Sometimes You Have To Yell To Be Heard

Sometimes You Have To Yell—Don’t You?
Below is an excerpt from a recent a note I received from a woman:
“…If I remain calm and peaceful he takes it as a sign that he can walk all over me. Us women are so conditioned to take it all with a calm and sweet smile. What kind of world have we created for our daughters and us? Women in general are still dealing with a lot of oppression and inequality in our society. I do not know one woman that has not suffered from it in one way or another-- being bullied at home, on the street, at work, at school, a man controlling, belittling, not regarding women as equal, but something to dominate and manipulate. You are very fortunate if your husband does not take advantage of your calm composure. Many of us will only have to endure more laughing in our face and more oppression if we do not stand up, rock the boat and claim or human rights, whispering or screaming, ‘Enough! I can’t take this any more.’”

In my work with women over the years I have heard this sentiment over and over again.  In fact, I see this sentiment play out all over the world with both men and women.  In general, when people get angry they either bully through people with their anger or duck in the face of anger.  Some people duck then bully.  The end result is people behaving in the extremes.  Behaving in the extremes, though, is not helping us.  When we bully, we’re being abusive and when we’re ducking we’re allowing ourselves to be abused.  Neither of these responses is okay or effective.

It is true that women do indeed need to rock the boat.  It is also true that women continue to this day to be bullied, gawked at, controlled, belittled and treated as anything but equals by far too many people in the world.  It is not true, however, that women yelling about it is going to change anything.  In my work with women and couples, I see far too many women doing nothing but yelling…and it is NOT working.  If women scream and yell that they can’t take it anymore -- and then they stay there and take it -- their words mean nothing. 

The Ties That Bind Us

In my work with women throughout the years, I’ve found many beliefs that keep women down.  Some of these beliefs have come from our up-bringing, some have come from our culture and some have come from our own internal processes.  Until women begin to look at these beliefs and truly challenge them, we will likely continue to struggle in far too many relationships in our lives.

Below are the five most common beliefs that I believe wreak havoc in the lives of women today:
1.    Women need to be nice.  From birth, women are constantly told to be “nice.”  We’re told to not hurt anyone’s feelings, put a smile on, make people comfortable, etc.  The problem with this message is that “nice” ends up meaning to sacrifice one’s self for the greater good of everyone else.  Sacrificing ourselves so others feel okay is a crazy notion that is hurting women and our culture at large.  Until women learn to stand up for ourselves, we are destined to pay a heavy price.
2.    Women need a man to feel worthy/okay/complete.  From a young age, the pressure on females to have a boyfriend and, later, a husband is enormous.  For some reason, our world leads us to believe that the attention of males in some way legitimizes the worthiness of females.  This is crazy and dangerous thinking that sets young girls and women up to be abused and taken advantage of in relationships.  Until females are taught to believe in themselves in their own right, we will continue to have far too many crimes against women.  A man does not complete a woman.  She was already complete long before the man came along.  A man (if he’s a good man) simply adds to her life and vice-a-versa.

Women And The Quest For Perfection

As a human being, I am acutely aware that mistakes are a part of life.  I will make mistakes, my friends will make mistakes, my family members will make mistakes, the people who work for me will make mistakes and even my mentors will make mistakes.  This is an inevitable part of life.  As a women, parent, friend, wife, business owner, leader, mentor etc., you need to know that mistakes happen to the best of us…and no one is immune. 

It will serve you well when you can learn to accept this aspect of life rather than getting freaked out by it.

Too many women expect perfection.  Women across the board put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves and their loved ones to reach extremely high goals with few, if any, mistakes along the way.  When a mistake is made or an unrealistic goal isn’t met, women often begin to micro-manage others to ensure additional mistakes are not made.  They hover over their children doing their homework, re-load the dishwasher that was “improperly” loaded or simply take on everything in the house so they can do it “right”. Doing everything right or perfect, of course, is an impossible feat—given that we are all human--resulting in an overstressed mother, a resentful wife and a tense home environment.

In their quest for perfection, women may become harsher and more critical in response to mistakes.  Not surprisingly, this reaction creates more mistakes because children become disempowered, nervous and afraid of their mom’s reactions.  Ironically, the woman’s attempt to minimize mistakes simply makes them grow exponentially with each of her punitive responses.

