Women Leading Change International

We become what we think

2011-09-17T02:25:00.001-05:00

Thinking is an ongoing, independent function that is on “automatic-pilot” most of the time. The thoughts come uninvited and their content appears to be random until something happens that grabs our attention. Let’s imagine an ordinary day where we get up and the usual thoughts about daily preoccupations, work and planning are floating through our mind. We don’t notice anything out of the ordinary until that unpleasant phone call/conversation/e-mail that triggers a whole chain of negative reactions. All day we catch ourselves thinking about the it, about what we should have said, how the words were unfair and hurt our feelings, how we never feel we are understood or can get our point across etc. While driving, in meetings, trying to concentrate at work and while shopping for groceries - we keep trying to mentally rewrite the script of what should have happened or what we should have said or what we are going to do and say next time we get a chance.

Once the mind has sunk its teeth into a situation, it will continue to chew on it ad nauseam. We are stuck in a cycle of thoughts that keep spinning and influence not only our physical well being (stress symptoms) but it significantly changes our mood – and rarely for the better. We have a hard time concentrating and are generally lost in thought, which means we are anything but present in the moment. We quite literally become what we think: frustrated, worried, resentful, anxious….

When we know how the mechanism works, it becomes possible to break it in 3 simple steps. The key is AWARENESS.

Notice: something is off; I am feeling uneasy, worried, anxious etc.
Pause: Take a deep breath, step back and watch the situation you are in. Put a PAUSE between the situation and your reaction.
AWARENESS: with AWARENESS you CHOOSE your next action/words

Wanting to choose consciously rather than live on automatic pilot, wanting to drive rather than be driven is a sign of awakening of AWARENESS. An inner knowing is nudging us to listen more closely to a voice that comes from beyond the mind. In Meditation we reconnect with that voice. We open to the part of our Being that is infinite and peaceful, the source of AWARENESS. The practice of Meditation allows us to live from that source and be free from the dictates and conditionings of the mind.

Glimpses of an Extraordinary Reality

2011-02-25T03:08:00.001-05:00

We all have them. Now and the sky seems to open, time stands still and we know a wonderous sense of peace and perfection that defies words.

It may happen in a situation of deep communion with nature, in the smile of a newborn baby or in a moment of shared intimacy. The magic may last a few seconds, minutes or days - in whichever way we are graced with such an experience – it leaves a deep mark in our soul.

For many, such a glimpse or awakening results in an increased hunger to experience this sense of fullness and perfection again and again. It is a gift and an invitation for those who wish to discover and embrace that dimension in themselves, and it may become the beginning of a spiritual journey that seeks to live in that state of consciousness fully and permanently.

The ancient Indian scriptures refer to this experience as the fourth state of consciousness or the enlightened state (the three human states of consciousness being the waking state, the dream and the deep sleep state) .

Unlike other regular human experiences, the glimpse or awakening is a grace that cannot be reproduced at will. Just as we cannot decide to go to sleep by an act of will. We can only put on our pajamas, crawl into bed and close our eyes, thus creating all the conducive conditions for sleep, and then hope for it to happen…

In the same way, a spiritual practice, Satsang and Meditation are a preparation, an alignment of body and mind that creates the conditions for the opening and experience of that space or state of consciousness.

When we get together in Satsang and Meditation, our attention is guided to that space. Through the power of the shared knowledge and practice, the space opens up as a tangible experience or another glimpse. Sustaining a personal practice becomes easier when we meet in Satsang and inspire each other on a regular basis – it is like taking a bath at the source and letting that source sustain us until we get a chance to dip in again.

As the practice of meditation becomes regular, glimpses are added to more glimpses. Their frequency, builds an energy that is carried into all aspects of life. This energy has the power to transform the experience of life and Self profoundly. What used to be a rare glimpse of an extraordinary reality becomes the awakened state of consciousness in which we live every moment of this life.

Awareness Is First

2011-02-25T02:55:00.000-05:00

As he does so often, my teacher recently captured the essence of spiritual knowledge in this one sentence: Your body is not holding awareness – Awareness is holding your body.

For many, the seeking starts from a point of awareness. We have worked hard to get the new house, the big job, the perfect relationship and the spiffy car, and yet something is missing. We seem to have everything we wanted, but we no longer feel the same sense of satisfaction or fulfillment. And if we do, the happiness is short-lived. Longing for meaning, a need to make sense, or an increased restlessness, are the signs of our inner being’s awaking that will gently (or not so gently…) nudge us to explore new territory.

In this day and age so many avenues are available. Countless modalities, teachings and methods offer everything from material abundance to enlightenment - and everything in between. There is no shortage of exciting new horizons and ways to engage our minds in the quest for purpose and meaning. The methods vary greatly in what they promise or offer, but most of them speak in one way or another of getting in touch with a higher power.

Searching for connection with that higher power, we do so from the perspective of a separate, independent human being who is looking for something outside of himself. We seek to make contact with something bigger than us, somewhere “out there”. Guided in our quest by the information we have received throughout our lives by the different channels of society, the starting point is generally something to this effect: “If I am a good human being, then maybe I’ll be rewarded with divine grace. If I do the right thing, maybe I’ll deserve to feel the presence of God. Maybe I will be able to feel and hold that awareness in my body and mind”. The premise being that the human body/mind as a separate entity will create or act in a way that opens the connection to Awareness (another word for higher power, Self, Knower, Universe, God).

The path of Awareness offers a radically different approach. It starts from the Vision that Awareness is first. It is the source of body and mind, and therefore Awareness is not separate from them. As a ring is still inherently the gold it is made of, the human being IS that Awareness, even though it now appears as a human form.

It means that we are not going to become divine at the end of a long process or if we are a good person. We ARE, we always have been, and we will forever be that divine being, the Awareness.

