From my heart to yours: You matter!

Posted on February 1, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

If there was one piece of advice that I could give every girl, one two word message that I could send, it would be:  You matter!!  Seems that every human being should know that, but it’s the single most forgotten thing – especially by girls and women.  This message is also personal to me – a lesson that I spent most of my life learning!  It was only a few years ago that I truly realised what it meant to actually matter.  And it’s something that I want girls to know so that they don’t have to become aware of this in their thirties as I did! 

 I grew up always putting other people’s needs and feelings before mine – both my parents lived lives of service and perhaps that’s where I learned this behaviour from.  Having said that, though, I’m deeply grateful for the fact that through their example, my parents taught my sister and I to serve others.  I’m glad that we learned the joy of giving of ourselves so early in life.  But there comes a point where you have to balance everything and realize that giving to yourself and considering your own feelings is service too – you have to show as much respect to yourself as you would show to other human beings.  

 A few years ago, a friend reminded me of this.  I knew that I had to resign from a particular job because it was affecting me negatively.  This being a teaching job, I was hesitating because I felt that I was, in a sense, letting the kids down and they needed my support.  My friend is Christian, and in order to make her point, she used an example from the Bible:  “The Bible says you should love your neighbour as yourself.  It doesn’t say that you should love your neighbour more than yourself.”  Although I don’t subscribe to Christianity, the point hit home and I’ve never forgotten it!

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: Failure is impossible

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.”  ~  Dorothea Brande

 When all is said and done, if you do your best, it is really impossible to fail.  You may think you have failed in what you set out to do, but if you take the value from the experience, there is no failure.  Which leads me to ask:  what is the definition of failure?  I know that if I ask this question to women, I could probably get a thousand and one different definitions of missing the mark.  I think women are inherently hard on themselves – they expect a lot from themselves and expect to do it all. 

Failing at a task is in not trying; or not taking the action you know is necessary.  Other than that, failure is in how you think about it.  When Thomas Edison was asked a question about trying to make the light bulb a thousand times and failing, he answered that he hadn’t failed – he had just discovered a thousand ways not to make it (well, this is paraphrased but it’s the gist of what he said!).  For him it was impossible to fail.  And this is a lesson I think that girls and women especially need to learn – make failure impossible and it takes the fear away.  Then begin and take action – whatever the outcome, you will be closer to where you are supposed to be.

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: It’s a new year!

Posted on January 1, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

“Start wherever you are and start small.”  ~ Rita Baily

I love the concept of New Year’s Day as much as anyone else.  It is worth celebrating – for me it is a time of reflection about the past year and celebrating my personal growth and the miracles I’ve experienced during the past year.  And yes, every year there are definitely miracles.  It’s just a question of recognizing them. 

The one thing I don’t do, and haven’t done for years, is treat New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day as the alpha and the omega of the whole year.  I don’t believe in making idealistic resolutions on a designated day and treading on eggshells in hopes of keeping them.  Having goals and dreams is necessary, especially for women – often we’re so busy multi-tasking, that we forget about the bigger picture, so I feel that we need the reminder of where we’re going and what we hope to accomplish.  So the solution is to treat New Year’s Day with the same respect as you treat any other day and vice versa.  It is every moment of every day that is important.  Starting over can be done on any day and at any time.  And the definition of starting over is simply to make a decision, take action on it and stick with it, one moment at a time.  Happy New Year to you!  Make 2012 (every day of this year) count for you!

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: The meaning of hope

Posted on December 30, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”
  ~ Anne Lamott

Hope is something that I think women know a lot about.  I know of women who have held on by a thread of pure hope when they were in an abusive relationship and were brave enough to make a change; women who are single moms and give their children hope every day in spite of the fact that they don’t know where the next meal may be coming from; women who continue to hold on to their dreams when the people around them do everything possible to convince them that they are unworthy and will never succeed.  And it is these women who prove that it is worth having hope in the most difficult circumstances – that the courage to hope and take action based on possibility is something real and can be life-changing.

Hope isn’t the silver lining of a cloud.  It is something you dare to do in spite of adversity and obstacles.  It doesn’t mean success; it means possibility or chance.  But it opens the door to something more and gives you a reason to keep on keeping on.

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: How you sail your ship

Posted on December 27, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship.”             ~ Louisa May Alcott

Always know there is value in the storms that occur in your life.  Once you recognize this, you can truly make the most of every opportunity – opportunities often come disguised as extreme adversity.  And the way you allow the adversity to shape you determines whether you have gained something from it.  Often heartaches are our greatest teachers if we allow them this place in our lives. 

 As a girl or woman, you may have experienced injustice because of your gender; you may have had opportunities taken away from you and perhaps you have had people around you who tried to destroy your self-esteem.  The real question is:  what has this taught you?  Has it taught you to work even harder for what you want or to hold onto your dreams no matter what?  Or do you just feel oppressed by what happened to you?  The events that you’ve experienced cannot change, but you can re-examine them and choose to learn something empowering from these events.  You can choose to become a stronger and more capable person because of these lessons.  It’s not about the storms – eventually it’s all about how you choose to sail your ship!

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: The longings of your heart

Posted on December 22, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

“Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”  ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach.

