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After graduation what will she find?

If you have been following me for long you know I am passionate about empowering women around the world.  Empowering myself.  Empowering you.  Empowering your friends.

Yet, I believe the biggest change we can make will come through empowering our daughters, the next generation of women.  I have three daughters and I feel incredibly passionate about their experience being more authentic, strong, and celebratory of their feminine nature than mine.

I spent my adolescent, teen and early adult years trying to avoid the unwanted attention of male teachers, male friends of my parents and early bosses.  This made me feel ever so self conscious of my sexuality, any sensuality, and my affect on others.  The message was do not let your energy shine because it draws creepy and sometimes flat out assaulting behavior in people you are suppose to trust!  Unfortunately more women than not have similar stories of their youth.

As a young woman I also saw that power was solely in positions that men held– leading me  to develop my masculine side through becoming assertive, honing my decision making skills, and becoming highly competitive. As far as I was concerned, why would anyone want to live in a disempowered place–and this was what it took to not be powerless.  Many of you have had similar experiences in order to attain power and influence in the world.  I just did it to extreme–like most things I pursued in those years I was using my successes to validate my worth.

I suppressed anything that hinted I was feminine in my work life.  Upset and feel overwhelmed?  Whatever you do DON’T CRY.  Feel lonely and isolated?  Work harder to get ahead, getting attached to co-workers makes it harder to become their boss anyway.  Have a strong intuition that something is not right, stifle it because no one will take you seriously if you told them and worse they will stop listening to you in general.  Feel enthusiastic and have a spontaneous idea, find some market research or statistic to support your idea or keep your enthusiasm to yourself.

By the time I had my first child I had lost touch with so many parts of me that my new role as mother was like landing in alien territory.  Being spontaneous, unplanned, full of emotions, fully bonded with another human being was not natural to my ego and the role I had learned to play.  During the next chapter of my life I began to unravel this masculine mask and re-engage my feminine self.

What I realized was I had become a good man.  I never had role models of what it looked like to be a woman AND be powerful so I had traded my femininity for power.  And I am not alone.  Maybe you too gave up a piece of yourself to pursue something important.  I have been hearing from women every day, from all different walks of life that this same pattern has been played out in many ways.

The real terror of this situation is by working so hard to prove ourselves capable of the same things men can do we have been teaching our daughters the same thing we were so appalled by– that being feminine is not a position of strength.  You can be a woman these days, but certainly not a juicy, emotional, intuitive, creative, life giving female!

My new vision is to support young women becoming adults who believe in themselves–not just as a person, because that still denies their being feminine–but as the female person they are.  Let’s help them not only endure their volatility and sensitivity but relish their femininity.  Feminine strengths are missing in all aspects of our culture– education, health care, business, law and government.  If our young girls enter these areas with their femininity in tact maybe each of these areas could find new solutions to our current problems.  What are these feminine traits?  Intuitiveness.  Sensuality.  Multi-tasking. Tribe building.  Creativity.  Relationships.  Communications.  Power sharing.  Consensus building and many more!

I will explore ideas about how we can create an environment that helps our girls become women who celebrate their femininity, demonstrate their strength in our culture, contribute in big ways to our world and have a better chance at healthy relationships because they start with a heaping dose of loving themselves–just as they are!

Maya Angelou ~ you are trailing wisps of glory!

A black woman born when women and blacks both had little rights, she died with President Clinton, First Lady Obama, and Oprah Winfrey at her memorial.  She became symbol of triumph for many since she rose from meager beginnings to a world renowned author with her autobiography I Know Why Caged Birds Sing about growing up a black woman in America.  She reminds us anything is possible when you believe in yourself and continue to look for the rainbow, even as it storms.

Her most important message for me is to find our own voice, not the one that makes everyone else comfortable.  As First Lady Michele Obama stated at Maya’s memorial, “She told us that our worth has nothing to do with what the world might say. Instead, she said, each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. She reminded us that we must each find our own voice, decide our own value, and then announce it to the world with all the pride and joy that is our birthright as members of the human race.”