The practice is not to become That, but to remember that WE ARE THAT.

This is the Time . . .

2008-03-31T10:05:00.002-05:00

by Carlotta Tyler

We are entering a period of profound change characterized by increasing instability.
This change is happening on a planetary as well as on a personal level, illustrating the wisdom: “As above, so below.”

Many individuals are resonating, at a cellular, emotional, psychic level, with the harmonics of the most profound shift in the alignment of our solar system in several millennia. This a major process, yet it has remained virtually unnoticed by the news media.

Older traditions and cultures foretold this time as a shift in nature, in mind-set, in power dynamics around the world. The Mayans, consummate astrologers, were the most precise. Their five thousand-year solar calendar, now in the Museum of Natural History in Mexico City, ended on August 19, 1987. On that day, Buddhists all over the world gathered to meditate on world peace. Other indigenous people had been tracking the start of the paradigm shift for millennia. The Aborigines in Australia, North American tribal peoples, Indus Valley and African traditions all tell of this time, when a several thousand year cycle will end and a twenty-five year window will open, presaging the next several thousand year cycle.

Since thought manifests and humans are among the few species we know of who can focus thought energy, we have been given the task. In short, how humans envision the next cycle, these older wisdom traditions tell us, will determine what form that next cycle takes. 2012 is said to be the closing of that window. However, recent consideration of the Gregorian Calendar, where nine years were removed by Emperor Constantine and Pope Gregory, among others, has cast doubt on the accuracy of the dating of the twenty-five year window. Some are saying that 2003 is the true closing of that window and that the Age of Aquarius has already begun.

The last cycle, the Piscean Age using an astrological lens, was one characterized by human domination which resulted in a lot of aggression, conquest and war as a solution to differences. The predominant organizing thought form of society became “father right” or “patris-archy”. Domination overcame more egalitarian ways of life, religions defined the rules and governments enacted the controls. So the Huna of Hawaii succumbed to Christian Missionaries, the Celts, Goths and Saxons of Western Europe were overcome by the Holy Roman Empire, the Hyssops and other nomadic veldt peoples were subsumed by what became the Judeo-Muslim traditions, the Minoans were wiped out by nature and the Greeks.

This time also saw the development, organization and effective operation of nation-states that built knowledge-rich communities that fed, educated, governed, transported and bonded millions of people. They also degraded the environment and diminished the cultural value of the other half, females. As a consequence, we have whales desperately beaching on Cape Cod because the Navy is bursting their eardrums with undersea sonic booms. Our water supply is compromised from underground nuclear testing, DDT and road salt. We have sea currents and tectonic plates shifting, melting ice caps and pre-pubescent girls having sex boys to be popular.

Many guides, called by some “Star People”, were born into this time to help effect this shift. New souls are coming in with advanced sensitivities and cognition, called by some, the Indigo Children, they have been observed to self heal from Aids by African health care workers, to be rapid learners by Chinese and American educators. It is said that the 24th chromosome, non-operating in most of us, is functioning in them.

Some signs of the Paradigm Shift: Meltdown

Tieneman Square, where insurgents used the new fax technology to take their revolutionary aims to the court of world opinion, thereby co-opting government hierarchy.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, the result of a change in the mind-set, the acceptance of a critical mass of the people, not from a Summit Conference of leaders. A critical mass, incidentally, is 23% according to the MIT Media Lab, a visionary collection of quantum physicists whose work receives my careful attention
The implosion of the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church: The epidemic of pedophilia came about as a direct result of the decision to write the women out of positions of authority within the Church.
9/11: The ‘shot across our bow’ by international terrorists, thought to be Muslims seeking retribution, perhaps, for everything emanating out of the West since The Crusades.
The excesses of the Bush Administration: continuing to shift the fruits of a productive workforce to the already wealthy, denuding our natural resources, dissipating global good-will with a unilateral action-plan, further draining the Social Security account, repeatedly lying to a trusting nation and laying a crushing debt upon generations of Americans to come.
The Shifting Plates: the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, the Earthquake in Pakistan, the continuing instability of the planet’s mantle resulting in major movement of the tectonic plates. Look for more shifting, not less as “The Ring of Fire” encircling the Pacific heats up.

Some Signs: Evolving
The alignment of the planets in our solar system has presented us with several important and mysterious events. In May of 2000, all of the planets were in alignment with the Sun. This phenomenon had not been seen since the time of the birth of Christ. This alignment was what The Wise Men followed to find “the new Messiah” of the Christian tradition. On the 8th of November of 2003, a unique alignment of six planets formed a Star of David. I interpret the two overlapping triangles as the joining of the masculine with the feminine, since the upward pointing triangle imitates the male energy in organizing hierarchies of intention and the downward pointing triangle, used over time to symbolize female fecundity as the life force for forming communities. In China, this triangle is called the “Jade Gate”, the source of all pleasure, to men, and “the chevron” in Marija Gimbutus’ interpretation of ancient petroglyphs, in “The Language of the Goddess”.

There’s Hope: Metta-view
The next meta-cycle is foretold to be expansive, love-based, with all life forms vibrating at an intensified rate, helping the planet heal to another plane entirely. Called the Age of Aquarius, you may note that some in the entertainment industry were tuned in to this a while ago, in the 70’s Broadway hit and movie, “Hair”.

Sign Up: For Positive Change
Hey, we didn’t get to this linear, logos-worshiping, dualistic, causal, materialistic, female-demeaning worldview by accident. It took millennia and considerable revision of thought forms to enforce a hierarchy where females were distinguished by their absence, where competition and war was the answer. It took chutzpa to instill counter-intuitive concepts such as a trinity of male deities, virgin birth, the Burka and priests in satin and skirts. It took an establishment intent on removing essential female functions. With the advent of physician-assisted birth, test tube babies and in-vitro fertilization natural female functions have been co-opted. Women in this model are in danger of becoming obsolete, like hula-hoops, Edsel cars and girdles. Now that “womb envy” has been overcome by artificial insemination and Viagra has overcome waning penile tumescence, don’t you think it’s about time to bring in our voices to set the world aright?

