Do You Want an Empowered Daughter? Listen to the feedback of your daughters

Many of us do not relish getting--or frankly even giving--feedback. But if you have had daughters, you are aware that you will receive it whether you like it or not! And rarely is the feedback put in the sandwiched package we like to teach in the workplace. If your daughter is anything but completely compliant, you have heard a few good comments about yourself that you may not have been ready to hear, especially if you are a mother. I remember when my girls were in their early teens and tweener years, just how much some of those comments could sting, make me doubt myself or even bring me down. We know that much of this is developmental separation from parents. However, the feedback in and of itself is often laced with some essential ingredients that are actually nutritious to our own growth as a person. The more angry it makes us, the more likely it is to have kernels of truth. As my girls have grown, their "feedback" still can hit me between the eyes at times. So how should we respond to direct comments that come at us--and why? When I reflect on myself over the past 25 years I see how I have grown and changed in so may ways for the better, solely due to some cutting, and honest feedback from my daughters--whatever package it came in--and regardless of their reasons for spewing it. Stopping and asking myself how I am coming across, if it is the way I want to be or should be, and if it is getting me where I want to go, makes a huge difference in what I do with the feedback. As a result, I change. There is another meaningful by-product to this reflection: Our daughters will recognize that their insight, voices, and intentions are not to be dismissed--that what makes them angry is worthy of expression. They experience that they can, in fact, influence change for the better, especially with those in authority. (There will be time to discuss how to communicate those thoughts better, when their is a readiness to learn, and if we model it). I am extremely grateful to my daughters for helping to shape me in to a better person. They have opened my eyes to my impact as a co-worker, a spouse and a friend. Listening to our daughters, despite the emotions running high or sharpness that the words may possess, will bring on unexpected, yet well needed transformation, empowering you both.

We All Need to Change

Any senseless death is overwhelmingly tragic; and when it is predicated on a silent lack of value for the person, it's beyond words. The rage that arises now is from the powerful undercurrent that is too easy to deny or even miss, if you are not subject to it. Yet the quiet driving force is ever present. The experience of injustice or even misunderstanding is common to the human condition. We are all generally self centered, and glory in our own perspectives that favor us, and often not reality. But, in very small ways we have all known the feeling, at work or in a family, of experiencing wrong and trying to articulate it to others who seem to just deny it out of a variety of perspectives. These responses may run from not noticing it; their seeing it, but it not serving them to acknowledge it; to out right lying. It's infuriating and yet we may just let it go and resign to the unfair outcome. But when your life or the life of those you love depend on others coming out of the haze and seeing what you see, patience will run short. Patience needs to run short.
The issues of racism are complex because they hit on personal experience, power, control, fear, opportunity, competitiveness, and more. In other words it draws out complex emotion. We in America do not like complexity. If you cannot get it in to 140 characters we lose attention. It's easier to point blame then solve a complex problem. It's easier to simply persuade than to bring multiple voices together to find the whole picture that will result in the best outcomes. And we lack humility. In our competitive arrogance, we need to be right, and so we struggle admitting we might not have the whole picture–that our own limited view or experience might be inadequate to assess the full situation. We all can fall prey to this. But right now many are opening eyes to see another angle–even if it took the power of social media and watching a horror that would have gone unknown or unnoticed in recent history to get us there.

The simple truth is that we all do wrong, whether we are prepared to admit it or not.
Ask yourself the question: WHAT AM I PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE ABOUT MYSELF OR THIS SITUATION? (thanks Vital Smarts). We all need to change–And be appalled at the lack of value our culture has placed on an entire race of people, and on life in general.
We all need the bigger picture.