Want a Memorable St. Patrick’s Day? – Try Sobriety

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Are you making BIG plans for St. Patrick’s Day? Consider making this St. Patrick’s Day a sober one—for your sake.

Pub Crawl, Anyone?

St. Patrick’s Day used to be a day for families to celebrate the best in Irish culture. This included everything from proudly marching in a local parade to the “wearing of the green” to buttons that proclaimed “Kiss Me, I’m Irish.” It was a day of fun, laugher, even silliness, where toddlers could be seen perched on their fathers’ shoulders to watch a marching band, and teens and their parents wore clothes that weren’t the height of fashion but were worn because they were green.

Today, you’ll still find the parades and the wearing of the green, but added to this mix is the pub crawl, complete with maps posted on social media sites of which bars to hit in which order; the goal is to go from bar to bar getting as drunk as possible. Men and women can be seen trouping along in a group drunk, laughing, throwing up, stumbling, kissing strangers, being groped, being culled out of their group to head off with a stranger, and having a grand old time.

ARE they having a grand old time?

Ask yourself if this how you want to spend your St. Patrick’s Day.

Don’t Let Your Girly Thoughts Drive You to Drink

There is so much pressure to go along with the crowd, to be part of things with your friends, even things that may not be the best for you. One reason why women get drunk on days like St. Patrick’s Day is because they have internalized toxic societal messages—which I have named girly thoughts—that tell them to be desirable they need to engage in all sorts of harmful behaviors. Getting drunk on St. Patrick’s Day is one of those behaviors.

Real Consequences

Being part of a drunken St. Patrick’s Day can be dangerous:

Many women have had the experience of waking up after a night of partying and trying to figure out who they are sleeping next to. “Your name again is …?” Not a fun way to begin a relationship for either of you.

Doesn’t sound very merry, does it? Want to have a memorable sexual encounter on St. Patrick’s Day?

How About Going on the Wild Side—and Going Sober

Yes, you can still have a great time while being in control of your body and keeping yourself safe. Check out a Sober St. Patrick Day celebration in a location near you. Here’s their website: http://www.soberstpatricksday.org. I’ll be at the New York City party and look forward to seeing you there !

Photo courtesy of prexels.com

Patricia O’Gorman, PhD, speaker, a psychologist in upstate New York, and the author of nine books, including The Girly Thoughts 10 Day Detox Plan and The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power She is a regular blogger at The Powerful Woman and CounselorMagazine.com. Learn more at patriciaogorman.com.

Promoting Prom Night Cherry: Advertising Booze to Teens Using Sex

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The label depicts a pair of women’s legs wearing a man’s top hat. The new craft brew from Oval Craft Brewing is named Prom Night Cherry. And it is a cause for alarm among the community members of Plattsburgh, NY, parents, educators, and leaders, who work tirelessly to make prom night enjoyable and safe for all.

This type of advertising has reared its ugly head on numerous occasions, but this one is a little more disgusting than most. The sexualizing of young girls is a cause of concern for all women—teens, mothers, grandmothers—and the men who care about them because it creates a standard of worth that involves “putting out” in order to be seen as desirable—not an action any of us, let alone a virgin, would enjoy.  

Over time, when bombarded by both subtle and graphic messages such as this, young girls internalize these societal message of what a desirable woman looks and acts like into a toxic soup that I’ve dubbed girly thoughts.

The blatant sexual innuendo here is that when a girl has intercourse for the first time, she “pops her cherry”; prom night is often depicted in popular culture as an opportunity for sex. Oval Craft Brewing’s description of the beer as “light and easy to consume” is another sexual innuendo. Such a suggestive name and label undermines the efforts of parents and community leaders to make Prom Night (and every night) safe. A name like Prom Night Cherry makes light of sex and drinking during prom, and ignoring the role that binge drinking often plays in sexual assault, drunk driving, and other violence and injury, especially among teenagers and young adults.

The Real Message

Does getting drunk at your prom and losing your virginity sound like fun? Was that your experience? One you would like your daughter to have?

Let’s Look at the Facts:

*Prom is a semi-formal high school dance. Urban Dictionary defines cherry as “a widely used slang term for a woman’s hymen.” In every state in the U.S., the legal drinking age is 21.  