So, are you committed to do your part, to speak your piece, to support positive change?
Speak up. Speak out.
The world is waiting for the authentic voice of women and girls.

Copy only with attribution. Thank you.

WHY DOES THE GLASS CEILING PERSIST?

2008-02-24T15:52:00.002-05:00

At a recent convocation of alumni in the School of Public Policy at Harvard University, a handful of international women leaders spoke in glowing rhetoric about the future of women in leadership positions and what the women there needed to do to become “a player”, to quote one. One participant said,” I'm tired of hearing about the promise of the future. While a few of us have advanced to upper levels of decision-making, why haven't more of us made it to the top? Why does the glass ceiling persist?" Indeed, forty years after passage of the Civil Rights Act that included females in access to education and job advancement , barriers to women's full acceptance, as leaders still exist. While females constitute fifty-one per cent of the population and forty-seven percent of the workforce, only twelve percent are seated in Congress and two percent head Fortune 500 corporations. These numbers have remained steady for a decade. And the pattern does not appear to be improving in young industries. Women were barely two percent of the CEO's leading the dot com revolution. Considering that women constitute fifty-five percent of college graduates and nearly forty-five percent of professional school grads, what is blocking women's advancement?

BLAME IT ON BELIEFS
Ancient, deeply embedded and largely unconscious beliefs are getting in the way of women's progress today. The way people think about one another, the values we hold, the world view that tells us the way things are supposed to be are found in the major religions of the world. Universally among the major faiths, females are described as "less than" and subordinate to males. Further, women have been defined as "purdah", "unclean", not fit to speak in The Temple. These beliefs, ingrained in childhood, are at the core of why women are finding it difficult both to be accepted and to believe in the "rightness" of their being at the top, or the “rightness” of another woman as president.

DEEP AND ANCIENT ROOTS
Where do these beliefs come from? All of the major religions carry a defect message for females. The Judeo-Christian tradition defines females as less valuable than males. Each day an observant Jewish male awakens to thank God he was not born a female. In Orthodox temples women must sit apart from men and are not allowed to add their voices to the service. In Christian tradition, Eve is blamed for the fall from grace that resulted in expulsion from Paradise. This creation myth justified male domination, ownership and control of females and the concept that this was the divine and natural state of the human species. The lowest ranking Buddhist monk outranks the senior ranked Buddhist nun. Muslim females over the age of menarche must fast an extra week during the month-long ritual of Ramadan because they are considered unclean when menstruating. In the Hindu tradition, girls are subject to arranged marriages, their families must produce expensive dowries and, until recently, widows were expected to commit ritual suttee, throwing themselves on their husband's funeral pyre.

PERVASIVE AND POLITICAL
The religious roots of the "patris-archy", or father-right, male dominant system is both global and political. As Shelia Collins writes: "Theology is ultimately political. The way human communities determine good and evil has more to do with the power dynamics of the social systems which create the theologies than with the spontaneous revelation of truth."

The major religious credo and traditions constructed a worldview of male primacy and provided a justification for the "natural order" of the subordination, the invisibility of women in society.
Stephen Lewis, U.N. Special Envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa when commenting on the disproportionate numbers of females being infected with AIDS was recently quoted: “Why was it only in 2003 that a U.N. Task Force on the plight of women in Southern Africa was appointed? Why did it take until 2004 to form a Global Coalition on Women and AIDS? Why have we allowed a continuing pattern of sexual carnage so grave as to lose an entire generation of women and girls?” This is a core question. Why, indeed!

It was not always this way. God became male, eclipsing the pre-existing balance of an earth mother goddess and her male consort, during the great migratory movements of Indo-Aryans out of the glacial steppes and into the Mediterranean and Western Europe in the 18th Century BC. By 200 AD, Christian doctrine had firmly established a male-based hierarchy in a creation story that told us that, not only had God created man first, but He put him in charge. In Genesis "man shall have dominion over" and "subdue" women, children, animals, and the fishes of the sea . It is not a great leap from this male-dominant platform, which forms the basis for our belief systems, our laws and our customs, to the fact that men continue to head 98% of the public and private sector organizations in the world.

From the taproot of religious tradition, a pervasive negativity spread. A negativity that defined women not only as subordinate to men but in their very essence, flawed. Aristotle's idea of the utopian society described women as fundamentally unfit to lead. Christian theologians from St. Augustine to the Inquisitors saw women as a temptation of the devil and corruptors of men. Sigmund Freud said that females were incomplete males whose identity formation was stunted by penis envy. Piaget, an early childhood education researcher, labeled girls at play as passive because that was their nature, while boys were seen as taking initiative and risks for the same reason. Until the latter part of the Twentieth Century, women and children were the legal property of the male head of the house in North America. In many parts of the world, these laws are still in effect. Is it any wonder, with these beliefs ingrained in childhood that men are finding it difficult to accept women at the top and that women have difficulty seeing themselves as leaders in arenas of decision-making.

