Yes, No, and Cancer...

It all comes down to balance.  But why is the illusive perfect in-between so hard to capture - and hold on to?

Harmony.  Balance.  Peace.

I've seen over and over again a commonality among so many women I know:  An inability to say no that is accompanied by an inability to say yes - for herself.

What is often said:

"Sure, I can do that for you.... and no, I don't need any help."

That's fine if it balanced with an equal amount of:

"No, I'm not able to help with that right now... and I need help with something."

Why the imbalance?  Because, too often, the people who are asked to help are those who are reliable, extremely giving (whether asked or not) and almost exclusively willing to sacrifice themselves for the needs of someone else.  And once others know who the "yes" people are in their lives, they develop a comfort level which can and often does turn into a form of dependency.  This, in turn, creates a new dynamic that becomes very difficult to break free from - one that makes both the giver and taker believe that this is the "norm" of their relationship.  This is a terribly imbalanced relationship and also a form of codependency.

There can be healthy codependency for periods of time but the overall and long-term picture of a relationship between any two people must have a healthy balance of give and take.  For instance, two people diagnosed with the same disease who find one another at a support group can become equally dependent on each other for support and understanding.  As long as this need does not become one which excludes the support (through the giving and taking of a reciprocal relationship) with others, this can be healthy and mutually beneficial.

This reciprocity of relationships in our lives has been at the front of my mind this week for several reasons.  It is indeed something I am still trying to perfect and embody in my own life.  I was reminded of my own tendencies to give too much and ask for too little help after I spent a recent evening with a friend battling cancer.  Her extremely loving, protective, generous nature has made her a giver for her entire lifetime yet now, at a time of great need when even her children are telling her to say no more often, I wonder if she is asking for all she needs.  I, too, know just how hard it is to ask.  There are so many reasons why a confident, strong, independent women tend not to ask for help.  But isn't it that same self-confidence that can give her the strength to ask for help when she needs it?  Easier or not, receiving help will help her to gain her strong sense of balance, critical for a healthy, balanced life.

I know that developing a strong balance of giving and receiving supports a person's equilibrium on a physical level, an emotional level, a mental level and even an energetic level.  As within, so without.  It's my belief then that it is our responsibility to teach our children how to develop, maintain and share their own inner sense of balance throughout life.  Quite simply, balance gives us a foundation from which to build the stamina and the sense of inner peace necessary to foster healthier lives, relationships, boundaries and perhaps even healthier bodies.

In my work, I taught my students about developing a work-life balance and reciprocal relationships in the workplace.  I think it's time I take that a step further.  We need a lot more yes-no balance in the world - and a hell of lot less cancer.

Don't forget Eman Al-Obeidy

Eman Al-Obeidy is a woman in Lybia who was detained and gang raped by 15 of Gaddafi's men.  Her face and her story represents the stories of countless other women whose names and faces we will never know.  If you do not know about Eman, please circulate this and make it a point to educate yourself.  Eman fears for her life and rightfully so.  She asks us not to forget her.  

Please do not forget Eman.

Terrible at saying goodbye...

"If I could define enlightenment briefly 

I would say it is 'the quiet acceptance of what is'."

- Wayne Dyer

Maybe it's because Mom has just left and the weekend has only just begun.  Maybe it's because she was here for an entire week.  And maybe it's because we had so much fun together and she lives so far away that it's so hard for me to say goodbye.  And yes, all of these things are true but they are not the only reason it's hard for me to say goodbye.

I've always been bad at saying goodbye.  In fact, it runs in my family.  My grandmother takes the cake, though.  If there were a contest for long goodbyes, she'd win the blue ribbon AND the grand prize. It's nearly impossible to say goodbye to her on the phone - just as you've said your goodbyes and said several I Love You's, another important point (or, as is more often the case, something entirely irrelevant serving just as a reason to stay on the phone one minute longer) comes to mind that puts conversation back on the table (or on the phone line, as it were).  And we're all just as fabulously talented at it because we've learned from the Queen of Not Saying Goodbye.  We just don't like letting go.  Is it possible that a not completely unhealthy form of codependency runs in the genes of the women in my family?  

