When Kings Point resident Melody Pourmaradi sat down to write over a year ago, she knew she wanted to help girls and other women learn things she wished she knew growing up.
“They’re notes to myself, they’re notes that I wish I had when I was younger, and notes to my daughters, really,” Pourmoradi, a life and wellness coach who started the GiRLiFE Empowerment Series, said in an interview.
The result was “XOXO, from a girl who gets it: life notes for the young girl within,” Pourmoradi’s first published book. Inside it, Pourmoradi said, are 50 notes around a paragraph long written to the reader with graphics corresponding to lessons that aim to empower them.
Pourmoradi said that once she “made that decision” to write the book, “it was quite effortless” because it drew on what she has tried to teach through her workshops for over a decade. Consequently the book, she said, aims to make those lessons “open to everyone.”
Among some of the lessons in the book are that girls – and women – are “born with superpowers” that are unique to them, the reader has “the power to get through everything,” and the power of kindness.
But Pourmoradi said one of her favorite lessons inside the book is that girls have a choice – and to give that up is to give up the power they hold within.
“I would say one of the really big ones that I love is that we always have a choice,” Pourmoradi said. “The message is you always have a choice, and I think we’re conditioned to believe the problems are outside of us, we have nothing to do with the problems that happen in our lives.”
The book is also not just for young readers, she said.
“I think another piece that is really important here is it’s not just for young girls, but it’s for the young girl within each of us,” Pourmoradi said.
Pourmoradi also said that while the book aims to empower individuals, there was also an emphasis on the importance of sisterhood and girls boosting one another up.
“There’s a strong undertone in the book of talking about how in order for us to be empowered as girls and as women, we really have to stand together in unity with our fellow women – I call them sisters in the book,” Pourmoradi said.
There were ultimately many notes that could not get into this book, Pourmoradi said, but they will likely appear in future ones.
“Once you get started on something, the ideas just flow,” Pourmoradi said. “I have so much more that I want to share and I’m already on it.”
