Fearless Voices: Stories Safely Shared

The other day I was blessed to be surrounded by brave, creative women, all shapes and sizes, a variety of ages, backgrounds and careers.  We came together to celebrate, support, eat and share.  The food was wonderful, as it usually is when women get together, with lots of new combinations of ingredients that I don’t use, and vegetarian dishes I’m just learning to cook.  We were celebrating a journey of sorts, as we had all written a story about ourselves, a small snippet of our lives, from our timeline, a glimpse into what made us who we are today.  

A Perfection's Manifesto Of Freedom

This morning started pretty much like any morning. I walked into my ‘dressing room’, a 9X9 converted bedroom, where we now house our dressers.  It makes a perfect dressing room, with a nice big window, closet, wall space to hold 2 dressers and a mirror.  As I entered the room, like I do several times a day, I was assailed by my life long inability to put away my clothes.  There is some order to the chaos; stacks of clean are housed on top of the short faux-dresser under the window, winter wear (snowboarding clothes) religiously flung over the IKEA twin, futon-chair, dirties can always be counted on to be cascading down the outsides of the hamper in the corner, and the ‘maybe’s’ live contentedly in a small pile in front of the dresser.  Truthfully, there is not enough drawer space to hold the clothes easily, and I cling dearly to this thought as a way of assuaging my guilt and minimalizing my obvious shortcoming. 'Well..' I say to myself 'I'm definitely not perfect!'

The Value of Just Saying Thank You

How many times have you heard “Gee, you did a nice job.”  And, you’ve replied back “It was nothing. Any one could have done it.  No big deal.” Or, ‘Thanks.  But, ...was perfect, and   ...wasn’t really right.’

You might not have heard that exact compliment, or uttered that exact response. The point is that someone said something nice to you and instead of saying ‘Thank you’ and reveling in the praise, you play’d it down, or denied it’s validity.  You failed to accept the gift of a compliment either because you felt you weren’t worthy, you felt what you did wasn’t that special,  or you feared appearing vain.

A Tea and Toast Kind of Day

Today I am not inspired.  I don’t have a great passion roaring through my veins desperately seeking an outlet.  Today, I am just me.  I’m the ‘me’ that sits in my jammies until 9, sipping Vanilla Rooibos (how do you pronounce that, anyway?) and battling the internal conflict of oat bran over buttery, sweet, cinnamon toast.  (If I could eat sugary cakie yumminess all day long, every single day, I would be the happiest of woman.)  

Red Flags, and The Voice

Red flags, the mental type, are funny things.  Opportunities cross our path, dangled in front of us like the proverbial carrot before the rabbit. And, if we’re hungry enough we take off running, blinded by a free, sweet treat. In retrospect, that’s how I feel about my recent interview by a local newspaper reporter.  I was so caught up in the excitement of promoting my newly started, public speaking club that I didn’t pay attention to the little red flags waving in my brain, calling out, ‘Something’s not right here.  She’s talking over your answers.’

In The Service of Others : Who Really Needs the Care?

I recently read a facebook post by a woman encouraging women to be loving and tolerant in the service of others, an admirable reminder in these hectic times when women are attempting to balance all the demands on their lives.  But, I don’t wonder if we aren’t doing the women themselves the disservice.  It is my experience that women spend the majority of their time in the service of others.  We are taught (and possibly biologically wired) at a very young age to be the nurturers, the care givers, the comfort providers.  

An Old Tale For a New Year

There’s a traditional tale of an innkeeper, of the Old West, who’s lodge is perched just on the outskirts of a pioneer settlement.  One day a couple arrives, tired and dusty, having traveled all the way across the country.  “How are the people in the valley down the way?” the man asks the innkeeper. 

“How did you find the people in the village you just left?” the innkeeper asks in return.

“Lovely!” the man and women respond in unison. “They were kind and friendly.  So welcoming and warm. We really hated to leave.”