Guest blog by Rachel Prinz

At the end of 2010, in the midst for trying to reframe my life’s work, asking myself if I was actually doing what I REALLY wanted to be doing, I sat down for a couple of weeks and read. I read every book I could get my hands on that dealt with finding and then cultivating your true purpose.  When I read everything the library had and everything I could get them to borrow from other libraries, I sat with it… and I started observing my life as if watching from the outside.

The lost, the found, and the connectors

One of the first things that I realized was that I was surrounded by one of two types of people: I called them “the lost” – people who had no idea what they were doing or why, and in vastly greater numbers in my case… “the found” – people who not only knew what they wanted but were voracious at going after it.

I realized too that I was “a connector” in the modern parlance – I had lots of connected friends and I put them together regularly to help them achieve goals. Wow. That was awesome. But was that all I was here for? Wasn’t I supposed to be DOING something myself too?  I had successfully built a network of “manifestors” but I myself wasn’t one. Nor did I know how to become one. Because, if you ask a manifestor how they became that, most will look at you quizzically. If they can come up with an answer, it is usually something like “I just tried everything until I got good at (a few, or one) and I committed to that with every fiber of my being.”

An opportunity

Then, a dear older architect friend of mine who is often more mentor than friend sent me a link to an award she thought I should apply for – a scholarship named after my best friend Jason Pettigrew, who died several years ago on the eve of his 30^th birthday. She thought that I would be a natural fit for the award, which would pay for the study materials and the exams required for the Architect’s Registration Examination, which besides being prohibitively expensive is also the hardest endeavor an architectural designer can make, taking months if not years of study and 7-9 extremely rigorous tests in everything from structural engineering to architectural design to civil engineering to architecture history.

Not only do I find the test extremely intimidating, but ANYONE finding me worthy of an award in Jason’s name, I thought was completely undeserved. Jason was not only thriving in his practice, but successfully finishing the exams, a leader both in state and national AIA, active in his community AND finishing up seminary when he died. He was one of those rare leaders who made everyone want to come along, made everyone feel empowered and capable, including me. Which is why, when I found out I was going blind, I moved halfway across the country to be near him. If anyone could save me from myself as I grappled with my diagnosis, he could. And he did.

In my mind, I wasn’t worthy of any award in his name. I saw myself as just another architectural designer, of no real note or even purpose. But I wanted to see if I could be worthy of such an award.

My purpose

Then, it all started to come together… I already knew from my time sitting in the silence of “what am I here for” what I was. I was 100% sure that I wanted to be an architectural educator. I LOVE architecture. I love talking about it, and from many perspectives – how light and shadow make us feel comfortable, or tense, and how we can use that tension to make people awake, alert, centered, hopeful… or the reverse.  I love how architecture relates to psychology and art and science. I love the flow of it. How traditionalists and modernists battle for a voice in the vortex of spatial mediocrity we find everywhere around us. I knew my objective. And I had a collection of friends who were good at making things happen. I remembered the advice… “commit to that with every fiber of (my) being.” I didn’t think I could get a job teaching architecture in the academies without some credentials, but a friend gently prodded me one day, saying “So what? You want to teach? Then TEACH.”

Action and response

So I started talking. And writing. I approached anyone with anything to do with anything architectural, asked them how we could share ideas that would connect us in our purposes. I put the ideas out there, for free. Through blogs, through tweets, through Facebook… I shared my knowledge. In the year since I started sharing, I have been invited to speak to community groups, to the Historic Preservation Commission, to the Arts and Culture District, to the state archaeology convention, to 200 non-architects at the design series Pecha Kucha… eventually I even got invited to speak to an audience of 700 at TEDxABQ , which was posted on youtube, then picked up by one of the architecture newsreels and eventually seen by thousands of people. From there I was asked to come to colleges and speak to students of art and historic preservation.  I started collecting new friends from all over the world on Twitter and Facebook, and through sharing our ideas and our ideals freely, we started seeing ways we could work together to achieve real changes in our communities. I was working too, and whenever I could, I would connect the people with a problem with the people with a solution. I was cultivating both my connector and my manifestor, and I didn’t need to be a professor to do it. I was teaming up with great people, bringing architectural education to everyday people, all over the world.

My own unique voice

So this year, the time has come again for the applications for the AIA Jason Pettigrew scholarship. And this year, I might just apply. Because I learned how I could REALLY make a difference, with my own unique voice, and in a powerful and uplifting way. I learned how to go for it even if it made no sense to anyone around me. I didn’t need permission. I just needed to look for opportunity and then be brave enough to try. More often than not, I was actually able to manifest making a difference. I think Jason would have liked that very much. I know I do.

Find out more about Rachel and her work at http://www.archinia.com/. To those whom my life may touch in slight measure, May I give graciously Of what is mine….

