Entries Tagged 'Mentors, Role Models, Peers' ↓

I’m going through a massive transformation — it’s spiritual, it’s emotional, it’s physical, it’s psychic, it’s creative, it’s an upheaval of my soul and it’s awesome!

Christiane Northrup, author of Women’s Bodies/Women’s Wisdom, says that as women leave the hard labor years of young child birthing and nurturing and enter into their peri-menopause and near- and 40ish years they go through a massive psychic shift. They reframe their past and go through an emotional and psychic cleanse, casting off old baggage. They renegotiate their marriages, relationships with their children and other family and friends. They venture out more ambitiously into careers and the outer world. They redefine who they are and who they want to be for the next phase of their lives. If their spouses refuse to budge, they leave. If their friends take another path, they wish them well and go on their way, forging new friendships. If their careers no longer fill their needs, they start new ones. They reap the wisdom of the first 40 years and all the pieces start to fit together and they say, “I won’t make those choices again. I learned these lessons.” Ailments start to show up to point out what’s not working for them, if they listen they get well. If they don’t, they get sicker. If they renegotiate their lives and let old things go, they flourish like never before, if they don’t they decline.

This is happening to me.

As such The Girl Revolution is changing. I’ve been laying off the Watch Dog role, mainly because it makes me feel angry and frustrated and I don’t want to feel angry and frustrated. So, I will pass the torch to other fabulous bloggers who are much more passionate than I am about those causes.

The Girl Revolution sometimes dips its toe into spiritual waters. I’ve had feedback from readers saying I talk about God too much or I don’t criticize religion enough. If I try to please everyone I won’t please myself. If spiritual or religious matters offend you, seek elsewhere. I will write about it. If you have a desire to read criticism of certain religions there are plenty of blogs filling that role. There are plenty of religions that do plenty of damaging things to girls and women, that’s a fact, but I don’t go to those churches and you don’t have to either. I also don’t have to put my focus on their evil deeds. That also makes me feel frustrated and angry and I don’t enjoy feeling frustrated and angry.

The Girl Revolution has spent much time delving into the ways in which girls and women have been and are being discriminated against. This will stop now. There are plenty of blogs filling this role and thus I am not needed in this capacity. I believe in Law of Attraction and gender discrimination is not something I wish to attract for myself or for my daughter or for any other girl or woman on this planet. I do not wish to ignore it when it happens, but I do not wish to focus on it either. Again, it makes me angry and frustrated and I do not choose to feel frustrated and angry. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve realized that the truth is I have not felt certain types of gender discrimination since leaving Texas. I have not felt other types of gender discrimination since the early 2000s and it’s now 2012 and I want to let it go and believe some things have changed. Honestly, I would have preferred a little gender discrimination in my favor when I became a new mother to allow me an easier time at working and raising a family because I now realize that I DO have different priorities than the majority of fathers I know — especially the one that lives in this house — and if that offends your sense of what equality should look like well, the numbers support my thesis.

Also the truth, I realized, is that my daughter has never experienced any real damaging gender discrimination. She is among the top of her class, always encouraged in her education and given the support she needs and desires. She is on sports teams. She is told she is pretty about as often as my son is told he is so dang cute. She is told she is smart and creative more often than my son is. He is told that he is more athletic, only because he is. The media’s gender messages effect her only as much as we allow media into our consciousness, into our home, onto our computers — it’s limited. We create more than we consume. She sees women in politics, she sees women doctors and dentists, we have women friends who own businesses and are professionals and we know stay-at-home-moms and her grandma is a minister and yes, one of our friends is also a beautician who wears mini-skirts and sits in hot tubs drinking mojitos quite often and we don’t think she sold herself short, we think she’s a business owner who made choices that work for her. I don’t believe my daughter has any reason to expect gender discrimination. She is not raised in a family or church that tells her to bow down to men. She is expected to go to college. She is encouraged to pursue her passions and dream big by everyone around her.

So what am I “fighting” for? What am I spending my energy pushing against? The past. My past experiences that are over now. I have already won. The joy is already mine. I am just going to proceed, look forward and rejoice.

So, what will The Girl Revolution transform into? A lot of major things are in the works that I’m not at liberty to discuss at the present moment. But, they are extraordinarily transformative. If you are meant to, you will travel with me. If your needs are better served elsewhere, I wish you safe travels and a life full of abundance and joy.

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Dear Oprah,

I was super-excited to open this month’s O Magazine and see that your retirement lasted only one summer and you will now be offering Oprah’s Lifeclass daily on your OWN Network starting October 10th. I have missed you and have hoped that you would come out of retirement, so yippee!

I’m also oddly curious to check out Rosie’s new daily show — what won’t be fun about watching the self-described-crazy, divorced-lesbian, mother-of-four, menopausal, showtune-loving, liberal, self-deprecating comedian? I can’t think of anything.

Now, Oprah, you’ve been telling me for 25 years that I can “do anything!”  And though my husband finds this endlessly frustrating as I blindly pursue my dreams based on this dubious advice, I continue to cling to it. However, I think I may have come face to face with something I may actually not be able to pull off.

It has to do with my limited DVR Magical Powers.

See, you have scheduled The Rosie Show at 6 pm Central and 7 pm Eastern and Oprah’s Lifeclass at 7 pm Central and 8 pm Eastern . . .

. . . during NFL Season when my husband is in two Fantasy Football Leagues.

. . .  during my children’s fall soccer season, when we’ll be walking in the door from practice and trying to get dinner and family time and I have to wrestle the Littles into bed at a reasonable hour.

