I'm excited to announce that I've combined Straight Talk 4 Women and my Straight Talk on Relationships blogs. You can now find everything all in one place.
Click here to get the latest from Straight Talk 4 Women! http://lmerlobooth.typepad.com/straighttalk/
For those of you who would like to recieve blog post updates from the new feed please insert your e-mail below:
Looking forward to seeing you at the new site!
Lisa
This week I’ve been at the Ali Brown SHINE Conference for Women Entrepreneurs. It is amazing to see a room full of women entrepreneurs sharing ideas, encouraging big leaps and pulling for the best in one another. It is a wonderful shift to see women thinking about themselves and trusting in themselves to bring their businesses to the next level. Too many women, for far too long, have thought almost entirely about others—this shift to thinking about themselves—ourselves--is great to witness.
As I listen to woman after woman stand and tell her story of success, I’m struck by the difficulty so many women have with focusing on themselves. Often women are focused on anything and anyone BUT themselves. They’re busy taking care of the children, keeping the house tidy, cooking dinner, taking care of their husbands, fathers, mothers etc., and they forget about themselves. When they do think of themselves, it’s often an afterthought.
Women, we need to change this. We cannot be an after thought in our lives. We cannot sacrifice everything we have for everyone else and barely have ourselves be a part of that equation. And if we are raising daughters—it’s even more paramount that we not do this. Putting countless others before ones self, is toxic to ones self and to our daughters. If we constantly put our needs second (or third or fourth), then we teach our daughters to do the same—even if our words say differently.
When women constantly put their needs last, it does not serve women or their families. Women have to be able to care for themselves at least as well as they take care of others. If they don’t, they and their families will pay for it. When we continually put others ahead of ourselves, we get tired, run down and all too often, depressed. We end up having little energy to give to anyone and even less for ourselves.
Women, take care of you. Stop putting yourself last. Self-care is not selfish… it’s necessary. Constantly putting others before you, teaches them to put you last. Take the time to pay attention to your needs. Stop thinking 24/7 about what you can do for others and start thinking about what you can do for you. What do you need? What do you want? Give yourself the time to rejuvenate. Begin to pay attention to what makes you tick. Notice what gives you energy.
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:
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 in 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 relationsips 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.
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: Transforming Your Relationships
I hope to "see" you on the call.
Warm regards-Lisa
Time and again I watch men and women constantly pointing their fingers at the other person. They spend all their time and energy trying to change what the other person is doing. Both men and women believe that if the other person would just be kinder, talk more, stop raging, complaining, controlling or (fill in the blank) then everything else would be fine. They then spend the next ten years trying to get their partner to make those changes.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this seldom -- if ever -- works.
Trying to change another person will never work. In fact, it can’t work. It can’t work because no one has the power to change someone else. We can ask, plead, beg, bully, rage, try to force them to do what we want them to do, yet in the end they get to decide. In the end, they decide what they will do and how they will do it. No amount of pleading or screaming will change the fact that they choose their behaviors.
And, likewise, no one can make you change either. Only you have the power to change yourself. Only you decide what you will or won’t do. Even if your partner is bullying you, raging and in your face threatening you—ultimately you still decide. You decide if you will cower, give in, stand your ground, stay, go and everything in between. You decide.
Continue reading "Keep Your Focus On You And Watch Your World Change" »
On behalf of the Girl Effect project, this post is written for all the girls throughout the world who have been kept down by men, women, nations and our world.
Young girls, throughout our world, are crying for our help. They’re begging for our help. Their bodies are being sold, beaten and raped. These girls have no say. Young girls are being forced to marry men twice -- even three times -- their age. Some girls are only eight years old when they are given to an older man as a wife. He rapes this young child under the license of marriage. Fathers give their precious little girls away for many reasons: to settle a debt, buy a cow, make amends for their own poor behavior, because they view girls as their property to do with as they please and on and on.
