Nine things I learned from a Rock Star that helped me understand the modern day woman

1. We all have a song inside of us

2. We all want to be seen and heard

3. We want to share our gifts with the world

4. We want to be resonant, current, relevant with a message

5. We want to be a part of something bigger

6. We want to feel inspired and daring

7. We want to work our edge. Whatever that looks like for each of us…

8. Staying connected and in touch keeps you youthful. Communications/social media are an important part of staying connected and in many ways…young

9. We all want to sing our song to the world and have the world sing it back to us and reflect what it is that we stand for

“Every choice in life either makes you feel better or worse about yourself”  – unknown

“The world is your runway, never stop modeling”. – Charleston Pierce

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” -Bill Cosby

“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.” – Steven Pressfield

Luck is preparation meeting opportunity – Oprah

All of your relationships are a reflection of who you are and who you could be. So, if you want to improve the relationship you have or find great love, you must take a close look in the mirror.” -Colette Baron-Reid

Summer Reading by the Pool….

One of my self proclaimed titles is “The Word Detective” I have always been fascinated by words and language and how it arose…and by what it can create. I love noticing and analyzing the way words and phrases often imply something unconscious and often unintended. The reason this is important to me is because I believe our words lead to our thoughts and in turn, our feelings about others and ultimately ourselves. So basically, words and phrases can subconsciously color our world.

There are two recent examples that come to mind that are quite common among certain peers, both in the category of describing people. The first one is “She is so well-read” OK, so well read, according to whom? According to whose tastes? Whose standards? Why do we say this? To imply others are “less well read”? I notice this because everyone in my world reads a lot but has very different interests. For some, the standard is The NY Times Bestseller List, for some it’s just classics or just non-fiction, science fiction, personal growth, memoirs, historical fiction, Oprah’s Book Club, or a selective smattering of all of the above …you get the idea…

Are phrases like this really ours? Are they power structures that were once used in the past to separate classes or people? They seem kind of shallow and irrelevant today in a multi-faceted world where people have knowledge in areas that never even used to exist. I find myself wondering.

The second phrase that catches my attention is “she has a great figure” or in some cases I’ve heard “a darling figure”. Again I ask, according to whom? Some of the people I’ve heard referred to as having such, I find myself personally repulsed by. They look like a bag-o-bones to me. Who are we to decide what figure is good or bad? Can’t there be a range? Why is there such a narrow description? Are we that distorted by our culture and media? Are we aware that when we say something like this that we are further contributing to a distorted and very limited standard of beauty? If you don’t look like said darling figure, do you deduct that your figure is “bad”? Do we realize this is what we are doing? Who’s paradigm is it?

What will we do to shift it? I believe it starts with the simplicity of noticing what comes out of our mouths. Phrases like these are all around us. I invite you to share the ones you notice.

Do you have an inner critic making background noise in your life? A voice telling you that you aren’t good enough, somewhere?  Somehow, even if you were doing a million other things with your life; great constructive meaningful, useful and even fun things, the critic seems to show up.

Recently, I decided to commit to a practice of cultivating more awareness of this critical voice even in it’s most subtle and insidious forms. I have found that by recognizing it for what it is, it tends to quiet down and I have the space in my mind to get more done.  So here goes…I am enjoying writing again!

My son is attending a Jesuit University about an hour away from where we live. We are not Catholic but have always heard about the Jesuits being such amazing educators. Everything about this university seemed to be a good match for our son  for the next phase in his journey. Many of our close friends are graduates of this school and have raved about how it affected their lives. When we went to orientation, I was amazed by what I heard and learned about the Jesuit tradition and how they teach their students at this university. I could write pages about it- I actually took copious notes as I was so surprisingly engaged.  I feel compelled to share just a few of the highlights about their teaching approach and values as it is all so different from anything I ever experienced in my formal education:

1. The Curriculum emphasizes engaged and experiential learning, civic life, and social justice. They promote the development of Conscience, Competence and Compassion (the three C’s) to prepare students to work toward a more humane, just, and sustainable world. The faculty integrates this vision of educating for competence, conscience, and compassion into all their courses.
2. Students are there to explore: What gives me joy? What are my gifts and passions? How can I serve others?
3. Gifts + Privilege = Responsibility. Will you use your gifts and privilege to live ethically? Will you use your gifts and privilege to make the world a better place? Will you be a part of the problem or the solution? How do we want to BE in the world?

