Monthly Archive: July, 2007

Classic quarterlife, or any time of life, transition. You think life is one way. Then it isn’t. You shed the old. Go through a bit of chaos. Then emerge to a new level of “getting it.”

I asked Peggy, who’s 26, to open Men Are Easy to any page and point. She emailed, “I got the Ugly Coat story and it was so apropos for me that I kind of got on a roll.” Wow. Here’s more:

I’ve started a new job, and, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m actually living my life. Life as I somehow always sensed it was supposed to be.

This started me thinking about “The Ugly Coat Story” in Chapter 3. Intellectually, I understood the metaphor. It made complete sense: we arm ourselves against the things that are out of our control. We fabricate systems and carry out routines that help us classify and process our day-to-day interactions with other people, our work, our lives. And it works for a while. We’re comfortable, living in our comfort zone, content and without stress. Or so we imagine. Then, out of the blue, something comes along that we didn’t prepare for, and suddenly, rather than protecting us, the coat becomes a burden. It weighs us down, disabling our ability to adapt to the change. It firms its grip on us (and we on it), and like a strongly rooted tree in a storm, we tip over.

A mixed metaphor. I love it!

Quitting my safe job and going for an unknown new career has been one of the hardest things I’ve done. It’s required a level of faith in myself that I’ve never invested before: faith that I do know what is best for me, that I do have all that I need, and that my choices have the capacity to improve my life.

Before, I’d been so beaten down by my job, by stress, by the cultural expectations of what I “should” do and what I “should” want, that I’d lost all perspective. I had no sense of the toll it was taking on my life. I hadn’t come up for a breath of fresh air in 2 1/2 years — and I didn’t even realize it. Only now, after taking a moment to reflect on the leaps and bounds I’ve made in so little time, do I realize that this is how it’s supposed to be! THIS IS. What I left behind isn’t the norm — nor should it be. And a part of me is embarrassed that I allowed it to be for so long.

A classic statement. Looking back you wonder how you could be so stupid. It’s a sure sign that you’re in a higher level of consciousness. Get used to it. If you’re really learning, it keeps coming!

All the depression/stress/anger seems so much more manageable now. I don’t even need my coat anymore. (And, believe me, mine was/is heavy.)

Whew.

And the thing that’s been most surprising — and encouraging — is the way others are responding, too. Everyone I see seems to comment on how great I look, or how much happier I seem. I haven’t had a night out in 3 weeks, where a man hasn’t asked for my number. It’s uncanny!

We have to give the guys credit. They really do go more for soul than looks. They just aren’t good at mining for it. (The metaphors are flying!)

Fundamentally, I really haven’t changed. I’m the same person I’ve always been — only smarter. I stand up straighter, smile more, and am more ready to speak my mind. I do have everything I need. And people take notice. I’m playing more, without the fear that I might break something. I’m treating my life like a rubber ball, not a glass figurine. It’s durable, dynamic, and the momentum can take it in any number of directions.

Of course, the irony now is, with all this at my fingertips, I am scared. Each day I struggle not to fall back into my old behaviors. Being this open makes me more vulnerable — that’s why I had my Ugly Coat in the first place. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is what life is about: a time to play, to remember the rubber ball and be fearless. To think less, act more.

Ah, yes. The old and familiar negative, confused thinking pops up. But now it’s just a little reminder to wake up and look around, not a way of life.

I watch girls work so hard in high school, then go to very good universities, and then go to work. Too often it’s crash-and-burn hours, pay that you don’t want to give up, the old pressure to get As in everything. But then, if you’re lucky, you discover that it doesn’t have to be like this at all. Work can be rewarding. People can be fun. Stress really is something that you can leave at the door. Go Peggy!

The RN in me smells a rat. As I was thinking and writing about estrogens, the NY Times published an Op-Ed piece on the same topic: Final Periods by Karen Houppert.

Then yesterday, I saw an ad on TV: Beautiful, hip, intelligent-looking women, bouncing around to deceptively intelligent, reasonable, upbeat talk… “No need for periods. They are unnecessary.” I heard it, and I couldn’t believe my ears.

With Seasonale, a woman only has to have a period once every three months. Now the FDA has approved Lybrel, and she doesn’t have to have a period at all!

How convenient. How out of touch with nature and who we are.

Can this actually be legal? Who approved this?

This is big bucks talking. This is not sanity.

Okay, for the almost 10% of women who really do suffer each month and have tried countless other options, maybe this is the solution. But that’s medication, not birth control!

The justification (from WebMD):

Mitchell Creinin, MD, is a researcher studying the one-year pill, and he agrees. “The idea that a woman ‘needs’ to have a period is folklore. The blood doesn’t build up inside, and it has nothing to do with cleaning out your system or proving that you’re normal,” says Creinin, director of family planning in the obstetrics and gynecology department of the University of Pittsburgh’s Magee-Women’s Hospital. “There’s no biological plausibility that a one-week break confers any protection against anything. At the turn of the century, the average number of menses per year was one or two, because women were breastfeeding or pregnant more often.”

Women at the turn of the century didn’t live as long as we do. They didn’t have additional estrogen and estrogen mimics in their meat, plastics, and spermicides. And there wasn’t estrogen in the water supply (where it fails to break down).

The caution (also from WebMD):

Other doctors…say continuous birth control may increase the amount of estrogen and progesterone that some women take in their lifetimes. The health effects of this experiment in convenience may not be known for years. After all, millions of menopausal women took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for decades before the risks became evident.