In life it will serve not only you, but also those around you as well to learn to accept that we are each imperfect.  Imperfection is one of the inevitable aspects of our humanity.  There is nothing we can do to change this reality.  No matter how hard you, as a woman, try, your children try or your partner tries…mistakes will happen.  You will make mistakes and so will those around you. 

Know that mistakes are not the problem.  The problem is their aftermath -- people defending, rationalizing or passing off their mistakes onto someone else.  Mistakes are often your greatest learning opportunity.  Instead of shaming your children for making mistakes—teach them to learn from them. Instead of assuming your way to load the dishwasher is the only right way—try making room for the “right” way of others. 

Breathe.  Relax.  Let go.

Stop demanding perfection.  Perfection is an impossible feat for you, your family or any human being on this planet.  See mistakes as learning opportunities rather than proof of incompetency, laziness or stupidity.  If the same person is making the same mistakes again and again—then worry.  Until then, normalize mistakes, learn from them and allow those around you the space to be imperfect…even if mistakes will be made along the way.

Challenge: As a woman, look at the extraordinary demands you put on yourself and those around you.  Begin to loosen the reigns on both.  The next time you or a loved one makes a mistake…PAUSE…BREATHE…and refuse to shame.  Look at the gift in that mistake and learn from it.

Strengthening Your Core: A Teleclass For Women

I'm excited to announce that in response to many requests from past participants, I will again be offering the 6 week tele-class for women on transforming their relationships, “Strengthening Your Core.”
 
Throughout the years I've worked with hundreds of women who were less than satisfied in their relationships. Most of these women knew they wanted more yet felt clueless about how to change it. After working with so many women who wanted to create stronger relationships, I decided to get a group of women together to work on strengthening their core.  

This class is for all women, single, married, divorced, separated or dating, who would like to transform their lives by transforming their relationships. It's for those women who:

•    Want to make a good relationship better
•    Want to do all they can to fix a broken relationship without selling their souls in the process
•    Want to learn to step in and effectively use their voice, make requests when they want to and set limits when they have to
•    Want to learn to step in with a new kind of strength that is grounded, calm and powerful

This class is for any woman who would like to enhance her relationships everywhere in her life: at work, with children, in friendships and/or in romantic relationships.

*  Read what one past participant had to say about her experience of the tele-class: 
 

Dear Lisa,

“Two years ago I was struggling in my marriage with a husband who had stopped drinking 2 years earlier but had never addressed the causes behind his addiction. My health had once again begun to suffer from the stress of living—and enabling—a dry drunk. I chose to move out of our home and we began counseling. After 6 months, without any sign of change, I told my husband I wanted to divorce.
 

Over the next eight months we used a mediator and our divorce was finalized a week before your class began. 
 

I am so glad I signed up. 
 

With the help of your program, the self-doubt, anxious second guessing and over all guilt I felt from leaving my marriage began to lift as you reinforced the basic, fundamental requirements of having someone in your inner circle. With that came the realization of how much I had enabled my husband to treat me poorly, all in the hope that things would improve.
 

Today, even as I still struggle through the aftermath of a failed marriage, I am at peace with my decision because of the clear insight I gained through your class. That everyone—me included—deserves a relationship built on trust, kindness, respect, companionship and love.
 

Thank you for the clarity. Thank you for the clear description of what a real, loving relationship looks like. Your class offered an open forum, almost a support group, of women who were caring, frank, and honest about their own struggles. I have grown from the experience.”
 

Sincerely - Janet 
 

I welcome all women interested in transforming their lives by transforming their relationships to join this class.  I look forward to taking this journey with you and starting a ripple effect of change across the world one relationship at a time!  

What does it cost?

*  Early bird registration is $179.00 if payment is received on or before April 5th, increasing to $199.00 thereafter 

*   When and where it's happening:
•    Wednesdays: 12noon Eastern – 12:00-1:15 pm EST
•    When: April 25th, May 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th
•    Where:  Any place where you can get comfortable, be real and have a phone.

* Seats are limited so hurry and sign up now!

