Here’s the 3rd
member of the Holy Trinity among the 5 Power Sources. These three overlap and are highly related.
3.
EMPATHY
I once saw a poster that I thought was the perfect
definition of empathy. It read, “When
you cry, I taste salt”.
Empathy is the
ability to put yourself in another’s shoes, to be so in touch that you have
intuitive and emotional understanding of what another person is experiencing
and feeling. One can understand another
person’s experience and emotion rationally and intellectually, but this is only
partial understanding and therefore not true Empathy. True Empathy, at its fullest, involves a
felt emotional connection between two people.
Empathic (not “empathetic”) communication is the ability
to express in your own words to another what that other must be feeling and
experiencing in such a way that the other feels fully understood.
Clearly, reason and factual knowledge and personal
experience are powerful aids to one’s ability to be empathic. But there is more: The right-brained “gut reaction” that we
women tend to experience more fully than men.
Sidebar: About “power” – Male power tends to be more
authority-based. I can give orders due
to my position, experience, superior knowledge, etc. Female power is typically more “influence”
based. I don’t need necessarily to be
the boss or formal leader. My power
comes through interpersonal connection.
Empathy, and empathic communication add the power of deep
Human Connection to the BIG
THREE. All “success” is social; no one
holds interpersonal power which is not granted by others. Preach or command all you want. If others don’t listen or follow, what
power do you really have? (only the
power to create hot air!).
Empathy, then, adds the magic social touch to your
Emotion and Intuition when others are involved.
Emotion = added data, deeper feeling.
Intuition = higher wisdom
Empathy = Emotional and Intuitive connection.
The demonstration of empathy adds considerable social
power through the feeling of bonding which is created when one feels fully or
properly understood by another. Empathy
boosts Influence.
Empathy’s handmaiden is Compassion. Compassion is also a significant Female
Power Source, but I include it under Empathy for our discussion.
Compassion fuels Empathy and is often the driving force
behind it. Empathy is the
“understanding”, Compassion is often the reason that Empathy is expressed in
the first place.
We’ve wrapped up the Big Three. On to Power Source Four in my next blog.
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NEWS FLASH! Simply Woman ezine has just published my article, "7 Ways To Command The Respect You Deserve". Here's the link:
Last time, I discussed
EMOTION as the first female power source.
Now for Number Two, which is closely related to Emotion.
2. INTUITION
In the discussion of Emotion, I commented that women are
more “rational” than men because we include emotion in our decision-making as a
source of data. This factor is a
significant reason that “Women’s Intuition” is so powerful, and more often
accurate and deep. It is actually
another form of intelligence.
While
Intuition, the ability to sense at emotional and “gut” levels the depth of what
is going on and to “foretell the future”, may play a lesser part in
“knowledge”, the acquiring of facts, etc.; it plays a huge part in “wisdom”,
the understanding and integration of knowledge, human behavior, and
circumstances to inform judgment.
Intuition is a special, and particularly feminine, form
of “knowing”. It is somewhat mystical,
the “6th sense” that is written about so frequently. Again, as with Emotion, the thicker corpus
callosum in the female brain facilitates greater communication between the
brain hemispheres. The fact that we
are more right-brained than the typical man, gives us women an intuitive edge.
Here’s the Power Progression which is at work: Emotional
Knowing + Intuitive Knowing =
more Experiential Knowing = more Passionate Knowing. We women use our whole selves as instruments of knowing, which makes our understanding
more real and authentic. Thus we
transcend just factual understanding, into a more complete whole-brained and
body knowing.
A second brain-factor which facilitates women’s Intuition
is the fact that the female brain is created for relationship. As a group,
therefore, we are much more aware of subtle social and environmental cues than
men typically are. This subtle, often
subconscious awareness fuels our “6th sense” and make our Intuition
more expansive and powerful.
Here’s an example.
