Tag Archives: project enough

I’m Looking At You, the One Who Thinks It’s Not His Problem

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This note was written by a seven year old girl. Her mom found it. It’s a weight loss journal entry.

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The paper outlines her daughter’s weight-loss plan and reads:

17 pooshups 2 times a day

16 star jumps 2 time a day

2 yoget

3 appals

1 per

2 keewee froots

5 glases of water

Rid my bike 3 times a day

Rariry a meniy thing as you can find

Jog/run up and down the driv way 3 times

I don’t care if you’re a dad a 20 something year old or a CEO–you matter. You’re not doing enough. As the media becomes more powerful women are becoming meeker and meeker. To be a frail, small and quiet woman is to be the beauty ideal. Don’t believe me? Turn on any technology device. Look at the women. What do they look like to you? What kind of world will this be in 20 years?

It will take YOU–the person who feels this isn’t their problem–speaking up.

Every time you don’t speak up, you’re part of the problem. Every time you don’t say something when the following happens….

You’re at a party and someone makes a comment about how “fat chicks” are disgusting.
You gawk at other women and objectify them.
You make comments about a woman’s looks.
You tell your daughter if she’s thin she’ll have more options for marriage.
You work in public relations, advertising, or entertainment and you don’t put normal looking women of average weight in your media.
You don’t put even 1 woman on your event’s speaker faculty.
You don’t throw the softball with your daughter at the park.
You don’t teach your daughter math.
You hold your son to higher intellectual standards.

The Sheryl Sandberg Lean In project has generated a huge stir among women, but why aren’t men talking about it? Where are they in the conversation?  We can either brainwash our girls into hating themselves–and creating an even scarier civilization with self-hating mothers–or you can help bring about change.

“You may not agree with a woman, but to criticize her appearance — as opposed to her ideas or actions — isn’t doing anyone any favors, least of all you. Insulting a woman’s looks when they have nothing to do with the issue at hand implies a lack of comprehension on your part, an inability to engage in high-level thinking. You may think she’s ugly, but everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.” ~ Hillary Clinton

 

 

Being Strong For Other Women

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Do you know that other women are watching you all the time? Whether you realize it or not you are setting an example for people you didn’t even realize were your Facebook friends.

Are you setting an example of body shame for other women or are you engaging in a radical act of activism through self-love and respect?

I believe if we want things to get better for women we need to change the national dialogue. I also believe it has to start with the local dialogue. For example, are you someone who wants to build women up? If you are I would encourage you to think twice before you make self-deprecating comments on your social media sites about your body. Would you want your daughter or the younger version of yourself to say hurtful things about herself? If you want to help change the national dialogue for women, it starts with you. Diets, model and celebrity-dom are not helping women feel confident in themselves. Social media has given a voice to women everywhere. Let’s use this tool to make major change happen in the hearts and minds of women everywhere.

We’re all tired of living up to completely unrealistic standards of how we’re supposed to look. Together we can truly make change happen.

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Many of us don’t realize the impact we have on those around us. Sometimes the best form of activism is living well. By respecting yourself, no matter if you fit into Vogue’s definition of what you should look like or not, you are committing an act of defiance.

By loving yourself–despite the media’s constant flood of messaging that you shouldn’t–you are participating in an act of defiance on behalf of all women everywhere.

When I see women who claim to be moving women’s rights forward calling themselves fat on Facebook I feel sad. By participating in the “not enough” tsunami hitting women everywhere you’re hurting women you “unofficially mentor” without realizing it.

We’ve all got to love ourselves and be strong. We’ve got to ignore the messages that tell us we are only worthy if we are thin and beautiful by Hollywood’s standards. We’ve got to do it for ourselves, but we’ve really got to do it for all the other women. Because they’re watching you. They’re watching us.

So the next time you look in the mirror and you want to call yourself fat please understand there is a girl in the reflection looking back at you. How do you want her to feel?

If you are one of the many women I know sitting at her cubicle now wanting to be inspired, please watch these Makers videos. You will not be sorry!

Las Vegas, Sex, Technology, You

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I walk by a hologram woman with fake looking breasts and the face of a young girl. She’s facing a table full of gamblers. They are middle aged women.

