Bravo to Sheryl Sandberg risking to live Full of Herself!
I am proud of the controversy stirred up by her best selling book “Lean In”. If you’ve seen her famous TED talk, you’ll recognize much of the book. It expands from those points and offers pages of well researched studies and statistics.
I am so pleased about the fray the book has pulled from the mythic tapestry we have laid over the subject of gender equity. We need some messiness around the topic of what it is honestly like for women in the work force, and in the structures and traditions of our society. For too long young women, middle-aged and older, have ignored the reality that today, still, in 2013, women are less valued than men. It’s time we talk about it, even when we don’t want to.
This is not a new idea. In fact, it’s knowledge we’ve had and swept under the rug by the very gender stuck with getting rid of dirt we don’t want to see: women. In agreeing to do the clean up for Patriarchy, women have ourselves to blame for being stuck with our hand on the broom handle: and not because we can hop on it and fly away.
In reality, our wings have been clipped, to keep women solidly on the ground of undervalue and underachievement and we have been part of making it happen.
In 1991, after I returned from serving 23 months in the United States Peace Corps, I accepted a job at my alma mater, a university in northwest Washington as Director of Student Activities. Among the speakers we hired during that time was Naomi Wolf, author of the then famous “Beauty Myth”.
As Ms. Wolf sat around a lunch table with me, female faculty and students, she told us about her next project: Women in Leadership and the lack of young women college students who wanted it. Traveling the nation, speaking and listening to women, she was shocked and dismayed to discover that the majority of women had little to no desire to put themselves out as leaders.
I listened with rapt attention. I nearly had to sit on my hands so that I wouldn’t jump up screaming “I want to! I want to lead! I’ve wanted to be President since grade school! I want to be that leader! I have always wanted to be the leader! I do! I do! I do!”
I did and I didn’t. I was President of my university student body; I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa; I worked in the Clinton Administration; I became an ordained woman pastor. In all these professional roles I reached for justice, founded organizations that sought equality and changed the governing rules of institutions. I have been a leader; strong, smart, assertive, demanding, committed and charismatic. And I have been crucified for it, by men and women alike.
I was first told I had been crucified on the altar of religious patriarchy while living as an intern in Jerusalem. My American supervisor was a frightening, small and insecure man who despised me the minute he greeted me and my husband at the airport. As months went by it became clear that not only would he not be one of the supportive male mentors Sandberg had throughout her career, but the opposite. His goal was to tear me down. Because of his blatant misogynist actions, I was removed from my position in Israel. As one woman said, “You’re being crucified for being a strong, smart woman who refused to take shit.”
Through my ten plus years as an ordained pastor, I learned that there is a religiosity of male preference and female diminution; God ordained the hierarchy of men over women. This moves the discussion beyond Sandberg’s assumptions, stereotypes and traditions and into a far more complicated source of the inequity: the divine. God, via Bible and other religious holy books, is understood as elevating men and placing women under their rule, while at the same time warning of women’s sexual prowess and a need to be governed, directed and protected by men. As a result, if a woman pastor is outspoken, ambitious, assertive and insists on remaining a woman, being the powerful woman leader “Lean In” hopes for, becomes a religious struggle.
I love being a woman. I love my red lipstick, high platform shoes and pencil skirts. I like my curvaceous body and long, dark curly hair. As a pastor, I didn’t want to tone down or reject my sexuality. I enjoyed the power of my sharp mind and charisma and my easy ability to speak, motivate and inspire. I was and am a natural leader and the young woman who could barely contain herself in the presence of Naomi Wolf didn’t contain it as a pastor, which led to the end of my leading in organized religion.
In the church there were not male colleagues who gave me a hand up or encouraged my voice. There were not women who joined me in my quest to create an equal place for honest female leadership in the church or in exploring gender neutral language and naming of the divine. In the church, the type of powerful woman I was and would not reduce, was not welcomed. The divinely ordained teaching that women are beneath men is ingrained deep in our collective psyche and is the root of all the weedy blossoms of gender inequity.