BLOOD RITES: BELIEFS AS A BARRIER TO LEADERSHIP
The application of these beliefs on a day-to-day basis set a pattern whereby women and girls were considered defective, a burden, their natural functions a defilement. . The most pervasive and least acknowledged is the issue of menses. What sets the scene for cultural taboos is the fact that the female of the species bleeds on a regular, monthly cycle when not pregnant or ill. The culturally proscribed traditions that separate females from the company of males generally do not attain the cultural clout of taboo until the female attains menarche, or bleeds. The separation is based in Judeo-Christian and Muslim tradition on the interpretation of that natural act as rendering the woman unclean. Menstrual blood is seen as defiling to the male, endangering his strength, making his weapons and tools useless. Blood rites are common in Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions. All prescribe purification rituals for females after menarche and childbirth. The fact that females bleed and do not die resulted in a critical distinction among all societies. Women were either honored for their procreative powers, or they were debased for their biological function. In most modern cultures, women's biological functions have been used as an excuse for denying them full participation on the world stage.

The Performance Issue
A Gubernatorial candidate in New Hampshire, Arne Arneson, was asked by a male voter in the audience: “That was a great speech, but don’t you think the fact that you have a period one week each month will get in the way of your being an effective governor?” Arne's response was an example of a politician's quick wit. "I'm glad you think my performance here tonight was exemplary. I’m menstruating right now. Imagine what I can do the other three weeks." She did not win election but she won the hearts of the women in the room.

The view of menstruation as a barrier to women's performance is not limited to the man in the street. This misperception is held at the highest levels and influences succession planning on a daily basis. When asked why women were not advancing to top levels in his organization, the CEO of a communications industry giant, replied that his Board of Directors and stockholders would hold him accountable if he advanced a candidate whose decisions would be unreliable for one week out of every month.

Access Issues
These comments reveal the belief that women are essentially flawed and biologically unfit to lead. This belief appears to be widespread among males. If it is also widely held by top organization decision-makers, still predominately male, it would explain the persistence of the glass ceiling and, if unchallenged, will constitute an invisible barrier to women's access to positions of leadership for some time to come.

Beliefs underlie behavior and arise from early cultural conditioning in our families of origin, in the traditions held by our ethnic communities, in the tenets taught by religious faiths. Beliefs can be seen at the root of the current under-utilization of the other half of the global brain trust. Not only are U.S. women gaining degrees, an education differential favoring women is a worldwide phenomenon. So, too, is the phenomenon of exclusion of women from top management positions.

In the U.S., when women first gained access to higher education and advancement in jobs with a future in mainstream organizations, they were told that they lacked the experience and credentials for management. Now, nearly forty years later, women are still being told to wait. But women are not waiting. Women-owned companies increased over 400% in the last decade and created more jobs in the U.S. than the Fortune 500 corporations. Women are leaving corporate America at twice the rate of men. This trend is seen in Europe and Southeast Asia as women entrepreneurs are the majority of the new business enterprise.

The extremely competitive business environment forces transnational firms to select carefully from among the very best knowledge workers available. The opportunity cost of prejudice, of rejecting women and limiting selection to men, is much higher than in previous economic environments. Corporations cannot afford the loss some of their best and brightest human resources because of largely unconscious beliefs that limit their use of this substantial resource. As Fortune succinctly stated, “No company can afford to waste valuable brainpower simply because it’s wearing a skirt.” (18:56)

It is at the level of beliefs that our work as societal change agents must take place if we are to guarantee that our nieces, daughters and granddaughters receive the rights and privileges that accrue to their brothers, fathers and cousins.

To dance on the crest of the next wave, to regain balance in a world depleted by the absence of the authentic female voice, we must examine the beliefs that underlie behaviors that limit full utilization of all of our human resources.

I Woman Culture and Society,Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, ed., 1974, pg. 3, 70. Women anthropologists who found that every culture they studied were patriarchically structured.

II Collins, Shelia, quoted from Merlin Stone's When God Was a Woman, 1976, pg.66.

1 The Civil Rights Act of 1964
2 Genesis 1:26, The Holy Bible.
3 Competitive Frontiers: Women Managing Across Borders, Adler, N.J. & Izraeli, D.H. Pub. Blackwell Business, UK, 1994, pg. 23.

Carlotta Tyler

Re-Membering: Before the Eclipse

2008-01-28T11:55:00.000-05:00

by Carlotta Tyler

Our work with women in weekend retreats has been deep and powerful.
One lens that they respond to is this one, shared with you all on the cusp of a time of radical change and call to consciousness for women.
See this as a context for what’s going on in the US election process.”

There was a time, in the long, long ago
Before we knew why there were eclipses,
Or why things went “thump” in the night,
When people dressed in the skins of animals.

You could see, there was a difference.
There was "the self", and there was" the other".

“The self”, who ultimately wrote it all down, could see that
"the other” swelled up every nine moons and gave forth a new tribe member,
Both "the self" and "the other".
This was seen as Powerful Magic.

When “the self” hunted wild boar in the forest and was gored,
“the self” bled and often died, was lucky if maggots set in.

"The other" bled every cycle of the moon and did not die.
This was seen as VERY Powerful Magic.

At the dawn of civilization there were only two responses to this essential difference.
One response perceived the universe as benign and egalitarian,
honored the cycles of nature and understood the creative life force as complementary, the conjunction of two powerful energies joining the masculine and the feminine.

The other was a "dominion over" response that established "father right" as the primary form of social organization and the male as “better than” the female.

Today we are living out the last days of this patriarchal worldview

As we try to balance our planet and our organizations.
People the world over are noticing the essential imbalance of this original split.
Truths previously seen as sacred are being questioned.
Deeply embedded assumptions & largely unconscious beliefs are being examined.

The way forward is being forged by you and me.
What a wonderful time to be living!.

Copyrights, 2000, Carlotta Tyler

Painful chapters of my story, Friend or Foe?

2008-01-14T18:23:00.000-05:00

We all have a story, a chronicle of many chapters, divided into happy, unhappy or outright traumatic events. The memories of the difficult events in our personal history tend to become the obstacles, negative thought patterns and limiting beliefs that influence and rule our lives.

