 Our Life Choices – Married. Single. Children. No Children. Education. Career. Religion.
When a friend makes a choice that changes her life, it shifts our relationship, even when we don’t want to admit it. If they get married, our friendship changes, especially if we’re still single. If they have kids, it changes things, especially if we don’t have bambinos. And, if we become a Hari Krishna, same deal.
So if we know that these life choices, which we will all make throughout our lives, will change our friendships, why do we shirk back from addressing what’s really happening while it’s happening?
Why don't we talk frankly with our friends about how we feel, what we need and what’s possible in this new reality? If we say that we’re committed to our friendships then no matter what side of the change we are on, it’s our responsibility to get real with our friend so that we can avoid hurt feelings, unmet expectations and in the worse cases, the ending of the friendship.
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 Girlfriends: Our REAL Expectations.
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Holidays & Obligations: How to Find the Joy in Expectations, Invitations, and Guilt-Laden Insinuations.
While the holidays are advertised to bring us cheer, joy and gifts, what most of us end up with is a rack full of stress, guilt and debt. And truthfully, it’s our own damn fault.
We’re like wind up toys gone bezerk, doing everything we’re suppose to, acting as we’re expected to, showing up to the places we’re invited to (even if we don't want to go), afraid to do and say what’s really on our minds. If the holidays are meant to be a time of joy, connection and celebration, why the heck are we doing things that don't make us joyful or feel connected to the people we love? The answer? G-U-I-L-T. We don't want people to be mad at us… we don't want to be the ‘bad girl’… we want everyone to be happy. But what about us? While every woman has a choice in how she spends the precious six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years, few of us slow down long enough to ask our bodies, minds and spirits what they need. And even if we know what we need, we succumb to guilt and obligation instead.
I dare us all to give ourselves the gift of joy by doing what we truly want this holiday season. I’m not talking about being a raving lunatic who stomps around demanding that everyone bow to her. I am talking about listening to what moves our hearts and our souls, to what brings feelings of love and happiness. I dare us to make our choice from this place. That’s really what the holidays are about anyway.
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The Unspoken Truths About Money & Friends
Money impacts our friendships whether we admit it head on or not. What we make, what we spend, how we spend it... What we lend or give… what we have in the bank or don't… all of these components of the moo-lah affect our relationships with our girlfriends.
We’re taught not to talk about how much we make or don't... conditioned to make judgments about how others choose to spend or not spend their money… and bamboozled into believing that we don't have enough, or that we need something more to be happy.
Money… it’s taboo… it’s emotional… and it’s a subject we’ve got to stop avoiding with our girlfriends, when in fact, they are the people we should be able to be most real with, the women we should never judge for their spending choices, and the sisters we should be able to lean on to deal with our own money challenges. There is a new possibility out there… Instead of money coming between us, we can talk about it freely and use it to grow closer. Go ahead, I dare you… be honest with a friend about your current financial story or concerns. Share the details, down to the numbers. Ask her to listen, without the need to fix it. Yep, it will probably be uncomfortable, but everything worth it usually is. Go for it!
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 Our Opinions: Do You Know Who’s Influencing Yours
The reality is that in today’s wild world, everyone has an opinion. Someone has the answer... someone knows the ‘truth’... someone is right and someone else is wrong. Who the heck are all these someone’s? Media, friends, family, leaders, “experts” bellowing their opinions as if they were Moses coming off the mountain with stone tablets in hand.
Stone tomes aside, here are two truths to get straight: 1.Opinions are not fact. 2. Our opinions are influenced by others. Do you know who is influencing yours and how you’re influencing others?
Today’s political race highlights this question even more, but every day, we face this same type of polarity of opinions. In friendships, when differing opinions cause communication black holes or hurt feelings. In our life choices, letting the opinions of others stop us from being our real selves. In how we impact others, when our opinions squash another from expressing their true self. It’s time to get wise and start checking in with our opinions, making sure they come from truth within ourselves, not from the fear or limiting beliefs that comes from the outside.
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Yapping with Yoni: Get Connected to the Woman Inside You
| Femmergy : the abundant and infinite supply of energy available to a woman when she fully taps into her feminine powers |
Every one of us is made up of both feminine and masculine energy, traits, behaviors, etc. that have nothing to do with being a boy or a girl. Think yin/yang… left brain/right brain… build/create… force/allow. You have both of these energies inside you and when they’re balanced and working together, life hums on harmony. But for most of us over-achieving, type A, trying-to-do-it-all women, we operate like masculine machines gone mad, completely out of balance, void of our connection to our powerful feminine selves, aka FEMMERGY.
The truth is that most women have taken her feminine, her yoni, and tied her up, gagged her silent and locked her in a closet so that her masculine, achieving, driving, do…do… do… and do more self, can run the jammed packed life she’s created, believing she’s got to do it all, herself. No time to rest or pause. No value in “being” or allowing things to unfold naturally. No connection to the immense power at our fingertips if we just stopped and listened to the woman inside, to our “feminine.”
We’re disconnected from ourselves… and it’s making us sick (no coincidence in the rise in infertility and breast cancer)… it’s making us tired (we drive ourselves so hard that we’re too exhausted to fully enjoy life)… and it’s causing us to disrespect some of the most sacred parts of ourselves, including our sexuality, sensuality and creativity (if we don't value our own feminine, can we really judge or blame Britney Spears or Playboy for the state of our culture?)
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ME-Love: Own the power of your self-love
There is nothing more beautiful and powerful than a woman who truly loves herself. Most people would totally agree that this is true, and most of us can think of a woman like this, and nod our heads and say “Yes, she is both beautiful and powerful.”
So if self-love gives you true beauty and power (not the kind you get nipped or tucked or you get from some executive title), why is it that when we hear the words “self-love” our woo-woo detectors go off and we begin to squirm uneasily as if someone is going to throw us into a room full of therapists and Kleenex?
Why do we talk about self-esteem but not about self-love? Why don't we flat out own the power of self-love and our full expression of it? What would it be like if we could talk openly about how we hate on ourselves a whole lot more than we love on ourselves and then have a conversation to change that?
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Who Defines You?
Defy the Images, Ideals, Icons & Decide For Yourself
We live in a time when we are constantly bombarded with images, ideas and sound bytes that tell us who we should, could and ought to be. Unless you live in a cave, you can’t escape their massive barrage, and let’s face it, even there you could probably still get text messages.
Think of all you see in a day… from photos of what you should look like, to features on what you should be doing to have better sex, bodies and careers, to the 10 tips on how to do everything from have a better garden to become a yogini or to raise your kids right. It can make your head spin...
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Success & Happiness:
How to Redefine it on your terms!
It’s a new world out there today, and we are all faced with the question of what that means for our own lives, careers and futures. The facts can’t be denied. The economy is crumbling into pieces, people continue to lose jobs, and savings have been wiped out. Every time you turn on the news or hear about another friend who’s taken a pay cut, it can seem like Armageddon, or like watching Chicken Little crying out “The sky is falling!” But, let’s get real. What’s falling apart around us wasn't working anyway.
We were all chasing after something, working harder to make more and more to keep our lifestyles going… to get to the next promotion, the bigger house, newer car and the next hot investment returning double digit growth. As a society and as individuals, we have been chasing after our lives so hard that we don't even know if we are living the lives we REALLY want to live. So thank goodness that they sky has fallen and we can all get our heads out of the hedge fund, accumulation mania and achievement junkie clouds! It has been exhausting running on this treadmill, that frankly hasn't made most of us any happier.
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