In every walk of life, women are broadening and deepening the definition of “power.” So-called “soft skills” like compassion, empathy, kindness, and forgiveness, once seen as feminine—read, weak—are being rewritten as essential ingredients for thriving, success, and even happiness. In our fourth annual Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement feature, we asked 10 women, chosen by their peers, to share with us what power looks like in their lives, and how happiness arises for them. Here, they share what they’ve learned about purpose, community, connection, and how mindfulness can change the world.
Care for Everyone
Meena Srinivasan
Mentor, Teacher, Ancestor
“What kind of ancestor am I willing to be?” Meena Srinivasan credits her teacher Larry Ward with inviting her to contemplate this essential question. For Srinivasan, there’s immediate personal resonance—she has a young son. But she knows her role as an ancestor is broader than her family.
Srinivasan is the executive director of Transformative Educational Leadership, cofounded by Linda Lantieri and Daniel Rechtschaffen. Like Lantieri, Srinivasan is an educator guided by the principles of Social Emotional Learning, and like Lantieri, she believes in the power of mindfulness to change lives—especially when leaders engage in deep practice with Larry Ward’s question in mind.
“If you’re not practicing mindfulness with that question at the core, you might de-stress a little, but you’re not going to actually effect change.”
“When school leaders are supported on the path of mindfulness, they can begin healing the separation, leading for belonging, letting our beloved community extend to the Earth.”
In the Oakland schools she worked in, Srinivasan saw firsthand the limits of social and emotional learning. “The implementation of social emotional learning was ultimately ineffective, if you didn’t have leaders who embodied these skills and competencies.” And Srinivasan knew that a casual mindfulness practice was not enough to help leaders keep their seat when times got tough. “Is it baked in enough into who you are that you can draw upon it when you’re at the school board meeting and there is a really angry parent there?”
Srinivasan believes that when school leaders are supported on the path of mindfulness, they can begin “healing the separation, leading for belonging, letting our beloved community extend to the Earth.”
And that’s heart work, for Srinivasan. “For me, happiness is so deeply connected with purpose and meaning. The pandemic has invited us all to look deep into what really matters. And for me, it’s definitely community where everyone is cared for.” – SD
