Are You Faithfully Celebrating Women's History Month? Yes! We celebrate all successful women, but not because they are greater than we are.

“I’m old. I have cellulite. I’m 10 lbs overweight. My husband doesn’t look at me the way he used to. I don’t love him the way I did before. What happened to my life?”

I listened to a friend of mine tell me about how she just didn’t feel like waking up to go to work because she hated life. “This is not the life I planned. I’m successful, but I’m not happy. Nothing makes me happy.”

As we celebrate Women’s History Month in March, I thought it would be interesting to look at the contrast between what women want and what we actually get.

For many years, women have been celebrated during the month of March to highlight their extraordinary contributions to their countries. Both here in the U.S. and internationally, women have left a mark in history that deserves celebration, and this year, the theme for Women’s History Month is "Honoring Trailblazing Women in Labor and Business.”

As a businesswoman, I am very much aware of the challenges that threaten success. The greatest struggles that kept me from wanting to get out of bed, like my friend, were financial challenges, uncertainty, lack of confidence, strong competitors, and my inability to find “loyal” staff members. All of the areas were extremely challenging, however, the greatest struggle I had was establishing work/life balance consistently.

Day after Day, I work with women who feel unworthy, devalued, uncelebrated, and insecure. Interestingly enough, if you walked past one of them on the street, you would never know that they’ve thrown in the towel on happiness, contentment, and peace. Why? Because she looks amazing! She drives a luxury car (or something close to it). Her makeup is flawless. Her children are adorable and well dressed. She works hard. People love her. She is successful. She is all that; but, she’s dying inside. I just described the clients that I work with, but I also described me. My passion to help others came from a long, hard look in the mirror. When each of us looks into the mirror we should see one thing: HUMANITY. We are all HUMAN. This means that we all struggle. We all have insecurities. We all want to be loved. We all want to be valued. We all want success.

Are You Faithfully Celebrating This Month?

We Celebrate Successful Women; But, Not Because They’re Greater Than Us.

This month, we celebrate Women’s History in the United States…but many women harbor deep pain and problems.

Beneath the passion, behind all of the great success we find ourselves also motivated by a deep, painful guilt I, myself, know a great deal about. You may even question the importance of celebrating someone's life that doesn't quite model yours. Maybe women's history means nothing to you.

Well, it really doesn’t matter if you’re in the beginning phase of history making or not. False comparisons are made when you’ve no personal success as a point of reference.

When March comes around, we ironically invite “the comparison trip” into our heads. Guilt floods in when you want the success that you find in another person.

Don’t feel embarrassed by it. This particular battle is a hard one to fight. And maybe it’s not just during the month of March, maybe it every month of the year that you struggle with illegitimate comparisons to your friends, coworkers, societal icons, or your sister.

- There’s Only One Way To Being You

Wherever you are; no matter how you’re going to “get there,” you’re not fulfilled until you arrive at your destination. The truth is, I don’t have a remedy or cure for the guilt you deal with.

I do, however, have a solution to enable you to walk the happy road to being you. The manifestation of who you are means you’ll be celebrated this month. There’s no need to wait.

I’m calling it my “positive step approach.” Instead of working on your guilt trip, I’m going to work on your final destination. This isn’t the place you’re at, at the moment.

Let me take you on the journey to become you! This is the same journey that the women we celebrate this month took to ultimate success. It was never an overnight success, and I won’t make it one for you. The journey ahead is a serious commitment that you have to make to achieve your personal goals.

-----------Once you’re in the rightful place, there will be no one else to compare with.

To do that for you, I’m releasing my book for free this month. At the cost of nothing, it’s put directly into your hands. Your final commitment, to end the guilt, is to read it. I’ve never given something so valuable away for free.

I Will Not Put A Price Tag On What’s Rightfully Yours. I can only do it during this month.

You have an entire celebration to go through. And we’re now walking you past the emptiness, anxiety and void. Embrace the fullness that’s yours.

Do it now. Open your copy, and discover how powerful success becomes when you become you. We’re ready to celebrate Women’s History Month, but this time it’s for you to make YOUR MARK and success this time. I know…you already have it in you!

- J.J.

Newsletter & FREE eBook

Name

First Name

Last Name

Email Address

How did you hear about Dr. Jada?

NOTE: You will receive TWO separate emails. One to confirm your email address for the Newsletter and ONE to download your FREE eBook. Please feel free to leave a message requesting additional help, if needed.

Comment

Breast Cancer Awareness Month| Learning to Live with Grief

With Breast Cancer Awareness Month suddenly upon us, many therapists are reminded of the extreme challenges clients may face when coping with an unexpected diagnosis, dealing with caregiver’s responsibilities or managing the loss of a loved one. Living with grief and loss is a pain that many of our clients battle. Here are a few tips to assist patients and caregivers:

- Give yourself time to mourn/grieve:

It’s never a good decision to 'stuff' any emotion, especially one as tender and fragile as grief. Take time to yourself. Assess the situation and acknowledge how grieving may be vicariously presenting itself through you and how it also might be affecting the way you interact with others. More often then not, we, as emotional beings, allow our emotions to dictate our actions and while we are consciously aware of the connection to our emotions, we are not bound by them.

- Don't Grieve Alone

Whether its the support of a loved one or not, certain battles require back-up and that's okay! Grieving with someone who's also in a state of mourning, allows both the opportunity to support one another through the hardships, because let's face it sometimes we really just want to be understood. In the end, both parties agree to let go of all that's weighing them down and to focus on the moments to come.

- Realize you're no longer responsible for the event that occurred and take responsibility for what happens to you.

No matter how much you'd like to control the weather on your day off or the traffic on your way to work, certain things are out of your control and the quicker you acknowledge this reality, the easier your road to Letting Go will be. Come to terms with the fact that what occurred, no matter how severe, occurred and to live in the past would be counterproductive to your goals in life. It's been said that 'the only way to the top [Mt. Everest] is one step at a time'.

- Eliminate negative thinking/ "stinky thinking"

Clogging up your head with stinky thinking will lead to a stinky lifestyle, at least, that's what my Cognitive Psychology professor used to say. Believe it or not, how you perceive life (yourself, those around you, the environment you're in) plays a huge role in just how satisfied you are living it. Studies show, that those with a more pessimistic outlook on life are generally less happy than those with a more optimistic view. In other words, stop thinking about what could go wrong and focus on what can go right! It's time to take the reigns and steer yourself out of the darkness and into a new brighter day!

- Learn a Skill (Find a hobby)

Channel your energy to something positive, something healthy and something productive. Always wanted to learn an instrument? Pick one up and sign up for lessons! Old canvas looking oddly tempting? Grab some brushes and some paint and have at it! Whatever your interest, take some time to focus on it and allow it to serve as an outlet to your worrying brain. After flooding your limbic system with anxiety and stress, you owe it to your brain to indulge itself in the elevated levels of a neurotransmitter known as, dopamine. Not only that, but you owe it to yourself as well and you'll see that not only did all that hard work pay off in a newly acquired skill, but a refreshed and uncluttered mind, as well.

- Setting new goals reforms your mind to focus on a token in the relatively near future

Set your sails to the northstar and don’t stop until you hit land! Talk about your long-term goal. Although you've come to terms with the preceding events and how they've affected you, you might need some help as to what to do next. Setting achievable goals for yourself, whether short or long-term, redirects your brain to focusing on tomorrow and the next day and every day after that until the completion of your goal(s). Not only will this serve as reinforcement to your state of mind, it provides a productive and realistic alternative to the grieving process.

"It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer its what we say to ourselves about what happens." - Pema Chodron