You and your guy were at a social event. On the way home in the car you and he are
discussing the evening. You tell all
kinds of details about what was going on, who was playing up to whom, etc. All this goes right over his head. He’s not dense. He’s just thinking with his male brain,
which is not as tuned in to social cues.
(In all fairness, if you were hiking with him in the woods, he’d
probably be the first to notice the deer hidden in the thick underbrush.)
Women’s Intuition is fueled by several components: (A) Our whole-brained way of experiencing and
understanding. (B) Our brain’s ability
to spot and read social cues. (c) Our
life experience. The more familiarity
we have about certain circumstances and types of situations, the greater our
ability to intuit in similar situations now.
(D) Women tend to be better, deeper listeners and observers.
Put all this together and we find that women can excel at
decision-making: (A) We typically look
at and ponder every side of an issue, (B) We more frequently consider how
others will be affected, and (C) We more readily talk things through, which adds
to the pool of available data, ideas, thoughts, and opinions. VOILA!
A more balanced and effective outcome with potentially sounder judgment.
Now, granted, there are plenty of variations between
individual members of each gender, so what I said about men and women cannot be
taken as true in every case. There are
plenty of intuitive guys, and “dense” gals.
But in general, my comments apply accurately to the vast majority.
"Trusting your intuition means tuning in as deeply as you can to the energy you feel, following that energy moment to moment, trusting that it will lead you where you want to go and bring you everything you desire" - Shakti Gawain
Time to stop for today.
We’ve covered two of the Female Big Three power sources. My next blog will cover the third member of
the triumvirate.
Resources
Takai, M. She-Q:
Why women should mentor men and Change the World.
Santa
Barbara, Praeger, 2012
www.simplywoman.com
Check out The GLORY MEDITATION on www.scarvesstyleandglory.com. It will lead you into a relaxed state, melting away stress, and flood your mind with powerful messages and images to help make your inner radiance shine. Find it under Featured Product tab. Free to Women of Style and Glory members.
(NOTE: I am interrupting the promised sequence of The 5 Female Power Sources, due to feed back I was getting re a video which is posted on my facebook page of a 13 year old girl whose confidence was shaken by the media messages to girls. Objectification of girls and women is a major problem with potentially lifelong consequences.
I wrote this article for Gather magazine in response to the article mentioned below in my post. I was going to use it as a future blog, but since the video is up now, I wanted this article out there today.
As Elyse
Nelson Winger pointed out in her recent article “Clothes Talk”, in Gather, our
male-dominated media culture is sexually exploiting our Tween and Teen
daughters at an increasingly alarming rate.
Not only does it sexually objectify our daughters at younger and younger
ages, it insults women in general.
Sitcoms and “reality TV” shows portray us as emotional bitches who
easily degrade ourselves into cat-fighting.
All of this
is very appealing to men and boosts ratings.
But far worse than momentarily demeaning women and girls, it has
tremendous negative long-term impact on girls’ images of themselves and their
self esteem.
The
fall-out of all this is devastating to both girls and boys.
First, it
sends a not-so-subtle message that (a) sex is primary between boys and girls,
and (B) boys are the “shoppers”, and girls are to be the “objects of
desire”. The main message is that
girls exist for male pleasure and that the most important thing for a girl is
to attract a handsome guy. Boys learn
to disrespect, objectify, and “use” girls.
Frankly,
that message has always been there, but today, it is being more sexualized and
pushed younger and younger.
Our
daughters are increasingly being “objectified” by the media. The results are devastating. Studies show that girls and women who self
objectify have lower self-esteem, are more confused as to their self-identity,
have alarmingly higher rates of depression in adulthood, and consistently
underperform in the use of their intelligence, skills, and talents. Just as bad, our daughters are subtly being
taught to make daily choices and actions that are in others’ interests and not
their own.
All of this
is just the tip of the media culture iceberg.
To go deeper is beyond the scope of this article.
Mothers,
how can you rescue your daughters from this fate?
The
pressures of not just the media, but also teenage conformity behavior, are
strong. The task is not easy. Where do you begin?
