women Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Gift Ideas

I think what I have been most jealous about men, throughout my life, is that they don’t seem to worry nearly as much as we women do, about what other people think. I just finished watching a wonderful Oprah Insider video which featured an author and psychotherapist, Lori Gottlieb. She said this: “Guilt is not part of the X chromosome.” The audience of mostly women, laughed knowingly and appreciatively. Gottlieb’s point is that society has conditioned women to believe that other people’s feelings are our responsibility, and so we take on what is called “emotional load/labor” on top of all of the other caretaking duties that often end up disproportionately in our laps.

Interestingly though, because we women often believe that we are responsible for other people’s feelings, we tend to get really controlling about the narrative. We try to control what other people think about us, or about situations, instead of just accepting and allowing other people to think what they think, and to feel what they feel. In this regard, men tend to be better at “Live and let live.” Men don’t seem to get their self-worth from what other people think about them, nearly as much as we women do. Men get their self-worth from what they think about themselves, and my hunch is that they aren’t nearly as hard on themselves, as we women tend to be on ourselves.

I don’t mean to generalize. This is just a theme that has been playing out lately in my life, when talking to friends who are women, and with shows and podcasts I have listened to recently. Perhaps a beautiful holiday gift we could give to ourselves, is to stop worrying so much about what other people think, and put all of that energy back into what we think is best for ourselves. And at the same time, a beautiful holiday gift that we could give to others, is the acceptance that they are free to think what they think, and to feel what they feel, without interference from our desperate need to control the narrative.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Kinship

Maybe this is just in my mind, but my experience in going about my daily chores yesterday, is that we women were just a little teeny bit kinder to each other. There was a little more sweetness, a little more understanding and a little more compassion felt for one another. I sensed it. Deeply.

No matter what your politics are, and no matter who you voted for, as women, earlier this week, we were on the brink of something none of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes before – an American woman as president. And I have to believe, that even in the most diehard Republican woman out there, there was at least a teeny, teeny part of her (that teeny part of her that was promised as a little girl that a woman can do anything), who found that idea exciting and hopeful and vindicating. And yet it was not to be . . . .

There is good that comes out of everything. Yesterday, I found a knowing kinship with other women (most of them strangers to me), that I honestly haven’t felt in a long time. And it was good.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Step Into It

I wasn’t going to write today. Today is a big, interesting, emotionally charged day in the history of our country. But then I saw this quote, and I had to make sure that it was kept in the annals of my blog. (I see my blog as my own personal “thought museum”). There are so many times, in the history of my own life, that my life has gotten better and bigger when I finally realized that I had been giving my own power away, and so I stopped doing it. I took control of my own life, and my own destiny. I started trusting my own inner compass, more than the noise and distractions outside of me. When you get these “a-ha” moments, much like Dorothy and her shoes, when she realized that she had the power within her all along to get home (to herself) and away from Oz, these realizations are shocking, upsetting, incredulous but then freeing and energizing and empowering. You are more powerful than you realize. Don’t give your power away. Stop letting your mind be your own enemy. Channel your own mind with the eternal wisdom of the life force within you. You are powerful. Step into it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. It is a strangely lovely day here. We have steady rain, but not the fearsome winds, and angry noises that sometimes come with late summer storms in Florida. It feels cleansing and like a reset, like a “cooling off” period. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Here is my poem that I wrote this morning (write a poem today. Poems can often be an emotional cleanse or a cooling off period for our souls.):

When I have considered what I have given birth to in my life:

My children, my devotion to my lover, my writing and insights,

My experiences planned and unplanned, my habits and choices,

The places and animals who I claim as my safest rest spaces,

My depths dared to be shared with my dearest friends,

My curious exploration of my connection to the natural world and beyond,

These are my life, my world, my heart, my loves, my history, my offerings . . .

I am so deeply grateful to be part of the wild nobility of womankind,

For we unabashedly give brave birth to every facet of the whole of life,

And we bear the beauty, mystery, sufferings, joy and awe of everything which we’ve brought forth,

With a solemn strength and sacrifice which comes with our dignified vow,

To open our hearts to be the willing vessels of co-creation with the divine.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2918. Have you ever written a love letter?

My Girls

I saw this posted this morning and I know that it is the truth. That’s why I think I keep my circles small. I “catch” other people’s energy really easily, and I have actually been around people who have made me have to run to the bathroom to vomit. Truth.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the people who you feel so “at home with and connected to” are priceless. You feel that in your body, too. You breathe easy. Silences aren’t uncomfortable. You share space and everything just flows.

