"To become self-reliant, you must trust your own inner nature and love yourself. Then, if the Wizard tells you to bring back the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, you will pay absolutely no attention to that man behind the curtain."    The Zen of Oz by Joey Green

Most of the time, we, as women don't really love ourselves or trust ourselves. We look at magazines and feel fat. We look at business articles and feel left out or unproductive. We look in the mirror and wish there weren't wrinkles. It's hard to love yourself, when society keeps pointing out the things in us that are less than perfect, and all the people we see in the media have their wrinkles and blemishes  and extra fix pounds airbrushed out. But stop and think about it. Each one of us is an incredible human being with untapped potential made in the image of God. And the women who really accomplish great things are the women who care more about who they are and how they are loving/serving others than looking for every little flaw in their body or their situation. We don't have to be slaves to women's magazines or "Wizards," who tell us that we have to do this or that or to anyone else who tries to make us jump through hoops or bring back broomsticks to fit into their idea of what we ought to do or be. Today, let's just be ourselves. Let's love ourselves completely and then love others like that, too. The man behind the curtain is a fake and a fraud, so quit paying any attention to him at all.

"So he (one of the religion scholars) asked, 'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?' Jesus replied, 'The one that says, "'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only God. And you must love him with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength. The second is, You must love others as much as yourself." No other commandments are greater than these.'"   Mark 12:28-31 (The Living Bible)