I often urge breaking free of the roles we all box ourselves into over the years.  Maya Angelou is a great model for us all in knowing we can have, do and be anything we want and more than one thing in a single lifetime.  Here are some of the things she did:

  • Authored numerous books (seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry)
  • Became a  single mother at 17
  • Became San Francisco’s first black streetcar conductor
  • Danced at a strip joint
  • Was a prostitute
  • Worked as a fry cook
  • Sang on records
  • Was an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs
  • Acted alongside James Earl Jones
  • Earned a Tony nomination for her work on Broadway
  • Wrote music
  • Played music
  • Received an Emmy nomination for her acting in the 1970s TV miniseries “Roots”
  • Danced with Alvin Ailey.
  • Worked as a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
  • Lived for years in Egypt and Ghana as a journalist
  • Met South African liberation pioneer Nelson Mandela
  • Helped  Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. organize the Poor People’s March in Memphis, Tennessee where the civil rights leader was slain on Angelou’s 40th birthday.
  • Wrote plays, movies, and television shows
  • Earned 30 honorary doctoral degrees
  • taught American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

The next time you feel resigned to stay where you are, doing what you do even though you feel uninspired and unfulfilled — because it is what you do, remember Maya Angelou.  Find you voice, pick something you are passionate about and announce it to the world with all the confidence of one who has wisps of glory trailing from them!  And know you can change your mind later and pick something anew!

Thank you for all the inspiration you gave to so many Maya Angelou!

 

Not Holding Onto Hope Doesn’t Make You Hopeless

This changed my life…

I do not need to hold onto the hope of who I need him to be. This frees me to be OK with who he is, forgive him, and BEGIN TO TAKE CARE OF ME!

This simple act of letting go of the hope for who I wanted him to be frees me from needing to convince, plead, cajole, and banter about it. It frees me to focus on the one thing I can do something about…

I can take care of me!

Although I immediately took this into my relationship with my children’s father, I can use it about my mother, my children, a boss, a friend…anyone I am feeling less than in harmony with!

Be Your Own Boss

Working for someone else can be easy, comfortable, and safe.  Yet, it often does not let our light shine and our hearts sing.  Do you have an idea in you that you have not allowed to see the light of day?

Awhile back fellow Harvard Business School grad, Jules Pieri, wrote this inspirational blog about empowering ourselves by starting our own business rather than managing a dead end career moving like a tortoise to “the top.”  It was relevant then and still is today.

If you consider starting your own company, but then stay where it is safe…. read it today! Xconomy Blog by Jules Pieri

 

Empowering girls and women helps boys and men too

Melinda Gates was quoted last fall in Science Magazine as saying, “No society can achieve its potential with half of its population marginalized and disempowered.”  And her tenent is that helping women and girls actually raises the standard of living for their entire community.

I support organizations such as Just LIke My Child’s Girl Power for this very reason.   Girl Power goes directly into communities, empowering girls and training them to mentor other girls.  This is a powerful program.  Instead of a single act, their work is aimed at creating ambassadors within each community that can continue the effort and help it grow exponentially.  Girl Power has magnified its work dramatically this way.

Yet, even here in the developed world, there is still a need for similar mentoring and supporting of women in all walks of life becoming empowered and having agency over their lives.  Those of us who have found our strength can help those who have not.  Surprisingly, you might even find that in the woman next door–not just in the lower-economic neighborhoods.

I remember the time a Harvard classmate told me of a story about her country club friend who seemed to have very little “power” since she had no job and “depended” completely on her husband.  One day that friend told my friend, “Dear I would never let my husband treat me that way.”  It was a wake-up call my Harvard MBA, high-paid friend needed to hear. This women then offered my friend other forms of support that later helped her make new choices. Do you know someone who could use your support in this area?

At a Harvard Women’s Summit a few years ago, Cheryl Sandberg spoke of how women are less inclined than men to apply for jobs (unless they are over qualified), put forth their ideas less then men in larger business meetings, and hold back their greatness over and over again.  Do you know any women in your organization who do great work and don’t let it shine?  How might your encouragement help them?

Years ago, while raising my children I was part of a mother-daughter group whose primary intention was to support our daughter’s self confidence and their ability to believe in themselves, their ideas and their dreams.  An unforeseen outcome was we helped ourselves– adult women–grow in the same attributes.  Are their mothers you know that could benefit from each other?

You might feel too busy to join a non-profit organization that empowers young girls, but there may be moments in each day and every week where your offering a hand-up, gentle suggestion, or actual mentoring of another woman could change her life, the life of her children and ultimately a circle of people you will never know.  Be that woman.

You can read more about what The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are doing in this blog describing why they have now dedicated much of their foundation’s work to empowering women and girls around the globe.