Links:  TED http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmkIE0hfVko

Pecha Kucha http://vimeo.com/26635579

When I ask women where they swagger, not too many identify church!  I love hearing the stories of women who do swagger in their spiritual lives. Thanks to Erin Counihan for this great piece on following your heart, being yourself, and answering the call.

Guest post by Erin Counihan

I’ve got a bit of a church swagger and I’m not afraid to admit it. I think I’ve always had it. I was that kid wore the white rug duct taped to my back in the nativity play but acted like she had on a full on Academy Award winning designer made sheep costume. Today, I am the woman who wears red shoes to church and sings the hymns, in harmony, from memory, quite loudly… because I can. I’ve always felt at home in the sanctuary, in the choir loft, and in the fellowship call after services (um, hello, that’s where they keep the cookies). With the exception my few uber teen-angsty high school years, I just always loved church. I loved seeing people around me caring for each other and caring for their community. I loved our pastor, who each Sunday who both inspired and challenged us. I loved being a part of that big, messy, lovely church family. And I loved who I was when I was with them.

In college, I felt a call to ministry, to serve that great church family, but I resisted that feeling. I knew I church work would be a good fit for me and that God had put a tug in my heart, but I didn’t know any lady pastors. I saw a church run by men my grandfather’s age. They were smart and kind and caring, but they didn’t joke like I did. They didn’t play field hockey. They didn’t listen to Nirvana. They didn’t toilet paper people’s houses. They certainly didn’t date or dance or read US Weekly. Read more…

Want advice on how to get more swagger?  This is the second in an advice series called Swagger Up.  Our readers submit their questions and one of our panel of experts provides an answer.  This answer on body image is provided by Carmen Cool, psychotherapist and director of Boulder Youth Body Alliance. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boulder-Youth-Body-Alliance/121124328755?ref=ts

How can swagger be used combat bad body image and eating problems for girls and women today?

I love this question because it points to something beyond “the problem” of body dissatisfaction. It points to solutions. To action. To resilience. To the necessity of saying “I refuse to accept anything less than fully embracing my WHOLE SELF!”

Over and over,what I hear from young women is the importance of knowing that there is another option to hating our bodies. There is another path. It’s not easy to love our bodies, but the effort is so, so worth it! When you look back on your life, will the things you’re the most proud of be the size of your thighs?

Redefine health and beauty for yourself.  Your own body is the best source of wisdom you have for knowing how and what to eat, what kind of movement increases your vibrancy and helps you feel awesome. Negative body image is painful and it affects our well-being, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Think of how much time you’ve spent worrying about how you look. What else could you be doing with that time? One young woman I work with says, “When I’m free from body hatred, I feel more comfortable and I can do anything I put my mind to. Because if I’m not worried about what I look like or what other people think I should look like – then the possibilities are endless!”

Find other girls who are committed to thinking differently about this, who are wanting to reclaim their right to full personhood in their bodies exactly as they are. Refuse to put anyone else down for their physical appearance and take a risk to speak out when you hear it around you. You know, the comments like “she really shouldn’t be wearing that” or “wow she gained weight over the summer”.  And make a commitment to stop putting your own body down.   That’s not to say it’s not ok to feel insecure. We all do. It’s ok to get support in remembering that your body is not the problem. Your body is not the problem. And guess what? It’s ok to say “I love myself”. There is a difference between confidence and conceit, between being self-centered and centered in your self.

“I have a whole new perspective on my body and how it isn’t an enemy that needs to be constantly changed, but a vessel of beauty that I should accept and love and keep as healthy as I can.”  ~ Vanessa, 17 year old.

Note: eating disorders are dangerous and potentially deadly. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, please get help. If you know someone who is, encourage them to do the same.

Guest blog by author Daree Allen, MS  – on the messages we send with our style of dress.

One of the popular sayings of our culture is, “If you got it, flaunt it!”  I often hear that statement when I point out the way a female is dressed and question it aloud (sometimes a celebrity, sometimes a woman I see when out and about). One of the specific fashion trends that I think we as females should be careful about is writing across our private body parts. Have you ever thought about what message this sends to
others?

Girls, you develop faster in the 21st century than ever before. Older boys and grown men may look at you as grown women, even though your mind has not fully matured to that of a grown woman. Men are stimulated visually, so if you come around them wearing tight jeans that make your butt stick out, or tight t-shirts or thin blouses that accentuate your breasts, where do you think they are going to concentrate their gaze? They won’t be focused on your face, and certainly not on whatever you’re saying to them.

