The Powerful Woman | Women & Resilience - Page 10 of 14 - Dr. Patricia O'Gorman, Ph.D

Why Your Girly Thoughts Tell You to Be So Darn NICE at Work

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

Author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14) – a fun book about a serious topic

The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)

Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

One of the many girly thoughts you’ll read about in The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan is about the need so many women feel to be nice at work. And this thinking severely handicaps us because we fear, justifiably, that we will be judged for demonstrating our knowledge or offering contrary opinions.

Girly Thought #11: I Need to Be Seen as Nice at Work

So to preview Day 8, which will help you “out” your negative self-talk (aka girly thoughts) at work and change your thinking and actions so you can develop the confidence you deserve, let’s look at a recent Sunday New York Times essay that examined yet another study about women and work. That’s a subject I cover extensively on Day 8 in my new book, which will be released later this month.

Work Is Not a Level Playing Field

In an essay for the Sunday New York Times, author Tara Mohr wrote about a new study conducted for a Fortune 500 Company that looked at the differences in workplace performance reviews given to men and women. The study looked at 248 performance reviews from 28 different companies and found managers (both male and female) gave more negative feedback to women than to men!

The negative feedback wasn’t about performance but about personality. In fact, 76 percent of the negative feedback included judgments that the women being evaluated were abrasive, judgmental, or strident, while only 2 percent of the men reviewed received similar negative comments about their personalities.

We Deal with These Judgments by Not Creating Conflict

So what do we do to navigate this system? Yes, we act nice. We try to be acceptable because we know we will be judged for the way we do things and not just for what we do, and that judgment will be harsh. Yet we continue to consult our inner guide—our girly thoughts—about how to act at work—except, as you know, the advice from our girly thoughts is not getting us anywhere we want to be.

I believe this is one of the reasons the new TV show Madam Secretary is gaining such widespread support: it depicts a competent woman, who doesn’t feel she needs to be liked, making tough decisions and pushing back. Refreshing, isn’t it?

Getting Real

You know it’s impossible to always be seen as “nice” at work. And being competent means risking being called the B word or one of its euphemisms. But what’s the alternative? Letting those girly thoughts get the best of you and reining in your power?

What to do?

Find a mentor, someone who can help you navigate the politics of your employment.
Seek support from other women and men who understand both your work and how hard it might be to do your job while trying to win a personality contest.
Don’t take criticism personally. This is a major struggle for women on so many levels of an organization. Let other’s criticism of you be about them, not about you.
Remember: you were hired to do the job you are doing, so do it.

As women, we are at a new point in our history where we are moving away from traditional roles and traditional ways of doing these roles, and stepping into demonstrating our competency and, as a result, our power. This will have the effect of being seen differently at work. So challenge yourself to step outside of the comfort zone that those girly thoughts provide, and experiment with being competent at work as a first priority. This could be called being nice to YOU!

Learn how to detox from your negative self-talk in The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan available for preorder now at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, HCI Books, and wherever books are sold.

A Radical and Hilarious Solution for Equal Pay – No Girly Thoughts Here!

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)

Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

Even with my book The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan being released in just days, I couldn’t resist sharing with you this funny video on the wage gap between men and women. Yes, I know this is no laughing matter. But it is so common that many women have just given up trying to address it, preferring instead to do what Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella calls trusting in the natural order.

Do Your Girly Thoughts Really Bring Good Karma?

Here’s what Nadella actually said:

It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that, I think, might be one of the additional “superpowers” that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have because that’s good karma. It’ll come back (http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/10/10/355100973/microsoft-ceo-nadellas-remarks-add-to-techs-sexism-problem).

What Nadella forgot was to remind women to continue to put their baby teeth under their pillow for the tooth fairy and to continue to wait for Prince Charming.

Equal Pay For Women—A No Girly Thoughts Solution

But what happens when you address a long-term problem without being hampered by those societally driven notions of how you should act and how you should look—without your girly thoughts? Well, you could wind up with a novel way of thinking through a problem that makes an important point with intelligence, creativity, and humor.

“Equal Payback Project”

The answer, I believe, is in this hilarious and irreverent video that is not for the fainthearted. It features Sarah Silverman providing a truly out-of-the-box solution to the pay inequality situation. “Equal Payback Project” is aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women.

