The documentary film called Miss Representation was produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom.  It stemmed from her own fears of raising a daughter in today’s society.
In the film, Jennifer acknowledged her own fears of inadequacy, a battle with eating disorder, and a need to conform to male ideals and win male approval along her acting career.

Watch the trailer to see the powerful effects of the media in shaping our minds and our lives:

Another question – equally important, is: how do we teach our husbands and sons to relate to the female self in healthy and respectful ways, counter to the hyper-masculine behaviors adopted all over the media?

After watching this compelling film, the audience in the theater – almost exclusively women, had one question in need of an answer: what can we do about it?

Here are a few starting points:

1. Carefully monitor yourself: watch your self-talk and the messages that you communicate to your sons and daughters about yourself. Avoid “I am so stupid”, “I hate my thighs”, and “I’m not good at…”

2. Highlight your children’s core competencies and strengths. Complement them on their skills and capacities. This will enhance self-esteem and self-efficacy.

3. Treat other women and mothers with respect and suspend judgment. Shine your Light on them and mirror their brilliance. Avoid using degrading and demeaning labels for women you interact with.

4. Talk about emotions. Expand the conversation with your husband and sons about identifying, expressing and attuning to their own and others’ emotions. Emotional intelligence is critical to forming healthy, long-term, and functional relationships.

5. Mentor other women. If you have walked the path, what do you have to offer? Who can you support today with your experience in business, parenting, presentation, leadership, or any other field?

6. Open the dialogue. Watch for signs that your teenage daughter is trying to conform to media ideals or that your son is struggling with doing the ‘macho’ thing. Ask about the pressure to be, play, perform, win-over, measure up…

7. Encourage leadership. Leadership starts from within. Foster self-expression, critical thinking, and inspiration for leadership in your home environment and in your community.

For other ideas and to listen to Jennifer’s full Ted talk click here:

http://tedxwomen.org/speakers/jennifer-siebel-newsom/

To learn more about Miss Representation go to:

http://www.missrepresentation.org/take-action/

What is one action you can take today?

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Many new years start with new wishes.

My wish for you is that you will begin to:

• Find the word that feels most powerful for you. Let it become your guide.

• Give yourself permission. To do X. To create Y.

• Validate yourself more often. (Even if you feel it needs to come from someone else.)

• Embrace newness this year and tend the fearful child inside.

• Know your “no”. Decide on your “yeses”.

• Be more attuned to self, body and mind.

• Study your triggers. Watch for guideposts, for cues, for signs.

• Ask yourself the questions you know you need to ask.

• Let go of shoulds that may no longer align.

• Create more white space in your life. To reflect. To be. To write.

• Allow your creative self to do things differently.

• Invite your inner playful child.

• Experiment with your ideas.

• Let your strengths shine.

• Find brilliance in yourself and others.

• Lead with your intentions in mind.

• Create meaningful connections.

• Open those clogged lines of communications.

• Unravel more of who you are.

*To start your new year with clarity, I have created two PDFs for you:
Click Here to Download Embracing 2012
Click Here to Download Wordplay

Photo credit: Tracy Martin

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Ever wondered: “Does the Medical system have it backwards?”
Ever wondered: “What is the new epidemic that plagues the developed world?”

Fatigue, anxiety, depression, chronic pain – all usually find their way into the medical office:

You may be searching for the doctor who will give you the right pill.
You may be searching for the one doctor who will make your problems disappear.

Naturally.

We all want our bodies to feel better.
We all want our bodies to function through stressful times
We all want our bodies to carry on with the rhythms of our lives.

What’s the most important part of your health?

Do your symptoms go away only to re-appear as new symptoms?

What message is your body trying to tell you?

In her viral and vulnerable Ted talk, Lisa Rankin – MD and OB-GYN, has asked all these controversial questions.

She has also revealed her own personal story that led her to the asking and, consequently, to the conceptualizing of new answers.

It is not often we get to hear the inside voice of a female MD revealing the shortcomings and the potential traps of our interactions with the medical field.

So give yourself the gift (18 minutes) of viewing.

