Entries Tagged 'Fit Girl' ↓

Books such as Reviving Ophelia, Saving Beauty From the Beast, Queen Bees & Wannabes, Odd Girl Out and Girlfighting have elucidated the cultural context that puts so many adolescent girls at risk. But that’s only one part of the story. Daughters don’t become “unconscious” in the areas in which their mothers are fully conscious. Ophelia won’t need reviving if her mother has already been resuscitated—or never needed resuscitation in the first place. Beauty is less likely to fall for the Beast if her self-esteem is high and if her mother has taught her to be in touch with her instincts.

Each of us must take responsibility for the ways in which we keep “the culture” going up close and personal in our own homes and in our own lives. This is infinitely harder than blaming the culture. It is also a far more rewarding and powerful way to change the conditions of our lives—one mother and daughter at a time.

Christian Northrup, Mother-Daughter Wisdom.

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Never say “dreaded period” again!

It is not dreaded. At all.

It is a lovely gift of heightened women’s intuition. It allows one’s inner wise woman to speak louder and be heard, because one feels more quiet and slow. That’s my latest theory about early puberty. That girls simply need the heightened intuition and meditative going inside that the menstrual cycle offers us a couple of years sooner, because they are bombarded with more choices, more outside influences and more media telling them the wrong things about who they really are.

The menstrual cycle is about our reproductive cycles in the sense that it comes from our second chakra, our womb space – that of CREATION – that human element of us that is most like God.

To create we have to clean out the old crap we’re holding on to and our menstrual cycles allow us to do that. PMS is the sane, oh so sane, process of recognizing shit we don’t want in our lives. We take it out on husbands and children because they are the humans who most cross our boundaries. It’s the feeling guilty about slapping those boundaries in place that makes the natural normal emotional process of PMS so horrid for us. But, the boundaries are blessings.

If you really want to go there you should check out this brilliant woman, Miranda Grey of Red Moon who writes books (and has resources for girls to implement this in their lives as well) about how to USE our menstrual periods to become more efficient and live happier lives. I have The Optimized Woman and that has both changed the way I viewed my period (which has barely registered as a nuisance in my life). It has also drastically changed the way I want to share the blessing and joy of a period with Ainsley.

She writes about how there are optimum times during the month in which women are able to do things best. She breaks it down into 4 weeks: Expressive Phase (ovulation, passive and outgoing), Creative Phase (PMS, active), Reflective Phase (menstruation, we are not more open to meditation, we literally become meditation) and the Dynamic Phase (pre-ovulation, active).

What does Ainsley need to know? That her period is about biology and that it is natural, normal, healthy and all the biology about the sperm and egg and how to manage it and take care of herself. But, more importantly, that her period is a Spiritual Gift that heightens her ability to perceive bullshit and know which course of action is best for her. That all the marketing around menstruation products – the smelliness, the grossness, the PMS medication, the weight gain, the irritability is just a load of marketing crap – meant to make her feel bad so she’ll spend more money on their products. That there are certain times when she will feel more like going out and more like being intimate, and then there are times when she’ll get a hell of a lot more done and other times, while she is on her period, when she is meant to rest, meditate, cleanse herself and go inside. Don’t fight those times. Use them to her advantage and accept them as the spiritual gifts that they are.

On Red Moon is a resource PDF for young girls, Moon Magic for Girls, to help you share the Spiritual Gift of her monthly moon cycle with her. Midol and Tampax have been around for a few decades.

A woman’s menstrual cycle has been around since the dawn of time, it’s time we go back into our sacred feminine heritage and reclaim it for ourselves and our daughters.

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Hormone Martini Recipe

One part early puberty.
One part early peri-menopause.
Mix in a whopping bit of love.
Stir in some house rules in a card game, jokers wild.
Plop in some compound hormones.
Slather on some mean girls from school.
Drizzle some dark chocolate over a smashing headache.
Add a dash of bloating.
Pour over a marriage on the rocks.
Shake vigorously.

I’ll let you know how it turns out in a few years.

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I recently wrote an article in Lydia’s Style Magazine about skin cancer.

The part I found most relevant to The Girl Revolution is that UV (utraviolet) rays, the substance that causes skin damage and skin cancer, are cumulative. Meaning, our body stores them in its cells for the duration of our lifetimes and they add up, never disappearing.

I’m a regular sunscreen-user now, but as a teen I layed out and sun worshipped, to get a tan. According to the dermatologists I interviewed, all those hours of laying out are accumulated UV rays that are in my body’s cells and could become skin cancer. They will still be there in my 60s and 80s too. So, I really want to use sunscreen, to rack up as few UV points as  possible during the remainder of my life, so as not to increase the risk.

