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Women aren’t on their own list of priorities.
“After taking care of everyone else, they are always putting themselves last on the list, and often have very little left to give. There are many women who aren’t living—they just exist. This is a form of self-abuse. Women often wear their exhaustion as a badge of honor. The more you do for your loved ones, the more acceptable it becomes to “let yourself go.” Women believe its okay to sacrifice themselves for their own families. This is a lie that we allow ourselves to buy into, but we need to wake up! The challenge for women is that they must re-language what it means to be a wife and mother. Being a good wife and mother means that if you don’t take care of yourself, in the long run you are ultimately harming all the other people you love in your life. You won’t be the only one who takes the hit.
Fear of Competition
Media and society frequently tell women we need to portray ourselves as “together” and be able to perform any task thrown our way. But when women look at the reality of how overwhelmed they feel in their own lives, they begin to feel like they are not good or worthy enough. Women often see other women who look like they are “doing it all”—and then when they compare themselves, they become overwhelmed and feel inadequate. It’s not easy to face feelings of inadequacy so women usually end up avoiding them. But women need to know you can’t show up in your own life if you are on the run. They tell themselves they are too tired and burdened to compete with others so they don’t believe they have the power to change anything. Then they “drop out” of the game—they give up and let themselves go.
Unresolved anger contributes to letting go
Sometimes women “drop out” because they don’t know how to send a verbal message that says, “Get off my back.” They have unresolved feelings of anger or rage toward someone or about something so they “let themselves go” to express that. When women give up on themselves, they are often sending messages of anger and it could be because of something traumatic that happened in the past or because of unhappiness in a current relationship…like with a parent, husband, or child.
We let fear take over.
Women become paralyzed in their lives and let themselves go because of an underlying fear. A fear of rejection, a fear to accept how they really feel about themselves, a fear of facing the idea that they aren’t enough, a fear of accepting how others may feel about them. They let the fear take over and let other people determine their own self worth. The internal barometer that gauges guides and directs your life as an empowered woman—that makes you know you are enough and okay—is broken and needs to be fixed”.
Rediscover Who You Are
The “Who Am I?” Journal
Who am I? It’s a lifelong question, and getting beyond appearances and labels is the crucial first step in launching your comeback. Be Still! Be Present! The primary thing in your life is the now…the present… there is never anything else”.
No matter who you are, where you live, how rich you are or what your age is, life happens to all of us. However, we are all different and we need to find our own way.
So, I ask you this; What does a valuable life mean to you?
Live passionately… what else have you got to do?
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Christine is a certified life coach for women. She is the founder of Girltime Coaching and also writes her blog, Live Passionately.
Jill Starishevsky is an Assistant District Attorney who has dedicated her career to prosecuting child abuse and sex crimes in New York City. For over a decade, we can only imagine the cases that Jill Starishevsky has worked with and as dedicated as she has been to seeking justice for child abuse and sex crime victims. Jill is also the mother of two small children and has a true love for writing that led her to create the website, The Poem Lady. Living in New York City, Jill has also founded How’s My Nanny, which enables parents to purchase license plates for their strollers where passersby and those who see nannies with children to go onto the website and either report bad behavior or praise good behavior seen from nannies.
Jill Starishevsky’s true calling in life is to protect children as well as to educate them about how to protect themselves, which is why she wrote the book, My Body Belongs to Me.
My Body Belongs to Me is a book written especially for children–In clear and concise words in children’s terms that they can easily understand and absorb. It is important to teach your children about their bodies and their private parts at a very young age, especially as we see sexually abused children coming up younger and younger. It is a life-saving act of parenting to inform and educate your young children about their bodies and about who they can trust when someone hurts them. I know that some parents are a little uneasy about speaking with their children about this, especially if you’re a new parent, and there is a now book out there to help you ease into the conversation.
Children are extremely receptive and as many parents out there will tell you again and again, very much into talking about anything and everything that crosses their minds without a censor.
This book is perhaps the most important book you will ever have the responsibility to read to your children.
Rating: 
Buy the Book!
Bristol Palin, the daughter of former (thank. goodness.) Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin gave birth to a healthy, 7lb. 7oz. baby boy on Saturday at 5:30am. The baby’s name is Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston.