Go ahead, I’m waiting:

And just in case you are planning to gift yourself some “me-time” for reflection during the upcoming holidays (remember Filling the Well?) I am including here some of the final questions directly from Lisa Rankin’s talk to deepen your introspection:

~”what’s out of balance in your life?”
~”how can you be more transparent (with yourself)?”
~”how can you open yourself up to more possibility?”
~”how can you be more honest with yourself about what you need?”
~”what is it that you need to change?”
~”what needs to be tweaked in your life?”

Or share: what words/messages stood out for you from the talk?

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Many women and mothers have reached the state of depletion at one point or another.

Somewhere along care-giving, child-birthing, role-modeling, hat-switching, career-seeking, and daily juggling, we all run the risk of feeling depleted. 

The realization may occur to you at a very mundane moment, while doing a mundane chore; You may be wiping the counter for the millionth time and feel as if there is not a drop of energy left in you to give.

You may be experiencing what I have come to call the three D’s:

Depleted. Deflated. Drained.

Julia Cameron once wrote:

“Any extended period of work draws heavily on our artistic well. Overtapping the well, like overfishing the pond, leaves us with diminished resources.”

Are you over-tapped? Her words are easy to relate to if you have ever felt this state in your body at any stage of your life. I was fortunate enough to study the concept and importance of Self-Care as part of my graduate training.

Since then, I have carefully woven it into my life in different ways and modified to fit the various mothering stages.

I believe in it. I practice it. I teach it.

And yet I know, that many women learn to resist it. Postpone it. Push it for ‘some day’. It often goes to the bottom of the list and stays there for a while.

In the Artist’s Way, Julia argues that Self-Care is crucial for our art. Whatever your “art” is. Think along the art of parenting, mothering, teaching, nursing… Or just being. She adds:

“As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them – to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well.”

Over the years I have come to adopt the metaphor of filling the well whenever teaching self-care.

Filling the Well becomes not a “selfish” issue but rather a sustainability issue.

What fills your well?
What do you do to replenish?
How do you squelch the thirst for self-care?

Closing words: (yes, by Julia Cameron)

“In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do…. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.”

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Most of us are familiar with the old phrase:” it takes a village to raise child”.

It rang true for generations (and still does) since the times of ancient tribes to modern day families.

I find that it applies to the mother, too!

It takes a village to raise a mom.

Like the child, the mother enters a phase of growth – physically, mentally, spiritually – that requires much care, compassion, and community along the way.

Especially now, that the modern family unit is likely to be detached from its “tribe” – stripped from extended family, and removed from the “village” of hometown.

It still holds true that in many cases, mothers are the ones still doing most of the relational work in their homes:
emotional nurturing, active listening, behavioral and emotional coaching, and the weaving of relationships within family and friends.

Wearing the multiple hats of healer, nurturer, teacher, rescuer, partner, daughter, driver… may, at times, wear the mother down.

Sometimes we need to raise a mother from Post-Partum depression, from social isolation, from parenting frustration, from marital tension, and sometimes from the dissolution of perfection.

It takes a village to raise a mom!

This year, Lisa Kathleen and I, are committed to raising the spirits of mothers around us!

We have put together the Wellness Circle for Moms: Exploring Expressions and Experiences of Motherhood. For details and registration, click here.

It is our intention that the circle becomes your “tribe”, your village of supportive mothers.

And to further raise your experience and awareness to the next level, we have designed a tele-nurture circle on the phone.
(So between monthly circle meetings, you will be able to get on the phone and ask us the questions you have been holding on to, or simply learn more on relevant mother/parenting themes). For details and registration, click here.

Hope to connect with you soon!

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Have you ever felt not listened to? Not understood? Not fully heard?

It happens all the time…

You start a conversation with your husband (or your children, your mother, your sister) and few seconds later you hear yourself saying:”He doesn’t hear me” or “they don’t listen” or “she doesn’t get me”.

I recall a deep conversation I had with a wise *shoe-shiner. He was shining my mucky winter boots and asking me the old so-what-do-you-do question.  “Listening is a rare quality” he said, after hearing my reply. “Few people feel truly listened to in this world”. Then he
continued: “you and I are doing the same thing”.