I think it's just as likely that it's hard for me to say goodbye because I live so far away from my family.  Mom lives the closest (329 miles away) and I see her the most - a few times each year.  My grandmother lives only 334 miles away but she can't do the 6 hour ride to see me anymore so I see her only once a year or so.  My sister used to live 4,466 miles away but she has recently relocated so that we are now only 2,401 miles apart.  Still, I'm pretty sure if we lived a reasonable 20 miles away we'd still have a hell of a time getting off the phone - all of us.  

Since moving 329 miles from where I grew up some ten years ago, it's been hard for me to adjust to not being around my family.  Because of circumstance growing up (my sister and I shared a room and occasionally a bed on and off throughout childhood - and my mother insisted that we room together at camp and girl scouts and sleep overs at my best friend's house), the four of us women spent an awful lot of time together.  In the same space.  For many, many years.  And then we all parted.  My sister 4,446 miles in one direction and I 316 miles in the opposite (I've since moved, adding 13 miles and a few dollars in tolls).  

I've always envied families who have the fortune (or misfortune as some might say) to live in the same area code.  Or families who have so many members that you can afford to lose one or two to distance while still keeping family mayhem in tact between the holidays.  I've learned, slowly, to allow friends to become like family but it's still always been hard for me to say goodbye, even to them.  

It's not that I need them around all the time - in fact, those who know me know that I need a good amount of time to myself to think and grow and meditate and do whatever the heck I please.  But it's still hard to let people go.  One of my very best girlfriends remains amazed at my ability to have faith in love and romantic relationships primarily because I remain surprisingly optimistic about love despite past indicators but also because it seems that I haven't always said goodbye when said indicators suggested that I should have.  Yup, I hung on longer than I should have - personal information, yes, but I know I'm not the only one.  Thankfully, I've lived and learned that lesson but saying goodbye to those I love remains difficult. This doesn't exactly line up with my spiritual way of seeing the world though so I'm trying to balance it all out.  

I happen to believe - in a very deep part of myself - that when people leave they are still with you in whatever capacity you carry them with you, be it memory, thought, prayer or simply by loving them from afar.  I don't believe in needing someone else to fill a part of yourself that needs to be filled (if you're empty anywhere, that's your karma to work on in this lifetime).  So if I don't need someone else,  if there's no dark shadowy part of me I'm trying to fill, and since I like to be alone to regenerate every day, and I happen to have lots and lots of friends, why has it been hard for me to say goodbye?  I've certainly gotten better at it and I'm getting better all the time, but still.  It's not my strong suit.  

Buddhism and the Dalai Lama teach us that attachment to external objects causes suffering.  He also says that love, compassion and inter-connectedness are the natural "needs" of all living things.  I suppose I have the kind of love and inter-connectedness with my mother, my sister and my grandmother that just makes it hard for us to say goodbye to one another - one obvious reason is because next time is often an unknown point in the future.  But I do believe that we are all connected all the time.  And because so many spiritual leaders speak of peace coming from acceptance of what is in the present moment, I will just accept that we are all terrible at saying goodbye and simply love what we have.

Or might it be that there's just something very human and sticky and inter-connected about saying goodbye to another human you are completely and unapologetically yourself with?  

Whatever the reason is, I will end with this:  To Mom, Gram and Suz, I accept the fact that we are all really, really bad at saying goodbye.  

I love you.  

Goodbye.  

Talk to you later.  

Are you going to comment on this?  

If not now, then later, right?  

Okay, Love you.  

Bye bye.  

Suz, have Mak call Auntie after nap time.  

Or Zoe.

Or maybe we can Skype?  

Okay, let's Skype.

Okay.

Love you.  

Byeeeeeeeeee.  

Girl Power, Women's Empowerment and the end of "the lesser sex"...

International Women's Day is 100 years old today...  How are we doing, humanity?  And what are YOU doing to change things?

