FOR WOMEN........

PAUSE A MOMENT

JUST FOR WOMEN

Good morning and welcome now to Pause a Moment – a kernel of truth around which the rest of our universe is expanding faster than the speed of light.

[Girls' Night Out – Gina Jeffries]

Tonight's show, as you may have guessed, is specifically for women, and right now this mere male is brazenly offering a superior being a simple suggestion. So how come I feel Brave enough to comment on an experience of womanhood? Simple. When women open up about their experiences, I shut up and listen. 

One female acquaintance of mine laments frequently, "Why am I always riding in the back of my own bus?" Good question? If this is your experience, too, let's stand in that question for a moment, then judge for yourself.

Novelist Kathleen Winsor wrote: “Most people are so busy knocking themselves out trying to do everything they think they should do, they never get around to doing what they want to do” – to which I add “either that, or they're lying about what they really want to do. They say one thing and do differently.” It's my suspicion that most folks do what they want to do most of the time, and then blame someone else if they don't like the consequences. We all have this amazing capacity to delude ourselves and lie about the choices we're making.

Let's assume, however, that you are very clear about your intentions and motives. I have for you --

A new Golden Rule: "We need to do unto ourselves as we do unto others."

[Do It To ME – Lionel Ritchie – 4:30]

Women often know what's good for them, but they often don't always do it for themselves. A nurturing woman knows what's good for her husband, but she isn't always kind to his wife; she obsesses about her children, but ignores their mother. She knows she should eat less and exercise more, but still she doesn't make healthy choices. She knows she needs to spend her time and money more effectively, but good time and money management elude her. She finds herself always putting others first, while neglecting her own needs and wants. She doesn't get enough rest or sleep and her endless to-do list hangs overhead like the sword of Damocles.

Women seem to be particularly prone to neglecting things they know are emotionally, mentally and even physically nourishing for them. Sometimes because they are so busy taking care of others that they neglect their own needs. The problem isn't lack of information—we have plenty of information about the importance of sleep, healthy foods, and exercise. The problem is how we prioritise our lives. 

It's partly nature and partly nurture. When a boy is born, he gets the soldiers, the Meccano set, the computer and the “What are you gonna be when you grow up, son?”; when a girl is born, she gets the pink pretties, the fairy dresses, the i-phone (also pink), the dolls' house with the kitchen utensils, and the dolls that cry and piss on her, and she has to clean it up. The message to the boys is – you can be what you want to be; the message to the girls is – you can play around with an education for a while if you feel you must, but we all know what you're really here for -- it's Sex & Service.

[Momisms – Anita Renfroe – 3:40]

Point made? OK, now let's drop the gender thing, and look at what's going on here from another viewpoint. 

Psychologists tell us that some people are Inner/Self-directed and some are Outer/Other-directed; we have spoken about this in some detail quite recently on this programme. That is, some people focus predominantly on their own internal guidance system for making choices about how to spend their time and energy. Also, their own self-interest ranks very high on their list of priorities. "What's best for me?" is a key guiding principle in determining where they focus their attention and how they make day-to-day decisions.

And some people are predominantly other-directed, which means that their primary focus is external, not internal. They are primarily concerned with relationships, especially with people they care about. "How can I help others?" is a key question in how they spend their time and energy. Building and nurturing relationships with loved ones, family, friends, neighbours, and co-workers is the guiding principle in their lives.

Research indicates that, in general, men tend to be a bit more inner-directed than women, while women tend to be more other-directed than men. But it's a tendency, not a distinction between the sexes, alright? There are exceptions, but as a group, male macho ego is very self-centred, while mature women are a bit more inclined to focus on other people. Men like to build things while women like to create and nurture correlation.

This generalised way of looking at the psychological orientation of the genders is limited, but I think it goes some way toward helping us understand why women often do such a poor job of taking care of their own welfare. Women will often run around filling others' lamps with oil, but forget to fill their own lamps. Little wonder that such ladies often end the day in the dark, exhausted, frazzled, stressed-out, anxious and/or depressed!

[Tired Of... – Beloved Elk]

The first step toward solving any problem is expanding your Awareness. Tonight's Pause a Moment is devoted to helping you acknowledge a possible imbalance in your life and understand some possible reasons for it. For example, look at how differently young boys and girls are socialised. I have been appalled to see some mothers of young boys on crowded public transport giving up their seats to their sons, while girls of similar age in same family stand, growing up to be women who put men first. Look at the values women have adopted in the past 50 years, beginning with the feminist movement—leading growing women to believe that men have it all, and that women likewise can have it all—all at once. Then explore the corresponding myth that we can DO it all. Life isn't long enough for that, and there are some things we just don't have the equipment for. For example, I so much wanted to be a doctor, but I've shaken so much all my life, my attempts at brain surgery would have outshone the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In my experience, people who make poor choices often suffer from impoverishing education – a lack of awareness in the growing being that Conscious Choices DO have to be made, and no supervised practice in how to go about it.

But don't be discouraged. Life's challenges, including an over- or under-indulged, upbringing, need not paralyse you; that's not their purpose. Challenges are designed to dare you, to stretch you, to push you past your self-imposed boundaries, and reveal to you more of who you are, and what possibilities exist for you beyond your self-proclaimed limitations (“I can't”). And help is here. In the coming weeks we'll learn the opportunities to Choose and the times to Decide. We'll discover the value of directed doing, and the value of doing nothing. We'll learn in experience how to imagine and play -- again, how to balance Inner-referencing with Other-directing, and most important, how to ask for help.

[Help! – Tina Turner]