And…

Christine Hitchcock, PhD, researches menstrual cycles and ovulation. She worries that we also don’t know if continuous birth control could affect fertility. “The use of extended birth control pills is suppressing a complex, intricate hormonal system,” she says. “There are no long-term data to show whether changing the schedule of birth control affects how fast your periods come back when you go off, whether they come back, and your level of fertility.”

I’m 55, and finally past the whole menstrual mess. Yes, I’m hot flashing as I type this entry, but I’m no longer nesting. Nurturing and feeding everyone who walks into my house is no longer my focus. I do things for others. I care for my husband, but I don’t feel the need to take care of him.

Now, from my new perspective, I watch frantic, nervous, stressed young women, who do too much for everyone, care for everything, and nest at work and at home, and I wonder about their estrogen levels.

My daughter recently discovered that six months of emotional problems and extreme stress symptoms were almost completely estrogen-related. If she hadn’t discovered it for herself and stopped taking her birth control, she would have been a prime candidate for mood-altering medication and treatment for extreme weight loss. After listening to her weep and worry over the phone for several months — all very out of character — it’s a relief to have my daughter back.

Do we have entire generations of American women who don’t even know who they really are? And what about breast cancer? If it can increase with hormone replacement, what’s to say the same won’t hold true with such rampant, long-term, daily estrogen intake?!

How do the side-effects of all this chemical manipulation change a woman’s basic sense of attraction? What happens when a woman marries a man she’s only known while on the pill, then when she goes off the pill to get pregnant, suddenly finds that she doesn’t feel the same attraction to him anymore? Could it be because, for the years she’s known him, her chemistry was wacky? Maybe the physiological factors of divorce aren’t fully understood.

So what’s a self-sufficient, liberated woman to do? Here’s advice that seems obvious to me:

• Get to know yourself, the real you. Be aware of your emotions and how your physiological needs affect you.
• Stop and get curious. If you ask, “What’s going on?” you’ll gain some perspective. Is this you, or is it the pills you’re taking and/or the food you are (or are not) eating?
• Consider the real need for the pill. Compare the real and potential long-term risks and where you are with your relationship with men or your man.
• Read up.
• Know that you’re not alone. If you can’t get it together yourself, get professional help. Talk to your doctor, and if that doctor doesn’t talk it out with you, find another doctor.

Bottom line? Find the best way to make today’s modern chemistry work for YOU.

Want to learn more? Check out this article on environmental estrogens.

Photo by eva_n on Flikr.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been telling you all to “get curious,” and today, I’m taking a little of my own advice…

I once took birth control pills for five days. I instantly turned into a bipolar, weeping wreck. Every few years thereafter, a new, lower-dose pill would come out, and, being the modern woman I was, I’d try again. Every time, it turned out to be a disaster.

The pill was (is) a seminal component of the women’s movement. Instantly, women had more time, choices, and opportunity. The secret to having it all was simple: one pill, once a day.

Today, though, I see young women dealing with all the same issues I did and more. The urge to nest away, to care for everyone around us (all hormonally driven), has expanded from the home into the working world. It inevitably becomes overwhelming.

While contemplating my daughter’s similar experiences with birth control pills, I ran across this article, and it made me wonder:

How many women started taking the pill in puberty and really don’t know themselves today? How many are needlessly stressed, struggling with life crises, and nervous about everything from dating, to work, to their futures? Could it be because their natural chemistry has been altered for so long?

At scienceblog.com, one post says that estrogens may increase brain cell viability; another says that estrogens may be a cause of mental illness in young women.

Geez.

I’m not categorically down on hormone manipulation. Certainly, for some women, estrogens are a lifesaver. I just wonder: How much of this stress I see — in my clients, family, friends — might be due to estrogens?

To be continued…

Yesterday a friend asked me if my book has anything in it about relationships with men of different cultures. She has been divorced for a few years and has recently begun dating a Congolese.

Wow. That’s a cultural difference. What an interesting experience it must be!
The question of the week: What are the secrets to dating someone from an entirely different culture?

The question expands to all relationships:

• What do you do when you are attracted and at first it’s good, but then strange expectations and misunderstandings pop up?
• What do you do if you think that you might not be compatible but you hate to break up because there’s something special between you?
• What if you are married but just not compatible any more?

My first thought: Forget compatibility. Give up expecting to agree, expecting to see things the same way, and expecting to be in sync all the time with anyone. Here’s why:

1. We’re all different. We each live in separate realities. My best friend’s world is very different from mine and the way we look at the world is very different, but we are still best friends.
2. Men and women are different, with completely different orientations to the world. The longer you live with someone, the more you see it.
3. We all come from different families and backgrounds with different experiences.
4. Even when you are married, over time you are each hit with different responsibilities and different experiences and grow at different rates and in different ways at different times.

The secret: Get curious, not angry, when the unexpected pops up.

If together you can get beyond your cultural, family, and personal backgrounds and beyond your expectations and assumptions about way things should be, then you are on the right track. If you can deeply appreciate each other and enjoy figuring out your lives together, then maybe you’re a match.
If you’re married and once had all that, chances are pretty good that you can get back to that closeness again.

If you’re dating and you can’t seem to get to that level, whether he’s Congolese or the guy next door, learn from the experience and move on.

Does that make sense?
You can read more about compatibility and lifestyle design in Chapter 8, “Don’t Work at It” in Men Are Easy.