Ladies– those of you who are mothers, mother-figures, aunties, and mentors– we need to show the girls how it’s done. We must model modesty because there are so many girls–and even other women–that are looking up to us. If we go about our daily lives (to church, work, etc.) wearing clothes that are too tight, skirts way above our thighs, and cleavage showing, how can we expect the girls we love and care for be any different?  If you can instill dignity and assertiveness in another female by the way you carry yourself, which includes your mode of dress in flattering, age-appropriate clothing, you can inspire your community and your entire sphere of influence.

I heard of a book entitled, “Girls Gone Mild,” and that’s what we need to be. Don’t use the excuse that all the latest fashions are cut and designed that way, because they’re not. You may just have to look elsewhere and spend your money in stores where the fashion will not objectify the girls they market to. Show your daughters, nieces, cousins, goddaughters, mentees, and neighbors that it’s cool–it’s good!–to dress modestly. It’s one of the first signs of self-respect, and you can do it without saying a word. You get your swag on without showing all your stuff.

Daree Allen is an authorpreneur, young adult esteem advocate, speaker, and goal-getter in Atlanta, GA. Find out more about her work at www.dareesinsights.wordpress.com and www.DareeAllen.com. Kharacter Distinction Books and author Daree Allen will release their first mentoring book for teen girls titled “What’s Wrong With Me?: A Girl’s Book of Lessons Learned, Inspiration  and Advice” this February. In the book, Allen details various stories from her  life and guides girls with lessons and advice for similar situations from family, relationships, friendships and sex–all from a godly perspective.

Guest blog by John Walters – writer and blogger for Onlinedatingsites.net

The world is changing, and part of the change is a reforming of gender roles. Equality is grinding away at old standards; men are becoming nurses and flight attendants, and similarly women are taking roles that were previously considered too masculine for them to fill. What does this brave new world mean for the dating scene? In order to make themselves appeal to men in the short and long term, woman need to learn to walk the confidence/arrogance tightrope while not relying on masculine archetypes. Confidence is sexy and gender neutral, so here is some advice for being a modern woman and skipping the pitfalls of being newly empowered:

* Obnoxious is not the new pink. A lot of people think they can take a shortcut to confidence (or the illusion thereof) by being incredibly loud, vulgar, drunk, rude etc. Of course this attempt to be bigger than life comes off as desperate and tacky, so don’t drink to the point of embarrassment, don’t be vulgar unless it makes people laugh, and don’t scream unless someone is on fire.

*Love yourself more than you love your partner. While guys probably get more social passes in matters related to the previous category, but it’s way more socially acceptable for women to be co-dependent. That doesn’t mean anyone respects it. A relationship is two strings on a guitar playing in harmony; don’t turn it into two people trying to pretend they are the same string. You’ll be a better person and loved more if you have your own goals and aspirations, and important segments of your life that are segregated completely from your partner.

Read more…

Guest column by Donna Daniell, psychotherapist with Balance your Life

Are you healing from grief, stress and emotional burdens? If you keep going on and on and don’t stop to heal, don’t stop to rejuvenate, don’t stop to rest,  you will hit BURNOUT.  Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.defines burnout in her new book, FRIED as “our frenzied, speed-oriented, exhausted state of mind.”  And BURNOUT can be defined as “losing your most loving, creative self and all you have left is your most negative version of yourself.”(p xi-xii)

Luckily BURNOUT has not made it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  If it had, we’ve have a drug for it by now.

And can you imagine what a drug might do to this state of being?  How can a drug bring us back from our most diminished sense of self which has at least three dimensions:

1)        Emotional exhaustion: deep fatique and feelings of being emotionally drained and overwhelmed

2)        Depersonalization:  a loss of self and cynical regard for the people you live with

3)        Diminished personal accomplishment:  a progressive loss of confidence and competence (pg. xxvi Fried )

I think we all have our own version of “burnout” based on our own personal experience. The real issue is here, how to we keep ourselves balanced and resilient enough to avoid this burnout state. I have experienced burnout when I get stressed and it continues over a long period of time because I can’t seem to avoid the stressors or I allow myself to focus on them until they break down my spiritual integrity or my sense of my wholeness.

This experience leaves me in a diminished state, in which I can’t seem to get the rest of me back. I’m stuck in negativity. This year, I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of it – perhaps because there’s so much in our environment that is negative and it is impacting our ability to stay open and flowing – our resilience is constantly being tested by our “Fried” world. Read more…

Guest columnist Julie Loar

Webster defines confidence as “a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or reliance on one’s circumstances.”  This month three women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, activist Leymah Gbowee, also of Liberia, and human rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen. I could not have imagined this when I was a child in the fifties.  These women come from areas that have been torn by strife, violence and unspeakable human rights crimes.  And yet, they did not remain frozen in fear or stand on the sidelines.  Rather, they displayed inspiring courage and vision.  As I pondered the quality of confidence I wondered if they felt confident at any point in their heroic journeys.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo, Norway, said of these women,  “They were chosen for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.  We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.”

