The Importance of Women’s Friendships

31. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Self Improvement · Tags: , ,


Copyright (c) 2009 Karin Marcus

The special bond found in female friendships has proven to have tremendous benefits, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Now is the perfect time to reinforce and celebrate those relationships. Sunday, September 19th is the 10th National Women’s Friendship Day. This celebration has been endorsed by the governors of thirty-four states, and has become so popular that now the entire month of September has been declared the National Women’s Friendship Month!

Why are women’s friendships so important that they warrant national recognition? In recent years, research has shown that friendships between women have a wide range of health benefits that have widespread socio-economic repercussions. Through their friendships women build nurturing, emotionally-fulfilling bonds that serve as highly effective support systems. Within these relationships, women gain self esteem and validation. They find support in times of trouble and safe avenues for expressing their feelings and thoughts. A circle of women creates a sacred space that allows each to be more deeply present and proactive in their lives. In general, women with close female friends experience greater happiness and fulfillment.

These emotional benefits have direct physiological effects. A landmark UCLA study found that in times of stress, when men normally respond with a “fight or flight” reflex, women have an additional choice in their behavioral repertoire, to “tend and befriend.” They pull together to support and nurture one another. This behavior releases extra oxytocin, a chemical that counters stress and produces a calming effect. Women connecting with women can actually assist in lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. A Harvard Medical School Nurse’s Health Study further shows that because stress also wreaks havoc on blood glucose levels, healing, bone density and the aging process, women’s friendships can help counteract all these detrimental effects of stress as well. Conversely, researchers also concluded that NOT having close friends is as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight.

Other studies suggest that an older woman’s risk of dying from heart disease may be linked to the number of family and social relationships she has. In one study among 503 women with symptoms of coronary artery disease, those with few personal contacts were more than twice as likely to die over the next two to four years as women with more social ties. When the researchers also looked at how women coped with widowhood, they found that those who had a close confidante were more likely to survive the experience without suffering new and lasting physical ailments or permanent loss of vitality. Finally, science is confirming what we knew all along! Our girlfriends are essential to our well being, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So, take the time during this National Women’s Friendship Month to acknowledge and enhance all your wonderful friendships. There are all sorts of ways to celebrate. You can reconnect with a friend over lunch or plan a girl’s night out or even a weekend getaway. You can take part in a women’s health fair, or a seminar on an issue important to women, or organize a clothing drive for needy women. You can expand your circle of women friends by going on a women’s retreat or join a women’s group like The Transitions Network which is a national organization for women over fifty. Look in you local papers to see what special activities are going on to commemorate this month. Commit to doing something to strengthen these important relationships. Embrace your sisterhood!


Playing Hurt

30. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Self Improvement · Tags: , ,


“Do not look forward to what might happen tomorrow: The same God who cares for you today will take care of you and yours tomorrow and everyday. Either God will shield you from suffering or God will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.” St Francis Desales

“Hands down,” my husband said. “It’s Super Bowl Sunday and you need to write another “Playing Hurt” Newsletter.

It was a tradition started by our old pastor and dear friend, Wayne Smith, arguably one of the most influential Christian pastors in America. He preached tirelessly for over forty years to the faithful who, Sunday after Sunday, both drove great distances to hear him preach as well as sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for endless miles of the stretch down the only highway leading to the mammoth church in Kentucky. His message was always divinely inspired, but it was his yearly “Playing Hurt” sermon on Super Bowl Sunday that drew the ravest reviews.

It’s because most of us are playing hurt. In one way or another.

And so I wrote my first “Playing Hurt” Newsletter last year, as I played “excruciatingly hurt” when Nick got diagnosed with cancer. Am I worry-free now? Completely walking in faith without shuffling in fear? Absolutely not. I’m only human. I still play hurt on some days, like I did this Thursday when I got a phone call from him saying that he had a fever and was in the doctor’s office. My stomach moved to my throat; my heart raced faster; and my mind played mental gymnastics that were something less than limber.