Although an event may have happened years ago, its shadow can still reach into the present in the form of fear, anger, or other expressions from the vast landscape of human emotion. Isn’t it interesting that a chapter of a story that happened two decades ago stays alive for so long. What is its link to the present? The Science of Awareness and Meditation answers that question by examining the functioning of the human mind and the thinking process.

The mind is our personal database where all events and situations that happened to us are stored. All day, the mind collects information through the senses and stores them as new data. Thoughts are the result of this mechanism of the mind. The activities and sensory impressions most prevalent during a given day will be reflected as the thoughts that go through our mind.

If, for example we fall in love and spend time with a new special person, we are likely to have a lot of thoughts about relationships, memories of past love, desires, or maybe worries for the future. A weekend of feeling lonely on the other hand can fill us with thoughts of fear, solitude or memories of abandonment. The rule of thumb for the mind’s functioning is: what you feed the beast is what you’ll have to digest. If the food is heavy, the digestion is likely to be heavy too.

We have the possibility to influence the content of the thoughts by choosing activities and the company of people that make us feel happy and inspired, but we have no control over the mechanism itself. The mind keeps generating thought after thought. It is a natural, ongoing occurrence that cannot be stopped willfully.

A trauma of the past can easily get triggered by a situation in the present through the mind’s process of storing and comparing data from its database. The ensuing thoughts about that past pain come in randomly and uninvited. They often linger or may become overwhelming and they can generate emotions that are very unpleasant. Through thinking, the event of 20 years ago is kept alive and fed new energy - almost as if it were happening all over again.

By understanding the habitual thinking mechanism we come to see that thoughts are the primary reason why the painful chapters of the past don’t lose their grip on the present. Since we can’t stop the thinking, how can we ever be free of the pain?

It is again the Science of Awareness and Meditation that offers an answer. During the practice of Meditation one notices that thoughts are coming and going while sitting with closed eyes. At times there will be many thoughts flying through at high speed, at others they will be like a slow wave flowing in and out. The Meditator learns to watch thoughts without engaging with them in any way. A crucial initial realization of Meditation is to see and experience that thinking is going on and thoughts are being produced, but they are not me - I am the one watching them.

Human conditioning has us believe that thought is our identity. We think that a thought going through our mind is equal to reality and truth. A thought triggered by a familiar situation, like: “I am being abandoned again” and the action of shutting down emotionally seem to be one uninterrupted process. In truth there is a thought like “I am being abandoned again”, then there is a space, and then there is an action being taken. If we develop the ability to notice the space between thought and action, and then learn how to extend that space enough to actually pause, we come to realize that we have treated the thought as if it were the painful truth happening again, right now, when in fact we are reacting to a memory.

Knowing that the thought, as painful as it may be, is not me nor my identity, but a memory that presents itself as the reality, gives one new choices and strength. We can now choose to go down the path of repeating the pain by identifying with it, or we can realize that right now a new situation is happening. If we are able to stay with the circumstance that is happening here and now, we are likely to find out that it has nothing to do with the old script that got triggered.

In other words, when we develop the ability to watch the thoughts without identifying with them as “me” or real, when we can see them as the result of the mind’s thinking process rather than as our identity - We can then free ourselves from old pain and learn to experience life as a fresh and new adventure every day. Imagine the lightness of living without the burdens of past pain or negative conclusions!

When we stop identifying with the thoughts and the pain of the difficult chapters from the past, they are no longer experienced as obstacles in the present. Rather they become signposts - friendly reminders to stay rooted in the practice of fully living the present moment and exploring what it has to offer. These signposts then become great gifts!

Marie-Lou Kuhne Millerick

Turning on the Lights

2007-10-03T09:51:00.000-05:00

Most of us live on “autopilot”, moving through the paces from day to day without much reflection on what’s going on around us and on the inside. Bringing awareness on board, we have found, is the way to move from unconsciousness in our career planning, in our important relationships, in taking care of ourselves, to awareness, where life is lived consciously, richly, in each & every moment.

“Click”
Struggling down the cellar stairs with a forty-pound laundry basket at the end of a long day, I heard myself say: “I wonder where the laundry would be if a woman designed this house?”

I heard a faint “click” as the waking-up light went on.

Later, in graduate school, I said to myself: “Hey, how come there aren’t any women in this research that defines the successful leader?” Another “click”, louder now.

A casual scan of the nightly news confirmed my own experience. There were few, if any, female voices influencing the critical decisions being made about all of us on the global stage. Hey, we’re the other half. How can this be happening?
It’s not just my imagination. The White House Project on Women in the Media who reported that only 9 per cent of the guests on Sunday morning news shows such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation are women, and even then they only speak 10 per cent of the time—leaving 90 per cent of the discussion to the male guests.
So what? Project president Marie Wilson warned that the lack of representation for women will have profound consequences on whether or not women are perceived as competent leaders, because "authority is not recognized by these shows. It is created by these shows."
This led me to ask other women what they were experiencing about leading in the workplace, on the campaign trail, in their community organizing. Twenty-four years later, I know a lot more about what we women feel and think as we try to get ahead, while staying sane in today’s world of work. And guess what? It’s still going on.

I also found out why women often feel like they are in “alien territory” at work.

More later about what was found and why it may interest you.

Meanwhile come to our workshops to find out more about how to do more than just survive, but to thrive in today’s world. Upcoming October 11-14th – Leading Like a Woman, The Inn @ East Hill, Troy, N.H.

A life-lesson taken from Alternet, an internet news blog, by Gravitas, with gratitude for this insight:

2007-09-10T10:18:00.000-05:00

“When I look at what I hate about my life in my late 40s, I can honestly say there were two lies that contributed to my downfall. One, if you become thin you will live happily ever after. Two, if you find Prince Charming you will live happily ever after. The are both delusions designed to keep women distracted from avenues of real self determination. I spent my energy on things that were totally irrelevant, and thus unprepared to meet the real crises that came my way.

