International Women's Day: Lessons I Learned from my Mother

momToday’s celebration of International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

This year represents 100 years of campaigns from getting the right to vote to increasing opportunity for working women to have equal access to the training, technology and pay for competing in the global marketplace. Much has improved since 1911, of course, but women still do not enjoy equal pay for the same work as men, and globally are still the victims of violence, abuse and discrimination.

As I reflect on this day I think about my mother, who, in spite of discrimination and unequal treatment, still had a profound effect on me and others around her.

As an African American born and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, my mother had plenty of reasons to keep her sights set low and settle for the status quo. Some things weren’t safe to do since you couldn’t even count on the white law enforcement to protect you. The murder of Black males and rape of Black women were often not even investigated.

The average Black woman around her counted herself lucky to get a job doing “day work” meaning they travelled for miles to work in the homes of white families all day and drag themselves back home in the evening to devote what energy they had left to their own families.

My mother saw a different future for herself

Thanks to segregation, the Black community was full of Black-owned businesses and entrepreneurs since that’s the only place they could set up shop, counting on patronage from their own people. Because she quickly learned to type, one of my mother’s first jobs was as a secretary at the Black-owned mortuary, Miller’s Funeral Home and Insurance Company in Pine Bluff. She was always so proud of that job because it not only gave her a prestigious position where she could wear business attire rather than a maid’s uniform, but also put her in daily contact a demanding and shrewd business man from whom she learned many lessons about running a successful business in spite of the racial discrimination and unfair treatment that surrounded them.

Multi-talented and eager to learn, my mother also learned to play the piano at an early age, and by adolescence was playing in a juke joint (crude building for dancing, music, gambling and drinking usually in Black rural areas) on Saturday nights and for the local church on Sundays. Because she could read music and “play by ear”, she was a sought-after pianist and organist all of her life until in her 90’s when dementia began to slowly delete the 1000’s of songs she had memorized in her lifetime.

My mother created a different future for herself

Always practical, my mother didn’t settle for the weekend money she picked up for her music, so she decided to also go to cosmetology school as a young adult, even though it meant a trek to Little Rock, AR, a formidable trip in 1930’s. With her cosmetology license in hand and a new husband who moved her to St. Louis, MO, she opened her first beauty shop in the front room of our small dwelling. (She told me it had been a chicken shack that she and my father got for cheap rent because they were willing to clean it up, put up a wall to turn one room into two, and create a crude toilet.)

My sisters and I grew up watching my mother run a successful beauty shop during the week, and slide into her position as pianist for the Children’s Choir at our church on the weekends. In addition to this busy schedule, she managed to turn out beautiful outfits for us to wear to school, cook great meals and participate in PTA.

By the end of my first year of college, we moved to California, enjoying the many opportunities that were flying open during the 60’s.

Like many young people I didn’t fully realize and appreciate the many lessons I learned from my mother until much later. She was amazing not only for her many talents and aspirations, but mostly for her unwillingness to be defined by the unfair conditions that were a reality around us. Mostly I remember her

1. Money wisdom–she was a thrifty and a smart shopper, but she always stressed that it was wiser to spend more and buy a few quality outfits than a bunch of cheap outfits that would soon wear out. Because she was a great seamstress, she could create classy dresses from Vogue patterns and spend the money she saved on top-of-the-line shoes.

2. Courage–she once said that she took us to any events where they would let Black people attend. I can remember travelling by bus (we didn’t have a car) for a long ride to attend the circus at the Arena. Although Blacks could attend, the concession stands wouldn’t sell refreshments to us so I remember her hauling a bag full of snacks so we could enjoy munching during the circus.

3. Resourcefulness
–From her customers, church members, the newspapers and radio, she always found enrichment and educational activities and events that my sisters and I could attend. Summers were filled with YWCA camp and then Vacation Bible School, and of course the school year was loaded with plenty to do after school and at church on weekends.

4. Willingness to let us make some decisions for ourselves
–By the time I was in high school the St. Louis schools decided to desegregate schools by swooping some of the gifted students from our Black high school to a white school miles away. When I was offered this “opportunity” I am so grateful that my mother let me decide.

