Dreams Can Come True

 March 10, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

When we were little, everything was possible and no dream was out of reach. We were literally playing make-believe and planting a strong and powerful belief in the rich and fertile soil of our minds. Under the right conditions, those dreams can root, grow and blossom into fruition. Yet so often in life, the dreams we had as little girls get crushed, buried or simply fade away.

With today’s technology and with social networking mediums like Facebook and YouTube, many people are using them as powerful platforms to successfully launch their dreams out into the world. Others seem to just magically get discovered through these channels because of the viral nature of this technology.

Imagine being three years old and having your fantasy dream come true? Here is an amazing story that unfolded as a result of YouTube.

I stumbled upon this story last week quite by chance. I recorded the show “Jimmy Kimmel Live” because my all time favorite band, Hall and Oates was supposed to be on it. Sadly their base guitarist, T-Bone passed away suddenly from a massive heart attack and they cancelled their appearance. I watched the whole show anyways hoping for a mention of the band and how they were all doing, but there was no announcement.

When I first saw the clip, I thought it was so adorable and so cool of Jimmy Kimmel to arrange to make that little girl’s dream come true. But ever since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the story and it has left me wondering…

  • In the clip, Jimmy mentions that this is as good as it’s going to get for this girl and her dreams. She disagreed and said “No it’s not.” I love how she believes in her life getting better and better, but I can’t help but wonder if she is going to go through a major let down phase following an event of this magnitude at the age of three?
  • Why would a mother video tape her three year old having a melt down and then post it to YouTube?
  • If that kind of whining gets that kind of attention and positive reaction, doesn’t it just reinforce the notion that “she who whines the most gets the prize?”

We live in a world that values fame and everyone is looking for their own fifteen minutes of it. But that kind of power rush is short lived and will never sustain our sense of purpose or unleash our innate potential. As cool as that opportunity was for little Cody and her family, I am more interested in the dreams of those who are striving to make a difference in this world and of those who work tirelessly in pursuit of those dreams.

Sometimes those of us with big, unrealized dreams can become discouraged when it seems like others are out there, going viral and getting “discovered.”

Here are some ways to unearth, rediscover and live your dreams;

  • Think back to when you were little. What did you love to do? When I was three, I starred in a neighborhood garage show. My dad’s workbench was the stage and I raised $5.00 and donated it to a local hospital. i was born to inspire and entertain others, but my dreams got buried when suddenly my dad died when I was ten and then my mother died when I was sixteen. It has been a long journey to rediscover those dreams, but I know now that they never really die and they can be reborn.
  • Ask yourself, if money was no object and you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you love to do? Jot down whatever thoughts or ideas come to you and explore the possibilities without any constraints.
  • Play make believe. When we were little we believed anything was possible. Spend some time day dreaming and dive into that wild mind of yours and have some fun imagining some what-ifs.
  • Sift through all of the challenges and use it all as contrast to help you get clear about what you really want. If you stay focused on the problem, you’ll keep getting more of the same right back at you.

If you need a little help in sorting through it all and figuring out what you want to be when you grow up, then give me a call or email me to find out more about coaching and receive a free 20 minute coaching call.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and reactions about the YouTube video! 

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Posted in Coaching | Law of Attraction | Mother/Daughter | Parents | Trust | Video |
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When the Bully is You!

 January 29, 2010 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

And by you, I mean me.

I’ve been procrastinating about writing this article for about a month now because it’s rather humbling to discover that after lecturing about self-esteem and empowerment to teen girls for over a decade that the bully was actually me.

But after reading an article in the Boston Globe the other day about Phoebe Prince, a fifteen year old girl who committed suicide after being bullied at school by the so-called “mean girls,” I knew that the time had come to tell this story. I hope to shed a different light on the topic of girls and bullying in order to better understand both perspectives and to help heal both the bullies and the bullied.

I’ve never been one to hop on the anti-bullying crusade because I have learned that whatever we push against, we actually bring more of the same back into our experience. In other words, what we resist persists. Mother Teresa understood this universal law of cause and effect and was well known for never attending anti-war protests and would only attend peace rallies. Our thoughts become our experiences so becoming outraged and pushing back against the mean girls is a losing battle and one that I choose not to participate in.

Every girl I know has been bullied in some way to various degrees. And if we are being totally honest, we have all probably bullied someone else too and like my own recent revelation, perhaps you were never really aware of it.

This past fall I received a friend request on Facebook from a girl I went to junior and senior high school with. When I saw her name I actually cringed as she and I did not get along nor did we hang out in the same circles. To put it bluntly, I couldn’t stand her. Susan was such a goody two shoes, always trying too hard. She was the girl who would raise her hand and remind the teacher about a quiz we were supposed to have that day.

I didn’t friend her immediately, but mentioned it to my friend Elaine who also went to school with us. When I said the other girl’s name, Elaine said with such compassion, “Oh, as I recall, people were not very kind to her in high school.” As I drove home from Elaine’s that day I thought to myself, Hell, I probably wasn’t that kind to her… that girl drove me nuts! My very next thought was that I owed her an amends because I am not the same person I was in high school and looking back I could see that Susan was just so desperate to be good enough and to fit in - and I knew that feeling well.