If I could go over and redo my life, I would give myself an early education on the myths we instill in young women. I would instead focus on financial savvy, and career flexibility. And I would find some wise woman to preach to me that the best relationship is the one you have with yourself, it is not out there waiting for you in the form of a prince on a white horse. “

And come to our Women’s Leadership Retreat, www.women-leading-change.com, Oct. 11-14, 2007 and gain your own life insights.

Re-Valuing “The Feminine”

2007-09-08T09:03:00.000-05:00

It is time to reclaim “The Feminine” in our own terms. Not as “fluff” or “wiles” or weakness or manipulation.

I was at a workshop yesterday where an executive coach was describing her response to a client who was stopped in his tracks by the tears of a direct report when he gave her negative feedback on a performance appraisal. The Coach advised her client that “women often use tears to manipulate a situation.” The “with men” part was implied.

AGGGGHHHH, I shuddered, as I heard the horiffic sound of Femicide”, i.e., when a woman takes down the reputation, presence, power of another woman – and by association, of herself.

As the Polish Union Organizer, Lech Walesa, once said, and I paraphrase: “You get more by sticking together than by hanging out there on your own.” Or as I would say: “Where is The Sisterhood when you need ‘em?”

What if the woman being appraised heard: “I’m going to be fired” in that feedback. And - work with me here - what if she just found out that her roommate was getting married and moving out, or that her significant other was taking off with “a better version of her”? Losing my financial security in either of these situations would move me directly to tears.

So, what if? It could happen.

And what does that say to the woman who is authentically expressing sadness, regret or remorse about having done a sub-standard job for that period of time? What if he’s wrong and hasn’t noticed her hard work, or attributed her efforts to her teammate? Both are starting points in a conversation about what she can do to align better with what’s expected of her there.

I would go there before I would jump into the “Feminine Wiles” end of the pool.

The Professor speaks.
My response was to point out to my Coaching Colleague that, generally, females in their upbringing are encouraged to use the full spectrum of emotions in expressing their feelings. Boys, according to acclaimed researcher, Carol Gilligan, are limited to one – anger. She found that starting as young as four, fathers tell sons who cry to “act like a man and not be a sissy”. The message is for a male to cry is a sign of weakness. And the negative message is not be a “sissy”, a word used to describe a feminized male or homosexual. Bottom line, the yucky part here is to be female. Remember the worst insult Governor Schwarzenegger could call his opponent was “girly-man.”

So, what does that say about you, girrrrrllllll?

In the research, girls most often receive negative feedback from adults in the family and in school for open displays of anger. “That’s not nice.” Or “We like to be kind to our friends, or to Uncle Harry, or the new kid in school.” While the boys take his measure by challenging him to a fight on the playground.

Ever wonder why it’s so hard not to be “nice”? And why we mask our anger at one another in indirect forms of aggression, like “zinging” another woman when she is not there.

Let’s talk about the Power of Language:

What’s in a name, you might ask. MAN-ipulate. That sounds to me like code language dropped there a long time ago ……like MANager. Now what does that say about who’s supposed to be in that role, figuring things out and telling people what to do and getting more money for it?

Mothers have been doing that for aeons - for nothing!

And then there is MEN-o-pause. What is that telling us?

End.
Carlotta

WHY MEN ARE NEVER DEPRESSED: Source unknown.

2007-09-08T08:55:00.000-05:00

Regarding the news that women are more often depressed than men, read this for some reasons why.....

Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures?

Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth..
The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100 People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time.Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost nev er have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck. You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes -- one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25minutes.
No wonder men are happier....

I only do what I like

2007-06-19T10:39:00.000-05:00

I haven’t won the lotto, nor did I get married to a millionaire. My life is still the same AND I only do what I like. How the heck does that work??!!

For years I watched myself getting in a foul mood for hours when the time came to clean house, especially the bathroom, I just HATED it. Having to give public speeches would make me sick to the stomach weeks in advance, and I would procrastinate for days before making phone calls to certain people. – The list of situations I hated or was scared of and uneasy with was long, very long….

I wanted a way out of this misery. So I started to look for a common denominator in all the situations, and I soon saw a pattern emerge. All of them had one fact in common: They did NOT meet my preference. I wanted them to be different.

Personal experience has shown me again and again that I can want a situation to be different until I am blue in the face. All I’ll get from wanting is frustration and fatigue.

Since the situations were unlikely to transform miraculously to meet my preferences, all I could do was LIKE the situations as they were….

Sounds crazy? That’s what I thought in the beginning. At the time I had started to study Eastern Philosophy and came across this ancient saying: Whatever you think you become.

Thinking for years that I hated to do “This” and didn’t like “That” certainly produced the promised results: I was thinking misery and producing it in abundance in many aspects of my life.

There was only one solution: learning to LIKE and enjoy cleaning the bathroom, smile at my nervousness of public speaking and do it anyway, get on the phone with difficult people and turn it into a game to see if I can make them laugh.

At first, it seemed crazy and unrealistic, challenging and all too simple at the same time. But I gave it a try – and I never looked back. It simply and completely transformed my life.

Imagine doing only what you like – always, and having the freedom to decide to do so. That’s how powerful we are, all of us.

Marie-Lou Kuhne Millerick

Night Musings: Letting the Genius Out

2007-06-18T14:50:00.000-05:00

Have you ever cried in a dream? I just caught myself doing that.

In my dream an old friend sitting next to me in a circle of strangers, all women, said: “She never lets her genius out.” “She’s right!” I said to myself and then I cried.

*All nice and safe. No one needs to know. You’re in a dream, after all.*
And then, I woke up.