The treatment of girls as a commodity is happening in my world. The ongoing abuse of young females—and, indeed, females of all ages-- is happening in your world. The violence, degradation and abuse of females is destroying our world. These abuses are happening today and are tragically effecting our tomorrow.
Females are being abused, taken advantage of and controlled at an alarming rate in our world today. This abuse is happening at the hands of men who are fathers, husbands, neighbors and leaders. And until men and women step up and step in to take a stand against the abuses, they will continue to harm our world.
Time and again I work with women who are turning to men to complete them, validate them, protect them and somehow give them a sense of self-worth.
Turning to men to do any of the above is a losing move:
• Wanting men to complete you insinuates that you are in some way not whole now—that’s crazy. If you struggle with feeling complete, by yourself, then work this issue. Get into therapy and look at why you play so small in your life an in your mind.
• Turning to men to protect you is a fascinating irony considering, a majority of our world’s violence is committed by men. One man may be your protector, yet, he cannot be with you 24/7; you are still at risk of another man harming you. Learn to protect yourself.
• Looking to men to prove that you are worthy never works. The problem with this game plan is if you believe a man proves you’re worthy, then you are only worthy as long as you have a man. What happens when the relationship ends, either by your choice or his? Now all of a sudden his absence means you’re unworthy? There is no logic in this kind of thinking. Your worth is not tied to anyone or anything—it is a given. You are worthy because you are. No one can take that away from you. A life is a life and every life has equal worth to another life. Know this.
• Finally, weighing the legitimacy of your ideas on the validation of men invalidates yourself. Validate your own ideas. Listen to your own instincts. Trust yourself as much, if not more, than others—including men.
Too many women are sleeping with men before they want to, desperately clinging to men who aren’t interested, crying over men who don’t treat them well and settling for men who are harmful. If you are a woman who can relate to this post, know that as long as you “need” a man, you are not ready to be in a relationship with a man. A man can add to your life, help you enjoy your life and be a part of your life. He cannot complete your life. He can be your lover, your friend and your companion. He can love you. laugh with you, connect with you, support you, grow with you, enjoy you and be with you. He cannot validate you or make you worthy. Know the difference.
Learn to listen to your own instincts, validate your own thoughts and tell yourself you are worthy. Anything short of this will lead you desperate and turning to the wrong men (and people) in your life. You are your greatest asset. Take care of yourself and the rest will fall into place.
Challenge: Take an honest look at yourself and your relationship to men and other people. Do you turn to others to validate you or give you a sense of worth? What would things be like if you stopped turning outward for these things and instead turned inward? Turn to yourself for validation and protection and see what change this incurs in your life. You are worth it.
It seems that some women have incredible difficulty seeing what’s right in front of them. Sometimes their fear blinds them and other times it’s their training. Many women are trained to be nice, to give people a chance (or a thousand chances), to not make waves, to second-guess or doubt themselves and to believe that others know better than they do about their life.
This clouded vision is keeping women in dumb relationships, toxic friendships and miserable jobs. The truth is that if women would take the time to tune into what they see, feel and think, they would be greatly surprised at how spot on they are.
Below are common behaviors I see and my interpretations of them. I offer these as an attempt to provide women with a clear lens. My hope is that women in these situations take their blinders off and trust that they can handle taking an honest look at what’s right in front of them.
1. You find a provocative text (or sext) message on his phone: If this happens—know that he is having an affair or is flirting with having an affair. Either way, your relationship is in trouble. Do not believe that it was just a joke or harmless or any other “explanation” for an unexplainable breach of trust. See it for what it is and don’t ignore your instincts.
2. Your partner is having an affair and does not want to end it: The message here is he’s not interested in you and you are not where his heart is. If there is no remorse and he continues in the affair, he is no longer yours. Work through your grief—do not try to get him back. As Oprah says, “only be with people who want to be with you”—don’t settle for less. If he is remorseful in his words, yet continues to contact her—you are not his priority or even his concern. Work through your grief and do not try to get him back.