“Lean In” nudges up to the truth that most women who do want to be leaders don’t often make it, but it never fully digs down deep as to why. Religion is not mentioned once as a part of the problem. Sandberg gets a lot right in “Lean In” and still, there is much she does not even broach. Finally, it needs to be said that women do want to lead. There are other women, young, middle and old, who like me, can barely contain our desire to do so. The reality is, however, that the “right timing” or “well placed mentors” along the career route that Sandberg experienced, are rare. For many of us who are in male dominated professions, being a strong woman leader can be the death knoll of our very intention to do so. Simply wanting to be the woman leader is not enough to make it happen, and not only because of conflicts between motherhood and marriage, but because of the deeply seeded belief that women should not rise so high.
We need this book. We need this discussion. We need to disagree, feel uncomfortable and courageously look at our complicity in the reality of what “Lean In” reminds us: women are not equally valued, do not have equal opportunity or choice. Together we need to unearth the roots of Patriarchy, face the truth of religion’s role in it, and move forward to replant the ground of our practices with seeds of balance and equity.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Living Like It's Your Last
I don’t know if it’s because I am an avid, fairly serious runner, but the terrible events of Monday in Boston have reached in to my gut and yanked, pulled and jostled me. I am deeply sad. I am angry. I am consumed with a blankness of incomprehension. Searching through the reason of my intellect I cannot locate anything that makes sense. There is no seeming pay-off for this random act of terror. It stands without any philosophical undergirding or idea that might, even in its terrible wrongness, at the very least, give some sort of explanation to the standing query of “why?”
What happened Monday in Boston is simply and profoundly, ugly. It is meanness at its most sincere; literally ripping apart the lives and bodies of people gathered to run, cheer and challenge. For no apparent reason, life was harshly interrupted.
So yesterday when I received an urgent text from my husband that one of our 10 year old daughters needed me to take her to the doc, that she had had an accident, I reacted from the anger and sadness I felt about the Boston event. I was amped for a sudden, surprising happening that could change our life forever.
It didn’t. She had tripped and fell hard into a tree root that hurt her elbow. She will be fine (exhale). She will run again. She will laugh and she will be whole.
We will never know when those unexpected occurrences that change our life or end it, will be. We don’t know. It is out of our control. In that knowledge is total and complete Full-dom! Fullness of absolute freedom to live with outrageous passion, energy, and full-tilt for this thing we call life.
When my dad was sick and in his final weeks of life, we talked about the idea of living everyday as if it were your last. We laughed a little and scoffed more because we agreed that if we were to actually do that, we would disregard much of what we do and replace it with what we love and enjoy most. “If I were to live like it was my last day,” I had said, “I would never go into work again”.
But wait, maybe it’s not so silly. Looking back to that talk almost two years ago, I had been in a job I disliked that produced heaps of stress in a toxic environment. It was not a place that nurtured the fullness of my professional capacity and worse yet, it depleted me in every way. If it really was my last day living, no way would I keep working in that awful place. Even more, as I walked confidently out the door, I would have said what I thought without couching it in safe, inoffensive language.
That is what I ought to have done. It would have been the right, healthy decision. I didn’t do it because I had been caught up in the perceived sense of safety and the idea that my fullness, my good self, was defined by my work and career. I was unwilling to walk away from a position beneath my wisdom and capacity and move instead into my own, good, fully capable self because I was not living full of me. Instead I was filled up with societal expectations and the unstable voices of others who, in their lack of full living, sought to reduce me in mine.
Living full of yourself is trusting in you. It is taking the risk of listening to your good wisdom and experience, to your gut, your hopes and your needs more than any other.
The question, “If this were my last day, what would I be doing?” can serve as a Full-dom check: Am I living fully into who I honestly am and truly want to be? Am I filled up with my desires, loves and hopes? Am I using my full self to fill up the world with beauty, justice and joy? If the answer is yes, than celebrate! If there are any “no’s” than good, honest reflection is in order.
Knowing that any day could be our last, that life is unexpected and in reality, operates largely outside of our control, is a deep breathe of fresh, healing and invigorating air. It releases us to eschew all that holds us down and back in our lives. Actually, it nearly demands it.
“Stop!” truth says. “Stop spending this precious life being mean to yourself. Stop telling yourself “I can’t, I’m not enough”. Stop allowing voices of others to determine how you think about yourself. Stop giving in to expectations that are limiting to you. Stop yielding and get out there! Fly! Be Free! Stretch those arms wide and reach BIG! Reach for your full, big, unique self and fill up with the beauty of who you are and the truth that this world is here to explore, to love and to mend. Get those legs moving and run! Run into the fullness of possibility and do not take no for an answer.”
