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How to Build Strong Young Women (Part II)

How to Build Strong Young Women (Part II)

If we find ourselves a part of a young woman’s support system, most of us have experienced thoughts about her at some point that goes something like this; “When did this happen?  When did she start doing/saying/behaving like/dressing like this?” Maybe this is accompanied by feelings of dread, fear, anxiety, anticipation, sadness or a combination of any of these. You’ve probably also noticed that these moments build on each other and increase in number.

Listening to One Direction last month, but suddenly she’s wearing pentagrams, and you can barely make out her features through all that dark makeup? Did you find those pictures on her Facebook account in which red cups adorn every hand, and she is wearing skimpy clothes you didn’t know she had ‘til now? Maybe you’re worried because you found a bag in her room with a patch in the shape of a marijuana leaf safety pinned to it.

These scenarios could be something, or they could be nothing. And they could be anything in between. Doesn’t make you feel better? Fair enough. That young woman is a)exploring her interests in a world of information b)what her interests mean (to herself and others) c)the relationship between her interests and their meaning. It can be tough to navigate for her. And for you. She wants to know if her interests will become her identity if they are supposed to, and if she wants that. Here is where her cohort members come in.

They are in search right along side her. They are feeling just as unsure and insecure. The young woman wants both to be able to explore and find out about herself about the world and have her group to come back to and report what’s out there. She wants to be allowed to change and experience things and remain loved and accepted by her members. Her hope is for her group to hold her accountable in a loving way if she falls too far down the rabbit hole. There are many girls who have this experience and their ability to continue to bond with others, with other women, flourishes. They enjoy the stability of healthy friendships, understand the impact of their choices, and experience confidence in relationships.

There are also plenty of girls who have not experienced this kind of bonding with their cohort members. In fact, they have experienced an exiling. This exile can take place in the form of the young woman’s fear that she will be rejected so, she leaves her group before they can leave her (though she still experiences it as a rejection). It can also take shape as the group actively rejecting her. As a rule, have a tough time watching our loved ones change. We don’t know what it means so, we find it threatening, and we don’t allow it. And this is how the exile can begin.

The group sees that the young woman is somehow changing and they resist it, either by poking jabs at her newfound style/other friends she has found/new music preferences, etc. Maybe they do this directly or indirectly (girl culture isn’t known for its direct nature, but more for its passive yet very aggressive torment). They can do it to her face, behind her back, or both. They begin to distance themselves from her. This behavior escalates. Eventually, either they will not tolerate her presence in the group or she will find her membership there intolerable, and she will leave. When this happens, it is most common for the young woman to find a group of boys to replace her group rather than a new group of girls because a)she has lost trust in her members and b)it can be brutal to enter a new girl-group. There might be a few peripheral girls in her circle. She has experienced her cohort as unsafe. She has taken a severe blow to her confidence and sense of power. Many of the girls I see who have experienced this suffer from depression, anxiety, tend to isolate, and engage in some form of addictive behavior such as drug addiction, alcohol addiction, cutting, or eating disorder.

So what can you do? Start with being curious. When you see that she has changed her style of something, her presentation, her friends, etc. be curious about it. Don’t automatically assign meaning or judgment to it. She’s not sure what it means yet so, how can you know? Allow her to change. Not only will this will give her some breathing room, but it will show her the compassion she needs in addition to giving her a template for how it looks to allow someone to change so that she can pass it on. Trust your instincts. This can be tricky for some people who have a tough time seeing the difference between anxiety and instinct. The more in touch you are with your instincts, the more in touch she will be with hers. If you need a tune up or feel like you want some help deciphering between the two, feel free to call or email me, and we can discuss this further. Know your negotiables and nonnegotiables. Some things, like partying, can be a phase but if this is nonnegotiable for your family, don’t be afraid to hold a calm, firm line here. Lastly, if it seems like there are things your family needs sorting out let’s talk about it. This can be a scary time, but I can help you figure it out.

 

Love and Be Loved,

Natalie

How to Build Strong Young Women (Part I)

How to Build Strong Young Women (Part I)

This is Part I of a series. It has become the topic of a lot of conversations among my peer groups, colleagues, and the families and adolescents I treat. What do young women need to launch into the world? What is essential for them to stand firm in their communities? I will cover each of these in more detail in articles to come.  