I am going to use this as a segue to a humble-brag. Our eldest son and his girlfriend of a few years flew down to visit us this past weekend. Then on Monday, our son headed to a 4-day conference, for his job, in a city close to our city. Ironically, my husband is attending a different conference in the same city. Our son’s girlfriend asked to stay here, and hang out with me this week. I am thrilled. I have one daughter but two of our sons have long- term girlfriends whom I consider to be my other “daughters”, and I know that my daughter sees them to be the sisters she never had. I feel so blessed to have a good relationship with all of “my girls.” I feel grateful and “complimented”. I am breathing easy.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1168. Name something you always exaggerate.

Your Majesty

I am in more of a questioning, watching, introspective state of mind today. I not in a “spit it all out” state – those times in which I can’t type fast enough, those words that want to escape from me. Therefore, for today, I will share someone else’s words.

I recently read something interesting from the author Donna Henes. She claims that women don’t jump from the Maiden to the Mother, and then immediately on to the Crone (the traditional Triple Goddess paradigm). Henes says that with the long lives we are living these days, we have a crucial stage in between Mother and Crone called the “Queen stage” This is how Donna Henes describes us Queens:

“The Queen is firm in the Defense of Her time, Her space, Her boundaries, Her priorities, Her preferences, Her ethics, Her needs, Her desires, Her safety and Her sense of well-being. She acts not from the feeble uncertainty of a victim, but from the steady and stable center of Her acceptance and ownership of Her own thoughts and feelings, beliefs and actions. She is sure of Her Self. The Queen allows Herself to feel worthy, entitled, and esteemed based on the success of Her own efforts, accomplishments and growth. Her Intention is to learn and master all of the ways that She can feed, feel, help, heal, hear, change, mend, befriend, embrace, and love Her Self. She takes care of Herself on every level. And She vehemently defends Her right to do so.”

Have a great day, Your Majesties! In fact have a fabulous month of June, and let’s just go all in and make it an incredible summer! Let’s make it a decree.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

SB

I inadvertently read a really good blog post the other day, from a website that sells jewelry. The writer was talking about the fact that her mother always repeated the same old saying, with drama and sadness, “You are only as happy as your least happy child.” The writer came from a huge family who went on to have huge families, so invariably her mother would have at least one child, or grandchild, who was going through a hard time, and so her mother was always a bit down. Until she wasn’t . . . .

The writer (Jill Donovan) said that her mother came to a peace one day, realizing that ultimately her children and her grandchildren were not hers first. They came from Source/God/Spirit/Universe, and this same Source that had always gotten her through her rough spots, would get them through theirs, too. And so while the matriarch of this huge family felt empathy for her loved ones, and helped to support them, she came to a greater peace of holding on to the faith that these trials would just bring them all closer to the deeper meanings and purposes of their own individual lives.

This is a truth that we all “know”, but it is sometimes hard to live, isn’t it? We have these fantasy-filled visions of our children living problem-less, seamless lives, with no difficulties to deal with, yet in our own lives, if we are honest with ourselves, it was during the harder times that our most authentic selves rose from the ashes. It was when we successfully navigated through our tough times, that we realized how steely, strong, determined and capable we really were to handle anything. And we didn’t do it alone. The Source within us helped us rise to the challenge. And the people who loved us, were kind and validated our feelings, but because they also believed that we would overcome our adversities, that belief in us, and that belief in our ultimate triumph, was more helpful than pity and tears.

I’m in my fifties now and it’s been really fun witnessing the growth of my friends and peers. Most of us have grown children now, and so I am now seeing my friends taking the time to unabashedly explore all different interests, and parts, and relatively unexplored avenues of themselves. Many of my longtime friends are showing up with talents and interests which I never knew that they had before. (honestly, I don’t think some of my friends even knew about these aspects about themselves either.) It’s really inspiring. By the time you get to our deep middle age, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t experienced any rough spots in their lives. But it is true, time and experience, flowing through the craggy rocks of our lives, usually polishes sharp, rough stones into beautiful gems. It is so gratifying to witness women who have had to go through deaths of loved ones, and divorces, and heartaches with their children, and financial breakdowns, and struggles to succeed and grow in their careers, to triumph over all their adversity, and now delight in exploring parts of themselves that they had long ago buried, under the self-imposed burden of believing that it was their job to keep everyone else happy.

