equality

fem·i·nism   

/ˈfɛməˌnɪzəm/ noun 

the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

 internationella kvinnodagen

supersisters

with respect to march being women’s history month i want to start a new post thread honoring a woman worth notice and admiration.

when i was little and just starting to read, my mother enthusiastically encouraged and supported me and she worked especially hard to introduce important women in my reading selections. by the time i was ready to start school, i had already ripped through all the books our public library held devoted to the toddler women’s studies offerings of of hellen keller, amelia earheart and my personal favorite nellie bly.

as years passed and i was left to re-read the same biographies over and over my mother’s frustration grew. she made sure i read "stories for free children" from her Ms. magazine every month, i already memorized "free to be…" where were are all the books about women?

and then she gave me supersister trading cards. from then on i drew from the pack and tracked down as much as i could about each amazing and accomplished woman. my own women’s studies 101 before i even finished montessori!

this week, i want to celebrate the first woman to really inspire my ardent attention and obsession…the amazing nellie bly…

learn a little about Nellie here

what i loved most were the chapters in her biographies when she went undercover in bellevue. i think she may have inspired my career in psychotherapy. an exciting pioneer, she meant the world to me as a little girl and her bravery and achievement deserves more attention that it receives.

*photo from nellieblyonline.com

mind your manners

i am always saying "glad to've met you" to someone i am not at all glad i met. 

if you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

-jd salinger's holden caulfield,catcher in the rye

*photo breakfast at tiffany's

along the lines of courage

courage doesn't always roar.
 

sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,  

"I will try again tomorrow."

                                             -mary anne radmacher

* painting more edvard munch

braving the blues

not every day is a good one. 

sometimes we just want to hide away, shirk responsibilities, stay in our pyjamas and lie around and wallow in our sorrows. sometimes as bad as this feels, it feels good to allow yourself to feel awful.

strength is not just about soldiering on in the face of adversity. there is courage in displaying your vulnerabilities. if you are feeling scared or blue or just floundering, it is okay to let people see that part of you. 

we are not judged by our loved ones in a single moment but rather in all our moments, good and bad, soft and hard, pretty and ugly. we are the sum of all these equal parts.

sometimes outside the sun is shining and the sky is clear blue, but inside us there is a tempest brewing…it may even feel like we are stuck under an umbrella of grey rain clouds that follows us around our day. courage is believing that even our storm will pass and we can and will get through this darkness and be all the happier for what lies ahead.

 

that is what I am telling myself today anyway...

*painting edvard munch girls on a bridge

social grace

 weirdos

sometimes we encounter awkward or gawky people. sometimes their manner makes us uncomfortable in return.

unless this person is some creepy guy relentlessly hitting on you in a bar, give them a break. 

instead of cutting them off and drifting away to other clusters in the party, why not introduce them into the fold?  problem solved. offer them entré into a group, make them feel at ease and fully a part of the action and relieve yourself of the burden of carrying the conversation.

people often treat others the way they have been treated themselves. set a good example. maybe if you treat an unusual person like a usual person they will react in kind.

maybe not, but at least you are not aping the weirdo…

xoxo

a kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

-ingrid bergman

never as good as the first time

who was your first love? do you remember the falling?

my very first love was john travolta.

oh how i loved him! in every incarnation. from the very beginning as vinny barbarino and danny zuko to what i consider his finest role as chili palmer in "get shorty"…i loved him so much I even went to the opening night of “twist of fate”. that is devotion i tell you. i have the soundtrack to prove the depths.

my adoration for travolta set a tone and a standard for the boys that followed. dark and swarthy won my heart every time. always beating out the surplus of scandinavian blondes that too closely resembled my brothers for comfort. and with the exception of just one, all my beaux were excellent dancers.

how did your first love impact the ones that followed?

glad alla hjärtans dag

i’ll chime in and add my two cents to the valentine’s day hype - after all it is not as if i ever shy from the saccharine on this blog. 

i am not a big observer of v-day but i do think it can serve as a reminder that we should celebrate love every day. and by love i mean love in all its variants…hetero, homo, platonic, romantic, filial, sibling… whatever…

Leo Buscaglia put it best when he said

“love is life. and if you miss love, you miss life.”

go forth and love. love freely and openly and without fear or hesitation. everyone deserves to love and be loved. no matter what form it may take.

xoxo

photo: paul newman and joanne woodward from LIFE magazine via old love

...get up and do your thing

it's the weekend...dance and sing

get up and do your thing

dance like no one is watching...smile because you know they will...

trippin'

some of my favorite friends are heading off on a road trip. after feeling a twinge of jealousy for the fun they are about to have, i got to thinking about road trips as a great allegory for life.

you may start with a map and a plan and all may go along accordingly…but we make choices when we make plans. when we chose one thing, we reject other things. we cannot experience every opportunity or know all possibilities. you never know where the other roads may have lead you…life is risky like that. you have to make choices and take what arrives.

sometimes there are surprises… unplanned incidents that delay our progress. and so we cope. we handle what comes our way with the best of our abilities in that moment. next time such an emergency arises, we are better prepared and less afraid. stronger and more assured.

sometimes the road is dark, rough and we feel lost. but still we go on…we use the tools we have to forge ahead, always trusting that we will find our way out or someone to help us get back on track.

when we are back in the sunshine and the sky is bright, remember to pay attention. feel the warmth of rays in our hair, smell the air and remember how colorful and exciting seeing new places and meeting new people can be.

too often we take the easy times for granted. the free-wheeling fun is the best part. we often work so hard at getting through hard times, we forget we can apply the same sort of industrious focus to enjoying the good. when we pay attention to those quiet moments, they speak volumes that we can carry with us forever.