I admit to playing hurt this year for entirely different reasons. I’m a tad bit physically hurt…but it’s that “good hurt” that comes from exhausting exercise, the kind that I didn’t get quite enough of last year because of Nick’s treatment. It’s similar to the kind of hurt that the football players in the Super Bowl play through. Achy muscle hurt. Broken bone hurt. Sore ribs hurt. As the football players stay in the game despite their hurt (did you catch the player riding the stationary bike through a pulled groin?), I booked a tennis game for tomorrow morning. Despite a throbbing previously-broken shoulder and a throbbing-even-more previously-shattered leg. I need to play hurt to make my body even stronger. Professional football players stay in the Super Bowl with broken fingers, pounding muscles, and aching heads. They stick it out until the end. Keep their eye on the ball. Until the game is over and a winner declared.

This year finds many friends of mine suffering emotional pain, and I’m playing hurt with them. Fractured relationships, parenting challenges, strained marriages. Playing hurt while helping them sort out difficult issues. And I have my own playing hurt issues to resolve, too. Disappointments on the business and personal side that require healing.

And these long, bitter days of winter don’t exactly help to lift our spirits, do they? Full of bleakness and of gray, devoid of sunshine and flowers, our landscapes are marked by leafless trees and barely-bubbling creeks. The dreariness makes it even easier to bathe in hurt and in pain. To become depressed with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. With little in the next weeks to look forward to other than a possible delivery from the florist on Valentine’s Day or the surprise of some dark chocolate, it’s almost “natural” to walk around playing completely hurt. No bright, happy colors in wardrobes or nature to inspire and delight our senses, playing hurt in January seems a logical choice.

All of us play hurt at some point in our lives. It’s not the
playing hurt that separates us from the rest; it’s how we choose
to play when we play hurt. I am fully aware that when I play sad
when playing hurt, that I do not play my best game. Because I
wallow in too much self-pity and take my eye off the ball. I am
also fully aware that when I play scared when playing hurt I do
not play my best game, either. Because then I live in fear
instead of in faith. And when I play angry, I play a pretty
horrible game, too. Because then I get cranky with everyone
around me and take all the fun out of things. Playing angry when
playing hurt serves no useful purpose at all; I need to clean out a closet or sweep the hardwood floors on those days.

When I play hurt, I need to play strong. I need to abandon fear and worry and instead, incorporate a walk in faith. “The Lord is
near the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” I need to stop playing angry and get on with the game. I need to enter into the game with joy and with hope, for “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not grow faint.”

Playing hurt is never as much fun as playing pain-free. Not in football nor in tennis nor in life. But playing hurt is something that, every now and then, we are forced to play. And sometimes through it, but certainly in the end, we’ll see the beauty in strength. “…strength that endures the unendurable
and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that He has for us.” (Colossians 1: 11-12)

With daffodils and sunshine just around the corner, I pray that whether you’re playing hurt or playing strong, you will gain strength with each passing day and that you will eventually soar like the eagles. Just like the pros at the Super Bowl.

How Conquering Perfectionism Will Massively Increase Your Success

08. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Self Improvement · Tags: , ,


You hear it all the time: “I’m too much of a perfectionist to leave it like that,” or “I can’t help it, I’m a perfectionist,” or any number of other variations, usually stated in a way that implies perfectionism is a characteristic worth cultivating. The truth, on the contrary, is that perfectionism is an excuse, not an endeavor to be undertaken. It is a well-disguised form of fear and procrastination.

fear of being judged
fear of failure / success
fear of taking action

Here’s the reality: as you are wrapped up in trying to achieve perfection before taking the next step, or worse, waiting for the perfect conditions in order to even BEGIN, you are being overtaken and eliminated by your faster, more determined, less compulsive competition! The most successful people throughout history have failed far more times than they’ve succeeded. What makes them brilliant examples and mentors for the rest of us is not their ratio of success to failure, but their willingness to take action. The impossible pursuit of perfection will, in fact, stop you from ever achieving true greatness, so instead, just DO something NOW.

Does this mean you should settle for producing mediocre results and hope they somehow bear fruit? Of course not. You should always, always put forth your best effort in any undertaking, or don’t bother (because it clearly is not worthy of your time and attention). When you have done so, take a deep breath and send that effort into the world with love and intention, but do NOT tie it to your self-worth. Understand that you will not please everyone (another impossibility), and that you WILL be judged… then deal with it. Learn from your results and try again! And again. And again. Feel your fear and embrace it as a sign that is the direction of your greatest opportunity for growth!

As you see results, your motivation to make new attempts and reach new heights will increase alongside your courage! Your successes will accumulate alongside your confidence! It is determination, persistence, vision, and action that will pay off both in the long term and the short term… perfectionism is for wimps.

