Men and Women Living Big: Part Three
1. Replacing Male and Female Stereotypes With Self-Respect!
A cultural stereotype to be a “good” woman or a “good” man is to be self-sacrificing. The other day when I came home from work my son was upset with me. I asked him, “What is the problem?” He responded with, “You did not respect my time.” He then explained that I had asked him to do a task and it took a lot longer than I had led him to believe it would take. He was clear that he wanted to help me, however there had to be boundaries on what that task would be.
Men and Women Living Big: Part Two
1. We Are All Born to Cry and Laugh
I taught my sons that crying can be a releasing of tension, recognition of pain, or joy. I taught them that there is a difference between crying about something from the past, versus crying from something in their life right now. Crying does not make them a “sissy.” Unfortunately, having a female trait in males is often seen as being cowardly. I normalized crying for both genders.
Men and Women Living Big: Part One
Living Big is a way of being, living in a large and far reaching manner. Leaving a legacy of substance!
We live in a culture that historically stereotypes and separates genders, causing both men and women to suffer as being incomplete. It shrinks our ability to be big in the world. Because of this sense of being incomplete, we can be prone to objectify ourselves and the other gender as “other” with a value implication. This culture stereotyping and conditioning dictates what is manly and what is womanly.
The Human Spirit Rises to Meet the Spirit of the Natural World
Isn’t it incredible how we all are surrounded by the beauty of the Natural World? The Natural World lavishes us with unabashed beauty. Over the past two weeks I have enjoyed the winter Olympics in my home city Vancouver, Canada. It was an amazing experience, filled with joy, pride, compassion, kindness, celebration and patriotism that Canada has never seen before. Everywhere people were beaming. I have never experienced such a vast number of people gathered together celebrating life, and being with each other in such a sustained way. WOW!!!