“Who’s voice was *that* ?” I asked. “A familiar one.” I answered.

(Have you noticed that when you ask yourself important questions, your Self answers?)

*Say that and they’ll all hate you. Let that thought out and it’s all over. They’ll know you’re different, a radical free thinker. Keep that Genie in the bottle.*

I know that voice. It lives deep inside. It’s a voice brought to life through shame.

*Who does she think she is, some kind of genius? She’s only a kid. Where did she get those ideas? Imagine, students having a voting seat on the PTA! She should be ashamed of herself.*

It’s the voice of The Big Put Down, a voice used regularly on children, especially girl children. Not for every idea, like “Let’s go to the mall.” Just the radical ones, like “Let’s take over the gym for first practice so we won’t have to wait until after the boys work out.” It’s the ideas that make a move to take power that attract that voice. *Make her an example. She’s getting out of hand with her big ideas. Soon she’ll be giving the other girls Big Ideas.*

In fact, if I was to design a society and I wanted to keep a class of people down, I would teach them shame. Then they would keep themselves down.

Shame works. I shut The Genius down every time.

Carlotta

Language Use – in the media

2007-05-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

Ever noticed? A repeating feature

That different words are to assess the same actions of males @ females. Sometimes it’s easy to notice because it’s right out there in the media.

Listening to the BBC World News’ coverage of the French Presidential Race, I was struck by the language used by press observers analyzing the debate style of the man and (first) woman candidates, Nicholas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Robert Siegel, for PBS, remarked on the “nurturing” quality of Royal’s approach and the BBC’s female reporter, Eleanor Beardsley, asserted that Royal’s debate style reminded her of “a mother scolding a naughty child.” Sarkozy, in contrast, was seen as putting in a “strong showing” in countering Royal’s points. What I heard in the brief segment transmitted, was Sarkozy’s repeated interruptions and “talk-overs” of Royal’s delivery. Since we have a parallel in the U.S. , my new game is to track the Hillary stereotypes in our media coverage. What are you noticing?

This reminds us of Geraldine Ferraro’s run for Vice President in the 80’s. Her voice was repeatedly described by media pundits as “shrill” when she effectively dissected her opponents’ arguments (George Bush, Sr.). Not to be forgotten was the post-debate interview by Tom Brokaw of Barbara Bush, after Ferraro had brilliantly answered two hours of unscripted press questions. When asked for her impression of Ferraro in the debate, Barbara’s prim reply was: “Well, Tom, I can’t bring myself to say the exact word, but it rhymes with “witch”.

Professor Caryl Rivers, quoted in this Sunday’s Boston Globe, agrees. “Politically active women are often disparaged and stereotyped by the media. When Hillary Clinton was still first lady, she was referred to as a "witch" or "witchlike" at least 50 times in the press.” Rivers writes, "male political figures may be called mean and nasty names, but those words don’t usually reflect superstition and dread. Did the press ever call Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, or Clinton warlocks?"

Only when a dramatic media event occurs, like a shock jock spraying hate talk on champions, or a lone gunman targeting girls (The Amish Schoolhouse) and women (The Montreal Massacre) to “take out” in a shooting spree, does the society seem to notice. And it’s tough to see this when it goes on in the more isolated office setting.

Anything you’ve noticed? Bring it on!

Carlotta Tyler

Subtle (?) Signals

2007-05-23T14:33:00.000-05:00

I was looking for the meeting room where a client was launching an innovative customer initiative in her stock brokerage firm. It was evening, so the lights in the mahogany paneled office were dimmed. I interrupted the lively debate three well-dressed guys were having about the Red Sox game to ask if they knew where the well-advertised session was being held. None of them knew. A quiet female voice from the dark recesses of the long office said: “It’s through the door right there on your left”.

Carlotta Tyler

Turning on the Lights

2007-05-23T14:32:00.000-05:00

"Click"

2007-05-23T14:28:00.000-05:00

Struggling down the cellar stairs with a forty-pound laundry basket at the end of a long day, I heard myself say: “I wonder where the laundry would be if a woman designed this house?”
I heard a faint “click” as the waking-up light went on.

Later, in graduate school, I said to myself: “Hey, how come there aren’t any women in this research that defines the successful leader?” Another “click”, louder now.

A casual scan of the nightly news confirmed my own experience. There were few, if any, female voices influencing the critical decisions being made about all of us on the global stage. Hey, we’re the other half. How can this be happening?

It’s not just my imagination. The White House Project on Women in the Media who reported that only 9 per cent of the guests on Sunday morning news shows such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation are women, and even then they only speak 10 per cent of the time—leaving 90 per cent of the discussion to the male guests.

So what? Project president Marie Wilson warned that the lack of representation for women will have profound consequences on whether or not women are perceived as competent leaders, because "authority is not recognized by these shows. It is created by these shows."

This led me to ask other women what they were experiencing about leading in the workplace, on the campaign trail, in their community organizing. Twenty-four years later, I know a lot about what we’re all feeling and thinking as we try to get ahead, while staying sane in today’s world of work.

I also found out why women often feel like they are in “alien territory” at work.

More later about what was found and why it may interest you.

Carlotta Tyler

Wage Gap Persists in 2006

2007-04-25T10:49:00.000-05:00

New Government Data Show
No Progress in Closing the Gender Wage Gap

Washington, D.C. –
New information released today by the Institute for Women's Policy Research shows that the wage ratio between women and men failed to narrow in 2006 and that an earlier trend toward equal pay has stalled. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2006 the ratio of the annual averages of women's and men's median weekly earnings was 80.8 for full-time wage and salary workers, down slightly from 2005, when it was 81.0, compared with a 1993 level of 77.1. Women's usual weekly earnings were $600 in 2006, compared with $743 for men.