What are the “deepest wishes” of your heart?  Have you forgotten these?  Think back to when you were a twelve year old girl and the world was filled with possibility and you were filled with the energy of your own potential.  Think about the girl you were and the hope that filled you no matter what life threw at you.  There is only one difference now:  you are a woman and you are even more powerful than you were as a young girl.  Recognize that power within you and every once in a while, stop your busy routine and cut through the white noise.  Then breathe and listen.  You will be brought back to the person you really are.  Connect with her again and feel her pulsing energy.  She deserves your respect and she deserves your attention.

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: The risk of safety

Posted on December 20, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

As girls and women, many of us have chosen to remain in our comfort zones.  Through the ages, the words “safety” and “security” have always been used by the majority of people to describe what they thought we needed (and when I say people, I’m not talking exclusively about men – even our mothers have used these words!).  It’s often not that we have been deprived of opportunities, but that we weren’t encouraged to step out of our comfort zones and do something.  The risk of stepping out conflicted sharply with the images of safety and security.  Even today, there are girls on the brink of adulthood deciding what career to enter into, and as I listen to them describing what they want to study and what work they want to do, I hear them say:  “It’s a good profession for a woman.”  Truthfully, that statement makes my skin crawl.  I want to shake them and say:  “What about your dream?  What is your passion?  Pursue that!!”  The definition of woman should not be “one who is limited by her anatomy”!

But my purpose here is not to berate society for their treatment of girls and women.  I said that many of us have chosen to remain in our comfort zones.  We are not victims – we are responsible for our lives and the choice is ours.  From a woman who believes in the power of being a woman, I hope that it does indeed become more painful for you to risk remaining “tight in the bud”.  Then you will choose to risk stepping out.  And because of this choice, you will blossom.  This is my prayer for every girl and woman worldwide.

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: A woman’s choice

Posted on December 17, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge.  ~Andrea Dworkin

The first thing I thought of when I read this quote is a story I remember hearing some years ago.  I don’t know how true it is, but apparently if you put a bunch of crickets in a jar and put the lid on, at first they keep jumping as high as they can in an attempt to escape.  After a while, they find that escape isn’t possible and there is pain involved in hitting their heads on the lid each time they jump.  So they learn to jump a little lower in order to avoid this pain.  Soon, they are so well trained regarding what is possible and what isn’t, that you can take the lid off the jar and it makes no difference.  They won’t jump out because they don’t believe it’s possible.

It is true that women have been put down and taught that being a woman means that there are few possibilities.  But it isn’t what society teaches you that matters – it is what you give society permission to teach you; whether you accept the teachings as true.  You can, like the crickets, accept the fact that possibility is limited – you can use history and the experience of many others to justify the fact that your opportunities are limited.  Or you can use history to teach you what to do differently.  You can prove society wrong.  It’s all about what YOU believe to be true and what you’re willing to do about the status quo.  You can blaze a trail for all women – whether they decide to walk that path is their decision, but the trail will be there.

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10 Lessons for women by women: The power is yours

Posted on December 11, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”    ~ Margaret Mead

Many people seem to have the viewpoint that the little that they can contribute to the world has no value and makes no difference.  The way I see it is that what you do is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean can only be an ocean because of the billions of tiny drops.  Women, particularly, seem to underplay their role in the world which is ironic sine they hold the greatest power there is – they literally give birth to nations.  They shape the world.  When all women realise the enormity of this, they will recognize their own power to change the world.  As women, we influence far more people than we could ever imagine.  Our thoughts and ideals become our children’s thoughts and ideals.  Our children influence their friends, acquaintances and the world they’re exposed to.  Later, they influence their own children.  And I talk about women here, because in most cases it is women who are the primary care givers, the most influential people in their children’s lives.  I recognize that there are men who fill this role, and this applies to them too (well, except for the part where women give birth to nations – sorry, guys!).

My dream is for every woman to recognize her incredible power and act on it in a responsible way; to act on it as if all of existence depends on her actions – because in many ways, it does.  My dream is attainable and my purpose to teach every girl about the power she has within her and how it should be used.

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10 Lessons for Women by Women: Raise your energy

Posted on November 20, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

“Please be responsible for the energy you bring into this room.”  ~ Jill Bolte Taylor

Perhaps some of you have read Dr Jill Bolte Taylor’s book and know the context of this quote, but regardless of the reason she said it, this is a powerful and thought-provoking statement.  We are all responsible for the energy we bring with us to any situation in life.  This fact hit home hard one day some years ago when I walked in to teach a Grade 5 class.  I had just had a run-in with the principal of the school and together with the fact that my sister was still struggling with serious health challenges, I felt really low. 

So as I walked in to the noisy bustling of Grade 5’s, my attitude was reflected on my face.  I waited as patiently as I could for silence so that I could greet them, when one little ten year old girl asked me:  “What’s wrong?  Why are you sad?”  In that moment, as I struggled to form a reply, I saw the girl’s face – she looked concerned and insecure, as if she wasn’t sure that it was appropriate to be happy at that moment.  I scanned the other faces in the class.  They were waiting for me to give the cue.  That moment was a turning point for me.  Almost instantaneously, I chose to raise my vibration.  And I saw the effect that it had on the whole class.  This is a lesson I will always remember.

To the women reading this, know that if you are a mother, you set the tone in your home.  Your happiness and your energy will determine how your child will feel.  Let your excitement and joy spill over into your child’s life.  And remember, no matter what the circumstances, the energy that you bring to your loved ones is always a choice!

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