So appalled in fact that you shared the story with others (who were equally appalled) only to discover that when you heard all the facts – the context for said behavior – you realized the person’s behavior wasn’t horrible after all?

Does A Conviction For Rape Mean You’re A Rapist?

An example that dramatically highlights the importance of knowing context and all the facts, came from the movie a Time to Kill, based on the book by John Grisham.

Matthew McConaughey’s witness, a psychiatrist, was discredited by the prosecution because he had been convicted of rape 20+ years earlier, although the record had been expunged.

But as McConaughey explained in his closing argument:

” The truth has become lost….Let’s take Dr. Bass for example, obviously, I would have never knowingly put a convicted felon on the stand, I hope you can believe that…but what if I told you that the woman he was accused [by the girl's father]of raping  was 17 years old and he was 23 years old and she later became his wife and bore his child and she’s still married to the man today.”

Oops. Big oops.

As this example so clearly points out, you need to know the whole story before you start making judgments.

I know that.

I thought I’d learned that maxim well after making many mistakes throughout my life when I  had jumped to conclusions.

Well, I jumped to a conclusion yesterday and it’s biting me today.

TIME Magazine And The So-called “Mommy Wars”

Without reading the full TIME magazine cover story myself, I still supported an on-line petition to “stop media outlets from trying to fan the flames of a false, outdated ‘mommy war.’ ” It was a request to “get as many people as possible to contact TIME and hold the publishers accountable.”

I believe the media often tries to inflame its readership and have seen it happen previously with what they’ve coined as the “mommy wars” (obviously an incendiary phrase). So when I received a request to support holding TIME accountable, my bias took over my good sense.

I signed the letter although I’d only heard some comments and seen the cover (below) of Jamie Lynne Grumet breast-feeding her 3 year old son and read the annoying article title of ARE YOU MOM ENOUGH?

But today, at my local library, I read the whole article.

I don’t think the article was written in a way to purposely flame the fires of the so-called “mommy wars”.  It covered the history of Dr. Bill Sears, the “father” of attachment parenting and told the stories of women who follow this child-rearing practice to one degree or another.

To my way of thinking some of the mothers’ child rearing practices are extreme and I wouldn’t choose to follow them, if for no other reason than they would make me exhausted:

• Not allowing a baby to cry at all – “attachment parenting dogma says that every baby’s whimper is a plea for help and that no infant should ever be left to cry.” (I believed in soothing my sons most of the time and never could stand letting them cry for too long. But sometimes I needed to get away from a crying baby held right next to my ear and stick a pillow over my head for silence).

• Having the baby sleep in the parent’s bed or in a bassinet alongside the bed (I didn’t want my babies in bed with my husband and me for: 1. fear of rolling over on them and 2. I didn’t see the value in both my husband and I losing sleep when our sons awoke during the night since I had to be the one to get up because I was breastfeeding).

• “Baby wearing” in which infants are literally attached to their mothers via slings. (I pretty much did my variation of this, although there weren’t slings then).

So yes, the article talked about the origin of child-rearing practices that not every mother follows but, again, I didn’t see the author blatantly flaming the fires of war. Therefore I would not have promoted that petition if I’d done my due diligence, as I should have if I am to support anything.

I am repentant and reminded again not to jump to conclusions or let my biases impact the study of new information.

It would be interesting to know if you feel that I’m flaming the “mommy wars” because I stated what my practices were and what my beliefs are.

It’s certainly not my intent to inflame or to criticize a method of child rearing that is different from mine.

I did what was right for me. You need to do what’s right for you. And some day our adult children will meet and probably like each other because they’ll all be good, responsible human beings.

How easy or difficult is it for you to accept another woman’s child-rearing practices that are different from your own?

There was a lawyer I dated for a short time when my sons were young.

I didn’t realize how much I “showed” my Bear Mom side until a few months later when I called him for a referral for a friend who needed a lawyer for a custody battle he was in.

When I made the call apparently I never said the referral was for someone else. Mr. Esquire, thought I was in a custody battle with my ex-husband. He said he’d check with someone he knew and get back to me.

When he called me back he said that he’d spoken with Custody-Battle-Lawyer (CBL) and told Mr. CBL to expect a call from me.

picture from: www.firstpeople

“Oh. Sorry for the confusion, the referral isn’t for me, it’s for a friend.”

“Glad it’s not for you. I better call him back, though, because I told Mr. CBL to strap himself down, that you are one fierce Bear of a Mom and would not take this lying down.

How did he know that? It’s true but we’d never gone out together with my sons. I don’t think he even met them. Did I just exude that energy when I talked about Seth and Aaron?

Bear Mom Testimonial #2

It was a new school year. My older son was in 6th grade so attending middle school for the first time.

Everyday after school I’d ask him how things were.

“Fine.”

Loquacious is not a word I’d typically use to describe Seth.

So I was very surprised when I was talking to the mother of another 6th grader in the neighborhood, who also walked to school, and learned that a group of 7th graders were bullying and punching Seth, causing him to take different routes to school.

I was wild. And concerned. Why hadn’t Seth told me?

When Seth arrived home that day I told him what I’d heard and asked him if it was true.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

When I saw the look on his face, the reason hit me like a bolt of lightening.

“You were afraid that if you told me I’d drive the van through the front door of those kids’ houses and then pummel them in the face.”

My kid knew his Bear Mom well.

No one hurts my kids.

He remembered when I took on the abusive baseball coach who was calling – screaming really – the 6 & 7 year olds “pussy” if they didn’t swing at a pitch.

He knew I was fiercely protective of any small person who was being picked on by a bigger person.

He also knew, although I wouldn’t drive my van through the bullies’ doors, it would feel as if I had as I strode into the kids’ parents home to seethingly tell them what was going on.

So that was the day I learned, now that my kids were older, there were some battles I shouldn’t protect them from.

Or, as Seth and I agreed, he’d handle the bullying his way unless it became worse.

