This isn’t a trick question from Goldilocks and The Three Bears; It is a bona fide question that can get at the heart of how comfortable you feel in your own skin. How comfortable you feel about who you are will directly impact your ability to create a life by your own design that brings you the success and fulfillment you desire on your own terms. What do I mean by this?

Well, just as in the fairy tale, there is a “right fit” for each of us in terms of who we are and how we show up in the world. If it’s not a fit we feel out of sorts, frustrated, stuck, exhausted, and generally unhappy. This can happen in our work lives, relationships, personal pursuits, spirituality, and generally any part of our complex lives. When we do experience this feeling of “out of sorts” it is just like Goldilocks sitting in the Great Big Bear’s chair (”too big”) or the Middle Bear’s chair (”too squishy”). It’s not exactly painful or overtly awful, just uncomfortable and not quite right. Oftentimes in our lives we stay in the “not quite right” state for years and years Read the rest of this entry »

Last night like many of you we watched the Season Four Finale of The L Word with friends. From a personal opinion standpoint I think it was the best finale the series has served up thus far. As I got to thinking about the different storylines on the way home, the theme that most stood out for me was that of being willing to be vulnerable and taking a risk for what you really believe in. Here’s how I saw this theme playing out. (if you haven’t seen the episode yet, bookmark this post because it’ll spoil it for you)

The characters that most exemplified this for me were the scenes with Bette and Jodi and those with Alice and Tasha. First let me delve in to the Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Jodi (Marlee Matlin) story. We all know by now that Bette is a control freak and has to be right in every situation. What I noticed last night, though was her real willingness to take a risk, be vulnerable, and see herself truthfully maybe for the first time. Read the rest of this entry »

If not now, when?

Happiness really is all it is cracked up to be. If you’re not happy with your life, then the days become something to be endured. And, since life is short and tomorrow is guaranteed to no one, why not be happy today? So often we go through our days waiting for something big to make us happy. We wait for the perfect girlfriend, job, house, vacation, etc. and then we’ll be happy. The problem with this is - nothing we can acquire can make us happy. And, even if and when we get what we want, we find we’re essentially unchanged. It didn’t make us happy? Why? Because only we can cultivate our own happiness starting from the inside.

I recently wrote an entended article entited “I Will Be Happy When…” on this very subject as part of my monthly newsletter. Here’s a snippet…

A great life is lived right here and now. If you can’t be happy, grateful, and fully alive with the current condition of your life, you won’t miraculously be transformed just because you get something (in the external world) that you say you want. That doesn’t mean making changes and achieving things you want can’t improve your life. It most certainly can and will. Yet, achieving goals is just a magnifier of what already IS whether that is a feeling of abundance or lack. How can that be you say?

Read the rest of the article here. And, if you’d like to receive more articles like this as well as special offers, deals, and information available first and sometimes exclusively only to members of my list, subscribe to the newsletter.

I recently started “reading” (the audiobook) Suze Orman’s new book “Women & Money”. So far I’m still a little amazed at the fact that she never utters the word gay or lesbian when referring to unmarried women or women with a partner even though she is now out herself. The fundamentals are all the same (I’m up to the part of the book where she helps women understand cash flow and savings) but it would be nice to get a little acknowledgment and validation from one of our own when listening to a frank discussion of our money. She talks about a number of reasons why women struggle with money, and one of those is a lack of self-confidence or asking for what we really want and deserve. A little more pride behind our financial teachers might help with our own self-confidence building as we observe powerful role models. But I digress…

Now that I am off my little soap box, I wanted to talk a little about one point she makes early on in the book. She calls it “Don’t Put Yourself on Sale”. By this she is referring to how so many women are eager to cut themselves short when it comes to money whereas a man in the same situation would never think to do that. Some of the ways we put ourselves on sale Read the rest of this entry »

This installment of the interview series brings us Dana Rudolph of Mombian - Sustenance for Lesbian Moms. I first discovered Mombian when I started blogging and was thrilled to see a site like this for lesbian Moms even though I don’t have kids personally. After all being a Mom is a hugely important job, but you need to nourish and grow yourself personally even while you’re being a Mom. A lot of times that gets lost in the shuffle and falls to the bottom of the priority pile. Ignoring your own needs only results in cranky, unhappy Moms who resent their kids and we all know that kids pick up on that. Not to mention I am a big advocate for walking your talk to teach your kids through example that it is important to take care of yourself and make YOU a priority. Never too soon to teach that lesson from home.

Now onto the wonderfully rich interview with Dana.

1) What was your inspiration to start Mombian - Sustenance for Lesbian Moms?

Mombian was the creation of several coverging influences. I’d been involved in LGBT advocacy for some time, as head of Merrill Lynch’s LGBT employee network, but becoming a mom channeled my interests into LGBT family issues. I became a stay-at-home mom after my son’s first year and wanted an activity that would keep my activist and business neurons firing. My background is in marketing and business strategies for online services, so an online outlet seemed natural.

In looking at existing Web sites, I found personal blogs by LGBT parents, LGBT parenting sites focused on legal, political, and medical issues, non-LGBT sites with advice and ideas on childraising, and sites of LGBT political and entertainment news. There seemed to be a need, however, for a site at the intersection of these areas, a place that combined general and LGBT-specific childraising advice and ideas, LGBT news from a parent’s perspective, and a hearty helping of lesbian culture to remind us that parenting doesn’t mean abandoning all our other interests.

I like to call Mombian a “lifestyle site for lesbian moms.” I’ve been doing a series of posts about this season of The L Word, for example, focusing on the show’s depiction of parents and children. I’ve noted when mainstream children’s toys inadvertently include androgynous family figures. I review new books for LGBT parents and their children ( e.g., The Different Dragon) as well as non-LGBT books that are still appropriate for our children or of interest to us as parents ( e.g., Lunch Lessons). Every Friday I also do a roundup of LGBT political news for busy parents who may not have kept up during the week.

I added the Mombian Resource Directory to the blog because my blogroll got too big. The Directory now has over 400 links to resources for LGBT parents on starting a family, raising a family, LGBT law and politics, building community (LGBT parenting blogs, forums, and offline groups), and caring for ourselves. Users can submit links, too, so the Directory is really a group effort. Read the rest of this entry »