*In a AAA survey of 16–19 year-olds (2/2014), 31 percent of those surveyed said it was likely they or friends would be under the influence of drugs or alcohol during prom or graduation season.

*According to a study published in JAMA, , each year an estimated 97,000 students ages 18 to 24 report experiencing alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.

*Upwards of 79 percent of sexual assault cases involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, victim, or both, according to a report published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

 

*According to the White House Council on Women & Girls, victims of sexual assault or rape are at higher risk for mental health issues such as depression, PTSD, eating disorders, or suicidal ideations.

*The CDC reports that “Young drivers (ages 16-20) are 17 times more likely to die in a crash when they have a blood alcohol concentration of .08% than when they have not been drinking.”

What You Can Do

    • Follow the lead of this community in upstate New York (which has mounted a letter-writing campaign to the owner of the brewery) and call out the manufacturers of products sexualizing women and products marketed to underage drinkers.
    • Give girls a name for the pressure they feel to conform to this type of message—girly thoughts.
    • Help girls realize that they can say No to this type of toxic self-talk and to feeling pressured to have sex on prom night, or any night.
  • And remember to identity your own girly thoughts. You are an example to those young women in your life.

Remember the power of one.  You can make a difference.  It all really does begin with you.

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

 

Do Girly Thoughts Sabotage Your Success?

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Sunday night I had a huge first . . . I performed in an actual concert hall, with an orchestra, with a new conductor! How was I? So nervous! But my nervousness didn’t go in the direction of doubting myself, being critical of my appearance, wishing I had lost weight, or telling myself I shouldn’t have agreed to do it.

Those would all have been what I call girly thoughts—the way we learn as women to tear ourselves down, deplete our energy and focus, and in general sabotage ourselves in achieving our goals.

Now this wasn’t a solo performance; I was part of a seventy-person choir. But that fact wouldn’t have stopped me from doubting all aspects of my being as I tried something new, something out of my comfort zone. Professionally, I am a psychologist and a speaker; I have spoken solo to hundreds. But I’m not a singer. For me, singing was something more private, something I did to center myself, to soothe myself. Joining a choir with some professional singers and musicians was outside of my comfort zone, and that left an opening for those nasty girly thoughts. But I refused to listen to that toxic inner voice!

Yes, We All Doubt Ourselves, but It’s Different for Men than for Women

Of course it’s normal when we try something new to have doubts about how well we are going to do. But what I have realized is that nervousness about pushing yourself to a new limit doesn’t have to translate into doubting yourself for trying something new. Often, men are exhilarated by a new challenge, while women focus instead on how they will be judged for taking a new challenge as those girly thoughts creep in—but that doesn’t have to be true for you.

Want to Stretch Outside Your Comfort Zone?

• Use your women mentors. My choir director, a woman, believed in all of us. She worked us hard, helped us understand we could do this. I believed her.
• Focus on your skills, not your girly thoughts. I knew I knew the music. I focused on this, not on my hair, weight, clothes . . . all of which would have diverted my energy.
• Surrender to your passion. I asked myself how I got into this situation and then reminded myself I love to sing. It’s my passion, and my passion is worth an investment of my time and energy.
• Enjoy your daring. I am tickled that I actually did this! Today I’m saying: Yes, I can!

You are more than your doubts and your girly thoughts. You are your dreams; you are the product of your hard work. Push out those girly thoughts so you can enjoy your successes.

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

Want to Soar Like an Eagle? 3 Ways Your Girly Thoughts Are Stopping You

eagle

Ever want to soar above your troubles, be more in the moment instead of all in your head?

The answer: Look up, then look in . . .

Yesterday I happened across a video of what an eagle needs to do to thrive. I invite you to watch it to see what it takes to get serious about taking care of you!

What Get’s In the Way?

Witnessing the clear and weighty decisions an eagle makes to keep her supremacy immediately had me thinking of how our toxic girly thoughts stop us from doing what we so admire in the eagle—enjoying our power. Yes, girly thoughts, the purposefully obnoxious yet memorable name I’ve given to how we do to ourselves what society does to us.