In spite of all the technology and superior instruction this white school was going to offer me, I could not see the sense of leaving my Black high school where I had friends, was active in many activities and excelling academically, to catch a bus in the early dawn to go across town to an unwelcoming environment where I would have to face untold treatment from fellow students and teachers alike. I clearly didn’t have a pioneer spirit, nor the same courage my mother had. I saw no benefit for me in being the tool of the school district to try to correct the wrongs of the past.

As I reflect on International Women’s Day, I think fondly of my mother who did her part to enhance the lives of her daughters and all the other young women whose lives she touched. Her favorite saying and song was “If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living will not be in vain.” (You can hear Patti LaBelle singing the song here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edBGuudFeu8)

I encourage you to do your part through a church, charity, school, community or personal effort to ensure that the girls and women in your local area have safe, enriching and inspired lives. In this way, your living will not be in vain, and our global goals will be met, one neighborhood at a time.

"I want to be like you when I grow up."

dressup-resizedI hear this a lot, and until I read Tim Miles response to a similar question, I didn’t have a good comeback.

Now I do.

So you want to be like me when you grow up?

Okay, here goes in no particular order.

  • Get up at 5:30 AM every morning whether you have to go to work or not. (Yes, weekends too.)

  • Each day if you are able to get out of bed under your own power, or you are still alive,  say “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalms 118: 24

  • Write in your journal, morning pages, reflect on your day, go for a walk, meditate or other activity that sets your intention for the day.

  • Stop watching the news. It’s designed to scare and distract you. Someone will tell you if you need to evacuate your neighborhood.

  • Stop waiting for the right time to do what you want. I couldn’t figure out the order in which I should have a teaching career, a family, return to graduate school and be an entrepreneur. So, I did it all along at the same time. (Try giving birth to your 3rd child on the first day of school in the second year of your doctoral studies and returning to classes the next week.)
  • Strive for harmony in your life by making time for work, health, fun, family, friends and spiritual needs.

  • Be willing to do things that make sense to you even if  not to other people, even your family and friends.
  • Learn to enjoy your alone time. Major projects require blocks of thinking and working alone.

  • When you have a burning desire to travel or go to some  event, don’t postpone it waiting for a willing companion. Go by yourself.
  • Risk making a fool of yourself or failing miserably at something.
  • Face frequent bouts with  self-doubt, knowing that you’ll regain your self-confidence and forge ahead.
  • Follow your dream for years even if you aren’t making any money from it.
  • Admit you don’t know everything. Take classes and read constantly.
  • Always be open to learning, especially from your kids.

  • When you figure something out, be willing to share it with others even when they won’t pay you a cent for it.
  • Accept the fact that when you open your heart to love someone (even your kids) they may not love you back in the way that you would like. Love people anyway.
  • Adapt to change. It’s the only constant.
  • Make a plan.
  • Abandon your plan and be spontaneous sometimes.
  • Show gratitude for all your life experiences, even the ones you that didn’t seem so great at first.
  • Then, when you are about to enter your 7th decade, share your life tips with someone who says to you “I want to be like you when I grow up.”

4 More Tips to Gain Confidence

From http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/04/dancing-with-the-stars-results-the-next-elimination.html

From http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/04/dancing-with-the-stars-results-the-next-elimination.html

Monday’s post gave you 3 tips to gain confidence. Here are 4 more.

4. Decide where you want to go in your life.

What are your goals, dreams, visions?

Research the skills and actions that are required to get you there.

Even after you’ve accomplished one goal, set another one. Having no goals or aims is fertile ground for negative thoughts.

As I was completing my doctoral studies, one graduate student cautioned us in a seminar to set a new goal once our degrees were awarded. He shared stories of some Ph.D.s who fell into depression when they completed their work because they didn’t set new goals.

5. Commit to building the skills that will help you accomplish your goals.

Even small steps toward your goals boost your self-esteem and thereby your confidence.

If your goal is to declutter, even just sorting your sock drawer is a good start and gives you a feeling of movement toward your goal.

6. Widen your comfort zone.

When you set out toward a new goal you will immediately encounter new and unfamiliar territory. You will be required to take a risk and step into some way of doing things you haven’t done before.

