Jealousy is such a thick emotion that we FEEL it through and through! We feel it in our bones, our gut, our tissue. When we are jealous of another, we  feel like attacking our brothers, sisters & friends. We will stop at nothing! We will wage war with them in ways blatant and sublime. If we cannot find a way to hurt them directly, we will find sneaky ways of sabotaging them. We feel icky inside. We feel ugly inside. We will hide our green monster, put a pretend face on it, with a pretty bow, and deny that we are jealous to the end!

When someone is jealous of us we FEEL it through and through! We feel it in our bones, our gut, our tissue.  We can feel it when they are in front of us and we feel it through the ethers when we are on the phone or texting. We feel icky inside. We feel attacked. It is such an ugly feeling we want to defend ourselves by attacking our brothers, sisters, and friends or run away from them.

 What’s up with that? Why do we become jealous of each other? Do we have room to indulge this insidious emotion in modern times? Is there a way to handle jealousy with compassion when we FEEL it in ourselves and when we FEEL it in others?

I am drafting the second part of this blog and would LOVE to hear from you! Please share your experiences with jealousy…

More to come Dear Friends…

Friendship used to mean liking someone because they agreed with everything you agreed with. If there was a disagreement that could not be resolved, friends would often discard each other and harbor resentment that would last for many years or even a lifetime.

Friendship used to be a lesser bond than family. It was rare that friends were given equal status as the blood ties of the nuclear and extended family.

Friendship used to be a safe haven to “dummy down” and stay small. Friends would excuse each other from rising to the truest, brightest possible potential.

Friendship used to be about just me and you. The effects of friendship used to be kept close to home.

It’s a new day Girlfriend! Girlfriends of the 21st century are re-defining this ancient union. Gone are the days of jealousy, pretense, competition, bailing, backstabbing, manipulation, and smallness. Today the fruits of friendship are shared with the world. Girlfriends today are keeping it real…and so, we are boldly rewriting a new contract that reflects our 21st century values.

What is important nowadays? Paying-it-forward, peace, goodwill, sisterhood & brotherhood, integrity, communication, everybody wins, there is abundance for everyone, we all shine – these are just some ideas!

About a year ago, I became inspired to write/design a picture book about these ideas. This idea was with me day and night. I tried to excuse myself from following-up on this “assignment” by attempting to put it out of my mind. You see, I am traditionally more of a scientist than an artist. I finally just had to do what the Great Sumpin’ Sumpin’ was calling me to do. What has resulted is a fun 21^st century friendship experiment called “Pledges of Integrity”. I have never seen anything like it! I am grateful to the Great Sumpin’ Sumpin’ for the opportunity to be used in this way. I invite you to join the Girlfriend Renaissance – “Girlfriendaissance”.

Have a beautiful Day Friends! May All Beings Have Happiness!

girlfriendaissance.com

Have you ever had a disagreement with a friend that resulted in the end of the friendship? I think we have all had this happen. Often our friendships cannot endure the hard times. What I wonder is…is love so fragile? I would dare say, “NO, Love is not fragile, human feelings can be delicate however”. Sometimes we have bandaid friendships. Friendships where we just make each other feel better are nice, but inevitably we will experience situations where we have differing opinions. What to do? We have many options. We can avoid each other. We can say what we think the other wants to hear. We can pretend we are fine when in fact we are not. We can sabotage the relationship by speaking badly about our friend with others. All of these options limit the possibility of growth that is inherent in the institution of friendship. If these are the options we choose we either remain bandaid friends, or we end the friendship entirely.

We can also choose to make LOVE  and FRIENDSHIP more important than the disagreement. This does not mean the disagreement will go away or that disagreements will not happen again. We can accept the discomfort of the disagreement, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, upset, angry, or whatever feeling we are having. We can speak about these feelings with our friend. When we understand that these feelings are delicate places, but our LOVE and FRIENDSHIP are not, well then, together we can heal anything!

Remember when “cliques“ meant a group of girlfriends that were “special” because they excluded others? Well Girlfriends, the clique, aka “click” is back in style! Clicks have taken on a new meaning however among 21st century Girlfriends. With the advent of blogging and online social networking and shopping, click is now something we do with our computers! Click is how we express ourselves. Click is how we stay connected. Click is our friend and everyone is included!

Clicks’ BFF is Blog. Everybody’s clicking and blogging! Today, we are interested in hearing from everyone and learning from each other. We love to hear the experiences, visions, and perspectives of our young women. We are honored to receive the wisdom of our women who are steeped in years of experience. Girlfriends of different generations are more connected then ever! Also, we are clicking with Girlfriends around the world that we never would have communicated with before the Girlfriendiassance. It’s a Renaissance of community and of communication. It’s a good day for humanity. We’ve become one giant CLICK Girlfriends!
Would you like to join the click? It’s easy - your in! You are encouraged to express yourself by blogging. Do it often. It’s the new social experiment. Rather than waiting for people to get you or seek you out, blog about it and see what happens. There are many ways to start. WordPress is one way. There is a bit of a learning curve, with wordpress, so in the interest in making blogging as easy as possible; you are invited to join the Girlfriendaissance.  You can CLICK on girlfriendaissance.ning.com and join the Girlfriend Renaissance! You can create your own page, spruce it up, and use it as your personal blog if you don’t already have one. You can add your RSS, and if you know what that means, congratulations Girlfriend you’re already blogging! Add your photos, videos, music, choose your colors, link it with your additional websites/blogs, and share it with others. You can also invite your friends to join us. Also, if you have products and services that serve the greater good, blog about it on your page and link your sites so we can learn from you!
Show & Tell us your thoughts, creations, wisdom, stories and everything else. Keep us up to date with you. The blogs can be long or short, deep or trivial, well written or just silly! It’s all good, and you have an interested audience!

The Girlfriends of planet Earth recognized the inherent power of Girlfriendship, got organized, and did what they do naturally.  They ushered in a time of peace and goodwill by insisting upon integrity in all relationships.  Oh, and they had a lot of fun doing it!

This sweet little book is written by you and me Girlfriend!  More importantly, it is lived and shared by us during a time when we contributed to a major evolutionary advancement for humanity.  At long last, we learned to use our free-will to extend goodwill.

The Pledges of Integrity are good faith affirmations given Girlfriend to Girlfriend.  They represent our new world view where we pay-it-forward, there is enough for everyone, and we all shine.

$1.00 for every pledgebook is donated to improve the quality of life for someone you do not even know!  How fun is that?

May all Beings have Happiness.  girlfriendaissance.com