When I friended her, I included a note and apologized for the way I treated her in high school. Here’s what I wrote:

I remember you well Susan and I remember never being very kind to you. I’m really sorry.  For most of my life I suffered from low self-esteem and I took every opportunity to tear others down in order to try and artificially build myself back up. Although it’s no excuse, my dad died when I was ten and my mother was an
angry, abusive, lonely and sick widow with five kids. She died when I was 16 and left me with a gaping hole inside of me and desperate to fill it up - so I chose anger, drugs and alcohol.

When Susan responded she told me about her own challenges that she faced as she maneuvered her way through school:

Although no one ever knew it, I was being abused by my father all through school. I’ve worked incredibly hard to heal through the scars left and to realize who I am meant to be, but I also happen to feel like that is a life long mission, and somewhere in us, no matter how old we are, is this little girl who can easily sabotage us if we give her a voice.

Then she added:

I was estranged from my parents for 13 years and am still estranged from my Dad. My mom and dad divorced 3 years ago and my mom came back into our lives. I forced her into some counseling with me to help her heal a bit. During one of those sessions, my counselor asked her if she had ever believed me when I told her what my dad was doing. She responded that that was why she sent me to counseling as a teenager. When prompted a bit more, she said I had come home from school telling her of being bullied by kids at school and that she had called one of the mothers to talk about it. The mother told her I must be lying so she decided to get me some counseling. That was your Mom, BTW. So in this very random and bizarre way, there was good that came out of it.

It just goes to show you that you never know what kind of burdens someone else is carrying. I teach girls that all the time - that it takes nothing to be kind, and your words can either build someone up or tear them down.

This story also paints a revealing portrait of the insecurities of a bully. For the most part, bullies see in their victims something about themselves that they secretly hate or are unwilling to look at and accept. As with me and Susan, her desperate attempt to be good enough was like a mirror being held up to me and I just couldn’t look at it - so instead I lashed out from a place of defensive fear. We were actually more alike than we were different. We were both desperately looking for love, we both felt unworthy of that love, we both felt abandonment and loss and we attracted each other like magnets.

Since the story broke about the suicide of Phoebe Prince, there have been hundreds of blog posts, articles, legislative joint panels targeting bully prevention and in South Hadley, MA, letters from parents and residents prompted the creation of an antibullying task force at the high school. Every outcry is fueled by anger, outrage, pain and fear.

But how is any of this truly helping the situation if in fact that what we resist persists? Pushing against bullying is only creating more of the same. Our thoughts create what we see - wanted or not. What we see creates our experience and if we just keep focusing on what is and saying things like “We must put things in place to stop this bullying” we are still focused on the experience and therefore that is still what we are thinking about and as a result we will continue to see more of the same.

So what can we do?

We must shift our thoughts away from what we don’t want and hold a vision of every girl finding her true power and learning how to tap into the source of her higher power for her guidance. What we don’t need is more anti anything. What we do need and what is most lacking in our culture is a return to spiritual values and a return to love. To me, God is love and yet God gave us the freedom of choice. So when we are consciously choosing love, we are allowing the grace of God to flow into the situation. Grace, simply put is the unmerited and unconditional love and strength of God that can and will heal any situation.

We must let go of playing the blame game. Whenever we are pointing a finger out there, there are always three more pointing right back at us. Years ago, I read a book called “Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood.” The author, Wayne Mueller told about the time he was asked to head a task force in California following the Rodney King beatings and trial and the ongoing riots in LA. His only stipulation for heading up this coalition was that everyone involved must commit to letting go of blame. The parents were blaming the schools, the educators were blaming the legislators, the cops were blaming the kids and the kids were blaming all of the above. No healing can happen as long as we hold onto the blame. We must take responsibility for the fact that we are sad, hurt or afraid and then learn to shift those thoughts from the contrast back to what it is we want. Otherwise we are simply participants in the no-win vicious cycle.

If you are being bullied - you must take responsibility for letting go of the victim mindset by understanding where your true power comes from. As difficult as this may sound, you must be willing to forgive and yes, even love the bully. Hurt people hurt people. See the bully with a giant bandaid on their forehead and know that they are trying to get their power by making you feel less than. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” When you let go and surrender your thoughts of being victimized, it’s like putting down the rope in a tug of war and the bully is simply holding a limp rope with no resistance and no power surge left to be had.

If you are the bully - get in touch with your real, underlying feelings for why you do what you do. Everything we do is either an act of love or a call for love. Bullying others in a strange way is simply a call for love. That power rush that you feel by making others feel less than is fleeting and it will never be enough nor will it sustain you and guide you towards becoming the magnificent person you were born to be. That kind of power can only be found by connecting to your own higher power - the source of all love, joy, well-being and prosperity. Make amends and say you’re sorry and then most importantly forgive yourself. You will be amazed at the new sense of freedom and power you feel as you let the grace of God flow into your heart.