This is your proof that you are making progress. As you master that first scary skill or navigate that first scary step, you will feel a little better. But soon, if you keep moving forward, you will encounter new skills.

Instead of looking at them with fear, look at them with anticipation as they are the stones along your path to success.

Even if you are very skillful in one area, you will experience some fear of the new when you go after a goal in another area.

Think about the TV show, Dancing with the Stars, where celebrities who are experts in some area other than dance step outside of their comfort zone to risk embarrassment and failure in front of the world.

In one episode, Buzz Aldrin, 80-year-old former astronaut took to the dance floor with a sprightly partner. He held his own, including enduring the scathing criticism of the judges, one of whom said he looked like he forgot to take off his moon boots.

Which gets me to the last tip toward building self-confidence.

7. Avoid being dependent on what others say about you–good or bad.

When you are honest with yourself about your strengths, it’s important to also acknowledge your weaknesses.

Learn to evaluate your own performance so that you don’t rely on compliments or dismiss them, or are undone by criticism.

After his performance on Dancing with the Stars, Buzz Aldrin was well aware that he didn’t give a stellar dance performance and that older competitors typically don’t last long.

Earning near the lowest score of the evening, Aldrin’s goal didn’t appear to be winning the competition. He was willing to make himself vulnerable so that others around his age would be encouraged to take risks, step outside of their comfort zones and live their lives to the fullest. If this indeed was his goal, he was a huge success.

Self-confidence is not the absence of butterflies when you are about to take on a task. They indicate that you care deeply about what you are about to do. If you follow these seven steps for achieving and maintaining confidence you will be able to greet those butterflies and command them to fly in formation while you carry out your task passionately and successfully.

3 Tips to Gain Confidence

butterfliesinfield“Nerves and butterflies are fine – they’re a physical sign that you’re mentally ready and eager.  You have to get the butterflies to fly in formation, that’s the trick.”  ~Steve Bull

Performing in front of an audience is one of the scariest things you can do, and yet some people make their living doing just that.

Do you imagine that they are perfectly confident and never feel scared?

If you think that, you’d be wrong.

I doubt that anyone wakes up one day and is confident from that day forth.

Self-confidence is the belief that you can handle whatever comes up and that you deserve good things and happiness in your life. Confidence is an essential part of happiness

Building your confidence can be done in many ways. Here are 3 tips to get you started.

1. Look at what you’ve already achieved in your lifetime.

  • Make a list of your achievements.
  • Pat yourself on the back and accept compliments from others.
  • Refer to your list of achievements when you begin to feel down.

Give yourself huge credit if you’ve finished school, raised a family, managed your rent or mortgage for years, completed some task that at first you thought was hard, grew tomatoes, stood up and won against a company or person who was trying to defraud you, overcame an illness, reached your weight loss goals, found your way when you were lost, learned another language and so on.

Many of us take our achievements for granted, and thereby miss a key ingredient of self-confidence.

The beauty of acknowledging your achievements is you have proof of what you can do, and a reason to believe that you can do it again.

2. Make a list of your strengths.

Dwell on and build on these strengths

Get started by looking back at #1. The achievements you accomplished were likely related to strengths of character, behavior, and skills.

3. Take control of your thoughts.

When your mind begins to drift to self-doubt, pull yourself back with positive self-talk about the things you noted in #1 and #2.

That inner critic is alive and well in all of us, but you are in charge. You may well have to get rough with your thoughts in order to keep them in line. But it’s worth it.  Your happiness depends on gaining and keeping your confidence.

[See Wednesday’s post for more tips]

Want to Be Happier? Get Rid of These 12 Things That Age You

womaninmirrorAccording to a recent article in  iVillage column, there are 12 things that add years to your appearance. And since the way we perceive ourselves affects our happiness, it’s worth a look to see if you can remove these 12 things from your life.

1. Stress

Feeling overwhelmed and incapable of handling what comes up in our lives is what we call stress. Although none of us long for stress, we all encounter it and must actively find ways to reduce it.

Looking at the cause and removing that is one way. But once stress has its grip, we much become proactive and take steps to reduce it. For some meditation works well. For others, prayer, quiet, and exercise are effective. You must experiment to find what works best for you.

