Circle of One: The Art of Becoming a SELF-Centered Woman!

It's not always the case that a wonderful person writes a wonderful book, but in the case of Deb Roth and "Circle of One" that's just what's happened! Deb's book reflects her defining qualities of fierce intelligence and deep warmth. She shows keen scholarship in her analysis and design of rituals for all phases and aspects of life. The obviously genuine caring that she displays for the reader, and the stories she weaves, makes the book enjoyable, meaningful, and accessible. While the book is clearly aimed at a female audience, I can tell you as someone with a Y chromosome that it deeply impacted me as well and made me reflect on what I am doing (or not doing) to nurture my Self - my Circle of One.

This beautiful guide belongs on every woman’s virtual bookshelf. Deborah Roth’s Circle of One is a heartfelt, practical tool for living at your strongest, most fulfilled and most effective. Her open, conversational style, deep understanding of women’s history and roles, and low cost methods are encouraging and easy to work into the busiest of schedules. Though I have been working on self care for years, I found new information and wonderful practices to incorporate. Suggestions are organized by the days of the week and seasons of the year, stages of a woman’s life, and typical rites of passage such as marriage, divorce and job loss and not-so-typical ones such as embracing menarche. I particularly enjoyed the ideas for connecting my Circle of One with others in a “Circle of Oneness.” Thanks to Deborah for touching my heart and sharing so many lovely ways to honor the sacred in daily life and to fortify my commitment to be all I want to and can be.

I find that many of the women I coach have no notion about putting themselves at the center. Self-centered is a foreign notion to women raised to be self-sacrificing, self-denying and self-effacing. Feminism may have brought these women into the workplace, but it didn’t erase the negative self-messages. More likely, the women I grew up with and our younger sisters, stretching forward to the young multi-tasking women of today, simply learned to do more and want less. The notion of sacred self-centeredness – beginning with that circle of one in order to be able to be part of circles of many – does not come easily to my friends or my clients. That’s why Deborah Roth’s Circle of One is so important. Even sections that don’t seem to apply to a childless, parentless, single woman well past thoughts of the female cycle contain concepts that encourage self-reflection and the creation of sacred space. Deborah gently helps women understand how to carve sacred space for themselves. The book is practical – none of the rituals she describes are difficult or time-consuming or even an impossible stretch for women who have never thought about incorporating ritual into their lives. Deborah writes the way she speaks. The book is loving and warm and supportive. The ideas are useable and important. This is a book I want every multi-role fulfilling, multi-tasking woman in my life to own. This is a book they will cherish.

Circle of One empowers each reader to honor and celebrate herSelf, and provides practical guidance for doing so throughout the year. To help us find sacred moments in today's world of endless multi-tasking, Deborah Roth reminds us to slow down and embrace ourselves with intentional nourishment. How delicious and sexy is that?!

Circle of One tells the story of the ancient feminine wisdom that resides in the heart of every woman. It is a guide into a rich experience of expressing that wisdom. As a New Thought and Interfaith minister I found Circle of One to be a dream come true. As I lead and counsel women and groups of women, this book will be a resource that I refer to and recommend continuously. As I read Circle of One, it occurred to me that when I left the religion of the past that no longer worked for me, I also left the ceremonies and rituals that I sorely missed. Somehow Deborah Roth reached into the craving of my feminine heart and provided a magical treasure for me to excavate and explore. The treasure of meaningful ceremony and ritual I can intuitively create is now in my experience. Circle of One reveals what women have been starving for and yet what we have known all along. Deborah reminds us of a lost history of ourselves and invites us to bring the ancient into our present. How wonderful that we can share what our ancestors knew with our daughters and granddaughters. What some may consider magic Deborah Roth has grounded in historical fact and personal experience. It is our feminine truth that we've allowed to be culturally covered up. Circle of One now shines a light that leads us into our own sacred inner dwelling, our natural feminine selves.

Circle of One is wonderfully grounded in the resources and processes that Deborah Roth has gleaned on her path towards becoming a woman's guide and coach.Circle of One: The Art of Becoming a Self-centered Woman gave me lots of ways to handle stress, and the S.E.L.F. acronyms are great affirmations. I am a big fan of how she described the transformative process of change, rebirth, growth and its benefits. As someone who has been circling and working on myself for a couple of years, the simplification of ritual and bits of women's history left me more secure in my personal power. This is a great un-bogged-down guide book for women looking to create security within themselves. The ending new and full moon guidance are priceless.

This book comes to me at a time when I am seeking a change, or at least a stretching, in my life, craving more meaning and depth in my work and relationships. Deborah’s deeply personal style feels like getting encouragement and great advice from a close friend. Her candid telling of her own journey towards a strong Circle of One makes me feel like I can get there, too. The book gives me a new framework and language for thinking and talking about the cycles of my physical body and their connection to the daily, monthly and seasonal cycles of the earth, as well as to the cycles of my life, as I move through middle age. I grew up feeling like an Amazon, in a negative sense of being too big, because I was always the tallest girl in my class. Deborah’s book offers me different tools to draw on. I can think of myself as an Amazon Queen, regal and sexy, vital and feisty! Instead of “middle aged,” I am at the climax of my life, a powerful catalyst for change! I can look ahead to a mellower, more reflective, but not unpleasant denouement as a wise woman crone.

Deborah’s book not only reframes for me the denigrated divine feminine, she also teaches me how to put action to these more positive perceptions of my changing body, life transitions and the passage of time. She gives me concrete suggestions for rituals to enact to mark the changes in my life, both large and small, and how to make even day-to-day life more holy and sacred. Since I read this book, it has stayed with me, resonating throughout the various components of my life. I thought about it as I moved a statue of Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of goodness and mercy, into the foyer of our new house, to imbue it with a divine feminine presence. I thought about it as I made a small “rock garden” in my office so that I can offer colleagues a sacred stone for comfort when they are troubled. I thought about it as I underwent dental surgery and was able to reframe my perspective away from decline and decay, and towards reflection and renewal. I even enacted a small ritual to say goodbye to the tooth that had served me well for so many years! This book flows, and if you flow along with it, you will find yourself discovering and creating the sacred in the mundane, and unleashing your own divine feminine power in everyday life.