Search results for patti digh

Guest Post Roundup: Sex, Generations and A Whole Lotta Love

Posted by Liz on Dec 7, 2011 in aging, appearance, Boomer, breast cancer, emotions, humour, Inspiration, politics, sexual desire, sexual health, Uncategorized, women's health | 0 comments

As we come closer to the year’s end, I’d like to express my gratitude to a few of my colleagues who took the time to publish their thoughts on Flashfree this year. And, althoughI receive a lot of solicitations, there are few that I feel are worthy of your time or your close read. These, on the other hand, rocked my world, not only because of their breadth and finesse but also because of the love behind the words and thoughts.

This is a Roundup that you don’t want to miss.

[Credit: Special and enduring thanks to artist Darryl Willison of whimsicalwest.com. Please visit his site and support his work!]

• Should fatties get a room? Dr. Brian Hughes has lent his fine prose to this blog several times and often writes insightfully about how our society takes advantage of women. When I stumble across something on his blog that screams Flashfree, I reach out and say pretty please. Brian rocks!
• Should I or shouldn’t I? Oncologist, journalist and educator Dr. Elaine Shattner has spent most of her online bandwidth on discerning the facts about breast and other cancers. Let’s face it; there is a  lot of information swirling around the Interwebz and when it comes to figuring out what it means, well, the challenge can be daunting. Want to know more? Elaine’s your girl for the 4-11.
• Anti Anti-Aging, Pro Great Glow. Do you want to fight your years? Or fight FOR them? Writer and author D.A. Wolfe dishes up some provocative prose and challenges the inner you. This one’s got “win” written all over it.
• Counterterrorism, women and 9-11. Doesn’t sound like a topic for Flashfree, does it? But my friend Anne Weiskopf shares a poignant piece about what it means to be a woman. And a mother.
• Want to get your groove on? Move. Alexandra Williams, motivational speaker, fitness writer, radio host and inspirateur nails it with a wonderful post on sex, exercise and wellbeing.
• Vagina’s are like self-cleaning ovens. Wait! What?! Yes, gynecologist and sex expert Dr. Jen Gunter makes a guest appearance to shake up the idea that douching is a good idea.
• Have you crossed the Big M finish line? Author Sarah Bowen thought she had. And tells us how she hit the reset button before the race ended.
• On Becoming Bendy. Author Patti Digh is at it again. She’s changing our world, one day at a time. And wow, has she ever changed hers’ this year. Want to be a better you? Bendy. Who said that Gumby didn’t have an alterior motive?
• Are you becoming your mother? When was the last time you looked in the mirror and asked yourself the very question that my friend, motivational speaker and author Cherry Woodburn asks in this post? Are you a generational profiler?

The Roundup: 2009

Posted by Liz on Dec 31, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

I had originally written a December Roundup like months prior. And it mysteriously disappeared into the black hole of writing, socks and earrings.

Taking a page from the book of “stir things up,” I decided to shed this year by posting some of my favorites. So, without further interruption, I bring you my top five of 2009. (BTW, I’d love to hear your feedback on the posts that rocked your world, made you happy or sad or that made you think a bit harder.)

• Pink Elephant – Sisters! Listen up – time to start supporting (and not bullying) one another in the workplace.
• Well Well Well – Is wellbeing reallly elusive during menopause?
• Are you rubberstamping the cougar narrative? – Meet Lina, the cougar of cougars who’s turning the notion of cougars on its head….and then some.
• Breast cancer – it’s personal. – My mother, my story. Can’t we do better?
• Wednesday Bubble: Bifocals, babies, hot steamy flashes of perspective. It is enough. – Writer and friend Patti Digh shows us why it’s time to call in the dumpster and accept.

The Roundup: November news and tidbits

Posted by Liz on Nov 30, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

[Credit: Special thanks to artist Darryl Willison of whimsicalwest.com. Please visit his site and support his work.]

Time for November highlights. A new feature, a few guest posts and lots of controversy in this month’s mix:

• Introducing….It’s raining men. It’s a new month and a new feature on Flashfree. I am looking for men to lend their perspectives. Here’s one guys’ take.
• Wednesday Bubble: Equol-ity. Can the plant-based S-equol alleviate hot flashes? The evidence continues to mount in its favor.
• Oh, baby – a new glam parent is born. Forty Weeks’ Julia Beck provides some important tips for Boomer grandparents on breastfeeding and support.
• Be still my heart. When it comes to heart disease, knowledge is power. Heart attacks are on the rise in midlife women. Wondering why?
• Wednesday Bubble: Bifocals, babies, hot steamy flashes of perspective. It is enough. Author Patti Digh graces the pages of Flashfree with her insight and wisdom: time to call in the dumpster.
• Hip fracture, early menopause and age. Researchers show that early menopause is not a risk factor for hip fracture. Here’s what you can do right now to keep your bones in good shape.
• Viva la sweats! Forget the sheets! Who knew that night sweats might actually save your life?
• Wednesday Bubble: One pill makes you…. Coming to bedrooms soon: the new Viagra-like compound for women.
• Dem bones were made for dancing. Who says you can’t have fun while boosting your bone health? ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ are you listening?
• New Flash! Just a spit away… Is comprehensive non-invasive testing on the horizon for women? Researchers say that your saliva may hold important clues to illnesses as you age.
• Wednesday Bubble: NutraFem promises much. Will it deliver? There’s a novel multi-botanical on the market and it’s looking promising for controlling hot flashes and night sweats.
• Battle of the middle-aged bulge: pick your poison. That abdominal donut may cause you to lose your mind, if you don’t have a heart attack first. Time to get moving!