How Your Girly Thoughts Are Stopping You

  1. Your girly thoughts keep you focused on what you can lose by trying something new, something radical, as opposed to focusing you on what you can gain by changing your thinking about yourself!
  2. Your girly thoughts have you struggling with the fantasy of keeping the body you had at eighteen by having you deny yourself food and keeping you from really enjoying the body you have now.
  3. Your girly thoughts have you struggling to maintain the popularity you had in your college sorority by being the nice girl as you struggle to make it professionally.

Learning from Eagles

If eagles can make radical changes to increase the value of their life, why not you?

  1. Re-create Yourself. Begin with your beak—how you speak to yourself, how you feed yourself. Keep your goal in mind, even if it does require some pain and effort. You are worth it.
  2. Get rid of those “old feathers,” and dress in a way that makes you feel good now. Maybe that means shorter heels, tunics, more pants. Let a new look energize you.
  3. Build new talons. Working on your goal may make you seem fierce to others, but if your goal will make you feel good about yourself, so what? Remember, you’re not in college any more.

Your girly thoughts are an example of old beliefs that keep you stuck in the past. Free yourself from them so you can take advantage of the present.

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

Women in Sports Really Can’t Afford to Think Girly Thoughts

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Women in sports take a great deal of abuse, and most of it is off the field.

Professional women athletes are criticized in both public and social media for being competent, for being aggressive, and for winning.

Consider the sexist remarks made before the women’s final of the BNP Paribas Open. Indian Wells CEO Raymond Moore opined at a press conference that “both the Women’s Tennis Association and its players ride on the coattails of men” and that they “should go down every night on their knees and thank God Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were born.”

Negative, Disparaging Attitudes Led to THIS 

Not only do professional women athletes receive less media, but what they do receive is often negative. Take the case of the World Cup Championship U.S. Women’s National (Soccer) Team.

ESPN reported that “The USWNT’s victory in the World Cup final last summer not only beat the title-clinching game of the NBA Finals in viewership ratings, but also became the most-watched soccer event in television history. . . .” Yet the women earn an astonishing 98.6 percent less than their male counterparts, receive less funding, less media coverage, and are forced to play on a tougher surface than the U.S. Men’s team.

#MoreThanMean

The negativity came to a head this month in a video about sports reporters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro and the vicious tweets they’ve received. In it, men (who did not know these women and had not previously seen the vitriolic tweets) read them in person to the two professional sportswriters. The fans, who stutter and struggle to read these horrible tweets realize these attacks are #MoreThanMean—they’re harassment.

Do We Do This to Ourselves?

Chances are good that you, too, are outraged at these stories and these tweets. Sadly, women in sports are subject to the same types of disparaging remarks as women in other fields receive.

Yet, if you experience outrage when you hear an obviously sexist remark from a man, why do you say similar things to yourself?

Think you don’t? Consider these examples:

  • I’m so grateful—instead of feeling good about your ability to work your tail off to achieve your goals.
  • I’m so lucky, I owe you—instead of understanding you earned that promotion, raise, degree, championship, or anything else.
  • It’s my fault—instead of standing up for yourself and saying, “No, you can’t treat me that way.”

Telling yourself that you’re not the reason for your own success, or that you are the cause of a problem, is a toxic pattern of internalized self-blaming ideas I’ve named girly thoughts. Why name this? So you can identify and distance yourself from this type of pervasive, negative thinking that has you doing to yourself what the tweets in the video are doing to the reporters—shaming and disempowering yourself.

So the next time you

  • second guess yourself,
  • make excuses for your success, or
  • feel reluctant to be in the winner’s circle,

think of Serena and Sarah and Julie exercising their power, and then exercise your own. See what happens within you when you tell yourself, “That’s a girly thought!”and don’t forget to share your experience with me. 

Want to take some public action?

  • Share the hashtag #MoreThanMean to increase awareness about harassment of women in sports.

Picture courtesy of pixabay.com!

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

Celebrate Your Mother’s Strength—Not Her Girly Thoughts

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Sometimes it is difficult to see what is before your eyes.