“The project, benefiting the National Women’s Law Center, which advocates for equal pay, is essentially a giant fundraiser, with a ludicrously lofty goal of raising almost $30 trillion—a figure calculated by multiplying the 69 million working women by the amount ($435,049) each one stands to lose, on average, to the wage gap over the course of her career.

Silverman explains the project in the amusing video below. But then, realizing that goal is unlikely to be met, she embarks on an even more drastic plan to get the money she deserves”(AdWeek.com).

Not Recommended for Your Young Daughters

This is not recommended for young children, but I highly recommend you share with your girlfriends.

Enjoy! http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-sarah-silverman-wants-equal-pay-failing-she-wants-penis-nsfw-160623

And after you’ve finished watching, ask yourself, “Do I still need to rely on my girly thoughts to help me this week at work? Learn more strategies for detoxing from your negative self-talk in my new book, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power, available for preorder now at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, HCI Books, and wherever books are sold.

The “Rule of Thumb” and Your Girly Thoughts

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

Author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14) — a fun book about a serious topic

The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)

Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

The recent public awareness of NFL player Adrian Peterson hitting his four-year son with a “switch” has begun a public dialogue of how appropriate it is to hit your child. But this conversation hasn’t reached everyone. Recently a parent told me he asked the local police if it was okay to hit his fifteen- year-old. The police allegedly told him it was okay if it was with an open hand.

Is Striking Your Child Ever Okay?
The next day I heard a caller on a radio show say that a switch is better than a hand because it is less likely to cause physical harm. Hmmm . . . this sounds to me like an issue of asserting power, maybe even venting some frustration, rather than actually teaching your child a lesson, all while you can be legitimately excused from taking responsibility if you go too far. As Adrian Peterson eloquently said, he should be not be seen as a “child abuser” because he didn’t mean to hurt his son.

This discussion of child abuse—for that is what the striking of a child is, whether with an open hand or a switch—made me think about the rule of thumb.

“Legal” Spousal Abuse
Rule of thumb is a term widely used today to refer to the standard way of doing something, but the origin of this term has a dark side. Rule of thumb once referred to the width of a stick you could use to hit your wife; it was recommended that it not be thicker than a man’s thumb. Yes, before we had the concept of domestic violence, it was a common practice to keep women in line by beating them. But not too hard. After all, they still had work to do.

Yes, it is shocking how common wife beating used to be. But has this changed? We recently saw Ray Rice caught on camera beating his wife and then proclaiming he is not a wife abuser because he loves his wife—implying that the two can’t go together.

What Does Have Love Have to Do with It?
“What’s Love Got to Do with It?” is a question singer/songwriter Tina Turner asked and answered. She is a woman who also knew about being beaten by a man she loved.

Tina Turner got out of her abusive relationship. But why do other women stay? Their girly thoughts tell them physical and emotional abuse are okay if he says:

“Sorry.”
“I love you.”

and best yet,

“I didn’t mean it.”

Girly thoughts tell an abused wife or girlfriend not to make him so angry next time. They tell abused women that they are the cause of that anger, and that message fits in beautifully with him blaming you. Girly thoughts tell these victims to try to make everything nice, even when it isn’t.

If You’re In an Abusive Situation

Don’t listen to your girly thoughts. Your girly thoughts tell you its okay to be hit and then blamed or apologized to.
Contact your local domestic violence agency to get support and begin to plan what to do. Don’t know how to contact your local agency? Check your phone book or contact http://www.thehotline.org, which is currently experiencing a large number of women calling due to the recent publicity of how widespread domestic abuse is.
If you’re concerned about whether the way your child was treated constitutes child abuse, call your local child abuse hotline (listed in information or your phone book). Check for symptoms of child abuse on http://www.childhelp.org/programs/entry/national-child-abuse-hotline/. They are the experts.

Don’t let your girly thoughts immobilize you. Get information. Take planned action.

Recover from Your Girly Thoughts

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

Author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14)

The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)

Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

September is Recovery Month. We’ve had an entire month of reminders that we can change how we feel by changing our actions, our friends, even our diets. Hmmm?