I smiled, not because I thought he was joking – but because I recognized this came from a man who truly grasped the meaning of listening and who knew that each one of us can offer this gift to people in our own way.

Here is an excerpt that tells others how to truly listen to you:

On Listening Written by Ralph Roughton

(an excerpt from the book The 8th Habit, S. Covey)

When I ask you to listen and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as it may seem.

Listen!

All I asked was that you listen;

not talk or do – just hear me…

I can do for myself.

I’m not helpless.

Maybe discouraged and faltering,

but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and feeling of inadequacy.  But when you accept as fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and go about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.

*No. I don’t regularly go to get my boots shined. In fact, this was my only time. It was one of the items from my ‘do-things-for-the-first-time’ list. And I was so happy I did. No matter your age, think of what items you would put on your list!

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In the spring, I have opened the Women’s Circle with a reading of this invitation.  It is a poem written by the Canadian teacher and author, Oriah Mountain Dreamer.  It has resonated with so many women, so I thought to extend this Invitation to all of you!

As you are searching for your life’s work, your best self, or nourishing relationships, allow yourself to meditate on these words.

The Invitation

Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Canadian Teacher and Author

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

What has opened-up for you by reading these words?  I invite you to comment.

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Are you acting strong on the outside yet feeling soft-centered on the inside?
Is there a part of you that you are trying to protect?
Is there a vulnerable story living inside you that you are too afraid to share?

This post is inspired by a recent conversation I had with a mother who rejected the notion of STRONG displayed by her own mother.

The kind of Strong that is merely a facade to the world.
The kind of Strong that can leave you isolated, emotionally cut-off, and deprived.
The kind of Strong that can become your cage because it does not allow showing your true self, sharing what is truly going on, or asking openly for help.

It is an ‘old’ strong that came from the masculine world.
it is a way of ‘man-it-up’ that was culturally transmitted to generations of boys.
It is a way of concealing, which many of our mothers felt they needed to adopt.

In contrast, strength comes from within.

It is something we embody.
It is also something we give.

I believe that women who are aware of their strengths are able to honor and value themselves, as well as give from an empowered sense of self.

The following poem cuts-open the distinction between STRONG women and women of STRENGTH

A Strong Woman Vs. a Woman of Strength

A strong woman works out every day

to keep her body in shape

but a woman of strength looks deep inside

to keep her soul in shape

A strong woman isn’t afraid

of anything

but a wobut a woman of strength shows courage

in the midst of her fear

A strong woman won’t let anyone

get the best of her

but a woman of strength gives the best of her

to everyone

A strong woman makes mistakes

and avoids the same in the future

but a woman of strength realizes life’s mistakes

can also be blessings and capitalizes on them

A strong woman walks

sure footedly

but a woman of strength knows

when to ask for help

A strong woman wears the look

of confidence on her face

but a woman of strength

wears grace

A strong woman has faith

that she is strong enough for the journey

but a woman of strength has faith

that it is in the journey that she will become strong

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You know how few things can all of a sudden appear in your life and they are all magically related?

You know how few words can pop-out of nowhere and ‘pop’ your heart open?

Last week, as I was serving dinner to my family, my husband (who just got back from work) thanked me for the delicious food and everything else I had done that day. Then, (in one of those ‘out- of- the- blue’ moments) my 9 year- old daughter responded: Did you know? mothering is the hardest job on earth?

“It is”, I said.

“But what about fathering?” her PhD-self continued to ponder.

The next day, I had worked with a mother, who all of a sudden had sunken to a painful spot. It was a moment of truth uttered in a way that can take every one of us mothers back to that place:

“Mothering can be so hard”, she said.

And then, she felt the pain of saying that.

The pain of admitting that, at one moment, she even thought of a way out.

She knew it was her own way of crying for help.

Her husband is supportive. In fact, he is the greatest source of support she has. And they both work very hard. Still, there are moments when she needs other kind of support. Especially when he is away at work and no one (except her children) is around.

Few days later I happened to notice a different cry for help.

A mother who had the courage to write exactly that:

I have an amazing son. And I’ve basically raised him by myself.