. . . during the Fall Season Lineup, Primetime Network Television, and Previous Long-Standing Commitments to Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice and The Office and other such pleasures.

. . . during an Election Year when Presidential Debates will be scheduled during these hours.

Now Oprah, I know you don’t watch much television. So let me explain to you how the DVR works. The DVR allows you to record shows when you are unable to watch television live. This has advantages like allowing you to fast forward through commercials and push pause while you go pee.

But, it has it’s limits. For instance, you can only record two television programs at once. So, if I am recording Oprah every night at 7 pm and a Presidential Debate is scheduled and my husband wants to watch Monday night football, what we have is a serious familial scheduling conflict. The other limit to the DVR is that you can’t say, “Okay, record Oprah every night, except on Thursdays, when Grey’s Anatomy is more important to me,”  or “Record Oprah, every night except on Mondays when my husband is not going to miss Monday Night Football,” it’s an either-or proposition.

For 25 years you had an established Sacred Hour of 4 o’clock. Everyone in the entire house knew that to mess with the recorded Oprah show meant their own demise.

I’m doubting my ability to establish that during the Primetime Fall Season. Seriously.

My only saving grace will be if you decide to rerun episodes of your Lifeclass daily in the middle of the night when the house is sleeping or the middle of the day when the house is at school and work. Only then will I be able to commander the DVR, when no one else is vying for time. Please, decide to do this Oprah.

Otherwise, how will I ever learn to live my life properly?

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“You’re lucky you got my hair, it’s gorgeous,” I say while I am curling her hair before school. The last six months is the first time in her life she has allowed me any access at all to her hair, because she wants more intricate styles than she can do for herself.

“Yeah, well I got Dad’s teeth,” Ainsley said.

“They’re straight and you won’t need braces,” I said.

“You also got my eyes, which are really beautiful,” I continued.

“Quit bragging about yourself,” she chastised.

“Hey, I’m bragging about you. You’ll notice as you get older that girls will criticize themselves to death, “Oh, I hate my teeth, I hate my hair, I hate my . . . whatever. Until they really hate themselves”

“Demi Lovato hates herself,” she interrupts. “She hates her show and she hates herself and she got fat and all the kids at school made fun of her, so she started throwing up and she hates herself now.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“All the kids at school saw it on the Internet,” she explained.

“Well, now you see why it’s important to look in the mirror and see what’s good – like your hair and your eyes – instead of listening to what the other kids say or focusing on what you think might be bad,” I say.

“Yeah,” she concedes. “My hair is beautiful.”

“I think those kids have way to much access to the Internet,” I say.

I stand back to look at my hair masterpiece.

“Why’s it all messy!?!” she demands.

Then we have an argument about her talking to me like I’m “the help” instead of her mother doing her a favor.

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The Girl Revolution is proud to announce the release of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. 

Order Now for only $9.99.

In this compilation of blog posts, I draw a parallel between the reality of dating violence, domestic violence, molestation, rape, date rape (if there is such a thing) and cohesion with the messaging of todays culture and media. Taken from almost 900 blog posts, I’ve chosen 30 posts that draw a concise and compelling picture of the Girl Traps, most stemming from a distortion of the word Love. 

Love Distortion takes a critical look at the Disney Princess Culture and the messages within that set girls up for dating violence and disastrous expectations about transforming bad guys into loving guys, the messages encouraging girls to give up their voices, their talents and their families for the “love” of a boy or man.

Love Distortion also takes a harsh look at other girl culture phenomenon like the Twilight Series and Bella’s willingness to give up her mortality, family, education and future to be with Edward; Gossip Girls, and their emotionally violent and disastrous games to achieve “success” with boys; Hannah Montana and other extensions of the Disney Brand; and posts about dating and domestic violence and the ways in which the word Love is used to coerce and manipulate girls and excuses violent and sexually predatory behavior against girls.

Love Distortion clearly explains the distorted thinking about love on both the part of the girl or woman and the boy or man in a violent, manipulative or abusive relationship. The book makes the connection between the thinking of participants in unhealthy relationships and the cultural messaging we are all inundated with day in and day out.

So as not to leave readers with defeated feelings, Love Distortion provides resources for more positive messages about, what I call, Authentic Love. Readers are given concrete exercises to do with their sons and daughters so as to prevent the distorted beliefs about love that they are inundated with through television, literature, music, Internet, video games, movies, advertising, radio and even, other adults in their lives.

Order Now for only $9.99.

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Two of my The Girl Revolution posts are in Joanne Bamberger’s wonderfully acclaimed Mothers of Intention, 10 Things I Freaking Love About Sarah Palin and The Work Mothering Cohesiveness of Sarah Palin.

What I love about Mother’s of Intention is that Bamberger has chosen to include posts from women of all political leanings. There are posts from moderate voters, liberal feminist voters, conservative voters and I’m sure you could find a Tea Partier in the mix.

The point of the book is that women are political, have great insights into the political process, have firm opinions on who they want their political leaders to be and what behavior they want them to exhibit, what policies they would like to see on the war, economics and for human welfare and rights.

The book and Bamberger’s research illustrates once and for all that women do not, as previously was assumed, resign their political opinions when they become mothers. Motherhood, instead enhances women’s political activism, giving them something tangible – their children – to fight for in the political arena.

The book is wonderfully written and designed, it’s passionate about who women are and gives women voice. The posts she has chosen to include are insightful, thoughtful and passionate. These women truly are Mothers of Intention.

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