Recovery is a different process than a cure, and much as we would like a cure for depression, addiction, and even our own negative thinking, there just isn’t one. But we have something that in some ways is even better.

Instead of being cured by something done to you, you get to do something to yourself that changes you and brings you into wellness. And you get to invite others into the party that is your wholeness.

Recovery involves paradoxes, one of which is that recovery is a process that only you can do, but you can’t do alone. Recovery involves utilizing your community to develop the support you need to make the changes you require to live the life you deserve. Recovery is so much better than a cure because it connects you to others who share the same struggles.

Detox From Your Inner Trash Talk (Girly Thoughts)

Your inner trash talk, your girly thoughts, are those societally informed thoughts that tell you if you are not perfect in your looks, in your actions, that any negative response you receive is your fault.

It’s time to detox from those and start your recovery! That recovery, too, is a paradox. Only you can do it, but you also can’t do it alone.

Yes, you need your girlfriends and even your guy friends, and maybe even your family, to support you in the process of:

Identifying those thoughts that tear you down and make you responsible for the poor actions of another, such as an abusive boyfriend or a mean boss
Naming these unproductive thinking as girly thoughts
Realizing that you are not the only person who is thinking them, so you can stop thinking you are nuts
Learning to replace this inner trash talk with thoughts that support you.

So as we approach the end of Recovery Month, celebrate by making recovery work for you. Join the process. Get support for feeling better by changing how you speak to the person closest to you: yourself. Recover from your girly thoughts!

Be Like Misty Copeland – Don’t Dream Girly Thoughts

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

Author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14) The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013) Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

Perhaps the name Misty Copeland is not a familiar to you—yet. It will be very soon. Misty is the latest prima ballerina for the American Ballet Theatre, a cause of celebration in and of itself. But that is only part of the story for this young African American woman.

As the youngest of six children raised by a single mother, Misty is a living, breathing example of not letting those girly thoughts trip you up. Girly thoughts tell you what you can and cannot do, how you should and should not look, and the punishment you can expect if you don’t listen to these implied societal directives. Misty chose to ignore those messages, especially the ones that began with You Can’t.

The fact that Misty didn’t look like your typical ballerina didn’t stop her. Truth be told, she had many things against her:

She is only 5’2” when the average height for a ballerina is 5’7”.
She isn’t Caucasian, like almost every other prima ballerinas.
She didn’t begin dancing until she was thirteen. Most ballerinas begin their arduous training before they even begin school.

But none of this stopped Misty from listening to her body, and her body told her to dance beautifully, gracefully, like a ballerina.

Her Key to Success
What did Misty listen to? She listened to herself, not to the limits she felt from society. Misty listened to her dreams, her senses, the love she had of her body moving in space, for leaping, spinning, and landing with grace and ease. This is what she wanted. This is what she achieved.

Misty’s drive and resilience shine through in this riveting video, which is part of the Under Armour campaign “I Will What I Want”:

What Do You Want?

If you want to give yourself permission to just feel, what is getting in the way of doing what your body say it wants to do?
How do you see your body moving? How does this feel? And if it doesn’t feel good—ask yourself why not.
What is stopping you from giving yourself this gift? Do you think you’d look ridiculous? That you’ll be judged? If so, ask yourself, “By what?”

Say “Get Lost” to Your Girly Thoughts

Tell the part of yourself that has internalized all the do’s and don’ts—the part that is the good girl you were raised to be—to get lost. Tell your girly thoughts you want to dream, and you want to make your dreams come true. Turn on your music and move. You may be surprised how truly easy it is to be you, to trust your body, to feel and follow your senses.

This is the beginning of you trusting you to take care of yourself, of you becoming more resilient.

How do girly thoughts develop?

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD
Author of
The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14)
The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)
Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

I’ve often been asked, “How do girly thoughts develop?” Some women think perhaps they began having negative thoughts about themselves when they entered puberty or became teenagers. The truth might surprise to you.

Your Girly Thoughts in the Beginning
It may be a rude awakening for some of you to really think back and see when you did began to think girly thoughts, that toxic, inner dialogue fed daily by media and some less-than-helpful female traditions, because you will very likely be able to trace it to a much earlier time than you thought.