What can you DO today?

Closet Organization – A Six Step Process to Perfect Closet Storage

19. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Self Improvement · Tags: , ,




If your closet is a jumble of mismatched shoes and purses all over the floor, dry-cleaning bags sticking out every which way, outfits you haven’t worn in months (or years!) hogging up all your space, and a general mess of wrinkles and missing buttons, don’t despair. It’s time to get a grip, and what you need is a plan.

Step 1. Evaluate your horrible closet. Open the door, and stare the beast in the face. The first thing to determine is whether the root of the problem is the closet, or the lack of a system for using the closet. Look carefully at the following: IF your items were properly put away, would you have enough hanging space? Shelf space? Drawer space? Shoe space? If the answer to those is yes, then congratulations! You can move right on to the next step. If the answer is no, you have a little more homework. Make a list of exactly where your closet is falling short. Now take all of the internal measurements of your closet. You’ll need to make a visit to your local hardware or department store to get the organizational pieces you’ll need, or if you’re really in a tough situation, make use of one of the many closet design tools available online. Once this is taken care of, you’re ready to move on to putting the system in place. You’ll need the following: a couple of large garbage bags, a laundry basket, and a starter set of hangers. These hangers should all be matching, and NOT made of wire, which get all tangled up and damage your clothing. Don’t forget hangers for pants and skirts.

Step 2. Take EVERYTHING out of the closet so that you can start with a clean slate. As you take them out, you will separate them into three piles:

damaged, outdated, or doesn’t fit (if you’re not sure, try them on now) pieces you still like but need minor repairs (think buttons, hem changes, etc) pieces you wear and regularly AND feel good in.
Now, take all of the items from the damaged/outdated/doesn’t fit pile and put them in the garbage bags. Remove them from the house immediately. Go put them in your car to be dropped off at the donation center the very next time you’re out. There is absolutely no need to keep these items in your life. Examine the items in the minor repair pile. Place these in the laundry basket. Set a deadline to make the repairs, or they join their friends at the donation center. If something isn’t important enough for you to repair in a timely manner, it’s not important enough to keep. (The fastest way to get this done is just to take them to the drycleaner and let them do it for you. It’s very inexpensive, and can be done in just a day or two.)

Step 3. Move on to the pile of your regularly worn items, and separate them into categories by TYPE of item. I recommend the following: sleeveless, short sleeve, long sleeve, sweaters and jackets / blazers, skirts, pants, and special occasion. When that is done, place the items to be hung on hangers, and fold the rest. Here’s a tip: the more you are able to keep like items together, the easier it is to find what you’re looking for, and also to maintain the system. For instance, if you just hang ALL of your short sleeve shirts, instead of hanging some and folding others, you only have one place to go to find them or put them away, right?

Step 4. Arrange each category by color as follows: whites and creams, pinks, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples, brown, blacks, grays. The logic is simple: Let’s say it’s summer and you’ve grabbed a pair of brown pants. You now know right where to reach for a sleeveless or short sleeve top to match, instead of having to rifle through to find the color you wanted! (I also know a lot of organizers who sort by color only, and not by style. My problem with that is that the sleeveless shirts get lost in the long sleeves, and the long sleeves get swallowed by the sweaters, and the bottoms aren’t separate from the tops, so you still have to do a fair amount of shuffling to put an outfit together.)

Step 5. This is about controlling the little things: the underwear, socks, bras, hosiery, scarves, ties, etc. For this, I strongly suggest a set of stacking shelves or drawers, into which you can put separate plastic organizers for each item – many stores even sell dividers designed for each of these things. No room for shelves or drawers? Get one of those wire, over-the-door shoe racks. They are terrible for shoes, but are a perfect accessory organizer in disguise! Necklaces can be hung over the prongs to keep them from getting tangled, earrings and watches from the cross-bars; bras, pantyhose, belts, purses and hats are also now right in reach!

Step 6. It’s now time to address the shoes, if they live in the same closet as your clothes, and we’re going to use the same process we followed earlier. Put them in pairs if they aren’t already and then assess them. Do you wear them? Are they in good condition? How many of that color do you have? If you have more than 2 or 3 of any color, it is probably safe to pare down. When you put the keepers back into the closet, just like the other categories, arrange them in rainbow order so that you know just where to reach for what you want, and you know just where to put them away at the end of the day. You’ll now find that not only is getting ready a much smoother process, but that maintaining the system is a no-brainer, and I know you’ll agree that when your morning goes smoothly, it’s a much more pleasant beginning to your day’s journey.

