We hear so often how important it is to “follow-through” and to keep our word. Society tells us that we’re locked in after we decide and that changing our minds means that we’re unreliable or disloyal. I don’t believe that line of reasoning because the concept is not that simple. All humans live in some variation of a patriarchal system …
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson The concept of hope connects to optimism and anticipation, right? It’s about playfulness, desire, and possibility. As a child, I was trained to pray regularly as a part of my formal conversation …
I remember when Geraldine Ferraro ran for VP of the United States on a ticket with Walter Mondale. While I was young, far too young to care about politics let alone understand political party politics, I was raised in the most powerful Republican stronghold in IL. Dennis Hastert, “The Coach,” and now disgraced and imprisoned sex offender/former Speaker of the …
I’ve got a new philosophy on life and coaching and it has made all the difference on a cellular level. I stopped trying to smash the patriarchy because it lives inside of me. When I want to obliterate the patriarchy from the face of the Earth and, trust me, some days that’s exactly what I want to do, I battle …
This week I coached several people on the theme of expecting the “freak-out” when they were about to jump into a “high stakes” life event. One client was preparing to take her GRE. Someone else was two days away from a long-awaited medical procedure. Another person contemplated her ability to handle the responsibilities of a recent promotion. What about you? …
You’re not alone. I can’t count how many smart, accomplished women like you (and me) race to the bathroom between tasks. We work and work. We wait and wait. We ignore and ignore. And then we sprint casually to the bathroom hoping that no one will notice our walk-run. Here’s what’s going on with all this racing woman phenomenon. We’ve …
If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’ve been diving deeply into the way that the patriarchy uses shame to keep folks in line. The norms and unquestioned traditions that we follow for no other reason than “that’s the way it’s always been” are often rigid patriarchal expectations incognito. Try to shift that norm and see what happens. …
I used to feel like a repository of ideas that emerged from societal norms, people in my communities, people outside my communities (strangers at the grocery store), and my own patriarchal conditioning. It was like a revolving door of thoughts that streamed into my world and I tried to entertain them all. I felt like I had to engage with …
I’ve been thinking about the concept of visibility lately and what it means for me to be visible in my own life. Society often teaches humans socialized as women to stay small both physically and emotionally. We’re supposed to lower our voices, lose weight, and smile. We follow the rules that we didn’t create and risk ostracization, ridicule, or some …
Sometimes I notice that my throat closes up when I am about to take an action that breaks through some of the gender norms that I learned as a child. This physical reactions still happens today years after I left the town where I was raised, stopped following the religious denomination that preached fire and brimstone doctrine, earned a Ph.D …