OB/GYN • Artist • Author • Woman

Lissa Rankin refuses to be put in any one box, and in that simple fact, she attracts readers, patients, healers, collectors, and admirers around the world.  Her message and her example are redefining what it means to be healthy, vibrant and alive as a woman in the Twenty-first Century.

As a practicing gynecologist, a nationally-represented professional artist, teacher, mother and author of the forthcoming book, What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend (St. Martin’s Press, September 2010, with foreword by Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom), Lissa Rankin started a simple blog in 2009 to document her personal quest to integrate all the fragmented facets of her being. OwningPink.com immediately caught fire with readers from all walks of life who were seeking their authentic selves and saw in Lissa a growing soul and kindred spirit. Owning Pink has grown strongly and steadily in its first year - hosting more than 40 authors and coaches, supporting a national tour, opening an integrative wellness center, producing a stunning art exhibit, and spawning a community of over 63,000 social media followers and over 260,000 readers.

“I once thought I had to put myself in a box and choose who to be. But I now accept that, while I am so many things, no single identity defines me. I am more than what I do. We all struggle with who we really are and whether our lives reflect our truest selves. I now strive to be authentic, in all aspects of my life, whether I’m healing or painting or writing or teaching, and I encourage others to do the same.” ~Lissa Rankin

Lissa's Story

Dr. Lissa Rankin was stumbling along her life, working as a full time OB/GYN in a busy managed care practice, ordering around her husband like he was a scrub tech in the operating room, cussing at grocery store clerks, feeling lonely, and wearing masks, pretending to be someone she wasn’t in an effort to be loved. Then her Perfect Storm hit in January 2006. Within two weeks, she gave birth to her daughter, her dog died, her healthy young brother ended up in liver failure from an antibiotic, and her beloved father passed away from a brain tumor. Talk about losing your mojo overnight!

Her Perfect Storm knocked her out of her comfort zone, and Lissa came face to face with her own mortality. She asked herself, “If I knew I was going to die in a year, would I still be living the life I’m living?” The answer from deep within screamed an angry “Hell no!” So Lissa decided to make some drastic changes.

She took what she calls a “Pleap,” (a Pink leap of faith) to quit her job, move her family to the country, and live a more balanced, creative, authentic life. In addition to being a doctor, she is also a professional artist and had written a book Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art With Wax (August 2010, Random House). She figured she would leave medicine altogether and focus on painting and writing.  She spent a year writing a memoir about her decision to leave medicine, while she spent a lot of time hiking, playing with her daughter, painting, and healing her broken heart. Lissa’s literary agent then spent the next year shopping her book to publishers, but the book never sold.  In retrospect, Lissa realizes that she needed to write the book, but the book wasn’t meant to be published. The Universe had other plans for her first. She was supposed to start Owning Pink.  She just didn’t know it yet. 

Although she was reluctant to return to a career that sucked the life out of her, Lissa discovered that you can quit your job but you can’t quit your calling. While she enjoyed being a full time artist/writer for two years, she longed to be of service.  She also realized that her life had become very fragmented, and she wished to integrate all of the various facets of what makes her whole- her creativity, her spirituality, her health, her relationships, her careers, her sexuality, and her interaction with the planet. She decided to quit caring what others think and to be ALL LISSA, ALL THE TIME and let the chips fall where they may. Owning Pink was born in April 2009 as a blog chronicling Lissa’s journey back to herself.

Lissa’s blog quickly attracted hundreds of thousands of readers, and within three months, Owning Pink had become a whole community of people who longed to get their mojo back, be authentic, love and be loved, and serve others. By this point, Lissa had joined an integrative medicine practice in Marin County, where she discovered a way to redefine health- not just as wellness of the physical body, but as vitality for the mind, body, and spirit. 

An editor who had read Lissa’s memoir contacted her three months after she launched Owning Pink to pitch a book idea to her, and What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend (September 2010, St. Martin's Press) was born. She opened the Owning Pink Center in April 2010 as a way to ground what she had created in cyberspace, so she could practice the kind of medicine she dreamed of providing.

Owning Pink helped Lissa get her mojo back, and she now dedicates her life to helping others do the same by owning all of the facets of what makes you whole.  

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