Wednesday Bubble: Bifocals, babies, hot steamy flashes of perspective. It is enough.

Posted by Liz on Nov 11, 2009 in Inspiration | 1 comment

A year ago I was fortunate to meet Author and Woman Extraordinaire Patti Digh. We met at an intimate reading of her book, Life is a Verb, in Washington DC. Since that time, I’ve repeatedly asked Patti to grace Flashfree with her words and her presence. She has graciously sent me the following guest post. Thank you Patti…

I got bifocals and gave birth in the same year. Now, six years later, the first hot flash has hit. I celebrated my fiftieth birthday this past August, telling everyone I knew that I was reaching that magic age, shamelessly announcing this momentous occasion to everyone I met. I stood on the beach at sunrise on that day–August 16–with my oldest daughter (who turned 17 the very day I turned 50) and wondered to myself if that would be the last birthday I would ever see.

If it was, it was enough.

It is enough.

None of us knows whether tomorrow will come. It’s a lesson I’ve learned many times over in my life—you have too, I’m sure—and it’s a lesson I’ve pondered daily for the past five years—how to live like you’re dying (because we all are), extracting every ounce of joy and pain from each day.

Many people disparage aging, joke about it, dread it. With a father who died at 53, I see every day as a gift he never had. He was dead far too young; perhaps my old age will be in homage to the one he never got.

For a long time in my life, I have felt I would reach my most powerful at 50. And having reached that point in the road, I believe that is true. Not my most fit, certainly, or my most rested, but my most powerful. There is a power in the transformation that starts taking place when power surges heat us up from the inside out. There is a power in the knowledge that we have nothing to prove, not one damn thing. There is power in knowing that we have every single thing we need, that we need nothing else, that we are fully human and gorgeously odd and contradictory and beautiful just as we are. That we are hot in the very deepest, richest, metaphorically resonant use of that term.
That we are not broken. That we don’t need to be fixed.

This decade for me is going to be one of simplification. Just as I peel off clothing to cool off several times a day, my infernal engine is fueling me to peel off things and toxic people and projects I dread, things I said “yes” to and immediately regretted.

Two months after turning 50, I have had a health scare, a big one, an “isn’t it ironic that this should happen to the woman who writes about what she would be doing if she only had 37 days to live?” one. My first two thoughts? 1) I have to clean out my house because I can’t leave this mess for others to see; and 2) My girls. I can’t leave my girls and my love.

That was good information for me.

I am calling in the dumpster—for files and old magazines and clothes whose single digit size I’ll never see again—and for fears and hesitations and waiting for someone to show me the way. I am calling in the dumpster for playing it safe and being practical and for bemoaning the fact that I have lines on my face and sweat stains on my best silk blouse.  I am calling in the dumpster for people who are toxic to me with their whining and complaining and gossiping and blaming. I am calling in the dumpster for regret.

But before that, I’m going sky-diving with my 17-year-old simply because she has always wanted to. And baking cookies with my 6-year-old because she loves feeling the dough with her dirty, dimpled little hands and sneaking bites of it, uncooked and raw, like life.

It is enough. I am enough. I am bifocaled and hot and lumpy and messy and spectacular. And so are you.

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is the author of Life is a Verb and has written two business books on global leadership and diversity, one named a Fortune magazine “best business book for 2000.” Jer comments have appeared on PBS, and in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, the New York Times, USAToday, the Washington Post, and London Financial Times, among other national and international publications. She speaks around the world on diversity, global business, and living intentionally.

Patti is also co-founder of The Circle Project, a consulting and training firm that partners with organizations and the people in them to help them work more effectively and authentically together across difference.

She lives in Ashville, NC with her husband, two daughters and various animals.

Learn more about Patti, her work and her blog, 37 Days. You can also find Patti on Twitter and Facebook.

Grateful

Posted by Liz on Nov 26, 2008 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

I’m interrupting our regularly scheduled Wednesday Bubble. I wanted to share everything that I’m grateful for afterall, we are on the verge of Turkey day here in the States, right?!

I promise to post part three of my interview with the immensely talented Patti Digh and other wonderful tidbits soon.

In the interim, thanks for indulging me.

I have one request though; hug somebody today, give them a smile, donate a $1 to Second Harvest and feed 16 individuals, be grateful, laugh, have fun, live in the moment.

Personally, I am grateful:

• For an amazing family. Two parents who are healthy and present, a brother and sister in law who support me 150% and show me their love in a zillion ways, and three amazing nephews who each bring joy into my life in ways that I could never have defined before they arrived here on earth
• For incredible, loving friends who show me the way even when I don’t want to see it (you know who you are!)
• For my life, which is rich and fun and exciting and always new
• For music, which inspires when words fail me and the gift of writing when they don’t
• And for you, dear readers of this blog, who support my journey and continue to check back to see what crazy thing I’ve come up with to share

Thank you all.

Happy Thanksgiving!