I’m in Las Vegas, and like so many moments spent here, I find this moment surreal–weird–meta. So far from anything I generally encounter in my daily life in the Bay Area.

Here women walk around in mini skirts and heels so high they look like stilts. Women adorn themselves in clothes and jewelry as shiny as the slot machines calling to you from the casino.

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A photo I took at #CES. This company sells speakers and described the sound in the post as “deep” and used other sexually explicit adjectives.

You walk through hotels next to scantily clad women and you wonder, are you a “normal” woman or are you paid to work here and look like that? Are your tips determined by your clothes–or are you just here visiting from Ohio or Indiana or North Dakota? Are you pretending to have a different life for a night in Las Vegas? Will my boyfriend think I’m sexy next to you?

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One night I was at a dinner with a handful of influential people. A CEO from Israel was seated next to me. He told me out of the blue he thought the way women were depicted in Las Vegas was “disgusting.”

That night he hit me right through the heart with his words. I was shocked and moved.  I didn’t realize any of these business men noticed. Here is a spiritual person–not from the U.S.–with daughters–who can clearly see how bizarre our culture is.

You forget that there are people out there–men specifically–who are not happy with a culture that puts women up for sale. There are men out there who get it.

This was one of the highlights of my entire trip–meeting this person who could so clearly see the nonsense that happens in our culture.

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The truth is you have very little control of what’s happening out there, and so much of it is just plain awful. You need to work very hard to make sure the show that’s running inside of you is a pleasant one. If you are a woman, you need to constantly nurture and feed yourself messages of worthiness. You need to do this because no one will do it for you. It’s a matter of survival. And that way, Vegas will always stay in Vegas.

Twitter’s Biz Stone Reminds Me To Keep Going With Project Enough

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Yesterday I saw Twitter co-founder Biz Stone speak at PRSA.

When we got into the media briefing room Biz immediately seemed like he wanted to leave. He said the minute he walked in the door his wife was going to berate him for being late and hand him a screaming ten month old. You got the feeling he cared a lot more about his own family life than he did being at a PR media briefing. I respected him for that. I also respected him for the world that he showed us yesterday–from being a college dropout obsessed with the democratization of information to creating a technology that would change the course of history.

Biz Stone answering questions, being down to earth.

He said two things that resonated with me on a personal level:

1. Opportunity can be manufactured and you manufacture this for yourself.
2. To succeed spectacularly you must be willing to fail spectacularly.

For me that means you’re willing to walk away completely empty handed from whatever you’re doing. And he reminded us that to do that–you need to care about what you’re doing on an emotional level.

Biz gave metrics that he felt companies should measure themselves by. One of them was joy. Can you imagine a company that looks at joy as an indicator of success?

I believe joy is directly related to self esteem. I believe self esteem is related to contribution. I also believe companies can build the self esteem of its employees by recognizing employees and giving them opportunities to challenge themselves and contribute. Today most companies don’t do this. Research shows a happy, proud employee will contribute much more than an employee that feels like a number.

Self esteem is something I write about a lot. I also built a “movement” around helping to build the self esteem of women with Project Enough.

Biz Stone’s talk about a service oriented approach to business reminded me of my own journey. I’d like to think that sharing personal stories about my own challenges with anxiety, depression, body image and self esteem help other women who are going through something similar.

My storytelling is my giving back. Most people would rather die than write about being humiliated as I did last week on the website Eat the Damn Cake. I get joy out of putting all my experiences and thoughts on my writing table and putting the pieces back together, but I also want to help other girls and women–to let them know they’re not alone–to provide them tools and resources and knowledge.

The talk made me think about Project Enough and why I keep coming back to it. I feel that this was a “movement” that started with a shift within me. I didn’t know if this was the right thing to do or not–and realized quickly this project was in no way about making money. This is a project to spread awareness and most of all joy–> to women, who suffer with body shame and low self esteem. And yes I just used the word “suffer,” because you do.

Biz said there was compound interest in altruism and I believe he’s right because when one person comes back to me and says thank you for writing that (or saying that), I can relate and I’m going through X, I feel that emotional compound interest. I also hope that other people experience that as well.

Biz’s talk was inspiration for me to continue with Project Enough and see what it can become.

Where Are the Movies About Women Kicking Ass?