Sarah Palin first released news of Bristol’s pregnancy after she was “tapped on the shoulder” to run for office with former Republican presidential nominee John McCain at a convenient time while rebutting rumors about a cover up of her own pregnancy.
On Monday, Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Gov. Palin said, “This office will not be issuing any statements on [Bristol's baby]. We’re here to talk about state government and that matter falls outside of that.”
And because politicians and their families are treated by people as well as the media as celebrities, baby pictures of Tripp are said to be going for upwards of $300,000.
The bidding for baby pictures started at $100,000 and the price tag didn’t seem to be going up due to Sarah Palin recently gracing the covers of People, US Weekly and OK!, all of which saw a drop in sales. I would guess it has something to do with America being over Sarah Palin, not interested to learn more about a defeated political candidate. The bidding for the pictures started before the baby was born, but what really jumped the price was when Levi Johnston’s mother was arrested on drug charges.
Bristol and Levi plan to marry in 2009 and raise their child together like all teenage victims of strict, anti-choice parents.
What struck me as a little odd, to say the least, is the name of Bristol and Levi’s son. Sarah Palin’s son’s names are Track and Trig, why would Bristol be extending the line of off the wall names by going with Tripp? Perhaps because Trig and Tripp are so close in age? I have no idea. Thoughts?
“It takes courage to demand time for yourself. At first glance, it may seem to be the ultimate in selfishness, a real slap in the face to those who love and depend on you. IT IS NOT! It means you care enough to want to see the best in yourself and give only the best to others.” ~ Shale Paul
“If you are not taking care of yourself; body, mind, and spirit, the people in your life don’t get the best of you, they get what’s left of you!” ~ Lorraine Cohen
As women, we tend not to take care of ourselves, putting everyone else’s needs before our own. We are more about “embracing extreme self-neglect.”
In effort to fully embrace who we were created to be: women of passion and purpose, though sometimes that may look a little misty. To get clear on what our intentions for self-care are, we need to begin with self-care intention guided visualization.
One of the ways to take care of ourselves is to stay in the present moment. This is difficult to do if you are prone towards worrying about the future and fretting over the past.
The past has NO power and the future has NO presence
This behavior leads to fears, stress and anxiety. When we catch ourselves in one of those mental spaces, we must remember. One of the main reasons we get out of alignment with who we really are – which includes ignoring our self-care – is that we have stopped remembering.
Remember what? Remember who we truly are. The opposite of remember is not forget – We become ‘super hero’s’- scattered here and there, masters of multi-tasking. In order to pull ourselves together again and become whole, we must remember. What we are remembering is a feeling – the feeling of being whole and present.
Living your life for others is a very worthy sentiment. How can you care for others…when you are not taking care for yourself? Always putting others first can make you a doormat to be trodden on. Putting yourself and your need to rest, relax, have fun sometimes, and so on, will make you a better carer, provider or parent because you’ll be healthier and have more energy.
Here are some self-care practices that you can do on a daily basis in order to maintain a sense of peace and wholeness.
1. Set your self-care intention. Always begin your day intentionally. Remind yourself of your self-care feeling. The balance needed are these components:
- Harmony
- Balance
- Healthy lifestyle of exercise
- Beauty
- Inner Strength
- confidence
- self esteem
2. Three things you are grateful for. Start small, start with the basics: health, home, nourishment, friends, family, work…
3. Find a nutritious support person to check in with – this could be a good friend, an accountability partner, a life coach, a mentor – you don’t have to go through this transition alone; and creating new habits is transition. You can set up a time, preferably weekly, to get together.
KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH…KNOW YOUR OWN POWER
A few more things to remember; One of the things I have tried very hard to eliminate from my life is negativity. Negativity is nothing but toxic energy. This toxic energy can come in the form of toxic people, or energy whose only job is to suck and drain the life out of you; or toxic situations. When I find myself in one of these toxic environments, be it with people or circumstances, if I cannot turn the situation around, then I merely excuse myself and remove myself.
What you really want is to be surrounded by people you trust and treasure and people that cherish you.
“Breathing in I calm my body. Breathing out I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment!” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
When you are in doubt, when you feel frustrated, when you are angry, stop… and take a breath. Breathing is the one thing you can do anywhere at any time. It does not cost you anything, but it may gain you much. Remember that stopping is a spiritual action; and so is breathing.