It wasn’t easy for me not to growl at the bullies and their parents, but Seth believed I’d make the situation worse for him.

This happened 20 years ago. With all the articles about bullying and suicide, I don’t know what I’d do today.

Hey moms, what do you think? What would you do?

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. Thanks for being best mom you can be!

People only seem to talk about what they “do”, in other words, their work. There doesn’t seem to be room for learning more about the person; for making a real connection.

Yet, what is the purpose of these networking events? To connect with people for work purposes.

• Will you buy my wares?
• Will you connect me to someone who will buy my wares.

So I think they’re operating just the way they’re supposed to. And I loathe it.

Flickr - rights reserved by tea_austen

Resistance

Many people would say my loathing of networking events is resistance (actually I would too). But there’s a very good chance they would also add that this means I’m at my edge, on the verge of breaking through to something very important for me.

Before today, I would have sighed and agreed and forced myself to go to networking meetings. This is my edge right?

Wrong. One size does not fit all.

In my Soul Caller’s group, there’s been a discussion about resistance and edges and pushing through the fear.

One of the wonderful members of this group posted this passage from The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield.

“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to strength of resistance. Therefore, the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us.”

Pressfield’s passage made me realize that my resistance to networking functions is not based in fear. Granted I always have some butterflies in my stomach when it’s a new group, but that’s normal when entering a new situation. It’s butterflies, not gut wrenching fear.

I’m merely resisting what doesn’t work for me. I rarely get work from those situations. It feels false. Often the people there aren’t “my” people. You can call this rationalization on my part. You can call it denial. But geez-louise if I don’t know myself and start listening to myself now, I’ll die living a business model that others want me to live, not my model.

And my model does involve meeting people. Lots of people. The people that volunteer for the causes I believe in. When I was on the Board of Casa Guadalupe I made strong contacts with people from many businesses and organizations.

When I volunteered for hospice, the other volunteers and staff connected me to many other people with whom I could network.

When I volunteered at the local NPR station, I made valuable contacts.

At all these places I also made friends. The people I volunteered with saw the type of person I was and my work ethic better than anyone ever did at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

I’m a chit chatter. It comes naturally. An elevator speech at a so-called networking event does not come naturally.

Since I moved to Arlington, VA I made a friend and good contact at a Zumba class.

A woman standing outside Harris Teeter’s  asked me if I was registered to vote. My registration is still in Pennsylvania so I took the opportunity to register in VA and, of course, chit-chat. I have her phone number and an invitation to go walking. She’s lived in the area for twenty years. I might have made a friend and some good contacts.

I also attend Guerilla Mentoring events with The Hot Momma’s Project at George Washington University. I learn a lot there and make contacts without having to give an elevator speech.

I don’t need to become excellent at elevator speeches just because they’re hard for me or I get nervous (fear) about them. It’s like saying a kid who’s poor at Math but strong in English should pursue Math as her major rather than English because that’s where she needs to get stronger. Or she should pursue it because her math anxiety is an edge for her. Poppycock.

What Energizes You & What Saps Your Energy

Resistance and fear can teach us a lot about ourselves.

Overcoming fear and stretching beyond your comfort zone is an important part of our growth. But you can be discerning about what resistance and/or fears you take on.

Pay attention to your energy level related to the things you resist. (This can be tricky because resistance can come in the form of tiredness. Our brain is a powerful protector of the status quo.)

Do the things you resist – for example in my case networking events – drain you after you do them or energize you?

I know I’m energized and proud of myself when I overcome a fear that is impeding my life. But I do not feel energized after a networking event, in fact I often feel drained.

Think of 3 things you’ve done that you initially resisted, which ultimately energized you and made you feel happy. How can you expand on these wins for your continual growth? Pay attention to these clues for identifying and accomplishing what you really desire.

Now think of 3 things you’ve done that you initially resisted, which continue to drain you and make you feel unhappy. Drop ‘em. They’re not for you. For example, if blogging continues to drain you and not make you happy, find some other way to reach your audience.  And ask yourself in a quiet moment, after several deep cleansing breaths, if writing really is the dream you want to pursue.

What is your resistance and energy level telling you? I’d like to hear about it.

Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook where the discussion continues.

Jayne Mansfield via Flickr by MsBlueSky

What you see in a mirror depends on so many things.

Are you looking at your reflection under sunlight or the gloom that can come at the end of the day, when the sun is setting?

Are you looking straight on or standing a bit to the left and only seeing a partial image of what is you?

Is what you’re seeing distorted by the shape of the mirror you choose?

Are you taking a 360 degree look at yourself and seeing all of what is you?

What Others See

In a salon after getting your hair cut, you gain a different perspective of your new ‘do when the stylist holds up the mirror so you can see how you look to the people whose only view of you will be when walking behind you.

You need to understand those views too, because too often your viewpoint of yourself is narrow or distorted or almost blinded by years of limited beliefs.

<sigh>

Yep, this is really a story about me.

I’m working with a coach to help me get to the next level in my business.

Unfortunately (and fortunately) part of that process is holding up a mirror to my actions. A mirror constructed of questions for me to answer. To ponder.

Fuck.  I know coming of age, again, means learning new things about yourself. Or re-learning lessons that didn’t stick. And this is a normal part of continuing to learn and  grow. Most days I like learning…love it in fact. But today – not so much. That’s because I know this is only the beginning of 6 months of a full body, surround-sound Question Mark Mirror being held up to me.

Her most recent question was:

What “story” or belief came up for you that made you hold back in enrolling [a potential client] more assertively?

I learned a lot. I believe you will too.

Take a few deep breaths, slow yourself down and fall into the pleasure & wisdom of Tara’s words.

About Tara: Tara Sophia Mohr is following her calling: restoring women’s voices where they are missing in order to amplify women’s impact in the world – both for the well-being of women and for the well-being of our civilization.