A woman I spoke to a couple of weeks ago shared that she thought her four-year-old was having girly thoughts. Her four-year-old daughter told her, “I know I’m going to be popular!” Her mother was excited. “Why?” she asked. “Is it because you’re smart, helpful, a good friend?

“No,” her daughter said, smiling and twirling her hair, “It’s because I’m blond.”
A Focus on Fashion Instead of Sports
Even as young girls, we become aware of what is acceptable and what is not. We receive lots of positive feedback for being pretty, being quiet and polite, and most of all for being good . . . but how this translates may surprise you.

A male friend of mine who is the principle of an elementary school shared with me that he dreads spring. Why? “Bare midriffs, short shirts . . . why do mothers buy this stuff?” He doesn’t understand how relentless your girls can be about being accepted (he has a son). But why do mothers give in? We have our own girly thoughts, and so the cycle continues.

What to Do?
I was recently honored to speak at the 2nd Annual Beautiful Women Doing Beautiful Things Women’s Networking Event in Albany, New York, about this very subject. I invite you to watch the video of my presentation, where I give tips on what to do about your own girly thoughts.

Put those tips into action, and let me know what new strategies you are developing.

Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, is a best selling author, psychologist, resiliency coach, former executive, and an international speaker known for her warm and funny presentations. She is the author and coauthor of nine books, including The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14), as well as numerous articles in magazines. Watch for Dr. O’Gorman’s newest book A Man’s Guide to girly thoughts, and Out Your Girly Thoughts and Embrace Your Strength—A Resilience-Building Curriculum will be available in 2015; visit www.patriciaogorman.com for more information.

What’s in your girly thoughts?

What Does Living Without Girly Thoughts Look Like?

Our girly thoughts define us. They tell us what we can and cannot do. They encase us in the known and confine us to the acceptable. And they promise punishment if we move outside of these defined walls.
So what does living without your girly thoughts look like? How does it feel? And most important, how do you begin?

A Picture IS Worth a Thousand Words

If you want a life that is not ruled by your girly thoughts, then BREAK FREE. Feel your inner freedom and joy.
Is that hard work? Yes, of course it is. You were confined. But see what happens when you risk leaving the known.

Break Through From Your Mold By Zenos Frudakis, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Dare to Feel Your Real Power

When you dare to break free from what has been confining you, you can begin to sense you true power. Sit back and feel your unencumbered energy surge through you. Allow yourself to know the energy that can emanate through your perfectly imperfect body.

Expansion by Paige Bradley, New York, USA

As you reject your girly thoughts and embrace your personal power, you open yourself to living a life free of the constraints imposed by these toxic self-judgments, freeing yourself to live a life based upon who you so gloriously are.
Let me know how you are tackling your girly thoughts. Send me a comment, or an email at girlythoughtsdetox@gmail.com.

But Am I Pretty? How Girly Thoughts Destroy Your Teenager’s Self-Esteem

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD
Author of

The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14)
The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)
Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)

The pressure to be thin enough, pretty enough, popular enough is difficult for any woman, but it’s especially tough for teenagers—achieving those “goals” is incredibly importance to them.

In today’s world, asking your best friend for her honest opinion doesn’t seem to be enough feedback. Teenage girls have never been bastions of self-esteem, but with today’s smartphones, YouTube, Snapchat, and other replacements for the “slam books” of past generations, feeling good about themselves is more difficult than ever.

Enter girly thoughts, the toxic self-talk that reinforces our negative beliefs about ourselves and have helped us form our identity as women. They profoundly influence how we see the world and understand our role in it . . . and they are reinforced by family, friends, and the media.

In my soon-to-be-published book, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan, I include a quick quiz you can take to see if you’re affected by girly thoughts.

Spoiler alert: You are. We all are.

“Tell Me What You See, Even If It Hurts Me”

Over the past several years, more than half a million YouTube videos have been uploaded by young girls (most younger than fifteen) asking for feedback from total strangers with a version of the question, “Am I Pretty?” (Read the August 3, 2014 edition of the New York Times article here.) The results are astonishing and depressing, and when I read it, I couldn’t help but think “no wonder we struggle to feel ‘good enough’.”