2. Nicotine

In spite of visible attempts to restrict smoking in public places and anti-smoking campaigns, 20% of people still smoke.  Even those of us who don’t smoke are affected by secondary smoke.

In addition to being the leading cause of lung cancer, smoking also affects many other organs.

“Smoking is directly toxic to all of our organs, including our skin and the blood vessels that feed it,” says dermatologist Doris Day, MD, author of Forget the Facelift.

3. Sun on Your Skin

Sunscreen is a must, even if you spend  a lot of time  indoors out of the sun. And it’s not just the outer skin that is affected.

If you compare two people who are the same age — one who wears sunscreen and one who doesn’t — the sunbather will have more visible signs of aging, like age spots, broken blood vessels, wrinkles, sagging and precancerous lesions.

4. Sugar

Even though sugar may give an initial sweet shot to your tastebuds, its continuous intake will lead to a breakdown in elasticity. That means sagging and wrinkles, potentially putting a dent in your happiness.

You are advised to

Choose whole grains instead of the white stuff. If you can’t resist a bagel, adding protein to the meal can help keep your sugar levels from soaring and possibly do less skin damage.

5. Sun in Your Eyes

Applying sunscreen to your skin is not enough. It’s important to protect your eyes from the sun’s harmful rays with sunglasses.

The skin around the eyes is very delicate, and once damaged even smiling and scowling will lead to lines. So, get a pair of sunglasses that protect against UVA and UBA rays.

6. No Retinol

The abundance of  skin care products makes it tough to know which is best. But dermatologists seem to agree that every woman’s skin care choice should have Retinaol the anti-aging Vitamin derivative known to reverse aging.

It’s important to test and/or consult your dermatologist before using however, since sensitive skin  may have a reaction.

7. Lack of Sleep

We’ve heard of the importance of sleep before, but it bears repeating.  Lack of sleep will not only make you feel and look tired, but deprives your body of a break from the daily stress we encounter.

In addition,

According to Badreshia-Bansal, sleep gives our skin a much-needed break from environmental and psychological stress. “This is when the reparative work of cells occurs. Sleep relaxes the facial muscles and allows the layers of your skin to rejuvenate,” she explains.

8. Alcohol

Commercials frequently show alcohol as refuge and relief from a stressful as well as way to celebrate. The truth is that heavy drinking not only interferes with our sleep (which we need to repair,) but it can also lead to broken capillaries and uneven skin.

9. Over Exfoliating

Exfoliating scrub  is not something you need to do daily, say dermatologists. Once a week is adequate. Otherwise you are removing the very oils that form a protective barrier and can cause microscopic tears in the skin.

10. Being Lazy

Ponce de Leon, 15th century Spanish explorer, is famous for his search for the Fountain of Youth, a legendary stream that restores youth to anyone who drinks from it. Until this fountain is located, the closest thing to it is exercise.

While sleep and relaxation are important, physical activity not only makes us feel happier, but also boosts our immune system, and improves circulation and blood flow.

11. Bad Food

We’ve been told over and over again which foods are bad for our bodies and mind, and yet because food providers make them cheap and readily accessible, they  are hard to resist.

Which ones are best for our bodies and minds?

Feed your face with a Mediterranean-style diet, says Day. According to a study published in the journal Nutrition Reviews, olive oil, fish, yogurt and colorful fruits and vegetables may help protect against sun damage and premature aging.

Once we train our tastebuds to like what’s good for us, they will begin to gag at the approach of the fat, greasy and oversweet offerings that our placed in our path so often. Foods that are good for us are the best fuel that enables our bodies and mind to work at their optimal best in the fight against disease and the stimulation of natural chemicals that lead to feelings of joy and well-being.

12. Compulsive washing

Yes, we need to wash our hands, but overdoing it strips away the layer of germs that protect us.  You can often tell how old someone else by looking at their hands.

It’s the transferring of germs to our face that makes us sick.

Germy hands can only infect us if we transfer those viruses to our eyes, nose or mouth. “If you don’t want to get sick, don’t touch your face,” says Day. If your hands are still dry, apply lotion immediately after to lock in moisture.

Although these 12 pieces of advice were directed at our skin and appearance, they work equally as well at bolstering our happiness.
What do you think? Speak your mind.