You may not notice what is obvious: Both you and your mother have many strengths. You may be too conditioned by your girly thoughts to appreciate your moms resilience, her ability to bounce back from adversity. But who was your first influence in developing your own resilience? Your mother!

What are girly thoughts? you ask. Girly thoughts is the uncomfortable name I’ve given to what women do: we focus on faults in ourselves and in other women our mothers, even our daughters; we do to ourselves what society at large does to us, and that negative, self-defeating talk harms us and keeps us from our power.

Pre-Spanx: The Girdle

When I think of my mother, I remember so many stories. Many of them are now funny, like when my mother and I were shopping for a girdle for me.

Remember, this was pre-Spanx; this was girdle time, and my mother thought a girdle was a necessity . . . except we couldn’t quite find one small enough to fit my tall and (at that time) lanky frame.

“Why do I need a girdle?” I remember hissing at her in a store.

“Because you don’t want to spread.” Not a reason my eleven-year-old self felt was valid, but my mother was adamant. She bought me a girdle that hung off my hips. But she was happy. She had done her job. She was helping her five foot five inch, ninety-pound eleven-year-old not spread.

This is why I was so excited to see how someone I so admire—Audra McDonald, the beautiful, funny opera singer—is delighted by her mother’s strength, both physical and emotional.

Honoring Our Mothers

Who was my mother? She was a funny, unconventional woman who was also a product of her times, where her very own girly thoughts said women had to be thin to be desirable. And she loved me enough to fight with me over wearing a girdle to achieve this.

So let’s have fun. Make a list of some of the girly thoughts your mother raised you believing because she believed them:

 

2.

3.

 

 

Now write how you counter these girly thoughts today:

 

1.

2.

3.

 

Remember that your mother did what she thought was best for you, just like you are doing with your daughter, your friends, your grandchildren. The important thing to remember is that you now have the ability to change the girly thoughts you wished your mother had the wisdom to do when you were a girl.

Drop me a line and share what girly thoughts your mother had as you think of her this Mother’s Day.

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

Suicide and Girly Thoughts — Five Ways Get Off this Merry-Go-Round

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New data documents that the suicide rate in the United States has surged to the highest level in nearly thirty years, with increases in every age group except older adults, and “the rise was particularly steep for women.”

Why Are Women’s Suicide Rates Up?

Here are the more obvious answers to what is stressing women:

  • More women in the workplace
  • Divorce has increased
  • More women are single heads of households
  • More working women as single heads of households
  • Women continue to make less than men in the same fields creating economic hardship

But those answers don’t tell the full story.

Depressing Girly Thoughts

The list above is not complete. To fully understand what is making women feel defeated, we need to add that the very image of the Perfect Woman has changed:

  • Marilyn Monroe was a size 10–12; today’s models are a size 2
  • Everything is photoshopped, resulting in a corporate image of beauty
  • Where models don’t resemble real women, in fact they may not even look like themselves.
  • Women have responded, and plastic surgery is becoming more of a norm

And this image of the perfect woman is relentlessly brought to you everywhere via digital media to remind you of who you “should” be . . .

None of us can control what comes into our minds. Daily—even hourly—we all receive reminders of how we are not meeting societal standards for our looks and actions. And how can we not respond to this media flood and internalize this into our own toxic mix? 

It’s no wonder we think thoughts—I’ve named them girly thoughts—that aren’t helpful to feeling good about ourselves, and can even cause us to hate ourselves.

You control how long your girly thoughts stay around. You do not have to allow them to live in your mind rent free, taking up space and making your feel depressed.

Five Ways Get Off the Merry-Go-Round.

Want to stop the vicious cycle that makes you feel bad about yourself? Try this:

  • Identify sources of girly thoughts that cause you to doubt yourself.
  • Ignore what is triggering you to think in this way.
  • Challenge yourself every time you are thinking a girly thought. Tell this thought to get lost; say, “You’re not helpful”; think a positive thought instead.
  • Speak to your girlfriends about girly thoughts so you have support in challenging them and some fun at laughing together at how they are everywhere.
  • And if you find yourself feeling depressed, seek professional help from a mental health professional.

