In the pages
that follow, we look under the image to the real experiences of real women.
You will see that matters are far more complex than the image suggests—and
that, whatever your suspicions of inadequacy may be, you have much company.
You know—indeed,
you can hardly have escaped absorbing—all the ubiquitous advice on how to
have a better relationship and satisfying sex, trim down and firm up,
balance work and family, and so on. What we hear every day in our
practice is the disconnect—how and why women feel they are failing or paying
lip service
or putting up a good front—and the forces, internal and external, that make
it so difficult to change, adjust, or simply accept themselves as perfectly
good enough. The women we talk to feel stuck, even though they wish to be
unstuck and to move forward. That’s especially true for women of color, who
have been marginalized all their lives.
Each chapter
lays out the expectation, the high-bar, popularly promoted image or images
of the modern woman—how the expectation is expressed, how it seeps into our
collective cultural consciousness and into our individual, often
dissatisfied sense of self. Each then presents several profiles, real
stories based on real women we counsel, that reveal what’s actually going on
in many people’s lives. The profiles illustrate the most common issues that
women present in our practice. And it is a vast and varied landscape.
Do not be
overly concerned about the variety of those histories and perspectives. Do
not focus just on the woman whose age is similar to your own, because the
themes are universal. They may be more subtle or present themselves in
different ways at different points in the life cycle, but they’re there. And
we believe you will find in these women’s stories an echo, maybe even a
carbon copy of your own reality.
What’s
bothering you?
Many of our
clients come to us with this presentation: “Things are just not where I want
them to be, and I thought that talking them over with you might be useful.”
If that’s where you’re starting from, fine. Perhaps you too are aware only
of a feeling of malaise, or a generalized anxiety or discontent. You are far
from alone.
On the other
hand, maybe you have focused with laser intensity on a specific problem,
such as a man in your life, the lack of a man in your life, a horrible job,
or a troubled child as the source of your pain. A number of our clients
enter our offices quite certain they know what’s bothering them. “I just
broke up with my boyfriend, and I’m really upset,” says a woman who’s hoping
for suggestions on how to get past her immediate unhappiness. Yet quite
often, the problem—the issue she believes she has a clear fix on—is only the
most obvious blip on the screen. The problem brings her in the door, and
then over a bit of time she may come to recognize its offshoots and
ramifications. And so the deeper issues for the woman who broke up with the
boyfriend may include: How does she choose men? How quickly does she allow
herself to become attached? Is she living with a fantasy?
If you are
dead sure what’s bothering you or, on the other hand, you don’t know where
to start, don’t worry. This book will help you clarify your personal story,
and you may end up in a place very far from where you started. One intention
of self-talk, ideally, is to encourage you to be open enough to realize that
not every happening in one’s life is the outcome of a clear cause and
effect. Where one is “at” at any point in time—the events, behaviors, and
choices that shape the day—is the result of the coming together of many
factors and forces.
At the same
time, we are not suggesting that every woman has problems in every category
we discuss. We are not saying that as a woman, per se, your life is
troublesome in these particular ways. (That would be promoting still another
voice, the voice of the therapist.) You may find that after doing some
self-talk questions in one area, you’re perfectly fine; this isn’t an issue
that requires rethinking or working through on your part.