This calling led her to create two anthologies of Jewish women’s writings about the Passover holiday, giving thousands of families a way to add women’s perspectives to a religious ritual where women’s voices had been entirely absent.

It drives much of her present work: coaching women leaders, leading the Playing Big global women’s leadership program, and leading The Girl Effect Blogging Campaign, through which hundreds of bloggers write about the importance of investing in girls’ education in the developing world.

Tara believes most brilliant women don’t see their own brilliance and are “playing small” and they know it: not speaking up, doubting themselves, seeing themselves as “not yet ready” to launch the big idea, the organization, to put themselves at the table. The 10 Rules, and the other work she does with women leaders are about learning how to quiet self-doubt, clarify purpose, and become comfortable with taking bold action in the workplace and in the world.

The interview:

Cherry: You coach women, brilliant women, and you say that most of the time they don’t own their brilliance, or they don’t see it. I was wondering if you see your own brilliance.

Tara: <slight scream> Oh, you’re starting with such a hard question. <good naturedly> Where do you get off doing that?

I have the same struggles as so many women and that’s why I have been able to see this issue clearly. We can perceive what’s in other people when it’s also alive in us.

I have a lot of interest in helping women:

• play bigger
• find their voice
• share their voice in the world

My interest in these challenges comes from being on that journey myself. I’m up against the same things that get in all of our ways. So it’s a topic that is continually part of me.

Cherry: I know that with myself. The reason that I work with women and confidence – particularly related to choices they make for their “future selves” – is because of similar issues I’ve had and the tremendous learnings I’ve had because of my experiences.

Tara: Yes, yes.

Cherry: You’ve said you don’t think it’s possible for you or anyone to completely overcome self-doubts.

Tara: That is my point of view.

My perspective is that we are hard wired to have a vicious inner critic inside. The inner critic manifests itself a little bit differently in each of us.

It might be saying, “Oh, this is gonna go horribly” creating in you a picture of the worst-case scenario before you give a presentation, or go into a negotiation, or send off an email.

Or it might be telling you

• you’re no good
• you’re not qualified
• you don’t know enough
• you’re a this, you’re a that

Or it might be talking to you about the size of your thighs.

Whatever it is, we all have a form of that inner critic voice, and I actually believe that voice is our instinct for safety, our original, very ancient and primitive instinct for physical safety.

It’s the alarm bell in our system that was designed to warn us of danger — a physical danger to us, a predator or a potential disease spreading and trying to keep us safe and alive. It’s an evolutionary instinct.

That instinct for physical safety now, in our modern era, when our physical safety is not at risk, is firing all the time when we are facing potential emotional danger or emotional risk such as criticism or failure. So that alarm bell sounds any time we’re really stretching and making ourselves vulnerable to possible emotional discomfort or hurt or pain.

The instinct for safety tries to keep us in a box by voicing those self doubts. It’s kind of like, if it’s mean enough to us, it can push us right back into the safety zone.

Cherry: How do you deal with self-doubt when it creeps in for you?  How do you get past it?

Tara: I like to use the metaphor of a guy driving in the lane next to me on the highway and he won’t get ahead of me and he won’t really go behind me.

It’s really annoying ’cause he’s kind of right there, neck and neck with my car,  distracting me. I always picture the car like a beat up minivan and there’s a guy with his elbow hanging out the window. It’s just distracting.

That’s how I think of the voice of fear or the voice of the inner critic. It can be present, along side of us, and we can be aware of it but we don’t have to crash because of it.

We can learn to just notice it as that slightly annoying, slightly distracting thing. We don’t have to take direction from that voice because we’ve recognized it doesn’t tell the truth.

Cherry: Okay, got it. That was a good metaphor. I like it. I’m going to picture that beat-up mini-van driving beside me with an irritating guy hanging out his window the next time I hear my inner critic. I can ignore him or change my speed to get the guy out of my peripheral vision.

Tara: Good. Good.

Cherry: When I was doing research for this call, I came upon a paradox, or at least something I saw as a paradox. You said you lost some of your confidence while getting your higher education; yet when most of us think about higher education, we think about it as something that generally bestows confidence on people. Can you talk about that?

Tara: Yes, it’s a topic I find really fascinating.

I was privileged to have a very high quality prestigious education. I did my undergraduate degree at Yale. I was an English major studying Shakespeare and poetry in a very competitive environment. Then after working in the non-profit sector for a few years, I decided to go back to school to learn how to manage organizations and learn more about leadership.  I went to business school at Stanford University.

Those experiences developed my mind, particularly my left brain, but they did not nurture my heart or soul. In fact they were very tough places for my heart and soul. They’re competitive and patriarchal by nature. Both of those schools are still quite male dominated.

It was difficult to ever find or share my voice. To take risks. To find a place that felt like home.

Since getting my degrees and going out on my own – pursuing what I love and working with brilliant women – the more I find I am not at all unique in that story, that for many women higher education is an experience of becoming very dislocated and disconnected from their own voices.

In fact, in the classes that I teach on the inner critic and on playing bigger, I’m getting brilliant women in the classes who know they are not playing big. It’s a diverse group, but I often have women PhD students or professors from some of the top academic institutions in the country, and they are really struggling with issues of voice and confidence.

Cherry: That’s upsetting.

Tara: I think it’s hugely upsetting. We are taking our best minds, talented young women, and we’re putting them into a system that does not work for many of them.

There are some women who really thrive within that environment. But for many of them, they come out the other side with the degree but without a solidity and confidence in their own voice.

Cherry: I’m sitting here, as you can tell, almost speechless, which is rare for me. I’m thinking about you and what I know about you and that wonderful story – I believe it’s on your website – that you told about when you were 14 years old and your school didn’t have coming-of-age stories about women, and you started a brilliant campaign to change that.

You were willing to take on the system at age 14, which is a tough age for kids. You used your voice then, and I juxtapose that with the fact it was in higher education at prestigious schools, who had accepted you as meeting their standards, and yet that’s where you lose your voice.

