She is our princess, our teacher, our caretaker, she loves her brothers and family and is a light to everyone she meets, Happy Birthday!
Today my beautiful, smart, feisty, and fun daughter Ziona Sofia was born six years ago. I always new once I had a daughter she would be named after my father’s mother, Zina, who was born in Grozny, Chechnya when it was part of the Soviet Union. My Israeli husband suggested Ziona, and I absolutely loved it for many reasons. It had the roots of Zina, but in America people would think of Xena the Warrior Princess, plus I was so happy to have a Hebrew version, it was important to me for my children to have Hebrew names. What I loved the most is that it has the roots of ZION, as in Israel, as in Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, and in Zionism the rebirth of the Jewish home, Israel. Sofia was after my husbands grandmother on his mother’s side, and I decided to spell it סופיה, which is spirituality, hence eternity in Zion.
I was listening to a fascinating radio segment about India, and how before it became a country in 1947, it is a mix of so many ethnicities, nobody thought it would blend and prosper, http://www.npr.org/2016/03/07/469545398/in-the-end-of-karma-young-indians-work-to-overcome-their-past. Israel was reborn in 1948 as well as many other countries in the Middle East, it was a land full of tribes, ethnicities, and religions, nobody owned it outright. England and France divided it up, now lets communicate, work together, and prosper, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, leading in medicine, education, and equal rights for everybody.
Dear women, our society tricks you into thinking that your individuality can be expressed by wearing the same brand name, putting on the same celebrity makeup, and taking the same selfies at the same angles, and by getting rid of your facial wrinkles by the same botox and the same fillers that make all faces move the same. Ultimately, the measure of a woman, her uniqueness is not in her conforming look, but in the expression of her expansive soul, in the kindness of her heart, in the talents she harbors inside, in the way she breaks the mold to empower those around her the way only women can. Each woman has a purpose and a song much higher than what appears on the outside. On this #InternationalWomensDay may God bless all our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmother’s and the women who make peace and show us how to love. Amen.
Enjoy the beautiful video below celebrating women all over the world,
Coach Yulia
![IMG_3810[1]](https://i0.wp.com/coachyulia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/img_38101.jpg?ssl=1)