Once you have made the decision to do so, these three practices will easily incorporate into your everyday life.
Set the intention to embrace extreme self-care!
Taking care of yourself is vitally important to a happy survival and by no means selfish.
Keep in mind that if you are happy, you will treat others with respect and respect is earned, not given. By not being happy, you become irritable creating a tendency to disrespect others. Disrespecting someone only creates negative consequences and so amplifies your unhappiness.
If you feel you don’t trust people, you are insecure in your own world and need to balance the three components. If you are worried about what everyone else is doing, you also need to even the scales as this shows a failure to do what you need to be doing.
If you are married, you must be able to keep your identity, do the activities you love, and take care of your needs emotionally and physically. Don’t fall into the trap of being detached from yourself by constantly focusing on fulfilling other’s needs while ignoring your own. If you have children, there is no reason why you cannot take care of yourself first. Enjoy time as a family but step out, take a walk, take a class, or have lunch with friends every week as this balances your life and creates happiness.
“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours.” ~ Swedish Prove
Be mindful on purpose.
Live passionately… what else have you got to do!
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Christine is a certified life coach for women. She is the founder of Girltime Coaching and also writes her blog, Live Passionately.
“It may be shocking when you realize for the first time that there is something within you (the pain-body) that periodically seeks emotional negativity, seeks unhappiness. You need even more awareness to see it in yourself than to recognize it in another person”
One of the things I have tried very hard to eliminate from my life is negativity. Negativity is nothing but toxic energy. This toxic energy can come in the form of toxic people, or energy vampires whose only job is to suck and drain the life out of you; or toxic situations. When I find myself in one of these toxic environments, be it with people or circumstances, if I cannot turn the situation around, then I merely excuse myself and remove myself.
If someone offered you a bottle of poison to drink, would you? Yet, you deliberately ingest someone else’s negativity or toxicity.
The next time you are in the presence of a toxic person or a person who drains you of energy, remember the bottle of poison analogy, and don’t allow their toxins to enter into your soul.
A negative emotion is any “emotion that is toxic to the body and interferes with its balance and harmonious functioning. Fear, anxiety, anger, bearing a grudge, sadness, hatred or intense dislike, jealousy, envy—all disrupt the energy flow through the body, affect the heart, the immune system, digestion, production of hormones, and so on”
Then, there are those of us who do not need the negative people or situations, because we can be negative all by ourselves. We manufacture our own negative thoughts and continuously feed on them. The bottle of poison is still appropriate here, yet we are self-inflicting the poison. We have very little control of what thoughts enter our heads. But we have definite control of what thoughts remain there.
The next time you notice that you are in the grip of a negative emotion, become still and pay attention to the way your body feels. See if you can locate the negative emotion in your body. Perhaps your heart is beating fast, your jaw is tense or your belly is tight. By being present with your body, you can allow the negative emotion to dissipate instead of reacting to it.
“You will be free to let go of your unhappiness the moment you recognize it as unintelligent. Negativity is not intelligent”
This week, pay close attention to negative thoughts, feelings or actions and any background unhappiness, including resentment, discontent, nervousness or being “fed up.” Become alert to your negativity and repeat silently: “At this moment, I am creating suffering for myself.”
Questions to Ponder:
- “Who are the toxic people in my life?”
- “Who are the nutritious people in my life?”
- “Who do I choose to spend more time with?”
Stay positive on purpose!
Live Passionately,
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Christine is a certified life coach for women. She is the founder of Girltime Coaching and also writes her blog, Live Passionately.
The little world of Woman Tribune has been growing and has had much success over this past year. We have been through a handful of designs and have finally settled into our new look out-of-beta and from all of the hard work that has been put into Woman Tribune, we have hit a tremendous milestone.
Based on creativity, clean designs, user friendliness, layout structure and organization, Balkhis has named Woman Tribune one of the 50 best looking blog designs of 2008.
We could not be more ecstatic about this, it has definitely been a fun, exciting and most of all, worthwhile journey to get where we are today.
We have all heard the phrase “time is money” when it comes to the business world, but in the blog world, to expect compensation for the exact amount of time you put into your blog is almost unheard of, especially when you’re new to blogging.