It’s mind-boggling.

Tara: Right.

Recently I was thinking about this because I was in an environment where there were a lot of university administrators and college students and I was thinking about what would happen if we were to look at the whole university and graduate school experience through the lens of relationships.

If we were to look at relationships as a key source of grounding, nourishment, psychological health, how would the college experience fare? I think for many schools, it would fare very poorly because you’re taking kids away from many of their connections.

You are not giving them any support. Maybe there’s a senior student who lives in the dorm or a couple who lives in the dorm who are serving 300 people. They’re not in any kind of small group setting or a mentorship setting. They’re given a lot of new challenges and stresses without support.

I think about that a lot because I’m a very relational person. I need a sense of connection and belonging to find my platform for sharing my voice.  The kinds of institutions where most kids get higher education don’t ground people in that. It’s really left to chance.

Cherry: Agreed. And again unfortunate for many, many people, not just women, I’m sure.

Women perhaps fare worse because overall, I mean, it’s a generalization, but overall we are more relational than men.  But it’s got to be difficult for both genders.

Tara: If you look at the rates of binge drinking, substance abuse, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety on campuses, it’s not a picture of thriving human beings. I think many college institutions have not taken responsibility for students’ well-being, just their education.  And I think that’s unfortunate.

Cherry: Right, ’cause that’s only dealing with part of the person, obviously.

It was after you received both degrees that you stopped writing for about seven years.  You said that you were too afraid to write because your inner critic told you, you couldn’t live up to all the praise you’d previously received on your writing, which is yet another paradox.

Tara: Yes. Writing is one of my deep, deep loves and it is so core to who I am now and was when I was growing up, but I think two things happened.

One, I believe that the inner critic voice and the critical thinking part of our mind are like very close cousins and when we’re strengthening the critical thinker in our minds we can often accidentally strengthen the inner critic. So in academic institutions if you are analyzing everything and analyzing literature and critiquing poems and everything is coming from that evaluative point of view, how can you sit down and write something without your own mind shredding it to pieces?

Cherry: That’s a really good observation.

Tara: I think that’s why so many academics struggle with their own creativity and playfulness.  Their critical mind is so strengthened and then it gets applied to everything.

But the other piece that you’re referring to is I really had an a-ha moment when I read Carol Dweck’s research. She’s a psychology researcher at Stanford, and she’s looked at the negative effects of praise on kids, and one of the things she sees is that when you praise children in a way that emphasizes their inherent talent or gifts when you say, “Oh you’re such a great writer”, “Oh you’re so good at math”, or “Oh, you’re such a great soccer player”, that children then become less willing to take on challenges or stretches or new tasks in the area where they’ve just been praised, because they believe they’re not gonna live up to the praise, and ruin it.

With children who were given a compliment about their effort: “Wow you put so much effort into studying for that English test, I’m so proud of you” or “Wow, you’re a really hard worker” – those kids will leap to the next challenge because they think it’s gonna get them more praise around how hard of a worker they are.

Cherry: I know that research. My son and daughter-in-law took in a foster child that they’re now adopting. One of the parenting books my daughter-in-law read was Raising Happiness and she gave to me. It refers to that research. It was valuable and interesting.

Many parents have, with great wonderful intentions, been giving their kids tons of compliments on their inherent abilities, without knowing there could be negative consequences.

Tara: Praise can often be a trap and it certainly made me a little bit afraid. When I wrote that blog post, so many people wrote and said, “Oh, my gosh. That’s exactly what happened to me and now I can put my finger on it.”

Cherry: In your individual coaching and playing big program you work with women to help them recognize their brilliance. Go from playing small to playing big. How do you handle the issue of praise with the women, Tara?

Tara: That’s great. I really believe that acknowledging the potential and the brilliance of people’s ideas is a great thing to do. I think that when I share feedback – and I think this is a great rule for feedback in general – I like to share the impact that someone’s idea, or whatever, has had on me. So I might say to someone, “I’m so moved by the work you’ve done on yourself over the past two weeks”. Of course it has to be authentic and then they feel the power of themselves but it’s not about someone telling them who they are.

I think that’s a great rule for giving praise or criticism in general because whenever we give feedback we’re really only talking about the impact that someone has had on us.

Cherry: I started thinking about my 4 year old granddaughter. I know about praising for effort, trying not to praise just for results but it can be difficult sometimes. All of a sudden the words are out of my mouth. It’s like, “Oh, darn. That wasn’t the best way to say it.”

I’ll have to think about praise in terms of the impact on me ’cause there’s certainly ways that I can do that too.

Tara: I notice for myself too that praise and criticism become very distracting when I am not clear about my own reasons for doing something, and therefore, I’m looking to the praise or criticism for my own validation. So praise and criticism used to be so weighty for me in terms of writing.

The way that I actually reclaimed my writing and got it back was when I became so frustrated and hurt so much from not having that creative outlet in my life. So there was a day when I said, “I am taking this back for me”. I finally fully understood the writing has to be for me and it’s less important what other people think.

And so as a result of that, when people praise my writing, I still enjoy it, but it’s gone from being the cake to the icing on the cake, and that is a really big difference.

Cherry: I am very glad that you are to that point and that you’ve come back into your writing, because your writing is beautiful.

This is a wonderful note to wrap up this interview: To feel good about yourself, look internally for a sense of self worth rather than for external validation. I think that you made that point very well, Tara, and thank you so much.

Tara: Thank you, Cherry.

What effect has praise and/or higher education had on you? Let’s get the dialogue going in the comment section.

I didn’t want to go, I dread networking functions even if I’m good at them.

I was following the directions I had written down but something didn’t jibe. So I went around the block to try coming at the intersection again, thinking perhaps I’d missed a sign. Well, Northern Virginia doesn’t believe in providing the opportunity to go around the block. I swear no street is in a straight line around here. A street can hop from a north/south street to an east/west street just at the moment I think I have my directions figured out.