 

                                                        Connectedness to One Another:

            A young woman needs to feel a sense of community in her peers, a sense of belonging.  It is important for her to experience herself in a supportive environment of other young women who are learning to navigate the world so that she can find sameness when she needs it (and a sense of difference when she needs it, too), solidarity, comfort, and strength. This home group of her peers will help the young woman learn both how she does and does not want to move through her relationships.

As she works through conflict and adversity, these peers will teach her various ways to communicate which the young woman will carry into other relationships.  It is here that she has the chance to begin to gain a confidence and experience the effectiveness (and perceived ineffectiveness) of her power in a way that only her group can provide her. If she experiences support amongst her members, this group has the chance to be one of the safest places for the young woman to express her fears, hopes, frustrations, and disappointments that she experiences as she navigates young womanhood.  If she suffers a lack of support amongst her members, the young woman might begin to develop a belief that it is safer not to share these parts of her experience.  It is possible for her to start to isolate, experience herself as powerless, and the risk for her to develop unhealthy behaviors as coping mechanisms begin to increase.

 

                                                                Sense of Authentic Self:

            Here is where this young woman will be able to legitimize her feelings, her experience, her opinions. A strong connection to this place, her authentic self, is what will make it possible for her to a) believe she is capable and b) exercise her capability. This is a place where she will find resource through hardship.

This connection is not just necessary for helping the young woman to realize her aspirations, relationship objectives, what kind of person she wants to be in her world, and how she intends to navigate through all of this. This connection to her authentic self is imperative for her resilience. The relationship with her self is essential for her to know that she will be ok regardless of what happens throughout the course of her life.

The more developed this part of her becomes, the more secure the young woman will feel about the feelings she experiences in response to particular situations. She will not only feel more confident about her opinions, but she will share them more freely with those around her. The young woman will demonstrate fewer behavioral defenses (defenses which serve to distance her from others in a protective way) because she will know that there is a safety within her that is always there.

A lack of connection to an authentic sense of self can encourage a young woman to constantly look to others for validation regarding choices and decisions she considers, causes her to illegitimize her feelings, strengthen a belief that what she has to say or do is not of value. A tenuous alliance with her authentic sense of self will make the obscurity of life increasingly overwhelming. It will be easier for the young woman to believe that she will not be able to withstand the pain she experiences in the world.

           

                                                            Sense of Inspired Purpose:

            The collective young woman being described throughout this article wants to connect and give something of value. She wants to impact her world. Some of her peers will choose to impact our world by committing their lives to the helping professions, others to business. Some will choose to leave their mark by contributing other humans to the world, and still, others will give themselves to social justice. It is important to highlight the many choices witnessed by the young woman (whether or not she perceives them as available to her, specifically, is related to the strength of her connection to her authentic sense of self).

Considering the pressure we as humans put on each other and ourselves to succeed, what it means to be successful, and the existing social constructs, a young woman faces quite a challenge as she decides how she will spend her time and energy in her world. She is confronted with the responsibility of finding out what inspires her, what gives her the most genuine sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. Then she must take another brave step and begin to do it.

It will not be enough for the young woman to simply pick a lucrative career if she is not somehow indubitably inspired and adequately satisfied with the gains returned by her efforts.  To choose a path based on someone else’s wish for her, societal pressure, lack of motivation, and maybe a combination of each of these will eventually leave her with a feeling of emptiness. It is not sustainable- at least not without paying a high price that will involve experiencing a disintegration of a part of her self.

The young woman aspires to influence and inspire by translating what influences and inspires her. She searches for the most impactful way she can accomplish this in a way that speaks to her the loudest, corresponds closely to her values and beliefs and allows her to fully experience her value in her world. She pioneers her path.

The three institutions described here are cardinal aspects of a young woman’s development for which there are no short cuts. Our holistic support of these conditions of her development will encourage a safe and healthy community for her to find her way. She will possess the confidence and strength to help others find their way.  The collective young woman is more resilient in these conditions and carries with her a sense of ok-ness. She passes this on to others, and we find that we all begin to strengthen.

