since the time of our foremothers we have traded the battle for voting rights for the battle against our bodies.  Women in America have been inundated with the false beliefs that: 

• We must fit a narrowly defined standard of beauty;
• The best method of validation is to marry well;  
• We must remain eternally youthful or be cast aside; and
• We must have treasure chests full of money to keep up with the status quo.

These beliefs have been transformed into the five myths that:

• The Perfect Body = Acceptability
• The Strong Knight = Desirability
• The Curse of Aging = Doom
• The Treasure Chest = Power
• Other Women = Competition

We, American women, have literally “bought” into these beliefs.  We spend billions of dollars and thousands of hours every year on products and services that seemingly “improve” us.  Yet, we are no happier.  In fact, studies show that two-thirds of women around the world (from 15-year-olds to 60-year-olds) avoid meeting friends, exercising, voicing an opinion, going to school, going to work, dating or even seeking medical attention because they don’t like the way they look.  This waste of our time and talent is becoming increasingly detrimental to our own health and welfare and to the welfare of our daughters and other less fortunate women around the globe. 

Our story begins with the good news, because for women living in the United States in the year 2011, the truth is, it is really all good news.  We have everything.  We have so much that we have let ourselves become consumed by things that do not matter.   Our daughter’s are telling us unconsciously, with their bodies, and their continuing struggle to achieve personal power through external sources, that our affluent, media driven society has much more interior work to do.  It is imperative that we reach inside ourselves to evoke the internal paradigm shift that will embody the external equality that is already ours in this country. 

In the end, this book offers hope.  We have the tools to turn this situation around without surgery, drugs, chemicals or starvation.  There are many non-invasive techniques available for shifting this energy.  As we examine the myths and their effects, each chapter offers tools for women to embark on their personal transformation out of limiting conscious and unconscious behavior and into wholeness.

In addition, it examines the qualities of the women who were successful in gaining the right to vote and demonstrates their ability to create change amidst the unpopular conventional wisdom of their time.   Wake Up, American Women also provides a look at how women of today have broken through old paradigms to create great positive changes for themselves and our world. Their stories reflect the courage to step out of the old paralyzing familiar ways.

Together we can do this.  Let’s embrace our wholeness and Wake Up to our potential!