Point being: I was lost.

I couldn’t read the directional thingie on my mirror because of the glare of the sun I profess to love so much.

I was tensing up.

Keeping Commitments

I had made a commitment to myself that I’d get to this event come hell or high water, so I needed to keep going until I found the restaurant where it was being held.

Then high waters came in the form of a panicked phone call from my daughter-in-law. “Is there any way you can pick up Ellie from pre-school? Neither Aaron or I can make it on time.”

Was this a message from the Universe that I’m not supposed to network?

Two illegal u-turns and one pounding my fist on the steering wheel later (because going from being lost to finding the pre-school is not easy); then an illegal maneuver that could have cost me at least $2 million dollars in fines and an immediate loss of my driver’s license, I made it to pre-school before it closed.

Note: The taxi driver connection to your future is coming. Short stories aren’t my strong suit.

Now I text my daughter-in-law that I have Ellie and – I’m typing this with a puffed up chest – I’m taking her to the networking meeting with me.

But, natch, on the way I got lost again.  I have geographic dyslexia.

Now I’m tensing up even more – shoulders are up to my ears. Not only am I going to be very late for the function, Ellie’s mother is meeting us there to take her home and she’s already found the place.  At this rate, Ellie may never see her mother again.

Bold action is required.

I’m sitting at a red light behind a taxi driver. He has to know where the boulevard is I’m looking for.

I put on my flashers; tell Ellie I’ll be right back and start to sprint to the taxi driver’s open window.

The light turns green. Horns honk.  I run back to my car – still lost.

But luck, the Universe, God, Allah, Shiva, and Buddha must have been on my side. Right past the light the taxi driver had a pick-up! He’d pulled over and put his flashers on. I pulled directly behind him and leaped out of my car once again.

I arrived at his window and he said ” Sorry I didn’t see you soon enough at the light. I had to drive.”

What? He stopped just to help me?

Those are the moments that restore your faith in people.

Now I’m glowing with gratitude as I ask him how I get to Clarendon Boulevard.

“You’re on it.”

Double-What? My head spins ( but not, thankfully like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist ) to find a street sign. There it was CLARENDON BOULEVARD.

The taxi driver pointed out to me what I couldn’t see on my own.

I was blinded by a misguided belief that I was lost.

Everyone Needs Help Seeing Things

Sometimes we need help seeing where we are; what we’ve already accomplished; our strengths and skills.

That’s why I believe in using strength and perception assessments and various templates in my  work.  Often you need another person – your own personal taxi driver – to tell you you’re not lost and point out where (what) you are.

As prior clients will tell you,  you’ll be surprised at what you learn about yourself.

Armed with the confidence that comes from knowing where you are, it’s easy to move forward toward the destination you desire.

I’d love to be one of your taxi drivers. For details on my upcoming 6 week teleseminar series that starts April 27th, click here. You’ll be glad you did.

Flickr-Copyright All rights reserved by Scarycrow

I took a walk yesterday even though I didn’t feel like it.

I made some calls I’ve been avoiding even though I STILL didn’t feel like making them.

I wrote a sales page even though I felt like taking a nap instead.

I paid bills even though I felt like putting them off until tomorrow.

I read and did the exercises in The Energy Of Money even though I really, really didn’t feel like it and thought I’d feel better reading a mystery.

I bought a new calendar with more space for plans, even though I didn’t feel like spending the money, because I know my schedule works best for me when I write it out by hand and write in a specific time to do ALL the things I need/want to do, not just the things that have to do at a specific time (like yoga class).

I created curriculum even though I wasn’t feeling very creative and thought I’d be better off waiting for a more creative time to create.

At the end of the day, after not succumbing to how I felt in the moment, I FELT SPECTACULAR. Proud. Happy. Delighted. Energized. I felt no self-recriminations. What a good feeling.

Know what I mean?

Seeing a red-tailed hawk isn’t unusual, but on Saturday during my walk in nature, the red-tail I saw was not to be ignored. It stayed, circling and kettling directly above my head for several minutes, as if commanding me to look, watch, pay attention.

Then yesterday morning I saw a bald eagle on my walk. The bald eagle, much more of a rarity in an urban area, had its meal in its talons as it flew overhead, landing on the branch of a tree a bit ahead of where I was. As I walked closer I saw it eating and ripping apart its prey with its powerful beak. I was reminded of what I had just read the night before in Martha Beck’s new book about wordlessness and turn-arounds .

Beck was in Africa and saw a leopard catch an impala. As she saw the antelope kicking and thrashing, Beck started to become upset. So she deliberately used a breath-to-heart technique to get her mind clear of stories. She realized then that the impala was in shock and confused, but not having thought-based fears that humans have about dying (and that she was projecting onto the impala): “This shouldn’t be happening!” “I’m not ready to die.”

The event was not something evil or wrong.

As Beck describes it, she “could clearly see that the leopard killed the impala. Then [she] immediately found truth in the opposite statement (a turn-around) [She] could just as easily say the leopard ‘lived’ the impala, taking its stored physical energy into her own body.” (pg. 47-48) Holding these opposites helped push Beck into a paradoxical belief structure.

I believe the timing of my eagle with its prey sighting was no accident.  It reminded me of the importance of not being dogmatic about my beliefs of what’s right and what’s wrong. Freed of limiting thinking, I am open to a world of possibilities for myself.

The added impact of symbolism

I googled the symbolism of these birds of prey to see how the information might also shed light upon issues and opportunities that are present in my life. The messages were profound.

Two aspects of the symbolism of the red-tailed hawk, which really resonated, were that a sighting such as the one I had may reflect childhood visions becoming empowered and fulfilled. (How cool is that for a 62 year old that’s in her second coming of age?) This particular bird may also come “at that point in your life where you begin to move toward your soul purpose more dynamically.”  (Again, I’m liking the idea.)

