Breaking Up with the Patriarchy Decolonizing Our Lives and Returning to Kinship Worldview

There's a way of being human that predates the story we were handed. It sustained our species for 99% of our existence. It is still ours to remember.

The anxiety about our children's future. The grief for a planet in crisis. The loneliness of a culture that calls itself "connected." These are the felt experience of living inside patriarchy, a worldview that has severed human beings from their own wisdom and from kinship with all life for the past 10,000 years.

In Breaking Up with the Patriarchy, therapist Susan L. Herrmann names what you already sense. The suffering is real, and it is systemic. The relational framework Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) calls the Kinship Worldview, and introduces in his foreword, offers a practical path home.

Drawing on three decades of clinical practice, personal storytelling, and the relational wisdom at the heart of Indigenous thought, Herrmann guides readers through a calm reckoning with inherited patterns of domination and separation. You'll learn to:

Recognize the patriarchal conditioning you've absorbed without consent
Understand mental and emotional struggle as a natural response to an unnatural system
Rebuild trust in your body, your intuition, and your capacity for authentic community
Relate to the Earth as living kin
Practice Radical Surrender, acting from integrity while releasing attachment to outcome

One reader writes that this book "dismantles the lens you were using to see the world and offers something to replace it with, which is rarer than it sounds."

"A reflective and engaging read that offers insight without pressure and perspective without pretense." —Midwest Book Review

"Like having a wise elder at your side encouraging you to trust the inner wisdom that is a human heritage." —Darcia Narvaez, co-author of Restoring the Kinship Worldview

"A profound guide for those ready to dismantle inherited patterns of domination and reclaim the wisdom of interconnectedness." —David Levine, President, Kinship Intelligence Institute

"A guide, a mirror, and a call to live in a way that feels more whole, more loving, and more free." —Marcus Manning, M.A., LPCC, Kind Waters Therapy

"A practical guide to healing our fragmentation and returning to wholeness." —David Blake Willis, Professor of Anthropology and Education, Fielding Graduate University

A companion facilitator guide is available for book clubs and group study programs.

Breaking Up with the Patriarchy

Decolonizing our Lives and Returning to Kinship Worldview

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