I found this concern with looks even extended to aging—for example, spas now offer Quince and Sweet-16 Botox parties. In fact, at every age, Botox is now the most commonly used noninvasive surgical procedure (American Academy of Plastic Surgery, 2013)

Role Models

As adult women, as mothers and grandmothers, aunts and neighbors, teachers and mentors, we need to let these young women know they are asking the wrong questions. We must set the example by defining ourselves and taking control of our own lives instead of basing our value on society’s norms.

As their role models move away from “Am I pretty?” to “Am I happy?” and from “Am I good enough for this guy?” to “Is this guy good enough for me?” our teenagers will have a roadmap for learning to embrace their own personal power—the direct opposite of their girly thoughts—and enjoy a future of their own creation.

This is the message behind The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan, and I invite you to join me in outing your own girly thoughts as a first step toward helping younger women see their way out of that toxic jungle. Please join me at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6iXxMoDz3o and email me at girlythoughtsdetox@gmail.com or comment below.

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Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, is a psychologist and resiliency coach, and an international speaker known for her warm and funny presentations. She has worked extensively with women and children of alcoholics in private practice with an emphasis on trauma. She also serves on the Board of the NYS Coalition Against Sexual Assault, previously directed a rape crises center as well as the Division of Prevention for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She founded the Department of Prevention and Education for the National Office of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), national office, worked extensively in senior management in child welfare, and is a cofounder of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics. The Girly Thought 10 Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power is her ninth book; others include The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power, Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting, The Lowdown on Families Who Get High, Dancing Backwards in High Heels, and 12 Steps To Self-Parenting. She invites you to visit her website: http://patriciaogorman.com

Getting Married? Don’t Say I Do to Your Girly Thoughts

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD
Author of

Your wedding should be a joyful day for you and for your guests. This is the day you invite those you love the most to join with you in celebrating a major change in your life. As the day gets closer, so should the joy of anticipation. But that is not how it often plays out.

Your Girly Thoughts Cause Major Stress—Yes, Even on Your Wedding Day

So often as you see your wedding day approach, you feel the stress mount. Why? Your girly thoughts, that toxic inner dialogue that keeps pointing out where you are lacking, where you are to blame, is there telling you what to do . . . and they rob you of the pleasure you deserve to be feeling on your special day.

Girly Thoughts Wedding Stressors

Here are some of the girly thoughts that have the potential to ruin your special day:

1. I’m fat —Interesting that this is the first girly thought I list in my book The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan. This is a girly thought that follows us wherever we go. But why let it take up space on this, your special day?
Tell this less-than-helpful, energy-draining thought to get lost. Your weight, whatever it is, is perfect for today. With all of the other stressors heaped on you, you don’t need to stress about losing another five pounds.
2. Your wedding day has to be perfect for everyone—Your girly thoughts say you have to consider everyone else’s feelings when you make your choices for your wedding and reception—the seating, the songs you’ve chosen, the color arrangement, even the flowers you’ve picked. With all the personal decisions you’ve made, there are sure to be some decisions that those close to you won’t like.

Claudia’s sister was upset because she choose a song that her sister claimed as her own. . Her mother thought daisies looked cheap. She put her two aunts—who hadn’t spoken to each other in fifteen years—at the family table. One bridesmaid didn’t like the color of her dress.

Invite your family members to be the adults they claim to be. Push back with resolve, albeit graciously and with a smile and a squeeze of their hand to let them know you understand their pain but you deserve their support.

3. You are responsible for everyone having a good time—Recognize this for what it is, another girly thought telling you to put your needs second, even on your wedding day. This girly thought tells you that you need to earn love by figuring out first how to make everyone else feel loved and honored before you can expect him or her to show you love and support.
Actually, your wedding is an opportunity for those closest to you to celebrate you and your new spouse, not for you to magically solve all the long-simmering issues in your family or between your friends. Treating those you invite to your wedding as honored guests—who you expect to know how to take care of themselves—is a gift you are giving to them.

How to Enjoy Your Wedding

Don’t base your happiness on what others think of you. Make this the day you want, and invite others to join in to the best of their ability. After all, you’ve done your part . . . so let loose from those girly thoughts and enjoy what you have created!

And please know that I’ll never sell, share, or rent your contact information—that’s a promise!