People accumulate the majority of their lifetime UV rays as children and teens: recess, playing outside, riding bikes, spending entire summers playing in water, sun worshipping and tanning.

The more UV radiation they acquire as children, the higher the risk of skin cancer as adults. UV radiation can also lead to skin damage, like melasma or pregnancy mask, caused by sun exposure and hormones having a war on your face. I had this, it sucked and it was expensive to treat.

The advice of the dermatologists was to use a 30 SPF sunscreen on our children every hour. Not just in the morning. Not just at the pool. But, every day. All Day.

“Children should be applying sunscreen every hour when playing outdoors, including recess and getting to and from school, not just on a summer day at the pool,” said Mary Blattner, M.D., Lydia’s Style Magazine Oct. 2010.

I wasn’t that mom. I was sunscreen-at-the-pool mom. At the end of summer, they were golden and “protected” from burns, I thought. I was informed that this is also wrong, a good tan gives you an SPF protection of 4 (four). Totally inadequate.

My kids hate the sunscreens on the market currently. I have to chase them and insist they put it on. This isn’t a hugely fun thing for me to do every hour that they spend outside. They hate the chemically smell, they hate the greasy texture and feel, they hate that aerosol cloud. They HATE it!

Which is why The Girl Revolution is releasing a skin care line, TGR Body, with several forms of organic, natural, paraben and phthalate-free, sweet smelling, non-greasy sunscreen and sunblock.

Natural Beauty Sunscreen Powder looks a tiny bit like makeup, but it’s sunscreen. I love this mom fake-out that lets daughters feel more grown-up. It’s a good motivator for them to use it. The applicator has a brush on top, sunscreen in bottom. Just dust the brush around your face, done. It’s small enough to carry to school for recess. It comes in porcelain and beige to match skin tones. I can’t wait to show it to you.

Natural Beauty Sunblock Mist is a light, sweet-smelling, non-aerosol spray.

Natural Beauty Sunscreen Lotion feels like silk and smells very light.

For boys, we’ll carry Skin Armor Spray. It’s the same great sunscreen product, but labeled differently.

These sunscreens are natural, organic and safe for the whole family.

I’ll be talking more about the product-line and how excited I am about releasing TGR Body until the release in the next few weeks. I’m so excited!

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We’ve enrolled Ainsley in a variety of sports to see which ones she’d excel at and which ones might light something in her.

When her pediatrician told us her BMI was high and we needed to make some changes, we realized our book-worm of a daughter, who lived in a neighborhood, at the time, where it was not super-safe to let her spend hours in the yard by herself and had no friends in the hood, was simply not getting enough exercise. Enter city Rec. leagues: soccer, softball, basketball, Tae Kwon Do.

She’s playing basketball this season and in January, she and Zack will start taking ice skating lessons. Between the first season of basketball and this one, I can see a real difference in her ability to comprehend the game and use her body to make plays. We also intend to enroll both the kids in spring soccer (Zack is finally old enough to play).

Her real passion and talent is swimming. For which, I will take a tremendous amount of credit. I’ve spent entire summers taking my kids to the lake and pool and teaching them the skills of swimming. Not only is swimming super-fun, and a life-skill (so as not to accidentally drown), it can also be highly competitive.

It’s time now, in her development, for Swim Team. She’s good enough and excited enough about the sport to make it worthwhile.

One of our major money goals is to be able to enroll both our kids in some sort of sport that really lights a fire under them. For the exercise, the sense of achievement and belonging to a team and to instill a competitive spirit in them.

I do think a competitive spirit is helpful in America (I kind of hate when they don’t keep score and give everyone a trophy in kid’s sports). The “right to win” doesn’t come naturally to some kids and it’s a necessary skill in our capitalistic society. The ability to run faster and try harder, instead of give up and surrender, when you think you’re being beat is another skill I hope they learn from sports.

My hope is, and the report on Sexualization of Girls by the APA (American Psychological Association) Task Force makes a categorical case for it, that being invested in a sport, being an athlete will help her maintain a sense of self that is not “sexual object” or “here for male entertainment” as she enters her adolescence. The idea being that her sense of her body will be about something more, something deeper and action-oriented, like “my body is skilled, my brain is wired” to swim, or shoot baskets, to run fast, etc., rather than “my body is pleasing to look at and touch for others.”

In other words, a sense of self that is not entirely about sex and how boys perceive her.

The National Women’s Law Center is running a campaign to make sure girls’ sports are funded equally to boys’ sports, this post participates in that campaign. There’s a ton of resources and tools at Rally for Girls’ Sports: She’ll Win More Than A Game.

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