Life is yours to command, until it isn’t. And then, my darling lovely dear, it is too late. Now… today… it is not.
What happened Monday in Boston is simply and profoundly, ugly. It is meanness at its most sincere; literally ripping apart the lives and bodies of people gathered to run, cheer and challenge. For no apparent reason, life was harshly interrupted.
So yesterday when I received an urgent text from my husband that one of our 10 year old daughters needed me to take her to the doc, that she had had an accident, I reacted from the anger and sadness I felt about the Boston event. I was amped for a sudden, surprising happening that could change our life forever.
It didn’t. She had tripped and fell hard into a tree root that hurt her elbow. She will be fine (exhale). She will run again. She will laugh and she will be whole.
We will never know when those unexpected occurrences that change our life or end it, will be. We don’t know. It is out of our control. In that knowledge is total and complete Full-dom! Fullness of absolute freedom to live with outrageous passion, energy, and full-tilt for this thing we call life.
When my dad was sick and in his final weeks of life, we talked about the idea of living everyday as if it were your last. We laughed a little and scoffed more because we agreed that if we were to actually do that, we would disregard much of what we do and replace it with what we love and enjoy most. “If I were to live like it was my last day,” I had said, “I would never go into work again”.
But wait, maybe it’s not so silly. Looking back to that talk almost two years ago, I had been in a job I disliked that produced heaps of stress in a toxic environment. It was not a place that nurtured the fullness of my professional capacity and worse yet, it depleted me in every way. If it really was my last day living, no way would I keep working in that awful place. Even more, as I walked confidently out the door, I would have said what I thought without couching it in safe, inoffensive language.
That is what I ought to have done. It would have been the right, healthy decision. I didn’t do it because I had been caught up in the perceived sense of safety and the idea that my fullness, my good self, was defined by my work and career. I was unwilling to walk away from a position beneath my wisdom and capacity and move instead into my own, good, fully capable self because I was not living full of me. Instead I was filled up with societal expectations and the unstable voices of others who, in their lack of full living, sought to reduce me in mine.
Living full of yourself is trusting in you. It is taking the risk of listening to your good wisdom and experience, to your gut, your hopes and your needs more than any other.
The question, “If this were my last day, what would I be doing?” can serve as a Full-dom check: Am I living fully into who I honestly am and truly want to be? Am I filled up with my desires, loves and hopes? Am I using my full self to fill up the world with beauty, justice and joy? If the answer is yes, than celebrate! If there are any “no’s” than good, honest reflection is in order.
Knowing that any day could be our last, that life is unexpected and in reality, operates largely outside of our control, is a deep breathe of fresh, healing and invigorating air. It releases us to eschew all that holds us down and back in our lives. Actually, it nearly demands it.
“Stop!” truth says. “Stop spending this precious life being mean to yourself. Stop telling yourself “I can’t, I’m not enough”. Stop allowing voices of others to determine how you think about yourself. Stop giving in to expectations that are limiting to you. Stop yielding and get out there! Fly! Be Free! Stretch those arms wide and reach BIG! Reach for your full, big, unique self and fill up with the beauty of who you are and the truth that this world is here to explore, to love and to mend. Get those legs moving and run! Run into the fullness of possibility and do not take no for an answer.”
Life is yours to command, until it isn’t. And then, my darling lovely dear, it is too late. Now… today… it is not.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Awake and Aware: Guns, Schools and Violence
Conscious living is a choice, albeit one that many people in our culture choose not to make. To live consciously is to live awake and aware. It is to engage with the happenings, events, choices and questions that take us beyond the confines of our own personal crib.
When you intentionally seek information that is not directly about what’s happening in your home, your day-to-day life, your relationships and finances, you are living aware. When you decide that the world is complex, big and filled with nuances, ideas and truths that sometimes contradict one another and require an open mind to digest, then you are living awake.
Living awake and aware is one critical aspect of living full of your good self. First, to choose to live full of yourself is to disregard the traditional teaching that to do so is wrong. I can hear the voices echo in my mind and memories. “You are too full of yourself young lady!”