I was so taken with these concepts because I feel they are so applicable and relevant to every one of us and are keys to discovering how we can live an authentic and fulfilling life.  I had to become an adult and do quite a bit of soul searching, volunteer work and a number of personal growth workshops before I realized that this is much of what life is about!  Of course, I am still working on it. What an amazing opportunity my son has to begin to learn this at such a young age. These are issues I work on with my coaching clients all the time…. find your joy, discover your gifts and passions, how can you serve? How can you have compassion, even for yourself?  How amazing that this is being introduced to 18 year olds! I am so grateful and feel a sense of relief. I keep telling my son how lucky he is. I don’t think he really gets it but I trust that at some point he will.

So what was the outcome?  Well, I had a great trip. First of all, the company, location, scenery, food and culture were phenomenal. Furthermore, I rode that bike, had fun, was scared to death, felt the fear and did it anyway, felt a bit out of shape, pondered the reasons why I procrastinate (still pondering) challenged myself and felt successful. Luckily, my body could handle it even though I was extremely sore in strange places and exhausted at the end of our 20-30 mile days.  This was a constant reminder of how I could have been better prepared. I got in the van a few times when the hills were too much. I knew if I had trained, I would not have had to do this. I thought a lot while riding for miles and miles and had time to recognize my patterns and where they show up in my life. Procrastination is a big one for me. It is something that I know I really need to look at so I am actually grateful that I unconsciously created the opportunity to do so. It was really a gift- I could have been beating myself up for it but decided to look at the lesson in it.  So I will continue to keep my eyes open and to remember the learning never ends…and it is sometimes a windy, hilly and bumpy road.

Headline: Who Wore it Better?

So I sat down for my pedicure, grabbed an US magazine and this is what I read on the first page I turned to:

Kelly Killoren: 67% Kourtney Kardashian: 33%

Victoria Beckham: 71% Emma Bunton: 29%

Now, just so you know, I don’t read these magazines often, I pretty much banned them from myself years ago but every now and then you’ve got to pick one up. Wow, what a great study they are. I often am fascinated how so many women, including me, end up comparing ourselves to other people. We have all of these self imposed “Measurements” to meet up to.  Numbers once again…

I have been looking at all the places in our lives where we use numbers to live up to our own or someone else’s definition of what success “should” look like.  How many things did you get done today? How much did you eat? How many times did you exercise this week? What’s your child’s GPA? SAT score? How many colleges did he get into? The list goes on and on. We categorize things this way to make sense of our world. But sometimes we don’t realize the voice that comes up inside if we haven’t met that “number” that day, week or year. The voice that then tells you, you are not good enough, thin enough, worthy enough, young enough…. Not enough of anything.

Obviously headlines like this further play into the most external form of this phenomenon and take it to the highest level by comparing two beautiful, talented, accomplished, and I am sure very nice woman standing next to each other. Wow- I think- if SHE only got 6% then what the heck would I get?!  Again, one more reason for that “voice of my inner critic” to turn up the volume and make me “not enough”  I even feel badly for these photographed women who obviously work really hard and deserve more than this.  The truth is, we all deserve more…and it starts with us. Who is making these numbers matter, after all?  Who gives them value? Where in your life do you use the number formula and make yourself not good enough and unable to measure up? I invite you to count the ways with me

Now I am taking time to just notice all the ups the downs I am feeling and get curious. What are the feelings bringing up in ME? I clearly realize that they are my emotions but they are not me. They are actually separate from me and they are here to give me great information.  Transitions are difficult but there is always a gift within them. I am finding that by just being curious with this range of different feelings, that I am discovering a lot of energy and creativity that I am channeling into my business, my second son, and my relationships.  Knowing that these emotions are washing over me but not drenching me and carrying me away actually creates space for more in my life. It is an interesting freedom- a letting go of one shore and trusting that there are many other beautiful shores to float up to.

June is often a time of endings and graduations from one tier of life to the next. I invite you to be introspective with the feelings that come up.  Notice where you can re-create and reinvent within the process of transition.