Protecting
and saving your daughter begins with your relationship!
The worst
thing that can happen to the parents of teens is to be fired by their kids as
consultants! You have less and less
control as your children get older.
Therefore, your only power lies in your kids’ willingness to listen to
you and see you as a valid source of information.
That said,
how can you approach your daughters (and sons, too) on this topic?
Rule
#1: Don’t preach or try to scare
them. They’ll turn you off in a
heartbeat. Rather approach them in a
conversational way. Tell them that you
respect their choices, but that you have some concerns about clothing choices
and what those choices say to others.
The key to
“hooking” your daughters into listening to you is not to talk first about clothes.
Rather the
context needs to be around authenticity, self-respect, and individuality. As your daughter goes through her teens,
her most important questions need to be, “Who am I?”, “What do I want out of
life?”, “What are my natural skills and talents?”, “What do I want to do with
my life?” (This is more than, “What do
I want to be when I grow up?” It’s about
passion and purpose.)
You want to
get her thinking and talking in personally empowered ways. Get her envisioning a bold, empowered future
where she can accomplish whatever she desires, and make a huge impact on the
world.
Get her
thinking and talking about being her own person, defining her own authenticity
and uniqueness. What can she contribute
to the world? What are her natural
gifts? How can she truly earn the
respect and admiration of others, beyond the superficial aspect of looks and
appearance?
Notice that
none of this has anything to do with clothes so far!
The next
logical set of questions to get her talking about revolves around, “How do you
want to be seen?, What impressions do you want to make?, How do you want to be
regarded and respected?
Your goal
is to get her to start seeing a disconnect between her self-respect, her
authentic higher truth, and her attire.
Here are
some points you can casually throw in as appropriate.
·“Dress poorly, they notice the clothes; dress
well and they notice the woman.” - Coco
Chanel
·A girl may think about sex 4-5 times a day; a
guy can have a sexual thought every 57 seconds.
·Boys have a natural “FEMALE BINARY”: They inherently know that there are just two
kinds of girls – those you play with and toss away, and those you respect and
eventually marry.
·To boys, if your words say one thing and your
clothes say another, boys will listen to the clothes first.
·Clothes speak louder than words.
·“Alluring” is ultimately more attractive than
“sexy”. A little “mystery” is a good
thing.
·“Glamour” has been shown in study after study to
be based more on a girl’s confidence and inner radiance than on sexy
clothing. Therefore, do you want to be
seen as “glamorous” or as “sexy”, or “slutty”?
·“Sexy” comes in two styles: “high-level”, ie, alluring, glamorous, and
“low-level”, ie slutty.
·Is your overall message consistent? Do your clothes really say what you want people to think?
·“Popular” is nice, but at what price?
·“Style” (the total look: Clothes, actions,
attitudes) is most effective when it is internally consistent and intentional,
ie. put together by thoughtful design.
Also, have frank discussions with
your kids about the subtle messages put out by
the media that they see and hear. Again, don’t preach, but draw them
out. Get them thinking and talking critically
about the messages they are observing.
The first
bridge in my “4 Bridges” Model of Female Empowerment is “object to subject”, or
“puppet to person”. I refer to the
“Pinocchioic Journey” from self-objectification to authenticity. On
this bridge, the most important question to ask oneself is “Why?” “Why am I doing what I’m doing, or dressing
in this particular way?” To please
others (objectification) or to please and be true to me, my character, my
highest values (authenticity).
Clearly, Mom, this is a tough
issue. How you approach the “clothes
conversation” is critical.
This information should help.
Here are
some useful resources:
www.mediasavvygirls.com (Creators of the video on my page)
·Miss Representation – Video documentary by Oprah
Winfrey Network. This is a must-see,
and worth watching and discussing as a family.
·Levin, D. and Kilbourne, J. – So Sexy, So Soon, N.Y., Ballantine,
2008
·Holiday, E. and Rosenberg, J. – Mean Girls, Meaner Women, 2009. Order on Amazon.
