What Really Holds Women Back

We all start out curious, unedited. 

We don’t worry about what our bodies look like.  

We know how to eat when we’re hungry and we don't care what anyone thinks of how we dance.

We know how to play without holding back. 

We trust ourselves. 

And then, things change

Well-meaning parents correct their children, wanting them to be their best but what children hear is something else. The child begins to question herself. 

When I was young, I started picking up on messages that I needed to act a certain way because it was really important what others thought of me. 

My young brain heard..."other’s opinions matter more than what I think of myself." 

This version of me at 17 believed that if she was friendly and popular that everyone would like her. 

It was easy for her because that was her nature...friendly and open. 

She knew without being told that it wasn't nice to say things that might upset someone or make them...

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Why it's so hard for us to let go...a story of letting go of fear

Letting go is hard

It doesn't matter whether we're letting go of physical clutter or emotional clutter in our lives. 

It's straight-up hard. 

In exploring around all the edges of what it means to let go of clutter or anything in our lives that we need to let go of...I'm finding one thing to be true. 

It's about fear. 

Letting go involves letting go of your fear. 

A tale of fear

I remember a time way back in 2008 when I began a year-long leadership program.

In our group, we all were all challenged to get clear on our personal strengths so that we could be impactful leaders.  

We began this process by engaging in a high ropes course. 

The high ropes, if you've never participated in one of these intense experiences, helps you discover your personal courage as well as your strengths. 

On the first day of the course, we had to climb up a 25-foot redwood tree. (I'm actually not sure how high it was but let's just say...

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Decluttering and Letting go...even when you donโ€™t want to

 “If you let go a little, you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace." Ajahn Chah 

When I heard this quote the very first time, it stopped me dead in my tracks. 

I knew it was true.

But I didn’t have much experience with letting go.  

I come from a family who loved to keep things. Everything, actually. 

There wasn’t a whole lot that got thrown away. Letters, old bank statements and checks for years and years, clothes that no longer fit, even empty boxes...because, well, the idea was that we might need these things SOMEDAY.

And yes, my parents were of the Depression-era. I get it.

It was a time that affected that generation for their entire lives and my parents and grandparents were deeply impacted along with everyone else. They didn’t believe in getting rid of anything. 

So I grew up with the mentality of keeping things, unaware...

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What to do when you feel like quitting

overcoming challenges Sep 02, 2021

I learned the secret to not quitting from a very wise Marine Corps officer several years ago when I worked on a US Marine Corps base in Okinawa, Japan. 

I was working out with Marines as I did every day on the base and I was on the 4th round of doing pushups on 2 gymnastic rings in the middle of a very high-intensity fitness workout. (That’s hanging onto 2 rings that are suspended & you’re supposed to do pushups while you’re hoisting yourself on them & maintaining balance at the same time)…you know, crazy stuff like that. 

It was hard, to put it mildly.  I’d already been rowing, then before that pushups, then squats.  I was exhausted. 

My head said, "what are you doing out here?  You’re too old to be working out this hard, just quit. You don’t have to do this.  This is insane. We’re all crazy. Quit."

I looked to my left and decided to ask Mike who was working out next to me why he...

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Are you languishing? You're not the only one

Today I had this imaginary conversation with a friend or (maybe it was myself.) It went like this: 

Hey Amelia,

Did you know that that blah mood you're in is normal?

And that you're not the only one?

Did you know that you've been feeling tired because your brain is tired?

Yes ma’am it is.

It's worn out from trying to cope with covid, with fires out of control, smoke, political upheaval, along with all the day-to-day stressors you have and it's been going on now for over a year.  

You didn't notice anything at first because you were too busy adjusting, putting on your mask, avoiding crowds, staying inside.

You didn't realize that your brain was on overdrive trying to keep you and your family alive.

The mental and emotional impacts of COVID

Yep. It was over a year without going anywhere except maybe to the grocery store. And you woke up most days thinking...it's another day of the same. The same. The boring old same freakin' thing.

You didn't know how long...

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Learning how to overcome the impossible...Climbing Mt. Fuji

In 2014, my husband and I climbed Mt. Fuji, the highest volcano in Japan at 12,388 thousand feet. Little did I know that this experience would help me be able to deal with the current troubling times.