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Have you seen the movie “Snatch”? It’s about a bunch of guys who “kick-ass.” Why is it that virtually every movie is about a bunch of tough guys kicking ass? If women are more than 50% of the population why in God’s name will Hollywood not give up their obsession with men?

I hate action movies because I want to watch movies that I can relate to. I want to watch films with strong female leads that don’t look like Reese Witherspoon (and aren’t about how she has to choose between two men who want to sleep with her).

Two things.

1. The media needs to feature more dynamic real depictions of women in film.

2. The media will never give you permission to be strong. You MUST give yourself permission.

 

 

MTV Cribs and Your Mind Mansion

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Do you remember the show MTV Cribs? This show would give viewers a look inside pop star’s mansions–a view into the secret world of a millionaire.

This show was the pioneer of many similar shows along the lines of “lives of the rich and famous.”

What if a house was like a mind? And instead of a show showcasing how fabulous a house was, what if there was a show that brought you inside the mind of a woman? Instead of, wow look at this $50,000 dollar couch the focus was:

“wow look at the health of this self-esteem.”

Instead of look at this ten car “garage”….

We changed the focus to:

“Look at this inventory of spiritual tools that transport Jane to higher ground when she’s in a dark place.”

So what’s in your crib?

Is your mind a mansion full of tools that make your experience here on earth a rich one?

Relentless Attacks on Women’s Bodies

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I am honest with you my dear readers. My entire life I’ve had to consistently check myself around the body topic. At a certain point I started to realize how much body shame affected my life. Body shame will bring low self-esteem, depression, anger, sadness. Today I wonder how many other women out there are silently suffering the same pain that I talk about here today.

Some of us are starving for love–that can be self love, love from a partner or love from a family member that was never felt. In an effort to secure love women often drive themselves to a dark place. On top of that, the media and the culture have created a bizarro world where women will go to extremes to contort their body until it meets the expectation. And it’s normal and acceptable to do that.

All I around I see how normal it is to attack women, and even for women to attack themselves. This weekend late one night my boyfriend and I were watching Jeff Ross the comedian who is known as “the roastmaster.” He was making a ton of comments about Christina Aguilera and the weight she’s gained recently. It was relentless. I remember being a girl in the audience for a stand up comic like Jeff–laughing behind a tense smile thinking to myself…”am I as fat as Christina Aguilera?” Am I like her? Or am I “safe”?

It’s hard for me to believe networks like Comedy Central still get away with programming that directly attacks women’s bodies–and is arguably misogynistic. I hope women leaders who run companies that advertise with Comedy Central think twice before sending their media buyers to Comedy Central. To make change we are going to truly put our money where our mouth is.

Today it still makes me sad to see women competing on a treadmill of validation. I write about these issues because I refuse to believe that you–reading this out there–aren’t suffering in silence.


Image from Strong Inside Out

At a root level, it’s understandable women are terrified of being unattractive–of being unpretty. While survival today does not depend on attracting a man who can help scavenge for food, women still yearn to feel taken care of–to be part of a tribe–to be loved.

It’s time to create a new conversation. It’s time for women to stop the madness of diets and self-loathing, and start a fresh conversation around living life, being a human being and reclaiming their bodies back. Join me by taking a stand and saying no entities like Comedy Central who are operating in a 1950s mentality.

I’m Enough and I’ve Had Enough

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You are not a problem to be solved. Think about how you are talking to yourself. If you are angry, turn that anger externally. You were not born feeling like you weren’t enough. This feeling was created by multibillion dollar industries including the diet industry, advertising, media and essentially every industry marketing to women.

You made us hate our thighs, and instead we are going to start hating you. Join me in this journey to rewrite what it means to be female in America in 2012.

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When You’re In Your Power

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When you’re in your power

Shame, fear and anger dissipate.
You change the molecules in a room.
You bring out the best in everyone around you.
You feel there’s enough–enough time, enough money, enough love.
You refrain from knee jerk reactions.
You feel light and airy.
You attract your desired amount of clients.
You see money in the bank.
You make decisions that are good for you, long-term.
You feel powerful and calm, and at home in your body.
You laugh easily.
You feel like you can do anything, and you do.

You have a world of exploration to do. The answers are all inside. If we had a world of confident, powerful, calm, secure women the entire landscape of American culture and society would change. And it starts with you.