"Today's economy is letting women down," said Dr. Vicky Lovell, IWPR's Director of Employment and Work/Life Programs. "Despite women's rising educational achievement and strong work commitment, fair pay remains out of reach."

Another series of earnings data, median annual earnings, shows the same trend of a stalled gender wage ratio. The annual earnings ratio for full-time year- round workers in 2005 (the latest year for which data are available)-77.0-was very similar to that observed in 2001-76.3. Women earned an average of $31,858 in 2005, compared with men's $41,386. Real annual earnings have not increased for either women or men in recent years.

"Progress at closing the wage gap has come to a standstill in the past few years," noted Dr. Heidi Hartmann, President of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. "Any small progress observed is due to men's real wages falling faster than women's. The weak economic recovery since 2001 has frustrated women's efforts to close the gender wage gap."

To view the fact sheet, click here: Wage Ratio Fact Sheet

About Institute for Women's Policy Research
The Institute for Women's Policy Research conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women, promote public dialogue, and strengthen families, communities, and societies. IWPR focuses on issues of poverty and welfare, employment and earnings, work and family issues, health and safety, and women's civic and political participation.

Website: http://www.iwpr.org

Don't forget to breathe...

2007-04-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

When did you last think about breathing? Was it an hour, a day, a week or months ago? Breath is one of the many physiological functions that we tend to overlook, since it is taken care of automatically. Thank God for that! If we had to think about every breath we take, not many of us would be around….

Unlike other automatic functions over which we have no control (e.g. the heart rate), it is easy to influence the rhythm and aspect of our breathing. Regulation of breath can greatly improve the quality of life.

Slow, full, deep breathing will increase overall energy and strengthen the nervous system as well as the immune system. Most important of all, it allows one to balance emotions and to develop a sense of presence and calmness.

How it works is easy to understand. When we are under stress, or feeling anxious or angry, the breathing becomes short, shallow and often irregular. As a consequence we no longer exhale all the way, and therefore don’t release all the carbon monoxide in our lungs. We then can’t fully inhale and the overall oxygen intake decreases. This in turn creates a feeling of oppression, a sense that we can’t breathe, which can easily become the beginning of an anxiety or panic attack.

Learning simple techniques, like deep abdominal breathing or alternate nostril breathing will not only oxygenate one’s body and brain for better health and performance, it can become a precious tool to regulate emotions like anxiety without the help of medication.

You can try it for yourself by following these instructions:

Deep abdominal breathing

Exhale all the air while gently pulling your abdomen in.
Inhale while expanding the abdomen. (Pushing the abdomen out as if the incoming air were taking an elevator down into the your tummy...)Gently bring the breath upwards, allowing the rib cage to expand, then continue bringing the breath up, thus expanding the chest.
Slowly exhale first from the chest, releasing the rib cage and then the abdomen.
Inhale into abdomen, then chest – exhale release chest, then abdomen, repeat….

BENEFITS:
Deep abdominal breathing reverses the stress reaction by providing more oxygenation to the blood, resulting in greater relaxation, better emotional balance and control, greater mental clarity and acuity, and improved general health. It activates the parasympathetic part of the involuntary nervous system, which allows the system to rest, relax and repair.

Like everything else in life, the quality of breathing will improve with practice and by the very fact that we are paying attention to its characteristics. A regular practice of breathing exercises will not only develop the physical and emotional benefits mentioned earlier. In addition it will foster present moment awareness, which is a key to living life with clarity, intention and balance. When we slow down enough to be in touch with our breathing, we also begin to notice all the beauty that gets lost when we keep frantically racing from one situation to the next

Marie-Lou Kuhne Millerick

In the Company of Women: Part One

2007-04-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

Complementary Ways of Organizing to do Work
By Carlotta Tyler, m.s.o.d., Principal, odc

Struggling down the cellar stairs with a forty-pound laundry basket at the end of a long day in the 1970’s I said to myself “I wonder where the laundry would be located if a woman had designed this house?” This laundry epiphany prompted a later observation in graduate school, “How come there aren’t any women in these research populations defining leadership?” My next thought was “How would these organizations look if they were designed by women?” These questions illustrate the threshold of perception a woman crosses in recognizing the existence of a pervasive paradigm that does not include her. Once awakened, a casual scan of the nightly news will confirm the fact that the viewpoints of her half of the human population, are rarely included in the crucial debates and decisions currently being made on the global stage. It also explains why women often feel like being in alien territory at work.

Models are representations of key concepts and operating principles. When applied to organizations, they indicate what we pay attention to when we gather to do work. The predominant organizational models that we use today were historically designed by men, in the West by white men. As a consequence, they reflect male values and favor rewarding masculine behaviors. Remarkably, this fact has generally been overlooked in discussions of organizations. To seek answers these questions I spent the next two decades applying a gender lens to the structure and dynamics, the look and feel of organizations through sponsored research which I conducted from 1981 to 1997 with over 1500 women leading in public and private sector organizations on four continents . The forms of organizing studied were formal and informal, since women’s work transcends the standard definition of workplaces. The structures studied ranged from the predominating male-defined ones, through women-owned with mixed management, to women-only. It was in the latter group that the clearest manifestation of women’s unique modes of work emerged. The field study concentrated on twelve women-owned and women-only work structures. From the research findings and field applications in the context of an international consulting practice, I conclude that:

Women’s ways of conceptualizing and organizing to do work are essentially different from men’s;.
Those ways are complementary, not competitive. By combining the best of both men’s and women’s models an entirely new paradigm can be created, one that holds the promise of creating wholeness and balance for organizations struggling to adapt too the challenges of change;
To transform traditional models will require examination of the core beliefs we bring to, and find reflected in, the design and operation of our organizations.

to be continued soon...