·www.ScarvesStyleAndGlory.com has a lot of useful information on style,
intentionality, and true feminine radiance.
***************
Priscilla A. Wainwright, Ph.D., CPC, is an empowerment coach
for women on the rise. She is founder
of www.ScarvesStyleAndGlory.com,
which sells scarves and offers free
style tips, style and empowerment coaching and The Women of Style and Glory Online Community. She may be contacted through her website.
There are 5 qualities that are naturally especially
strong in women by virtue of the unique structure of the female brain. These qualities are built in by virtue of
being born female. They are your
Feminine Birthright
Granted,
any individual woman may experience them in various ways with differing
levels of depth. They can, however, be developed in my
coaching, and on my site, ScarvesStyleandGlory.com. I work with women to optimize them in their
lives.
As
I pointed out in my previous Blog, to be fully empowered as a woman, you need to
embrace and express fully the
Inner Feminine Spirit, of which these qualities form a foundation.
1.
EMOTION:
This is a very powerful source of our strength and intelligence, and
one which most men, and many women as well, do not understand.
Male chauvinist, Henry Higgins, expressed the typical
attitude of men, although he was, admittedly, “over the top”. “Women are irrational! That’s all there is to that. Their heads are full of cotton, hay and
rags.” (My Fair Lady)
Let’s not forget, men typically fear women’s emotion,
so the Patriarchy denigrates it.
What so often comes to mind at first blush when we
think of “female emotion” are crying jags and anger outbursts. This is NOT what I mean by “emotion”.
Crying jags and tantrums are not
expression of feminine power. They
actually weaken our position in
others’ eyes. However, because we are
so close to our feelings, many women resort to these in order to fight,
manipulate, or control.
By “EMOTION”, I am referring to our feeling
nature. The woman’s brain processes
reason and emotion in very close physical areas. It’s as if we process Reason in Minneapolis
and Emotion in St. Paul, and the connection between them is an 18 lane
superhighway. (The Corpus Callosum
which connects the right and left brain hemispheres is actually quite a bit
thicker in the female brain than in the male brain. This facilitates the greater connection we
women experience between reason and emotion.)
Unlike for men, who try to suppress feelings, women
naturally use feelings as sources of data, while the Patriarchy (out of fear as
well as misunderstanding) devalues emotion.
It is integral to the female experience of life. We should not deny feeling but embrace it
as a key part of living in the world.
Sadly, however, too many women, poisoned by the Patriarchy, devalue
feeling. By doing so, they cut off not
only much of life’s richness, but also a key source of female wisdom.
So……..if “rational” is the pathway to “wisdom”, then women are more rational than men. By adding emotion as data, we actually have
a richer “wisdom” than one which is arrived at by “reason” alone.
“Emotion” is also very helpful in decision-making,
particularly when a “gut reaction” is an important consideration in the final
outcome, and when other people are involved.
Left-brain “reason”, combined with right-brain “emotion” makes for a
more well-rounded and effective decision with better aftereffects.
A caveat is in order here. Our feelings do not always accurately
represent the “truth”. Feelings are subject to fluctuation,
triggered by mistaken ideas, incorrect perceptions, or negative attitudes. Our specific feelings may lead us to
incorrect conclusions. “Emotion”, the
fact and nature of feeling, however, is a viable and vital female power
source. This is especially true when
emotion is managed well.
Time to stop for today. I will pick up on the rest of the Power
Sources tomorrow in my next Blog.
--------------------------------
Check out Crystal Andrus, www.simplywoman.com. Great information in her ezine.
ALSO Check out THE GLORY MEDITATION on www.ScarvesStyleAndGlory.com. It will lead you into a deep state of relaxation which will reduce your stress. Then it floods your mind with powerful affirmations and other positive messages and imagery to help you release and express your Feminine Radiance. Find it under our Featured Product tab. It is FREE to Women of Style and Glory community members.