Whether you started your blog for personal use or to market your business, it is wise to think about your website as an additional relationship with a partner who is insanely jealous. It will need tender loving care, especially during the first three to four months and if you even think of giving something else your attention, even for a little while, your blog is going to be very upset with you, sitting there with no one paying attention to it.
With the amount of time you will spend writing your posts, advertising them as well as your blog as a whole, your blog will definitely take up a great deal of your time. If you started a blog to make money, give up your dream of making a living from blogging because it will firstly take a great deal of time to build your blog and start attracting loyal readers. While there are very few bloggers who can afford to quit their jobs and live freely collecting income from their blogs, such as Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, he tends to give people the illusion that it is easy if they just read his blog and follow what he teaches you. Even if you have been reading and following the advice Darren has given since ProBlogger’s conception, you may still be sitting there with a pagerank 0 blog (especially if you started doing paid posts or selling direct advertising on your blog, Google tends to hate when people start making money from their blogs) and an Alexa rank up in the millions. There is no such thing as overnight success in the blogging world and even if you worked diligently for months, or even years, your blog still may not go anywhere and that is a reality that all bloggers looking for some sort of payoff face and agree to when starting their blogs.
Although it seems like everyone already has a blog, it isn’t as easy as people elude to. Reading internet marketing blogs, taking professional blogger’s advice and buying books giving you the illusion that it is easy to earn a six-figure income from blogging alone isn’t going to work overnight and in some cases, not at all. Most importantly, you must remember the key points to blogging–You must have patience, don’t be afraid to spend time on it even if you’re not seeing any money from it and most importantly, love what you do because that is the only way you’re going to be able to spend so much time on something without any sort of payoff besides the sense of pride you have in yourself every time you hit ‘publish.’
For some reason, stress doesn’t motivate us take better care of ourselves. In fact, it tends to do the opposite.
Instead of eating enriching foods, exercising, and getting support from friends, we backslide from our healthier habits.
Men reported that when stressed, they either drink more alcohol or watch more television. Women reported that their top two stress behaviors are exercising less and eating more junk food. No one needs to be reminded that none of the above behaviors is likely to make you feel better! In fact, these behaviors are destined to make you feel worse. Remember, being in a care giving role can make one feel overwhelmed by life’s events. Often, when faced with the stress of taking care of a very ill or aging family member, a caregiver may neglect his or her own health. Binging on junk food, smoking, lounging around are all means that the stressed-out caregiver may use to relax. Of course, the short term relief from these tactics is horribly outweighed by their long-term consequences.
Indulgences
It’s natural to be tempted to indulge when stressed and in fact, some indulging habits are probably good for you. The last thing a caregiver needs to hear is eat only good food, eliminate caffeine, no alcohol, and exercise seven times a week! Write lists with your patient’s needs, you should also build a list of your own needs.
- You need good quality rest.
- You want well-prepared, healthy food.
- Your body deserves some exercise.
- You are entitled to having fun.
Then follow through on your own needs just as carefully and diligently as you do for the patient.
What can you do about destructive habits that you seem unable to change? Take smoking for example. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances, harmful to the smoker and others. But it may also be one of the few things offering you comfort. How can you balance your need for comfort with the need for better health?
The answer is by reducing quantity. Smoking two packs a day is worse than a few cigarettes a day. Eating a box of cookies is worse for you than a couple of cookies. So if stopping the behavior cold turkey isn’t an option for you, work on decreasing the frequency of the behavior.
Know Your Triggers
Identify what triggers your unhealthy behavior by keeping a diary for a period of time. Every time you feel the need to light up a cigarette/grab the box of cookies/search for the bottle of gin, write down what’s going on in your life at the moment. Most likely, you eventually will see a pattern of behavior.
Counteract Your Triggers
Once you have discovered your triggers, decide how to counter them. Make a list of your coping skills, which might include calling a friend, reading some email jokes, logging onto an online support group, taking a walk. Also make a list of rewards- watching a favorite taped TV show, playing solitaire, calling a good friend long-distance.
Approach the issue with two solutions. When you experience your trigger, try instead to use one of your coping skills. If you succeed in not drinking/eating/smoking, you get your reward.