The bald eagle represents the ability to see the highest truth or viewpoint. It can mean coming into your spiritual energy and having the ability and the freedom to reach great heights.

The symbolism makes my socks go up and down. I am soaring.

Bird Banding And Love

Then my epiphany.

Thinking about birds of prey caused old memories to surface. Interestingly, past losses and hurts have been surfacing frequently for about a week.

I was 30, Thom was 28. We were smitten – a couple for two years who had hit a rough patch when our relationship suddenly ended.

During hawk migration season for the two years we were together, we’d take every Tuesday off of work to walk a designated part of the Appalachian Trail and when no one else was around, we’d turn off the trail to the hidden path that took us the to the hawk banding station.

It was a blind that had been built about 3/4 up the mountain many years before. I so wish I had photographs to share. Photographs of the blind; of the nets to capture the hawks for banding; of the pigeon, who was the lure, in his protective leather vest; of the lines connected into the blind so that we could make pig’ move and attract the hawks when they soared nearby. Pictures of the tins the birds of prey were put in to keep them calm while they were being weighed, measured and banded before release. Of the log book. Of Thom. Of me camouflaged to look like a red gum tree.

We’d be there all day, binoculars making imprints on our faces as we held them to our eyes hour after hour scanning the sky for passing buteos and accipiters. When we, usually Thom, spotted one of these type of hawks in the distance he would start working pig’, creating movement so the hawks would notice it and come in for their next meal.

If there were no winds and no bird movement, we’d make love in the blind and erase all sense of boredom.

I learned so much about birds of prey and nature from Thom. I have many stories-to-tell-at-a-party about banding hawks and our one golden eagle.

Then one Tuesday he went to the station without me. I don’t remember why. It was November 18, 1980, the day he died in a car crash on his way home from the banding station.

There were no services until 6 months later when Thom’s mom invited me to attend the group service at the Philadelphia Anatomical Society where Thom had donated his gorgeous body.

I stuffed so much inside me at that time. Until today, I hadn’t really thought about the long term affect on me. I shake my head in wonderment at my ability to deny and tamp down feelings, only to have them come out sideways – the source of the feelings, at the time, unknown.

Part of my coming of age this year, in fact very soon, will be a ceremony of loss and healing. It’s way overdue. Then, my friends, I’ll be soaring with the hawks and eagles. And with purpose.

If you’re not sure how to soar or what to do next in your life and work, or perhaps you’re at a crossroads without GPS, the WHAT’S NEXT program can help. Learn more here.

It was one of my very lucky days, probably close to two years ago now, that I found Amy Oscar and her beautiful blog on-line. Today I call her a friend but we’ve never (yet) met in-person. I’d also call her an inspiration and one of my teachers. I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as we enjoyed doing it.

Formal bio’: Amy is an author, teacher and intuitive consultant, encouraging you to develop a personal relationship with the Divine. In 2010, she wrote Sea of Miracles: An invitation from the angels, the story of what happened when she began writing a magazine column about angels with Doreen Virtue. In 2009, Doreen and she co-authored a collection of stories called, My Guardian Angel: True Stories of Angelic Encounters… (Hay House, 2009).

For her informal bio’ and a deeper sense of what Amy’s about click here.

Take a deep breath, settle in and enjoy your time with Amy Oscar.

Amy Oscar

Cherry: Hello Amy. I so appreciate your willingness to be interviewed for the Confidence Chronicles, True Stories of Becoming Strong. I’ve interviewed a number of women who have valuable stories to tell. Now I’m excited to interview you and, once again, validate everyone’s humanity – that even the people we admire and see as successful have self-doubts and can at times lack confidence.

Amy: Oh yes! So true.

Cherry: Your work has taken you from successful system analyst to trainer, to features’ editor, writer and author. And now you have a successful online course called Soul Caller, which I had the good fortune of taking.  When I read about your journey on your website, it appears seamless, Amy, so easy. I was wondering if you ever doubted your ability or engaged in any negative self-talk when you were going through all these career transitions?

Amy: Oh, of course. Every step of the way I had doubts. However, I wouldn’t say negative self talk is something I do a lot of anymore, but I used to.

Also, there was nothing seamless about my career, it was kind of a bumpy, jerky train ride which I followed. It led me.

Some people, like my daughter, are born with an idea of where they’re going and what they’re going to do for the rest of their life so they just charge toward it. But I’m not that person, I had to feel my way.

I kind of fell into my jobs of systems analyst and also magazine editor. My life’s more a story of I fell into it, and did the best I could without drowning.

Cherry: I led my life in a similar fashion – falling forward into things without an overarching plan – beyond providing for my sons. I took many paths that were wonderful, but I, too, wasn’t like your daughter. I use to doubt myself  – and was told by some people – that I “should” have been more focused and known the one thing I was to do all my life.

How did you move through your periods of self-doubt?

Amy: I’d move through the bad times the same way I would move through the good times. I think it’s important to say that from my perspective,  people like you and me and probably a lot of your readers who struggle with confidence, are sensitives.

Sensitives are people who are highly responsive or susceptible to outside stimulus. They probably don’t like crowds or loud noises, and sensitive people get the idea that they’re, well, too sensitive. “Don’t be so thin skinned”, people tell you, right?

I learned the hard way, but one of the gifts of being sensitive and being in situations that were uncomfortable was learning how to get out of them. I learned to get out of things that don’t work for me, which could be seen as a backwards approach to finding what did work for me and becoming so-called successful (which is completely in the eye of the beholder).

I’m on the same journey everyone else is. But the tools or the skills that I use to get out of hot water, out of uncomfortable situations, are my sensitivities, my intuition. I feel my way out of things the same way I feel my way toward things.

I trust my gut more now. When something feels wrong, I don’t do it.

I’m 54 years old. I’ve spent the last I would say ten years of my life reorganizing my world so that I can say no to things that don’t resonate for me.