Their award is a beacon to struggling women everywhere.  This recognition can inspire us to stand up for the values that are dear to us and be willing to takes risks for what is right.  What seems most significant to me is that these women worked for justice without striking back.  Read more…

Meek’s Cutoff is a radical movie. Its visual openness reflects the landscape through which  the three families wander, not sure where they are going. I whispered to my companion, Could this be the first time a man wouldn’t ask for directions? It’s not so awful that they are lost, although things seem quite dire. But it is that they are closed. For the moment, so are we. And therein is the metaphor.

Because we are lost and will not admit it, we refuse open up and ask for directions. What this movie does in its quiet and determined (if meandering) narrative development, is shift our focus from requiring a specific goal complete with a map, to settling into trust. What do we trust? Who do we trust? How do we come to trust?

I was never surprised that an Indian was captured to become their guide and replace the arrogant egotist who would not admit to being lost. His small-mindedness made him reluctant, hateful and condescending, unable to trust the native man who so beautifully, spiritually, and mysteriously reflected and blended into the land that spawned him. (I kept thinking the settlers’ clothes were too clean and organized for the months’ long camping ordeal they were on.) He didn’t immediately inspire the confidence to reassure us and the party of three families that everything would work out. This is not just because of the language barrier but because of the human membrane that separates us from ourselves and from our own instincts. And we hold onto our separateness so it stays that way.

But, sometimes, dignity trumps arrogance. The “Indian” (so credited) somehow felt his way through the landscape, singing to his ancestors, communicating with the divine, and trusting his instincts. He emerges as a powerful model, initially for Williams’ character who  was open enough to fall into trust. By the time the movie ends, astonishingly unresolved, we too have fallen into trust without any easy answers.

The point is not whether they find water or reach their still unknown destination but that they had achieved some grace, overcome bigotry and racial profiling, learned to surrender and, against the odds, survived their own perceived separateness.

Meek’s Cutoff (2010) Review by Carol Terry

Cast: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Running Time: 104 min.

Genre: Western

The summer between middle school and high school, my best friend and I  committed to attending a 3-day football clinic for youth. I was  terrified at the thought of being the only girls at the camp, but I  pushed all fears aside and showed up with friend in tow, on a hot July  morning to play football. On the first day of camp, only an hour in, my  best friend hurt her shoulder and I was left on a field full of guys  staring at me awkwardly. My low-self esteem siezed hold of me and I  tried to be invisible to my teammates as the day dragged on. By the end  of the day, I was incredibly embarrassed and had made up my mind not to  return to camp the next day.

Surrender and consciousness

Surrender to the vagaries of wind and weather, water, weight, gravity, skill, ego and consciousness. In the wind, in a boat, I have to be fully conscious every second and able, ready and willing to change strategies, change tack, change direction, change sails and the amount of sail, at any moment. I might have a plan, but the wind will define what happens. You can be going along all nice and then be hit by a puff of wind and the boat wants to surge directly into it – you have to let go a bit, let it happen, readjust, then come off the wind, or, let the sails out really fast. In either case you have to balance, juggle, move fast, dance, think of and do a lot of things at once to bring the boat and the elements and the people back into balance with one another. Then you’re off, on a new tack, another direction until distance and wind and shore demand another change. It’s not up to you. You must surrender and be conscious every second.

You never know it all

What caused our lapse when we bumped the side of the hill? It doesn’t matter who’s in charge when we are all in the same boat. This is metaphorical. I could have said, Why didn’t you see it? But I didn’t see it either. People may think they know it all, all about sailing. (I actually think my brother does know almost all there is to know.) But we went out with Bob the expert, he races in the harbor and knows the depths of the lake, the Narrows and still he biffs. What happened? We will talk about this for a long time. Was it the winch issue? The sail out too much? The main was reefed but we could have pulled in more of the jib. Certainly we didn’t tack soon enough and there it was, the muddy bank of the hill and I said “We can’t be doing this.” So much for control. It was too late to prevent what was happening. At what point was it already too late? When we were talking about strategy of the cockpit and who would bring in the sheet and how to let it off the other winch? Careening across the Narrows trying to conduct sailing school. The real school was the muddy bank of the hill. And we didn’t know how close it was because we were busy thinking. The Lesson is much closer than you think. And it’s not the one you are talking about, it’s the one right in front of you, coming up before you have a chance to do anything about it. It was a slow scrunch and dead on the bow (am I right that if the Titanic had hit the iceberg straight on it wouldn’t have been so bad?). Why are we humans so schizophrenic? So confused about the thing itself and our words and ideas about the things.  We were lucky the lesson wasn’t hard as a rock or – indeed –the rock itself. Read more…