If you are the parent of a bully or the bullied - the first thing you must do is heal your own mind and conditioned thoughts so that your reactions are not being filtered through the lens of blame, guilt, shame and buried wounds from your own past. Once we do that we can let go of the need to defend the actions of our children which comes from a place of fear and insecurity about how it reflects back to us and our parenting skills. We can then step back objectively and be fully present and available to our kids who, whether they are the bully or the bullied, are both crying out for unconditional love.   

I wish I had had the opportunity to coach Phoebe and teach her to find her own inner power and strength. But perhaps Phoebe played a bigger role than any of us can even imagine and that she gave her life to bring a new awareness into the world. That is the thought I choose to embrace and to remember that the only thing I have power over is my own thoughts. Today I choose thoughts of love and forgiveness and that makes one less bully in the world today.


note: Susan has given me permission to use her name and share our story. We have met several times now for tea and healing and she is very open with her story as well as her love and forgiveness.

 

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Posted in Mother/Daughter | Parents | Personal Power | Self-Esteem | Teen Girls |
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The Talk Before “The Talk”

 February 14, 2008 by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

One of the most powerful, if not the most important relationship in a girl’s life is the one she has with her mother. The way a mother and daughter interact and communicate affects and shapes a girl’s sense of self and often forms the basis for the way a girl interacts in every other relationship throughout her life.

But very little forethought goes into the framework of this most important relationship and as a result, it just sort of evolves and morphs and oftentimes escalates into an all out war.

I get emails from girls all across the country asking me questions like “how do i talk to my mom about boys? Whenever i try and bring up the topic i get nervous. Its like i can never have guys as friends or more without my mom over-reacting.” I also get complaints from frustrated girls who tell me that their mother is “so wanna be cool that it drives me crazy” or “sometimes I feel like I’m arguing with another sixteen year old.”

There has been lots written about how to talk to your daughter about; boys, sex, _________ (fill in the blank), but there hasn’t been much written about how to create, or more specifically how to co-create the alliance or framework of this relationship. And before we can answer these burning questions, or if we try to answer them without creating this structure or sacred space, every time there is a challenge, you’ll be right back at this place of frustration. So in essence it’s more about how to have “the talk” before “the talk.”

Co-Creating the Mother/Daughter Alliance

The first step in designing this partnership is to start with a clean slate. If we bring the arguments of yesterday and the resentments of the past into this process, it will never become that safe space of mutual trust and respect. So forgiveness is essential to get go of any blame that will block the flow of positive energy that leads to empowerment. A quick visual would be to imagine erasing a white board so that you start fresh, or you could begin with a prayer and say, “I ask for your forgiveness for anything that has happened in the past and I forgive you too.” Just setting that intention goes a long way towards healing issues from the past.

The next step in co-creating this alliance is to create a safe space that allows both the mother and daughter to learn how to trust each other and set up ground rules and establish boundaries that allows each individual to grow.

I can remember being on a board of directors annual retreat and the facilitator asked each board member to tell the group how they like to be talked to. I was so taken aback because no one had ever asked me that question in my entire life – and certainly not my mother! And ironically, my response was something like “I prefer a gentle approach and I don’t respond at all to being shamed.” Both approaches, both the positive and negative were directly related to the way my mother had treated me.

I am creating a curriculum that will explore the co-creation of this important relationship and I’ll be posting more as this topic evolves and takes shape. The outline for this creation is below, but I welcome your input and feedback as to what you think is important in creating this alliance.  I am beginning to see how my purpose has evolved from the deep healing work I’ve done on my own mother/daughter relationship and how challenging it has been to have to do it at my mother’s grave. But heal it, I have and as a result, this beautiful path has been created for me and I see myself helping other mothers and daughters create this sacred alliance.  If your mother/daughter relationship has escalated into the all out war that I described above, or if you just want to get back on the same page and need a little guidance in setting up the framework of mutual respect and trust, please give me a call and I would love to work with you. As I said, your mother/daughter interaction affects every other relationship that your daughter will ever have, so this leap of faith investment will bless you both for the rest of your lives. 

The Mother/Daughter Alliance

The talk before “the talk”

  • Start with a clean slate
  • Forgiveness
  • Acceptance
  • Unconditional love
  • Creating a sacred space of mutual respect
  • Honoring the light in each other (namaste)
  • Establishing ground rules, boundaries
  • Communication: speaking your truth, learning to listen with your heart
    • I statements
    • Articulating what’s going on
    • Emotional literacy – identifying feelings and learning to be with them
    • Asking powerful questions rather than giving advice and answers
  • Letting go of comparisons
  • Self-management
  • Rituals
  • Trust – suspicion destroys it
  • Seeing each other as whole and holy – we’re not here to fix each other
  • Agreements
    • Agreeing to disagree
    • Not taking anything personally
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