Are we where we should be?  No.  We should be much further along on this journey.  I don't see one reason why not, either.  We've fought a long, hard battle.  Sure, my grandmother gained the right to vote (in the United States) in her lifetime and yes, it's illegal for someone to hire or fire on the basis of gender (in the United States) but tonight, in most of the world, such things are only dreams for women who can only focus survival and feeding their starving children.


Are more women empowered today than we were 100 years ago?  Some (in the United States and other developed countries) are, yes.  For for most women around the world, their great, great grandmothers' lives looked awfully similar to their own.  


Are women stronger and more powerful than they once were?  I don't know.  I believe that women contain an infinite source of strength and courage - and always have.  I also believe that 100 years has brought some of us closer to the freedom to USE that infinite source of strength and courage for more than just survival, therefore allowing us to tap into that source of power in new and more far-reaching ways.  But more powerful?  I don't think that's the right question to ask.  Perhaps the right question is, then, are we getting closer to the freedom to use our power?  Yes, I believe we are.  


The facts are terribly painful but I know that pain can be turned to passion to change the world.  From the horrific realities of the lives of young girls who suffer rape, torture and genital mutilation in third world countries to the sexism, oppression and gender bias that exists right here in the Land of the Free, women - and our collective feminine experience - contain enough suffering to motivate every single one of us to the kind of passion needed to change the world.  I believe that the call to action surrounding the rights of women is as great as the Earth itself - and the potential within womankind is the greatest untapped source of energy that this planet has ever had or will ever contain.


My life and my work is about doing what I can, as one woman, to empower and engage as many women and girls in the shift that I believe is happening on this planet.  From my work with One Home Many Hopes where we house, feed, love, and educate a group of orphaned and abandoned girls in Kenya, to my work as an urban teacher of business, creative expression and entrepreneurship, I do all that I can for every single girl who has entered my life.  The greatest thing I can do, in my opinion, is to remind each girl I know that she has a voice - a voice that must be used because only SHE can do what God sent her to this world to do.  Each girl, each woman, each human is here containing a gift of strength and a passion greater than she can imagine.  Once each girl, each woman and each human begins to realize this, and to see her own unique potential to do Good in the world, we will all be living in a world where the term "lesser sex" would never be used to describe a group of human beings who have suffered and survived atrocities such as these... (Source: dosomething.org)

1. Women perform 66% of the world’s work, but receive only 11% of the world’s income, and own only 1% of the world’s land.
2. Women make up 66% of the world’s illiterate adults.
3. Women head 83% of single-parent families. The number of families nurtured by women alone doubled from 1970 to 1995 (from 5.6 million to 12.2 million).
4. Women account for 55% of all college students, but even when women have equal years of education it does not translate into economic opportunities or political power.
5. There are six million more women than men in the world.
6. Two-thirds of the world’s children who receive less than four years of education are girls. Girls represent nearly 60% of the children not in school.
7. Parents in countries such as China and India sometimes use sex determination tests to find out if their fetus is a girl. Of 8,000 fetuses aborted at a Bombay clinic, 7,999 were female.
8. Wars today affect civilians most, since they are civil wars, guerrilla actions and ethnic disputes over territory or government. 3 out of 4 fatalities of war are women and children.
9. Rape is consciously used as a tool of genocide and weapon of war. Tens of thousands of women and girls have been subjected to rape and other sexual violence since the crisis erupted in Darfur in 2003. There is no evidence of anyone being convicted in Darfur for these atrocities.
10. About 75% of the refugees and internally displaced in the world are women who have lost their families and their homes.
11. Gender-based violence kills one in three women across the world and is the biggest cause of injury and death to women worldwide, causing more deaths and disability among women aged 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accident, and war.

And to end on an optimistic note, consider what investing in a girl's life can create in return:

"Girls may be the answer to some of the world’s most challenging problems. Research shows effectively investing in girls in developing countries creates a virtuous circle that improves health and prosperity for entire communities.  Girls who are better-educated earn more money, get married later, are healthier, and have fewer children than their peers. As earners, they invest more of that money back into their families, which accelerates the benefits of the initial investment, improving the lives of a whole new generation." From an article called "Philanthro-teens" at http://doc.mediaplanet.com/all_projects/6574.pdf

Know a girl?  Love a woman?  Have a mother?  Then you need to ACT.  A lot of words can be written, holidays can be celebrated and blogged about but change only comes from action.  So mentor a girl.  Fund a woman's new business idea.  And help me to banish an oppressive term that should never have been uttered in the first place.