Don’t get me wrong. My hubby is awesome and puts in as much effort as he can (and he truly is a super dad), but he works 12+ hours a day. He runs a very successful company and supports us so I can stay home with B and we can live a comfortable life. I am grateful for him every single day.  But he works…a lot.

We have no family in the area and I’ve truly struggled to make some decent friends. Finding reliable babysitters has been a huge challenge. Maintaining friendships with other moms (and women in general) is never easy. I find that I’m constantly disappointed by family members who offer to help but rarely do… It all adds up to one exhausted mommy.

My little guy is 14 months old now and I keep waiting for that moment when it all starts to click and get easier. Raising him is certainly becoming more fun – I’m sure of that. He is starting to talk. He’s walking. He’s interacting with people. He screeches in delight when we play outside. He’s my little buddy and makes me laugh every single day.

So why do I feel so lonely? Why do some days just feel oh-so-hard?

Having some support would certainly help.

The friends I do have – some of whom I’ve known for years and have sons the same age – share their parenting frustrations with me. It’s nice to have a few friends who live relatively close by for weekly play dates and motherhood chats. But they also share all the wonderful accomplishments of their children. Thanks to my nagging anxiety and self esteem issues, I tend to internalize these accomplishments as signs that MY son isn’t as accomplished, isn’t as smart, or isn’t as developed. I know – it’s definitely all in my head. But that’s the way my brain works. I’m hard on myself. I struggle to find people who can relate. Blame it on the PPD, blame it on my childhood, blame it on my type A personality… Either way, I am struggling.

I think it’s time for me to find some support. I need some help. I am asking for it but no one is listening. My hubby is there and he’s giving me as much as he can. He’s a wonderful dad and best friend. But aside from him, I feel alone. Why do I still feel so overwhelmed? I have my husband. I have my son. Now I just need to find myself.

The full entry can be found at http://northshoremommy.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/a-little-help-please/

There was something about this public cry of help that moved me.

We all know: Mothering is hard. Experiencing Post-Partum Depression is extremely hard. Putting it all in words is excruciatingly hard.

Though asking for help is an under-taught art, there is something about releasing the truth and letting it land.

It can bring a sense of relief and freedom.

It can bring clarity, community, conversation.

The help you desperately needed, cried for, and wished for may start to show up…

So ask for help. Let people know how to support you. Tell them exactly what support is meaningful to you.

You know it now… it takes a village to raise a mom!

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If you are like any of the mothers I talk to, Mother’s day makes you think… about your mother (and her mothering), and your own self as a ‘mom’ (and your own mothering).

Here are a set of questions to guide you in your pondering and processing: 

Your Mom (and her mothering)

(Also applies to Step Mom/Foster Mom/Surrogate Mom/Grandmother):

• What makes her different?

o   Not all moms are the same. Every one mothers in her own ‘signature’ way. What makes your mom unique?

• What did she sacrifice?

o   Motherhood comes with sacrifices. Some are visible, some are invisible. What do you think your mom had to sacrifice?

• What traditions did she hand to you?

o   From holidays to favorite meals to celebration rituals…What do you find yourself doing with your own family that was inspired by your mom?

• What are the qualities you admire in her?

o   Think of her special characteristics: giving, rescuing, managing, leading, nurturing, caring, listening, being. Which of the qualities have been ‘transferred’ to you?

• What values did she instill?

o   What did she stand for? Forgiveness, compassion, courage, honesty, family, education…

• What messages/sayings did she repeat?

o   We can all hear our moms through their sayings. What expressions are imprinted on you?

• What have you learned from her about being a mom?

o   What lessons make the foundation for your own motherhood? What lessons did you leave behind?

Your own self as a Mom:

• What things did you learn about your mom by being one?

o   Becoming a mother can open your eyes to appreciate a lot of what your mother did and endured. What have you realized about her from your own mothering journey?

• What are you learning from your children?

o   Every child is here to teach us different life lessons. Have you changed your perspective or beliefs about something as a result of having children? What ‘lessons’ do you keep coming against?

• What things have you learned about yourself by being a mom?

o   Motherhood is a life-long journey. It is filled with many responsibilities, rewards and challenges. Your growth and development is entwined with growing your children. What self-discoveries have you made? In what ways are you growing?

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