My great work is to loosen our cultural knee-jerk agreement with this idea: that living full of yourself is somehow bad, wrong, sinful, prideful and arrogant.
No it isn’t.
Living full of yourself is exactly what we ought to be working toward and teaching, empowering and assisting our children to do. It’s what the world needs: more women (and men) who claim and affirm their good, unique, powerful skills, intellect, and insight and who use it to make more space for everyone to flourish.
Conscious-Checks are good for the full-soul and the truth that the world is bigger than what we see and touch each day. Conscious-Checks encourage us to apply the Fullness of all that we are to the betterment of our world, society and community.
Conscious-Check for April 15th (no, not taxes) is an appeal to apply the fullness of your mind, reason and compassion to the issue of guns, education and violence.
My kids love the TV show Glee. Since we do not watch television during the week, it is a ritual to record it and watch it together on Friday or Saturday night. Last Saturday the program began with a warning that this segment would include violence in schools. After checking in with my kids and establishing ground rules (the pause button gets to be pushed whenever someone needs to stop), we proceeded. Most of the show was typical Glee – love, friendship, music and quirky side-stories – until a gun-shot rang through the halls. Until the students clamored for safety and huddled in corners. Until close-ups of terrified faces filled our TV screen. Until one character was shown standing on top of a toilet seat silently crying to herself, alone and afraid.
My kids cried. They hid their eyes. We hit pause. We talked. They shared how afraid they were of that happening in their school, of the truth that the shooting in Connecticut was still on their minds. They didn’t understand why adults loved guns so much. We talked about hunting, about their grandpa who hunted pheasants, about our beloved neighbor who is an avid hunter. “I still hate guns,” one twin stated. “All of them." “Why do they have to be so easy to get” the other asked?
“Why,” my 13 year old wanted to know, “can’t President Obama protect us from these things?”
Why indeed?
Living in fear of guns in our schools does not create space and opportunity for our children to become full of their good intellect, responsibility and care for the world. Watching the leaders of our nation not negotiate, not discuss and not find ways to eliminate the easy access to assault weapons, is not demonstrating the fullness of what it means to lead for the sake of the whole.
We can do better. We can help our kids discover their full, good, strong character and express their opinions to their leaders. We can role model the behavior of a fully involved citizen and call our congressperson, senator and the white house to urge passage of strict gun regulation. We can write a telephone script with our kids and help them call too. We can open this discussion up among our peers, colleagues and families. If we can’t pass stricter gun laws, at least we can make sure the issue of gun violence and easily obtainable guns is not allowed to disappear or be ignored. We need to fully keep the conversation going. No matter what.
When you intentionally seek information that is not directly about what’s happening in your home, your day-to-day life, your relationships and finances, you are living aware. When you decide that the world is complex, big and filled with nuances, ideas and truths that sometimes contradict one another and require an open mind to digest, then you are living awake.
Living awake and aware is one critical aspect of living full of your good self. First, to choose to live full of yourself is to disregard the traditional teaching that to do so is wrong. I can hear the voices echo in my mind and memories. “You are too full of yourself young lady!”
My great work is to loosen our cultural knee-jerk agreement with this idea: that living full of yourself is somehow bad, wrong, sinful, prideful and arrogant.
No it isn’t.
Living full of yourself is exactly what we ought to be working toward and teaching, empowering and assisting our children to do. It’s what the world needs: more women (and men) who claim and affirm their good, unique, powerful skills, intellect, and insight and who use it to make more space for everyone to flourish.
Conscious-Checks are good for the full-soul and the truth that the world is bigger than what we see and touch each day. Conscious-Checks encourage us to apply the Fullness of all that we are to the betterment of our world, society and community.
Conscious-Check for April 15th (no, not taxes) is an appeal to apply the fullness of your mind, reason and compassion to the issue of guns, education and violence.
My kids love the TV show Glee. Since we do not watch television during the week, it is a ritual to record it and watch it together on Friday or Saturday night. Last Saturday the program began with a warning that this segment would include violence in schools. After checking in with my kids and establishing ground rules (the pause button gets to be pushed whenever someone needs to stop), we proceeded. Most of the show was typical Glee – love, friendship, music and quirky side-stories – until a gun-shot rang through the halls. Until the students clamored for safety and huddled in corners. Until close-ups of terrified faces filled our TV screen. Until one character was shown standing on top of a toilet seat silently crying to herself, alone and afraid.