Spiritual Skies, That We Seek to Under Stand

08. September 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Self Improvement · Tags: , ,




“In everyone’s heart stirs a great homesickness” Rabbi Seymour Siegel

Spirituality for us is a need for many who desire the sense of belonging. Just like a turtle that is just hatched and knows to go straight to the ocean, and swims for years just to come back to the same shores it was born. And it does it without a compass, maybe the compass is built in. If we were to take a lesson from the little turtles then we too will realize that we as humans are searching to go back to where we belong, this too is built in us. The search has always been if we look at our past. Our known history has left clues for us to realize the importance our ancestors have placed on spirituality. Be it ancient Greeks or Aztecs, or the magnificent buildings that ancient Egyptians have built for their spiritual masters. If a person does not cultivate the power of heart towards compassion, how can it find its way home? As majority of us feel pure when we act upon the kindness that is within our hearts, that takes us home even for a little moment we feel joyous.

Our population is round about seven billion on earth and out of seven billion of us about over six billion of us feels that we need to feel spiritual, and I personally agree. We just tend to label our spirituality different. But at the end of the day it is personal. Yet to share same faith, same point of view seems more fruitful for many of us, thus there are religions. And many of us search a personal light personal heaven either within or outside. Know the world in yourself. Each truth you learn will be, for you, as new as if it had never been written, and the book of your life, your spirituality, will then be written with gratitude for you exist and you belong to the higher powers that you seek.

We are living in times that strive for so much, so many demands that is put before our senses, thus it rather overwhelms many of us, and we tend to shine away from the very light we seek. On the other hand we are told we need to be spiritual more so than we are. The golden rule to remember is balance, as the priests or mullahs would like to guide their flock. As we cannot all go to the mountain tops and live a life of monks, if we did, who then would grow the crops to feed us, so balance is very important.

As the universal question that has always been asked and still we ask. What and where is God. Answer to this question is a mystery as it is not proven by many who lived before or science that is advanced still leaves us with the very same question for all of us. Then we tend to feel that we are not meant to know, yet build our hearts faith, so we may follow the teachings that are on the menu. As when we are young we are absolute masters of our ships knowing exactly where and how we are going to sail in life. But as years are lived and the certainty of time being limited whispers, is this it? And we then are busier to find belonging, also some people feel this is it, this is all there is.

As the proverb says “all seed answer light, but the color is different. The plant reveals what is in the seed” we too are seeds who seek light in our own ways to reach high on spiritual skies, and wondrous is the sky, always fascinating us with its decorations, like a greatest work of magic ever assembled in one place for our eyes us here on earth, we all feel awe when we gaze the nights sky. And many of us remember as child when our loving parents have taken us to camping adventures, we see the magic as soon as one star falls quickly wishing another. The will to believe in something is within us all, most use the word faith is probably in religious content. Yet even the devout faithful sometimes wonder; why must I blindly believe. Why must I trust? Some rather begin with doubt working, climbing the ladder of wisdom. To find a spiritual path we all search and take our pick from the menu. What ever makes sense for individual then the spirituality is obtained with certainty. Everyone finds himself in the world where he belongs. The essential thing is to have a fixed point from which to check its reality now and then. Always watch and follow nature of things, most important nature itself. Those who truly understand spirituality, from all walks of life from every corner of earth will tell you it is not the difference we need to concentrate of spirituality, rather, the similarity.

We, as we grow and experience life should not believe a word without putting its truth to the test; discernment does not grow in laziness; and this faculty of discernment is indispensable to the Seeker. Sound skepticism is the necessary condition for good discernment; but piecemeal criticism is an error. And just like the turtles who hatch from and egg, and go on a journey never taken before, to only come back to the shores where it was born, turtles compass, built in a mysterious way we simply do not understand, just like the silent inner voice of our souls seeking the light to shine like a star in the spiritual skies to belong in spiritual unity and love. We seek quietly as we are spiritual beings. As the spiritual humans know that the gift of Heaven is free, this GIFT of LIFE, is so great that no effort whatever could hope to ‘deserve’ it. Yet it is given as a gift just to find our way back home.

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