As a professional mediator and award-winning communicator, Shifra believes that the most critical conversations start at home; within oneself, really. 

Fascinated by this inner landscape, Shifra decided to explore in depth this notion of “mattering,” a term she uses to describe  the force that shapes and governs our inner lives. And one that  we mediate over and over again throughout our lives. 

Written under the  pen name Shifra Malka,  her book DARE TO MATTER: Lessons in Living a Large Life (Green Writers Press, 2020) lays out her personal story through which this messaging comes to life. In response to the childhood messages that she — like the personality-disordered aunt she supposedly resembled — did not matter, Shifra  writes to the core of the struggle to recover her beaten spirit and to build the large life that matters to her.

Addressing the question around what mattering means and how we  make our lives large enough,  Shifra surveys these themes through the prism of how the question personally played out in her relationships with her family, her Orthodox Jewish religion, and the American culture focused on appearance, food, and money. 

Compassionate and healing to those wounded by similar messages, and energizing for all who want to make their lives large and remarkable, Dare to Matter is an exquisite call to satisfACTION.