Cherry: Yes! I have found that to be one of the gifts of aging. I, too, pay more attention to the consequences of not listening to my gut. My instincts would be saying, “Cherry, that’s not a wise idea.” but then I’d think I was being silly or oversensitive and I’d do what my gut had been saying not to do. And the outcome wouldn’t be positive for me. Knock on wood, I never had any major disasters, but it wasn’t the right course for me.

Amy: Those disasters really don’t come to people who do listen to their intuition. I mean, sometimes we need to get hit a little in the head. But if you don’t listen to guidance, if you continue to plow forward, thinking you know better than intuition, that’s when you get into crisis, right?

Cherry: That’s a good segue into asking you about guidance. You speak about a call-and-response world. Call-and-response in terms of calling to the angels, calling to a higher power and getting a response. That’s part of your everyday life.

Amy: Yes.

Cherry: When you talk about believing in and having conversations with angels, which you do, I think many people understand, but there’s probably just as many who might think that’s weird and tell you as much.

Amy: But it is weird.

Cherry: Oh, okay. <laughing> Well then, we’ll forget going down that path.

Amy: No, let’s go there. This could also be one of the gifts of aging. I mean, maybe the reason I didn’t perceive angels or that level of guidance in my twenties and thirties was because I wouldn’t have accepted that it was real unless an angel had stood before me with wings and a halo and said, “It’s real, pay attention.” But, you know, that never happens.

When I did accept angels and start to talk about it, I didn’t receive a lot of negative response. It would be important to know that my day job is reading angel stories/episodes, from people who write in about them, for a national women’s magazine. I work with one of the world’s greatest angel experts who has a column in the magazine. And as a result of doing that, angel stories are part of my resume.

I did get one negative comment from a person who worked in my office. She came by my desk to ask me to lunch, we’ve been friends for years, and she saw all the mail on my desk and laughed. “It’s so funny how people believe in this stuff isn’t it?”

I said,  “I believe in it.” And she responded, “You’re kidding!” , because I seem so normal, right. I’m this person that works in the office, and wears jeans on casual Friday like everyone else. I order Caesar salad with chicken just like she does but she couldn’t wrap her head around a “normal” person believing in angel stories.

I think angels come to people in the form that they can be comfortable. I’ve heard stories of angels showing up as nurses in the ER, as helpful strangers when your car breaks down in the storm.

But I’ve also heard stories about glowing, white beings on the beach. Angels can take any form they like is my understanding.

The well-know archangel form often comes in a dream, for example, or at a sick bed. A lot of people will describe that and other people will often debunk what’s being said or was seen and say “It was the powerful drugs you’re taking”.

I’m a witness to the reality that the angels walk among us, and that they’re here to help us, and that they’re real. I describe myself as a witness most often.

Cherry: I’m sure you do powerful work with yourself, as you do with clients, through your strong connection to intuition and the Divine. With that connection, when do you find that you still grapple with, if at all, self-confidence or self-doubts?

Amy: I think for me, confidence becomes an issue when I’m trying to sort out what exactly I am. So when I say I am an intuitive consultant…Oh, no, wait. I’m a writer. Oh, no, wait. I’m writing a memoir. Oh, no, wait. I’m writing a course called Soul Caller. So I still work at that constantly, maybe because I’m a bit of a shape-shifter. Maybe that would be a better brand for me.

Also, I never finished college. So my biggest confidence issue is accepting that I’m a self-taught learner and that I have an encyclopedic university level degree in life, but I don’t have a master’s degree.  I’m one course short of a bachelor’s degree in marketing when I was hired out of my last class at school in State University of New York to start a magazine with my professor.

I never went back and finished that course, that class, and my credits aged out. So, in order to get that bachelor’s I’d have to take 30 credits. And I don’t want to spend money on that to be honest. So, I want you to know this about me because this is a confidence issue for me, I’m in a Master’s/PhD program in California where I fly to California because they gave me the accreditation for the degree that New York won’t grant me.

Cherry: This relates to my work in Borderless Thinking and how we get caught in mindsets; that we’re acculturated with certain belief systems through our families, or through society. One of the mindsets in the United States has been the importance of having a college degree. It’s almost as if, and I’m going to oversimplify but, if you have a college degree then you’re smart. If you don’t have a college degree, well then you’re not as smart. It is such a strong label and misunderstanding. It’s not the truth and a gross generalization, but we still get caught in that paradigm.

Amy: We are still caught in it. Although I have to say, I think that boundary or border is changing. For example, Danielle LaPorte, our current rockstar on social media, doesn’t have a degree, and doesn’t care.

Cherry: As you’re pointing out, there’s a shift in thinking, and hopefully some of the corporations will get caught in that shift and not absolutely require that you have a college degree before you can get such and such entry level job or be promoted.

Amy: I think they will.  If they don’t, there’s so much opportunity now to be self-made. For example with my book.  I’m a magazine editor with lots of contacts in the new age field. I also was a leader in the 80′s. Lots of contacts. I know lots of people and still could not get my book published in the form that I wanted it to be,  so I self published it. I couldn’t have done that, even five years ago.

I didn’t wait for someone to approve of me and give me an advance. I went ahead and invested in it myself. And I think that’s one of the things that I would tell your readers,  that’s been the most important in my own development is to make your own success.

If you want to publish a book now, you can. If you want to have your own radio show know you can, that’s one of the ways I learned how to talk about my work. I did two years as a radio show-host with a friend. We just talked about things we were interested in and this emerged as something I was interested in.

Cherry: You put yourself out there.

Amy: The other thing I would say that I had overlooked when I was younger is: teach what you need to learn. Teach what you’re curious about and then  you have to show up to teach it so you’re going to have to do the research and learn enough so that you can teach it.

Cherry: Yes. Been there, done that.

Amy: I think that’s what all the really good teachers do. If you want to be a good teacher and a known teacher you’re going to be at the leading edge of something new. And that new is forming right in front of your feet. It’s not there ’til you get there and it doesn’t exist until you name it into being.