All calls will be recorded although your presence on the call will make for a richer experience.  Any woman who would like to learn the skills necessary to build relationships that fuel them are welcome to join the tele-class.  

For more information click on this link:
 http://lmerlobooth.typepad.com/straighttalk/relationship-teleclasses.html

I hope to "see" you on the call. 

Warm regards-Lisa

 

Women And Relationships: Cleaning Up The Toxicity

I’m often shocked at the way women can treat one another.  It seems as though we can be one another’s greatest support or worst enemy.  When we like someone, there’s nothing we won’t do for them.  When we don’t like someone—well, it can get very ugly. 

Far too many women can be catty, mean and vindictive if we don’t like a person.  It’s as though we got stuck in our Junior High persona and forgot to mature and grow up.  We talk poorly about how other women dress, how they talk, who they date, how they walk, how they live their lives and on and on. 

Sometimes our cattiness is about our own insecurities; other times we gossip and trash-talk other women as a way of connecting to the women in front of us.  Some of us get vindictive when we feel we’ve been wronged, while others of us are just doing what we know.  Because cattiness is so common, many women are unconscious of the impact of cattiness on others. 

Bad mouthing another person helps us feel better about ourselves in the moment.  When others join us in this, we feel a sense of belonging and perhaps even popularity.  We forget, however, that while we may feel good cutting down someone else, the person we’re cutting down feels like sh*t.  Most of us can look back and remember being on the other side of gossip, cattiness or mean-spirited behavior.  When you’re the one on the receiving end of it, it is anything but connecting or fun—it’s a miserable place to be.

When You Don’t Take Care Of You, Other’s Don’t Take Care Of You Either

Over the years, I’ve worked with countless women who have centered their entire lives around taking care of others.  If their husbands wanted to take a job that involved excessive traveling, crazy work hours and almost no time with family—no problem.  The women would, in essence, become a single parent and pick up the slack for their husbands’ absences.  If the children wanted to be involved in countless activities, have their mother’s constant, undivided attention and limitless nurturance—by all means the women would become super moms and make that happen.  If their friends needed their help at the drop of the hat, again and again and again—no problem.  After all what are friends for, right?

The funny thing about working with all these women is they are often some of the kindest, most giving people you will ever meet.  They are also some of the most taken–advantage-of people I’ve met. 
•    The women with the traveling, workaholic husbands often come in heart-broken that their husbands have been having an on-going affair with a co-worker—while their wives keep the home life together so the husband can travel.
•    The “nurtured” children often boss “mom” around, talk disrespectfully and expect her to do what they want when they want.
•    Many of the women’s “friends” have a history of being very good at asking for help, yet not at all skilled at offering help.  The end result: the care-taking women end up giving and giving and giving, but receive very little in return (not only from friends, but from most people in their lives).

What Are You Asking For? Is It Truly What You Want Or Is It What You Think You Will Get?

An interesting thing happens with countless women when it comes to asking for what they want.  Far too often they get stuck in the pattern of asking for what they think they’ll get rather than asking for what they truly want.  As you can imagine, this is creating a lot of struggles for far too many women. 

Here are a few examples of what I mean:
•    Susie says she would like to have a raise, but is certain her boss would say no.  She decides to wait until he brings the topic up and hopes he notices her hard work. 
•    Karen doesn’t want to sleep with the guy she’s dating until they have an agreement that each of them is exclusive.  She is highly doubtful that he would agree to that though, so she decides to stay quite, sleep with him and hope for the best. 
•    Janice wants to ask her 75-year-old father to stop calling her names when he gets angry.  She’s certain he’ll get angry at the request and won’t stop the name calling, so she decides to learn how to accept his anger. 

When women want something, we often filter our desire through the lens of whether or not we think we can or will get what we want.  If we think the other person would never give us what we really want to ask for, then we often change our request to something we think we have a better chance of getting.

When It Comes To Speaking, Less Is Often More

I often watch couples in my office struggle with the ripple effect caused by using a “wall of words.”  A wall of words is when a person speaks on and on about an issue, complaint, story, idea or piece of information to such a degree that they lose the attention of the person they are speaking with.  Women, in particular, struggle with using a wall of words.  As a result, the men in their lives end up tuning the women out.