My kids cried. They hid their eyes. We hit pause. We talked. They shared how afraid they were of that happening in their school, of the truth that the shooting in Connecticut was still on their minds. They didn’t understand why adults loved guns so much. We talked about hunting, about their grandpa who hunted pheasants, about our beloved neighbor who is an avid hunter. “I still hate guns,” one twin stated. “All of them." “Why do they have to be so easy to get” the other asked?
“Why,” my 13 year old wanted to know, “can’t President Obama protect us from these things?”
Why indeed?
Living in fear of guns in our schools does not create space and opportunity for our children to become full of their good intellect, responsibility and care for the world. Watching the leaders of our nation not negotiate, not discuss and not find ways to eliminate the easy access to assault weapons, is not demonstrating the fullness of what it means to lead for the sake of the whole.
We can do better. We can help our kids discover their full, good, strong character and express their opinions to their leaders. We can role model the behavior of a fully involved citizen and call our congressperson, senator and the white house to urge passage of strict gun regulation. We can write a telephone script with our kids and help them call too. We can open this discussion up among our peers, colleagues and families. If we can’t pass stricter gun laws, at least we can make sure the issue of gun violence and easily obtainable guns is not allowed to disappear or be ignored. We need to fully keep the conversation going. No matter what.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Is Living Full of Yourself a Sin?
One of my female students asked me yesterday, "Isn't living full our yourself bad? I mean, I was taught not to prideful or arrogant. When I hear "Living Full of Yourself", that's not a positive.
I agree. The idea of being filled up with the good of your own good self has been preached, taught and directed as negative, a sin.
In Greek "sin" is "hamartia", which literally means "to miss the mark". When pleasing God, following God's law and living in a way that meets God's expectations is the mark, anything we do that takes us away from that is considered sinful. I suppose in that sense, if one believe that our whole being, our thinking, feeling, smelling, tasting and touching selves ought to live for one being only, God, then I guess getting filled up with our own good self could be missing the mark.
But wait! If you do believe in God and wish to follow God's ways, it is God who gave you life, right? God who made you who you are, yes? I grew up seeing different versions of the "God don't make no junk" poster around the homes of fellow Christians. If God is your creator, the one who gave you all of your unique blessings, skills, intellect and quirks, than wouldn't God want you to be filled up with them?
If you do not believe in God, or are working your way beyond traditional belief, roadblocks remain. In the habits and traditions of society, we come to understand that women ought to live for everyone else. We are the caretakers, the nurturers, the ones who sacrifice. Society and religion together give women limited roles that define us, telling us who we can and cannot be. To be filled up with our feminine characteristics, sexuality, intellect and power is not the kind of woman our culture promotes and greets.
It's true, even if we don't want it to be. Women, we are often our worst enemy! We judge and poke at other women, especially those who grow into power or seem to be living beyond what a "good woman or girl" are supposed to.
To live full of ourselves means a lot of things. It means first believing in your inherent worth and value. That right now, in this moment of reading these words, you know and claim you are good. Beyond good, you are of value. You are worth being around, listening to, laughing with and learning about. Right now, without any other voice affirming it, without any other entity agreeing, you are amazing.
From there, from that precipice, the juicy, explosive, sweet energy that is uniquely women's, flows out and down from our center, opening up more and more space for love, ideas, problem solving, playfulness, affirming and arousing sex, and ultimately a deep connection with the divine.
Living Full of Ourselves is the opposite of bad, negative arrogance. As my student decided to name it: Women Full of Themselves Positive Pride. And so much more!
I agree. The idea of being filled up with the good of your own good self has been preached, taught and directed as negative, a sin.
In Greek "sin" is "hamartia", which literally means "to miss the mark". When pleasing God, following God's law and living in a way that meets God's expectations is the mark, anything we do that takes us away from that is considered sinful. I suppose in that sense, if one believe that our whole being, our thinking, feeling, smelling, tasting and touching selves ought to live for one being only, God, then I guess getting filled up with our own good self could be missing the mark.