We all need comfort in our lives, especially under stress. Try to maintain a healthy balance that works for you, as you try your best to maintain quality care for your loved one.
Old conditioning can sometimes take a while to re-educate, so we must be loving and patient with ourselves during this transition, but it is important to recognize destructive behavior for what it is, so that it doesn’t perpetuate itself unnecessarily.
Live Passionately,
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Christine is a certified life coach for women. She is the founder of Girltime Coaching and also writes her blog, Live Passionately.
There are a great variety of different meats prepared for Christmas day. My family has always been pretty straight-forward and predictable food-wise; we have a ham and for people who won’t eat the ham, a roast is prepared. For those families, like mine, out there who are always greeted with the same main course on Christmas day, try doing a little something different with your main course to shock and delight the taste buds.
You will need:
- 7 pounds (about half of a bone-in) cured smoked ham, (butt end), room temperature
- 2 cups apricot jam
- 1/4 cup mustard powder
- Butter for aluminum foil
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with rack in lowest position. Line a large roasting pan with aluminum foil; place roasting rack in pan.
2. With a sharp knife, trim fat, leaving a 1/4-inch-thick layer. Lightly score fat in a diamond pattern (do not cut into meat). Place ham, fat side up, on rack; roast 1 hour.
3. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine jam and mustard (they can be mixed and refrigerated up to 1 day ahead). Transfer 1/2 cup mixture to a small bowl to glaze ham. Set aside saucepan with remaining mixture.
4. After 1 hour, brush ham with glaze. Repeat every 15 minutes until brown and shiny, and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part, avoiding bone, registers 130 degrees, about 1 hour more (if glaze starts to burn, tent ham with buttered foil). Discard unused glaze. Remove ham from oven; cover loosely with buttered foil to keep warm. Temperature will then rise another 5 to 10 degrees.
5. Bring jam mixture in saucepan to a boil. Carve ham, reserving bone and 2 cups of meat for Split Pea Soup. Serve with sauce.
Remember Who You Are by Linda Carroll immediately caught my attention with the dedication and ultimately was the reason why I was so interested in reading her book. The dedication includes Carroll’s daughter’s names including Courtney Love and her granddaughter’s names including Frances Cobain. I jumped at the chance to read a book, especially a book about a woman’s spirit and learning and living with authentic power, written by the mother of the famous and never boring Courtney Love.
Linda Carroll is a practicing therapist whose life’s mission is helping women and in Remember Who You Are, you can clearly see her passion and dedication as she offers personal anecdotes and genuine wisdom she has gathered throughout her life and from the people she has met and bonded with.
As a person who blogs almost compulsively, I have often used the phrase ‘life got in the way’ to excuse my absence from the internet world, as disappearing from this technological world a lot of us become staples in, is bound to happen from time to time; but that phrase has many more meanings–Because life can so easily get in the way, obstructing our paths to what we truly want to do in our lives, we also have the ability to forget who we are in a sense. With the help of the words and wisdom of many inspiring and creative women such as Margaret Atwood, Anne Sexton, Jane Kenyon, Alice Walker and many others, Carroll makes her readers really think about their lives and the people they have grown to be. According to Carroll, a woman’s “journey of spirit” involves seven stages–Forgetting, Remembering, Exploring, Practicing, Shadows on the Path, Reclaiming and Acceptance. As Carroll takes us through the stages, her book makes us dig down inside of ourselves and fearlessly acknowledge what makes us tick by using the teachings of several different cultures and the world’s major religions.
Being an atheist, I did not think I would take much from this book, given that the subtitle mentions a journey of spirit; however, I was happily surprised by the outcome. The reason why I am an atheist is because I know a great deal about the world’s major religions and while most of these religions instill a series of teachings that are the equivalent of personal morals and common sense and what goes into being a good person, that alone does not instill a sense of faith inside of me or the belief in a higher power that will ultimately have their say in what is to become of my soul at the end of my life. Given those facts, Carroll is not teaching one specific religion in this book; she introduces us to many different religions and aspects of those religions that coincide with her seven stages that she believes every woman moves through, perhaps even several times, throughout her life. Ultimately, the goal Carroll is teaching us is to remember who we are as people before life got in the way.
Rating: 
Buy the Book!
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