 

Love and be Loved,

Natalie

Learn How to Take Control of Your Fear

Learn How to Take Control of Your Fear

If you’ve ever had that uneasy feeling of insecurity creep in while you’re working on a project or sitting in a meeting, you’re not alone. Maybe you’ve had thoughts like, “Do I even know what I’m doing? Am I good enough at this?” or “Everyone else sounds like they know what they’re talking about. They’re going to think I look stupid.” This is an incredibly painful and scary place to be.

You might do all sorts of things to avoid letting people see how insecure you are.  Maybe you keep quiet when you want to share an idea. Perhaps you don’t ask for clarification about something when you know you need it. Maybe keeping quiet isn’t your style and instead, you speak your mind, but not about the relevant issue at hand; you joke or talk in circles about the issue. You might take on a lot more responsibility than you can handle to prove your competence to others (and to yourself). There are a lot of different ways to hide insecurity.

Why is it so compelling to go to these lengths of protection against allowing others to see your self-doubt? Well, when you’re insecure about your ability, your skill, or your worth you’ve usually been comparing yourself to other people, generally in your group or cohort. Chances are, your cohort is important to you (as it is for most of us), and so is their acceptance and opinion. You fear their judgment, appearing one-dimensional, being misunderstood. You begin to feel that losing your membership to this group is a real possibility, that you could be excluded. As a human, you are a social being, driven to connect; you are motivated by relationships so, the threat of losing them is terrifying. You avoid exclusion and isolation from your group at all cost.

But when you’re focused on protecting yourself from pain and rejection, you’re not authentic which means you’re not being seen for who you are. Your group doesn’t get to see the real you and your bonds are not as strong as they might be. You’re trading one type of isolation for another. It can be easy to lose yourself in this and begin to develop more feelings of fear and loneliness.

What can you do? You don’t want to feel like this, but you don’t want them to find out you’re not as good as they think you are. There are many things you can do, but here are just a few. Here is the first recommendation:

 

-You’re going to have to stop thinking of yourself as, “not as good as they think you are.” That sounds like a substantial change in thought habit and it is, but it’s necessary. We can talk more about it. I’m not saying you don’t ever get to feel insecure again- it’s still an option (if you want it). Start slowly at first. For 10 or 15 minutes a day you will allow yourself to do something that gets you in touch with feeling your talent, worth, and expertise, on your way to becoming even more skilled. You can increase this time as you get the hang of it. This will build your confidence and increase your comfort with thinking more highly of yourself.

 

-Next, you have to allow yourself to say, “I don’t know.” You have to be able to say it to yourself and others. This will allow you to see that a) the earth doesn’t swallow you up if you don’t know everything and b) you can increase genuine self -confidence without knowing all the answers. I guarantee that you will find a sense of freedom the more you allow yourself to say, “I don’t know.”

-Finally, when someone compliments you or your work, start taking it in. Don’t push it aside. Don’t intellectualize it away until it’s meaningless. Allow yourself to feel positivity in it, however slight. Feel free to ask for specific feedback on the compliment, too, so that you can hold onto concrete examples of what someone appreciated about you or your work.

 

These are a few things that are helpful in getting the ball rolling away from your “fear of being found out,” toward the satisfaction and peace of living more authentically, enjoying increased self-confidence and more genuine relationships. People get to interact with you, not your defenses.

 

Love and Be Loved,

Natalie

Fear, Depression, and Hope

Fear, Depression, and Hope

Most of the time you are not consciously thinking about what is at the core of what scares you.  You might not know what’s at the core. Maybe you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the impact of being afraid, the impact of fear on your wellbeing. Whether or not you have given it a lot of thought, for some, fear can seem as though it has infinite power. It can feel paralyzing, isolating, and uncontrollable.

It can feel as though there is an endless supply of fear, that it can be turned in any direction- fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of being alone, fear of failure, fear of economic instability, fear of “being found out.” Most of the time you want to feel good. (Who doesn’t?) To do that you probably tend to act in a way that you believe will allow you to avoid pain.  You try to predict what will cause you pain by using experience from the past and making assumptions about the future. Fear can be pretty motivating.