But wait! If you do believe in God and wish to follow God's ways, it is God who gave you life, right? God who made you who you are, yes? I grew up seeing different versions of the "God don't make no junk" poster around the homes of fellow Christians. If God is your creator, the one who gave you all of your unique blessings, skills, intellect and quirks, than wouldn't God want you to be filled up with them?
If you do not believe in God, or are working your way beyond traditional belief, roadblocks remain. In the habits and traditions of society, we come to understand that women ought to live for everyone else. We are the caretakers, the nurturers, the ones who sacrifice. Society and religion together give women limited roles that define us, telling us who we can and cannot be. To be filled up with our feminine characteristics, sexuality, intellect and power is not the kind of woman our culture promotes and greets.
It's true, even if we don't want it to be. Women, we are often our worst enemy! We judge and poke at other women, especially those who grow into power or seem to be living beyond what a "good woman or girl" are supposed to.
To live full of ourselves means a lot of things. It means first believing in your inherent worth and value. That right now, in this moment of reading these words, you know and claim you are good. Beyond good, you are of value. You are worth being around, listening to, laughing with and learning about. Right now, without any other voice affirming it, without any other entity agreeing, you are amazing.
From there, from that precipice, the juicy, explosive, sweet energy that is uniquely women's, flows out and down from our center, opening up more and more space for love, ideas, problem solving, playfulness, affirming and arousing sex, and ultimately a deep connection with the divine.
Living Full of Ourselves is the opposite of bad, negative arrogance. As my student decided to name it: Women Full of Themselves Positive Pride. And so much more!
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Living Full of Ourselves!
When I was little I dreamed big, fat, unruly dreams. Do you remember those? I know you had them too: those wandering fantasies that led us into great adventures and allowed us to dance in the fullness of our hopes. Those dreams where there were no limiting interruptions of “You want to do what?” or whispers that warned of failure and looking silly or insipid. No, when we were young, we were yet undamaged by the conditioning of our culture. We were still pleasantly full of ourselves.
I recall that little girl and your little girl too, and I invite her to be present again. We need her freedom, her complete willingness to believe in the possibility of everything and the way in which she so profoundly believed in all of her! It’s time for women to affirm and be full of ourselves!
When did it happen? When did we learn that being full of ourselves was prideful and bad? That somehow being full of ourselves challenged the idea that we could love, honor, hear and follow the direction of another? That being full of ourselves meant that we had no ability to allow space for another?
How wrong those ideas are. Being full of yourself is the surest way to giving space and freedom to another. Being full of your good core self gives you the confidence to open up to the good core of another and will be the energizing dynamic that assists the flourishing of others. When we are full of ourselves we are honestly able to engage all the good qualities that are unique to who we are, and see those that are particular in another.
Being full of ourselves is the deepest, most profound connection to the divine within you and to the energy of all that is around us. Becoming Full of Ourselves is the way to loving your body, your mind and your spirit. It is the way to connection with your sisters, lovers, mothers and friends. It is the practice of breathing big, expanding arch ways of opportunity that beckon you to adventure, to new ideas, deepening old loves and knowing yourself more lovingly than ever before.
Follow me on this new way and find out how to Become a Woman who is Full of Herself!
I recall that little girl and your little girl too, and I invite her to be present again. We need her freedom, her complete willingness to believe in the possibility of everything and the way in which she so profoundly believed in all of her! It’s time for women to affirm and be full of ourselves!
When did it happen? When did we learn that being full of ourselves was prideful and bad? That somehow being full of ourselves challenged the idea that we could love, honor, hear and follow the direction of another? That being full of ourselves meant that we had no ability to allow space for another?
How wrong those ideas are. Being full of yourself is the surest way to giving space and freedom to another. Being full of your good core self gives you the confidence to open up to the good core of another and will be the energizing dynamic that assists the flourishing of others. When we are full of ourselves we are honestly able to engage all the good qualities that are unique to who we are, and see those that are particular in another.
Being full of ourselves is the deepest, most profound connection to the divine within you and to the energy of all that is around us. Becoming Full of Ourselves is the way to loving your body, your mind and your spirit. It is the way to connection with your sisters, lovers, mothers and friends. It is the practice of breathing big, expanding arch ways of opportunity that beckon you to adventure, to new ideas, deepening old loves and knowing yourself more lovingly than ever before.
Follow me on this new way and find out how to Become a Woman who is Full of Herself!
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