Whatever your beliefs are, just know that Something Bigger (SB) from where we all came has got us. SB has you. SB has me. SB has our kids, and our loved ones, and our friends, and our pets, and our world. So be as happy and as curious and as exploratory as you want to be, in any given moment. That happiness inspires us, and lifts us, and frees us to deeply explore our own selves, and our world with less fear and trepidation, and more openness and hope for all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

Never forget your power, my loves. And this comes from a woman who adores her amazing husband and her wonderful three sons every bit as much as she adores her incredible daughter and her magnificent self.

It’s interesting to me that Josie, our only female dog, rules the roost. Ralphie is bigger and older than her. Trip is more audacious than her. Neither of them has ever tried to usurp her authority. She has never had to raise her voice more than a gentle growl. They respect her. Ralphie and Trip tussle with one another all of the time. But ultimately, Josie rules the roost. She knows her worth and they respect that continually. Josie never gives her power away. She owns it. And everyone in the family adores Josie, including Ralphie and Trip. And even more interestingly, she is considered the favorite dog of ours, of anyone who isn’t in our family. She is continually called “the sweetie.” Sweeties, let’s rise. Have a great day. Never, ever forget your power.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Rhonda Real

I have a good friend who reminds me of so many of my other good friends (and even myself) . She is generally upbeat, positive, excited and always looking for the silver linings, but lately she is struggling. Her life is feeling somewhat “exhausting” and overwhelming at times lately, and she is upset with herself for not feeling like her usual chipper self. When we had lunch the other day, she apologized for being “Debbie Downer.” I said, “You are not Debbie Downer. You’re Rhonda Real.”

Why do we women apologize so much for the moments in our lives that we don’t feel 100 percent amazing? Why do we feel so responsible to be happy and cheerful all of the time? Every time I have a friend who is going through a tough time, I notice a trend (and I notice this in myself, too). She puts on a brave front and expertly covers all of her cracks, until she finally breaks down. She takes forever to admit that she is going through a tough time. Next, she apologizes profusely about going through a hard time, and then she apologizes even more so, for venting her emotions about what she is experiencing, as if she has control over either experience. And then she finally clams up, like a little crab that is embarrassed to have shown her vulnerable little legs of emotion. Why do we women feel like we have to apologize for being human??? I read something recently that makes a lot of sense. Negative emotions are only poisonous to us, when they are blocking out all other emotions. But most of us feel all sorts of emotions, all day long. There is no shame in feeling negative emotions. There are four general states of being: glad, sad, mad, or scared. Ideally, we would prefer to stay in “the glad” category all of the time, but that’s not realistic in a healthy (versus numbed out) human life. Sadness is necessary to process grief. Fear alerts us, and it keeps us safe and anger inspires us to do something about a situation that we perceive as being wrong or unfair. Anger actually has a lot of energy. Bottom line, if you choose to block or numb out all of your feelings, you block out the good ones, too, and that’s not the goal. The goal is to experience our feelings in the “glad” category for a lot of our times.

Perhaps if we weren’t so horrified and judgmental and apologetic about our lesser emotions, we would suffer less. If we can accept that sometimes we will feel sad, scared and angry, and just notice these painful emotions and accept them (without wallowing in them), they can be used as tools to get us back to our better feeling “glad” state of being. What are our emotions telling us? If we are scared, what can we do to feel more safe and secure? Are our fears truly valid or have we exaggerated them in our minds? If we are angry, what action can we take or boundaries can we put in place, in order to not feel used and abused? (Another interesting thing I read recently, is that science shows that the physical effects of angry or scared emotions, only last 90 seconds in our bodies. If we breathe through the emotions, instead of feeding them more fuel with angry or scared thoughts, the physical aspect of the emotion will pass and we can make more rational choices about what to do next. So don’t count to ten, instead count to 90, the next time that you feel angry or scared, as long as you aren’t in serious, imminent danger.) If we are sad, we can nurture ourselves, like we would nurture our loved ones going through a hurtful moment, knowing that unprocessed grief will cause more damage to us in the long run, in the way of physical ailments and mental breakdowns. In short, if you get curious and detached about your own emotions, you realize that all of your emotions have their place in your life, and they are actually quite useful. And also realize that we all love Rhonda Real, because she authenticates our own living experience. She helps give us permission to be our fullest selves. And she is so lovable, no matter what state of being she is currently experiencing!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.