***photo credit: wild strawberries, ingmar bergman

life lesson

life is unfair

some of us win in ways of luck and others in ways of strategy, but rare is the soul that wins at everything. life is unfair. sometimes that idea can be a comfort, more often an outrage.

on a personal level, being fair is often a challenging virtue. sometimes we want more than our fair share, sometimes we give more than we get...how we suffer in the name of equity!

when i was little, my mother, exhausted by sibling squabbles, made somethings fair with this simple rule: one cuts, the other chooses.

in other words, you have a piece of cake that you must share. one takes the knife to cut it in half, the other chooses from the halves. the idea is that the most fair cut comes when the other gets first dibs on your slicing skills.

i like to use this rule in many aspects of relationships. if there is a choice to be made, let one person come up with options and the other make the final decision. go with it. if there is work to share, divvy it up and let the other choose their lot. things tend to be more equally distributed when the chance to get stuck with the less desirable lot is real.

cutting and choosing...it's a fair as fair can be...

the one thing

as many of my friends know, i tend to obsess over one thing at a time. i am prone to cooking one day and eating it all week or getting on a kick and eating the same thing every day. i tend to have one favorite hang out and then move to the next place i repeat; i often wear the same outfit until a new one takes it place and then...repeat... i have also been known to love just one song at a time...in fact, back in the day i made a 90-minute cassette tape of the same song over and over so i wouldn't have to rewind my walkman and could listen to my latest favorite one song on repeat without complication or interruption. yeah, i am that old...waaay pre-ipod...

i realised when i was recently in my hometown with my family that some of those "one things" have been with me for more years than i care to admit. this is one of those "one things":

from their last album, warehouse: songs and stories and, if memory serves, their last song at their last live performance (that i, so very fortunately attended)... hüsker dü "you can live at home now". i have been listening to this song since high school. when i am frustrated, angry or upset, it calms me and smooths my ruffled feathers.

sometimes one thing is all you need.

hemåt

“happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

                                           -george burns



...and i am off to visit mine...

the importance of being...

to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance

                                                  -oscar wilde, an ideal husband



speaking of love this week…

finding love is another common theme in my line of work. is there a definitive answer to how one goes about finding and attracting love? i believe there is. when my clients are distressed about the state of their love life i try to remind them that loving yourself is the beginning of attracting the kind of love you truly desire. sometimes this whizzes right past them. often we are so consumed with the desire to be with someone we forget what qualities we want in that someone. not just any love will do…

you can find love anywhere, at any time. really. being open and receptive to love is a state of mind, not a state of place.

many times my clients are frustrated and angry that they have not found “the one”. having witnessed many of my friends at that panicky moment that often occurs in our thirties, i gently introduce a few reminders about love.

is there really just ONE, singular love of our lives? for some of us, maybe…for most of us, that one person is many. different times of our life have different needs and desires. is there really just one person to fulfill those changing demands?

and more importantly, i suggest to my clients and friends, is marriage the penultimate expression of love? for me, i know that the people that have touched me most deeply were not meant to be life partners. rather, they were people that meant a great deal at a pivotal time in my life, then…well, things changed. but does that dilute their love?

we attract people that reflect where we are in our own lives. if we are not meeting THE ONE, maybe we are not ready for that kind of relationship. and that is okay. it is just where we are now. take a break from the hunt and learn to be happy with what we have within ourselves. if that is not enough, searching for what makes us happy will attract the kinds of relationships that support that dream. another person cannot deliver your happiness; they cannot complete your life. they can help to augment it, detract from it, even derail it but happiness is internal. it is ours to discover and to own.

i know it sounds trite and cliché, but if we don’t truly love ourselves, how can we expect someone else to do the same?

*photo credit: atame, pedro almodovar

piano concerto no. 21

there are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer

them and to take your pleasure of them;

but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly

beneath her gaze

-charles beaudelaire

it seems everyone i know is suddenly in love. so for my weekend thought i am sharing one of my all-time favorite movies: elvira madigan. it is a beautiful, although tragic, love story. if you haven't already seen it, put it on your list...puss och kram!

*photos courtesy of bo widerberg, elvira madigan, 1967

the year of the ant

i went to my final holiday party on monday. i never imagined i would be glad to see the bottom of a champagne bottle, but I was…

predictable new year’s conversation focused on resolutions. even more predictable were the reports of “lose weight”, “live healthier” and graciously “give more to others”. i did not offer up my resolutions because for once, i haven’t made any.

this year i spent some time on new year’s day (recovering, yes…) reflecting on the events of 2011 and trying to map out a game plan for 2012. 

i have never been goal oriented. always more the impulsive grasshopper than the industrious ant. never in my life did i have a long-term strategy.

sure, i have made some plans, completed rites of passage and i guess i had some sort of vision of what i wanted my life to look like. true, that vision mostly included Marni dresses and wandering through sunny flower and cheese markets in Provence, but still…i could close my eyes and see what i wanted things to look like; i just didn’t have a road map to that destination.

this year i want a path. goals are important. they give shape to our lives, meaning, direction and purpose. you can’t go backwards and rewrite the past but going forwards without direction is really just spinning your wheels. i have often joked that i am where i am because of inertia but it isn’t really much of a joke when it is true.

this year i am avoiding resolutions in favor of aspirations and plans. halting the momentum that has propelled me to where i am now and choosing where i am going is the framework for my 2012 plan. the swede lowdown version 2.0, if you will.

stay tuned…

*photo via this farming man