the resilient woman: mastering the 7 steps to personal power Archives - The Powerful Woman

Celebrity Status Is a Breeding Ground for Girly Thoughts

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD,
author of: The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (HCI, 2013)

Order: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
www.patriciaogorman.com

This poignant and powerful infographic by Clarity Way illustrates how some celebrities deal with girly thoughts.

Do you ever wonder if you are particularly susceptible to an obsession with the clear and/or implied messages of how you should or should not act, how you should or should not look? Do you ever wonder if you are the only one who seems to be ruled by girly thoughts?

The answer is NO. Girly thoughts are a product of our culture. They are also a product of our need as women to fit into the latest version of whatever is desirable and acceptable.

Girly thoughts are powerful because they represent a way to reach the ideal. That is a very big hook.

And don’t think anyone is exempt from the incredible power of culture and the girly thoughts that come from its influence. Just who is ruled by those thoughts might surprise you, though.

Continue reading “Celebrity Status Is a Breeding Ground for Girly Thoughts”

Who is Your Model for Resilience?

By Patricia O’Gorman, Ph.D.

Author of The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (HCI, 2013)

Order: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

I was a recent speaker at a “Theology on Tap” lecture. This speaker series takes place in the fun, relaxed setting of a local pub, and my topic, of course, was my latest book, The Resilient Woman. All was going well when I was asked, “Who are your models for resilience?”

I had an immediate answer: my resilience models are in the films I enjoy—Beatrice Kiddoe, (the heroine in the Kill Bill movies), and Katniss Evergreen, the heroine in The Hunger Games—and in the real world. They also include women like political activist Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma, who was imprisoned for her efforts to reform Myanmar, as well as my own mother and grandmother. Later, as I contemplated the question again, I realized that this is a question men would not ask each other. Men have their role models, and many of them, from all sectors of life.

For women, the question “Who are your models” has many answers, but few of them are obvious. This is a shame, and the reason is that, quite frankly, women have not been routinely celebrated in history. We have been largely invisible and our accomplishments not deemed worthy of note due to our gender. We have even been punished because some saw stepping outside of defined roles as “unfortunate.” As a result, many of the role models we choose, are, well, personal. So to be asked this question often causes a pause as we each must stop and consider our answer.

One of the reasons this is such an important question for each of us isn’t because of a lack of available heroines. But sadly, there are many models for the superficial (and ultimately devastating) notions of what society holds up as important. We secretly admire and aspire to be something we are not—and most often, we focus on the way we look—and these internalized ideas become our girly thoughts, the subtle, outside messages we internalize that cause us to blame ourselves—even berate ourselves—for not achieving what we feel we should. Girly thoughts are decidedly anti-resilience.

A few days after my lecture, my book editor sent me an article that spoke to this dilemma of who our models and heroines might be. It illustrated how a professional photographer is teaching her daughter to celebrate real women by having the five-year-old pose as famous women and taking a picture of her as each of these inspirational women from history. What a terrific use of this mother’s strength and talent, I thought, as she teaches her daughter—and the rest of us—how to answer this question.

I invite you to view her gallery here and then ask yourself the question, “Who would pose your daughter as?” I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments, too! Women today have the ability and the opportunity to reshape the discussion so the generations that follow us will be the resilient women of the future. Let’s give them the models they need to banish girly thoughts forever!

Continue reading “Who is Your Model for Resilience?”

One Billion Rising….by Dancing?

By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD

Author of: The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (publication date 3/5/13)

Pre-order: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

One billion? and we’re not talking about the Sequestration, which is planning to cut one trillion anyway, or the population of the US that is only about 315 million. No, we are speaking about a global effort involving more than three times the population of the US — we are speaking about women uniting around the world to end violence against women and girls, and doing this in a distinctly female way – by dancing, walking out, rising up, even giving voice to our concerns by demanding, that the violence, END. By drawing attention to our concerns, by using the skills we have, and even perhaps having some fun in the process. Why? Because, right now, 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime, about one billion women, and that number includes some of you reading this blog.

Sometimes when something is so very common is feels even normal. We have what I call our girly thoughts to thank for this, those societally driven messages concerning how we are to blame for all the misfortune we experience, and we are often not even aware that we are listening to them.

Girly thoughts are not new, and we come by them honestly. After all in the Bible, isn’t there a prayer to God, thanking HIM, for not being born a woman? This example, and many, many others have resulted in many women being seen as less-than and as a consequence, acceptable targets for needing to be controlled, and for the rage of men. And due to their girly thoughts many women even believe it was their fault.

But this doesn’t stop women from being courageous—you know what that is—acting in the face of fear, courage is not the absence of fear but taking action when you are, well, afraid. On a daily basis we have all seen that being a woman can be very dangerous, particularly if the woman believes she has rights. But that hasn’t stopped so very many of us. A woman could be shot in the head is she wants to go to school, have her clitoris removed, be targeted by a commanding officer, be slipped a drug so she is unable to fight off an attacker, or beaten by a drunk father or boyfriend who says he loves her.

So it probably sounds incredible to believe that we can make a difference by dancing. How unreasonable is that, you may be wondering? You may be asking where are the guns, the armies, the rockets – the real power? After all isn’t that how we all been shown to demonstrate our power, through muscle, through clubs, through armaments, not to mention tradition and laws? Well, that is how many show their power. That is how we have been trained to understand power, as: might, intimidation, force. But as for the real power, the answer is clear. The real power is within each of us. This is the message of our recovery programs, the message our mothers wanted or perhaps did send us, and it is the message in this worldwide effort–onebillionrising. We can begin to own our power, by uniting with other women, and men, in ONEBILLIONRISING/ is a global call to women and men across the planet to gather in their communities to dance and demand an end to the violence girls and women face, no matter what the cause.

What can you do? First check out http://onebillionrising.org/— then dare to use your personal power to consider creating your own event in your school, office, block, town. Plan to make it meaningful and perhaps even fun. Break out of your comfort zone and even think about making an outrageous statement that is so engaging that others will want to dance with you, with all of us, enjoying the power of community, and the end to violence. Realize that whether you are a woman in recovery, an ACoA, a sexual abuse survivor, you are connected to all other women who have experienced similar pain, trauma, discrimination, today, and in the past. But understand that together we can all join to reduce, and even eliminate, the violence of the future, all through the improbable action of dancing together.

Need a little inspiration? Listen to Lee Ann Womack “I Hope You Dance” after the jump…

Continue reading “One Billion Rising….by Dancing?”