Now, I ask YOU, what are YOU doing to empower women and girls RIGHT NOW?

Setting boundaries...

Ah, the Achilles Heel for me and so many other women. But I'm making changes. Who's with me?

With my birthday coming up, I'm taking stock, cleaning house and putting up new speed limits and STOP signs on the highways and merry lanes of my soul.  I'll be honest, a lot of people have driven a lot of over-weight, loud-muffler bearing, exhaust-spewing jalopies through my soul that should have never been licensed for operation in the first place.  But I've been open - too open - and so I've unwittingly allowed them have their joy rides and illegal street races, hence the lesson of this little soliloquy.  I'm done with the oil dripping, pot holes and smog.  Are you?

I've found it very easy to see and diagnose the People Pleasing Disease (PPD) in so many women and girls I know.  I have fought ardently against the spreading of this disease, and, like any good girlfriend, I've dedicated HOURS upon HOURS amounting to surely weeks of my life to helping other women re-pave their own damaged roads.  The question is, have I done the same for myself?  I think I'm calling myself on the carpet here.  Not necessarily practicing what I preach...  The question is, though, why have I not?

I think perhaps the boundary setting lesson is one that sets in later in life for many women (and for too many, far too late in life).  As I sit here at the intersection of last year and next year, I'm actually quite grateful for the gift of another year under my belt.  The wisdom that comes with it far outweighs the perceived laundry-list of down-sides that we women are told to fear/despise/mourn/surgically alter as we grow older (don't even get me started on this little gem of backwards thinking that exists in this and so many other societies...).  Really, I can't see where the downsides are.  I think I'm more attractive than I was ten years ago, more confident (which makes a woman more attractive), smarter, sassier, wiser, and happier.  I've also got a whole lot of street smarts I didn't have ten years ago.  I dare you to tell me what I've lost.  Please.

This year's Ah-Ha moment will be wrapped in a big red bow (or perhaps yellow "caution" tape for those tempted line-crossers) and I will happily present it to myself in celebration of another year of life.  I'm giving myself the gift of saying NO.  I'm giving myself the gift of doing what I want to do and not what someone else wants or expects me to do.  My heart is about as big as the ocean so there's no danger of Shadenfreude here, so why haven't I been trusting myself and enforcing speed limits or erecting stop signs where they are needed?  Is this just part of the female condition?

I've become quite comfortable with my wisdom, confidence, life experience and the belief that I am an awfully valuable member of the human race.  Oh, and I'm an eternally optimistic survivor so there's no danger of blind Pollyanna-ness here.  I have indeed seen the ugliness of life, quite a bit of it actually. I just choose to still be incredibly positive about what we are all capable of overcoming and achieving.  My own process of reflection (a welcome side-effect of wisdom) has taught me to start protecting myself from all of the toxic pollutants of life, be they smog, PPD, negative people, toxic relationships or staying too long where I no longer want to be.  I am letting it all go and drawing some lines.

So here I am, world: Amy With Boundaries.  I've learned that by saying no, I don't feed into others' unhealthy habits, helping them to heal in their own ways as well.  It's a matter of stopping a cycle of dependency.  After all, in order for someone to take advantage of another person (that's some pretty bad Karma that needs to be healed), there must be a willing recipient (you've got to heal that kind of Karma too), conscious or not.  I choose to be conscious. I hope you will choose to consciously set your own boundaries too.

I'm positive that if it's done for your soul and with the right intentions, no one will be hurt.  In fact, you may find that other women and girls begin to model your behavior and will do the same for even more women.  If we do this right, ladies, we can heal a very old wound in the human condition and rid 51% of the population of a terribly painful habit that no longer serves anyone.