Continue reading "Dare To See What You See: Women Take Off Your Blinders" »
One tower hit, soon to be two
A beautiful day now tragic and askew.
The sirens ring, the towers fall,
The people scream and loved ones call.
Another plane down, another to go
What the hell is this? The world wants to know.
Fathers, mothers, children and friends,
Down in the ashes never to rise again.
The tears and sorrow are so hard to bear,
The result of man’s hand—so much desperation,
Even more despair.
Ten years later we look upon the scene,
We watch as unnamed heroes flash across the screen.
We’ve survived the evil, we’ve risen from the fall
A nation torn apart tries to make sense of it all.
Remembering the pain while continuing to move on,
An entire nation touched and striving to be strong.
The unborn children of ten years past,
have risen from the ashes, they’re healing from the blast.
The trauma of that day sits in our souls,
We remember the flag waving as it sits upon the pole.
I pray a fire’s started, a new burning flame,
A fire of nations healing, a fire that refuses to maim.
Remembering.
Women often blame themselves for some of the most outlandish behaviors of their partners. This is an interesting phenomenon, especially since, in my experience, men seldom blame themselves when the women mess up. Placing blame where it belongs is important. If you’re at fault, by all means own up to what you did and repair it. If, however, someone else did something hurtful, don’t blame yourself and wonder how you caused your partner to be so hurtful—that’s crazy thinking.
If someone does something that is hurtful to you, stop looking at whether or not you caused it and realize what the person did was wrong. Over the years I’ve had women wonder:
• If their husband’s visiting a singles web site was their fault. Please, you no more have control of your husband’s Internet philandering than you do anything else in his life. If he chooses to get on a singles site—his decision has nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. You may just want to ask yourself why you want to be with someone who is so deceptive...and then blame yourself for his deception.
• If their partner’s sexting another woman was because they were boring, unattractive or too heavy. Really? His sexting another woman is because he finds it exciting and he wants to do what he wants to do. It has nothing to do with his partner’s anything. See it for what it is and deal with the facts.
People have this fantasy that “if only” their partner was kind, or respectful or caring or … (fill in the blank), their relationship would be great; this is not how relationships work. The idea that your relationship would be fine or easy “if only” your partner…, is a convenient way of taking the responsibility of creating a healthy relationship off of yourself. Chances are your partner is thinking the same thing about you – if only you would…
She said: “You never talk, it’s like I’m living alone!”
He said: “I would talk if you weren’t nagging all the time. Did you ever think of that?!”
She said: “Well, if you did something around here, I wouldn’t have to nag. Did YOU ever think of that?!”
…and on and on they go with little, if any, resolution to many exquisitely () described problems.
To create the relationships you want, you have to be consciously working them in new ways. This requires that you look at your part FIRST, and when you’ve changed you, THEN, you look at your partner’s part. For example if your partner is treating you poorly, are you putting up with it, treating him/her poorly back, setting limits around it or just complaining about it?
In contrast, are you treating your partner poorly? If so, are you blaming your actions on your partner or are you looking at your part and realizing that it is never okay to treat others poorly? You may set limits, make a request, get help or ultimately if you are that unhappy, you may leave; you may not however, be disrespectful, hurtful, cold or abusive.
If you are behaving in any of these ways, then it’s time to change your part of this equation.
…if you want to change the game, you need to change your moves. Complaining about or constantly trying to get your partner to change their moves will keep you stuck. The truth is you have no control of your partner—or anyone else for that matter. Fortunately though, you do have total control of you. Start focusing on the easier, more doable change in your relationships. Focus on you.
Women: Don’t Forget About YOU!
Strengthening Your Core And Transforming Your Relationships: A Tele-class For Women
Keep Your Focus On You And Watch Your World Change
“You Complete Me”: A Set Up in Relationships
Dare To See What You See: Women Take Off Your Blinders