Using a wall of words is not the same as discussing an issue, sharing feelings or having interesting conversations.  All of these actions are healthy forms of communication.  When women use a wall of words it can sound like nervous chatter, restating of the information again and again, random thoughts, belaboring a point and overall excessive talk.  Often the women are aware of this pattern, however have a difficult time controlling it.  If they are not aware of this habit, they often are aware of their partners tuning them out or not listening.

Lessons to Learn From the Fall of Three Powerful Men

Too many women are wooed by money, fame and power.  Add a man to any of these and they serve as an almost irresistable aphrodisiac to countless women.  What is going on with so many women when it comes to men?  It seems that men, money, fame and power leave far too many women blinded.  In some cases, women are blinded by men period.  What is up?

There are several lessons to learn from the recent falls of these powerful men and I pray that women reading this truly take these lessons to heart.
1.    Respect yourself.  If you don’t have enough self-respect to see yourself as an equal to any man—and yes these men as well—then no man will treat you as an equal.  Don’t try to dress provocatively to get a man’s attention—it cheapens you.  Don’t tell him what you think he wants to hear—you will lose yourself. And, don’t sleep with him in order to keep him—he’s a louse if he would leave because you wouldn’t sleep with him. If having a man in your life is your goal, trust me you are aiming far too low.
2.    If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck and walks like a duck…it’s a duck.  These men and many more like them, had glaring red flags regarding their treatment of women.  Several women came forward over the years stating that Arnold sexually assaulted, groped or sexually harassed them.  Dominic Strauss-Kahn was known for his “womanizing” which is the least of his offenses.  Weiner reports, "My wife has known about some of these online relationships since before we were married".  Dare to see what’s right in front of you and don’t try to dress it up to be something different—it’s not.
3.    You will not change him.  Women start relationships with men who are known “players”, flirts, partiers etc., thinking they will be the one to change him.  This is crazy thinking.  For one thing why in the world would you want to be with a guy who has a history of playing women, getting drunk all the time or flirting with your friends? Women—listen up:  The men are showing and telling you who they are as men from the moment you first meet them.  Often they do this with a figurative gigantic neon sign—open your eyes and read it, don’t try to find the white out and change it.
4.    Respect other women. Don’t be so desperate for the attention of men that you go after another woman’s partner.  Please, if he’s willing to cheat on his girlfriend or wife you better know that he’d be willing to cheat on you as well. If he likes you that much then he wouldn’t be sneaking around with you…even if you were his housekeeper. Never allow yourself to be with another woman’s husband/paramour—you deserve better than that and so does she.

Women are pivotal to the process of change in our world. One vital change we need is for the treatment of women to be more respectful, less sexualized and less violent.  This shift can only happen when we, as women first and foremost respect ourselves.  

Challenge: Have the courage to learn from the fall of these three men: respect yourself, don’t wear blinders, respect other women and don’t think you can change a man.

NOTE: For another perspective on this read http://tinyurl.com/5t9z8qv from my Straight Talk 4 Women blog

Women and Leadership: A Call For Change

Below is a post from my new blog http://lmerlobooth.typepad.com/straight_talk_4_women/ Enjoy!

I recently read an article entitled “Bad Female Boss? She may have Queen Bee Syndrome” (http://tiny.cc/wwz4c) and felt compelled to write this post.  In my work with more and more female leaders, I’m finding that many of them are struggling in their relationships with their employees.  Although these women are highly competent, intelligent and extremely hard workers, they are often difficult to work for. 

The article states that, “According to one group of German researchers, women who reported to female supervisors had higher cases of depression, headaches, heartburn and insomnia than if their bosses were men.”  Although the assumption has been that women will make more compassionate leaders, the reality has yet to play out that way.

Many of the female bosses I work with have had to fight their way through “good old boys” clubs, patronization, contempt and an overall hostile work environment for women leaders.  Many of these women responded to these environments by managing like men…or even tougher.  The article reports that, “The Queen Bee Syndrome is the alpha female who tries to preserve her power at all cost.”  Although I understand how women have gotten to this place, it is not at all the place where we want to stay.  Bringing more hardness into corporate America is the last thing I would like to see women doing.