This was an epic trip for me. In the telling of this story about our adventure, it’s important to give you some background on what it’s like to climb Fuji-San (Mr. Fuji).

The Mt Fuji Challenge

Mt Fuji is a dormant volcano that last erupted in 1708. It was a Buddhist monk in 700 A.D. who first climbed Mt. Fuji. A temple was built at the summit 400 years later. It became a pilgrimage site for Japanese.

In 1860, the first foreigner climbed Mt. Fuji. In 1868, Lady Parkes, an Englishwoman, defied a ban on women climbers and ascended the peak. The ban was lifted afterward. What a badass woman she was!

It was my husband’s idea. Thom had dreamed about this climb even before we moved to Okinawa in 2013. He’d always said, “I’m gonna climb Mt. Fuji."

I really...

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What are you waiting for?

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

Barack Obama

Today is about not putting your life on hold and waiting to do the things you love.

If we don't live the life we want now or we're waiting to be happy, then we die full of regrets.  I am a woman living in my 70s so I ask myself every day, what am I waiting for?

When is the best time to do what you want?

Is it when the bills are paid off, you have enough money, the kids leave home when you have more time?...you fill in the blanks.

We wait for the "right" time. For the best job, for the next raise, the perfect house, the best time to do what we want. 

My 13-year-old grand-nephew was diagnosed 4 months ago with a brain tumor. It was malignant. The day before he was diagnosed he was a normal kid playing baseball.

Life can turn you completely upside down. And inside out.

One minute you could be sitting on your...

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How to stop blaming yourself

self-care self-love Aug 05, 2021

We're living in funky, unpredictable times.

It’s wearing down even the most grounded and balanced people.

But for some of us, we blame ourselves for things that happen.  We may not even be aware that we’re in this self-destructive behavior. 

You don't have to blame yourself.

In fact, it won’t help you in any way.   

For sure, it’s easy to get stuck listening to the blaming and shaming voices inside of you that tell you that you did something wrong…spiraling you down into negativity, into funky land.

Those are the times when nothing seems right. You feel off but you don't even know what's wrong.

It might be that you woke up feeling happy and everything was going great and then, BAM.

Some small thing happens.

Your phone goes off in the middle of a yoga class, with a voice message from your friend saying your name, "hi, Jo," and the whole class hears the voice recording and glares at you. 

(true story that just happened to...

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When your sisters are your best friends and your best friends are your sisters

relationships Jul 29, 2021

“The greatest gift our parents ever gave us was each other”  

It’s National Sister Day this week and if you have a sister or someone like a sister, it’s a great time to think about your relationship with her and what it means. 

I can’t imagine going through life without my two amazing sisters.

But it wasn’t always that way.

A tale of three sisters

I remember when my younger sister arrived on the scene.

I didn’t much like her at first. I was 2 ½ and immediately threatened by the fact that I wasn’t the little darling of the family anymore.

Maie, my sister, bit me once.

She was 2. There was a conflict over something like wanting the same toy and Maie used the only tactic she had…biting.

My mother told me to bite her back. (Parents had little training back then in how to parent…it was called I'm the boss and you do whatever I say).

I remember thinking, “but I don’t want to hurt her”...

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My Mother Told Me That Only Bad Women Wear Red Panties...

female empowerment Jul 23, 2021

My mother told me something a little startling when I asked for a pair of red panties. 

I was 9 years old.

She said, “only bad women wear red panties.”

I  was puzzled by what she meant by "bad women" but whatever it was I figured, I didn’t want to be a bad woman.

 

Where did we get this label...bad women?

I remember my aunt told me that her parents said "no" when she wanted to be a nurse. They wouldn’t allow it and explained that “respectable” women weren't nurses.

I wondered about that, too.  

Instead, my Aunt Billie stood, at the age of 16, right beside my grandfather who was a pharmacist at Hatcher's Drugstore in a tiny little town in South Georgia. 

Aunt Billie worked alongside my grandfather, filling prescriptions as a compounding pharmacist. There were far less regulations then and so she was allowed to do this. 

She had learned from her father how to fill prescriptions. So, even more, confusing...

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