People struggling with confidence worry that people won’t like them or won’t approve of what they’re doing. You have to find a language for yourself, almost an archetype, that you can crawl into that feels safe.

And for me, I labelled myself a story alchemist, and I wasn’t sure what that was, but I knew I liked writing stories and I knew I liked magic. And out of that, all my work has come.

Cherry: That was beautifully said. It’s interesting how labels work for you and against you. For instance we talked about the labeling with a college degree and how that can be both good, bad and everything in-between.

But when you labeled yourself a story alchemist, and just started to think of yourself that way, that’s what you became in more and more areas. I want to  reinforce that you didn’t wait for someone else to approve of you. You invested in yourself literally and figuratively. Investing in yourself and not waiting for someone else’s approval, be it a book, a blog, or some other activity you want to do, is of paramount importance for all of us.

Amy: I love that you zeroed in on labels. I think one of the things we do in terms of negative self-talk is label ourselves, for example as not confident enough or not ready, but it may not be that. For example, I talked about sensitivity. If you look at what you call a lack of confidence, not you personally but someone, and say “Is it that I lack confidence in this situation or is it that I’m sensitive to this particular room or this particular stimulation that’s coming at me? Is this person really more powerful than me or are they actually really aggressive?

Cherry: I like that idea of reflection and potential re-framing.

Amy: Your sensitivity is not a flaw in you, it’s one of the greatest gifts that you have. And I think that we label ourselves, or the quiet ones among us do, right? We label ourselves us wrong in some way, because the loud shiny people are out there taking up all the air in the room, when we’re over here on the couch helping someone transform their life, because we’re listening to their story. Perhaps we made someone a pot of soup when they were sick and it made all the difference in the world. Gentle people, who may question their confidence, are very important and have a lot to offer and I think that if we re-label ourselves, it would be very helpful to the world as well as to us individually.

More I think about it, I actually think if we can get away from the labels of good and bad we’d all be better off. Because sensitive is just sensitive. It’s blonde hair. It’s brown hair. It’s just sensitive. It doesn’t carry with it something good or bad, and yet we start to look at it that way.

One of my favorite stories is about an author that I admire who got her first book deal by banging down the door of the agent that she wanted to work with. I’m never going be able to do that, and that’s not who I am, but I’ll be able to have a quiet cup of tea with a book agent. And it’ll end up to be the same conversation, no matter how I got in the door.

Cherry: It will be the same conversation. We all have to approach our lives in the way that works for us.  Thanks so much Amy for having our interview end on such an important and lovely note.

You can find Amy on Twitter @amyoscar and Cherry @cherrywoodburn.

If you’re not sure what to do next in your life and work, or at a crossroads but don’t have GPS, my WHAT’S NEXT program can help. Check it out here.

At that moment I agreed with the idea. I’m so tired of Rush Limbaugh and similar off-the-wall hateful, ugly remarks.

However, I realized “off-the-wall” was the operative term in that sentence for me. Because I think of Limbaugh’s comments about Sandra Fluke – who was denied the right to testify before a Congressional committee about the necessity of employer-provided birth control – as “off-the-wall” I didn’t see the need to give the remarks any attention.

If you’re not familiar with what Limbaugh said here it is:

Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute,” and promised to buy Fluke and Georgetown women “as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want. We are paying her for having sex. We are getting screwed. So Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I’ll tell you what it is: We want you to post the videos online, so we can all watch.”

The problem is I have a knee-jerk reaction to such hatred and think that no one could possibly take seriously such “off-the-wall” remarks. But I’m wrong. Very wrong. Limbaugh has a following. People listen to him everyday. And believe him. And think he is a purveyor of facts.

He may stand alone in his degree of ugliness but not in his core thinking: “The entire GOP presidential field has endorsed a “personhood” amendment that could outlaw most non-barrier forms of contraception.”

Now that’s terrifying. If an amendment such as that would pass, what’s next?

• Outlawing of all contraception?
  

• Arresting woman who have miscarriages because women are slick and might have purposely induced them?

• Outlawing daycare because women should stay home and raise their children? (Overlooking the economic devastation alone that would cause for many families)

• Allowing a Western, “kinder” version of stoning a woman who has an affair?

If I don’t speak up and take action I am complicit in the actions being taken to control women’s choices and bodies. It is irrelevant that I am 62 years old and way beyond concerns of of getting pregnant. It is similar, although few want to believe it, of  Martin Niemöller’s concerns when he wrote:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

His point was that Germans — in particular, he believed, the leaders of the Protestant churches — had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.

Many will scoff that I compare what is happening to women’s rights in this country with the actions of Hitler and the Nazi’s. After all we’re only taking about contraception not death camps. True. But infringement and erosion of our rights begin slowly, insidiously so that we don’t notice it happening until a lot of Draconian damage has been done.

It’s easy for me to flip off (literally and figuratively) Rush Limbaugh’s words. But not so much the “personhood” bills that have been floated in many states and if passed complicate the legality of stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, abortion in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment, and certain kinds of birth control. Far reaching that.

Nor can I ignore the attempt by Sen. Roy Blunt “to give employers the right to deny health insurance coverage for any treatment they didn’t approve of – targeting but not limited to contraception. Although tabled in the Senate, it got 48 votes.”  The potential of that is also frightening; its ramifications far beyond a manipulative loss of health benefits for women.

So I’m using this post to speak up and ask you to also.

1.Tell your stories. Write posts. What has contraception meant to you? Health care benefits for contraception? In vitro fertilization?

2. Talk with your friends about what’s happening in Congress; in the State Houses.

3. Speak up on twitter AND get behind the #usethe19th momentum to get out the women’s votes in upcoming elections.

4. If you pray, please do so to stop the ugliness of people like Rush Limbaugh. He’s not the friend of women, what ever your political party.

5. Comment here.

You can contact me on Facebook here or Twitter here.