It’s possible to go to incredible lengths to avoid or control fear- intense preoccupation with details, intense preoccupation with outer appearance, addiction, aggression, are a few examples.

When there is so much fear telling you what you need to avoid to feel ok, it doesn’t leave much time to sit productively with what is happening in the present. You probably find that you enjoy your relationships, jobs, families, and hobbies much less. You are not as productive when you are distracted by fear, however; if you use your productivity to defend against fear, you might find that you get a lot done, but still feel incredibly anxious.

At some point, there is a circumstance that encourages you to stop avoiding whatever it is you fear. Perhaps you make a conscious choice to face it because you have renewed resolve. Maybe you find yourself in the dreaded situation and begin to see that you are already getting through it and that it has not overtaken you. Or maybe you have decided that so much avoidance is exhausting so you begin to take slow, small steps toward a courageous shift.

Fear is a pretty compelling emotion. It’s why some of you stay in relationships or jobs long after you want to be there. It’s why some of you suffer from addiction. It can drive you to lead completely inauthentic lives by denying who you are and what you want, and you begin to live for someone else, what that person wants, who that person wants you to be. This can cause depression and anxiety which feeds addictive behavior; it can be tough to extricate yourself from this cycle.

That small step toward a courageous shift I was talking about earlier is essential for getting yourself out of this pattern. On another hand, when you are in this cycle, it can be hard to see that you have any choices. Maybe you feel like you don’t have any choices at all. That’s a normal feeling. When you have been experiencing the same behavioral and emotional cycle for a length of time, it can be difficult to remember a time when things were different. Maybe things weren’t ever different, and your hope for change is slim. But if you’re here, you have found some amount of hope somewhere within you. Together we can increase that hope.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Secrets to Stop Yelling and Start Talking

Secrets to Stop Yelling and Start Talking

Chances are, most of us have entered into conversation and, before long, ended up defending ourselves with variations of phrases like, “that’s not what I meant!” and “you took it the wrong way!” We have fallen prey to misunderstanding, and a discussion has become an argument. This can happen when our intention differs from our impact.

“Intent”, by Merriam-Webster’s definition, is “the state of mind with which an act is done.” Maybe our goal was to come to a better understanding, offer support, explain something, or even apologize. From the time we spoke them to the time our words were processed, our intended message was skewed. It can be confusing and strike quietly, but the difference between intent and impact can have nasty outcomes.

Merriam-Webster defines impact as “influence, effect.” We might have intended to say one thing, but we had another effect. The compliment we thought we were giving about someone’s outfit today might have been received as a derogatory statement about the outfit they wore the day before. The genuine support we thought we were offering after someone failed a test might have been received as an indication that they didn’t try hard enough.

It’s easy to become defensive of our intent when we are coming from a place of love and are met with anger or hurt feelings because of the impact our words had on a loved one. We can’t always foresee these misunderstandings and prevent them from happening because it’s not possible to predict our impact on others 100% of the time. We can, however, use methods to support a more successful recovery from these moments.

When we find ourselves in this situation, it is helpful for us to be genuinely curious about the other person’s experience. How are they feeling? What about the interaction caused them to feel like that? Being curious about the other’s experience and our impact on them will foster our understanding of what is happening and will eventually bring us closer to one another. It is not helpful to continue our attempts to show the other person how wrong they are for feeling the way they feel and different ways in which it isn’t our fault.  This will expand the divide.

It can be challenging to lead with our curiosity, but perhaps this will be motivation; 1) Practicing this interest will almost always diffuse the situation faster. 2) There is a new sense of safety in the relationship since the both members have experienced one’s wish to understand and courage to talk about what didn’t feel like it was working for them.

Often, our go-to technique is to be defensive. It’s familiar to us, and it makes us feel powerful when we think we need it most. I have not had one person come to me and say, “Wow, I’m so glad I was so defensive with my partner. It helped them feel like they could talk to me.” I have had many people come to me and say that they are glad they exercised curiosity while discussing a conflict.

Most of the time we have loving intentions, but when love is not the impact our loved one’s experience, we need to be curious about why.

Love and Be loved,
Natalie