No, you do not need to let these societal messages tear you apart. You deserve better!

Photo courtesy of Pixaby.com

Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.New data documents that the suicide rate in the United States has surged to the highest level in nearly thirty years, with increases in every age group except older adults, and “the rise was particularly steep for women.”

Letting Your Man Define You on Valentine’s Day—Why?

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

@drogorman

www.patriciaogorman.com

Valentines-Day-crafts

Wanting to be liked is important to all of us, and yes, we’re feeling the pressure on Valentine’s Day.

But for you, and for many other women, this desire can move from wanting to be liked to desperately needing to be liked once a man enters the picture. For this, you pay a huge price—you give up your power to figure out what is best for you!

Your Toxic Girly Thoughts In Action

When the way we are supposed to act and, very importantly, how we are supposed to look become decisions we allow someone else makes for us, we give up our personal power. We do this because of the negative self-talk we invite to reside in our heads, and I call these ideas toxic girly thoughts.

Read this post from Brittaney about how she allowed her boyfriend to govern:

  • the length of her hair
  • the color of her hair
  • her makeup
  • her clothes
  • her weight
  • even her tattoos

http://www.upmoments.com/her-boyfriend-makes-fun-of-her-appearance

Stop Listening

Brittaney stopped listening to her toxic girly thoughts—but how?

The answer is to tune into your Resilient Voice, the part of you that knows what is right for you, the part of you that your toxic girly thoughts try to drown out.

This Valentine’s Day, try this:

  • If your boyfriend wants you to have short hair when you like your hair better long, choose what you like and makes you feel good about yourself when you look in the mirror.
  • When he wants you to have blonde hair and you like it auburn, wear your hair the color you think best expresses who you are.

And if you think he’s the makeup artist you’ve been waiting for, or the medical personnel you’ve needed to guide you in health care decisions, or the dress designer who knows better than you what looks best on you … well …

Think again, and maybe, consider a new boyfriend. Now that could make for a good Valentine’s Day.

Now say: I know what is best for me.

Because you really do!
??Remember, you’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.

 

 

 

His Affair—Your Fault?

She couldn’t satisfy her husband.

-Trump speaking about Hillary

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

@drogorman

www.patriciaogorman.com

picisto-20150723161444-964679

A presidential hopeful challenges his possible rival about her sexual desirability and blames her for her husband’s affairs.

Is this message of a woman’s responsibility for something familiar to you? Do you stifle your infuriation because this sounds right?

Where’s your outrage?

Why You Don’t Feel Angry

You are marketed ongoing messages about your desirability. These messages suggests you should be measured by how you act and look . . . and you internalize these messages and then use to judge yourself and other women.

I’ve named this toxic internalization girly thoughts. Why name this internal trash talk so common to women? Because once you can name something, you have control over it.

Having a name means you can easily identify when you are doing something and can then stop yourself from listening, and acting upon, your toxic girly thoughts.

But this isn’t a free ride. There are consequences for not believing your toxic girly thoughts. You could be seen as brash, even unlikeable if you don’t “play the game,” or thought of as “yelling” when you clearly state your point of view, particularly when you disagree with the others around you.

Stop Listening to Your Toxic Girly Thoughts

Are you up for a challenge?

This can be a fun exercise, especially in this year of presidential campaigning.

  • Identify the toxic girly thoughts that campaigners are using to put women in general and women candidates in their place.
  • Share what you are hearing with your friends, family, and co-workers.
  • Call candidates out on statements that reinforce toxic girly thoughts, those messages that are negative and harmful to women.

No, you don’t have to write a letter, but it’s an option. You can use:

        • Twitter
        • Facebook
        • Other social media platforms

Yes, you’ll get blowback, you may even be trolled on Twitter, but so what? That’s a sure sign your comments are reaching others and they are hearing you say NO to toxic girly thoughts.

And please link me to any of your comments. We can follow each other on Twitter. I will retweet your outrage and share your thoughts on Facebook.

Now repeat after me: Yes, I will!

You’ll find more ideas for getting rid of your negative self-talk in my two latest books, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power and The Resilient Woman: Mastering The 7 Steps to Personal Power.