Moving House: Come On Over!

WORK. LIFE. BALANCE. has found a new home.  I'd LOVE you to join me over at my new blog http://www.chrysulawinegar.com.  Please bookmark, subscribe and join in.  In the spirit of flexibility, this is a platform that gives me more freedom, both intellectually and technically, to grow my body of thoughts and actions.

The old blog is fully migrated across with a full search function so you can find all your favorite posts from here on the new site. 

I'll be posting this week from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's "Focus on Flexibility".

Thought leaders in the work place flexibility field have gathered in Washington DC to deliver latest research, hammer home the business case and intensify the urgency of work life issues for everyone.  A preliminary session today for bloggers was inspiring and motivating.  Work life issues are at the heart of the zeitgeist. 

What's your burning question?  What do you want to see from the think tanks, from the big companies, from the legislators?  If you could have just one thing change, so that you could change the world, what would it be?  Comment here.

Note: Current subscribers to this blog, I am still in the throes of figuring out whether you have to resubscribe or not, bear with me on that one!  Updates will be forth coming.

She Negotiates Balance and Purpose

Chrysula Winegar Joins She Negotiates University Training and Coaching Staff!

I recently joined the She Negotiates University training and coaching staff and will be teaching She Negotiates Balance and Purpose beginning January 17, 2011.  Lisa Gates, Head Coach and outright genius woman, interviewed me over the weekend.  Want to know more about this step I've taken, why I am obsessed about helping women take back control in their lives and why I chose She Negotiates as my partner? Read on my friends!

LG: Chrysula, who are you...inside out?

CW: Wow Lisa, the ultimate question isn’t it? Like all women, I wear a multiplicity of identities and they are all me. Not exclusively, not necessarily in order but often simultaneously, I am: 

• a child of the divine                                               
• a daughter
• a sister                                                           
• a niece, cousin, granddaughter, aunt           
• a friend
• a wife
• a mother
• a student
• an entrepreneur
• a worker                                                            
• a servant                                                           
• a leader
• an activist                                                           
• a community participant
• a writer                                                           
• a dreamer

LG: I know you don't mean equal time allotted to each role or hat we wear. But why do you think we persist with this perception of balance?  

CW: Balance has become synonymous with something much richer and deeper than two sides of a see-sawing scale. We are searching for a sense of peace, a sense of purpose. Not just searching, but hungering. We want our down time to actually feel restful. We want to dust off those dreams and live them. To do that, we have to start living consciously; to make active choices instead of year after year, job after job, day after day, of reactionary living.

LG: So whose responsibility is balance? Are companies to blame? Is it media and the ubiquitous Blackberry?  How do we switch off when we will lose our jobs if we are not on call 24/7? Or lose our kids if we’re not on top of them every second?

CW: Companies have a huge role to play, as do governments. But they can’t do much without individuals stepping up to lay claim to their own lives. I often say it’s the holy trinity of individual responsibility, corporate culture and policy and careful baseline legislation. You may be in a position to influence and guide the latter two elements. But the one piece where you have control is yourself; your choices, your responses.

LG: What got you so passionate about this stuff? 

CW: I’ve lived all over the world, worked in giant multi-national corporations and one-(wo)man bands!  Culture is everything - in our homes, communities and workplaces. I first thought about the issue of balance when I was a recruiter in Sydney and then London almost 20 years ago! I interviewed dozens of people each week and was fascinated by how people got to different points in their careers. I was equally fascinated how my bosses and clients had little tolerance for alternative paths. The non-linear, non-hierachical way was usually rejected; those candidates swiftly pushed aside. So few organizations had cultures that could handle anything out of the norm. 

Then I went back to grad school at night. I was able to do this only because of an inspirational and supportive boss who allowed me great latitude and was my greatest advocate. Soon after, family illness struck. It honestly never occurred to me work out a sabbatical or even an international transfer. I just quit and packed up and went home to Australia. I was the primary carer for my darling Aunt for three months until she passed. Now, I am a mother. It’s a whole different level of non-linear and non-hierachical. Very few companies really understand it or get it right. 

We have all experienced gross imbalance to some degree. It looks like stress, frustration, burn out and a constant feeling of being overwhelmed and exhausted. We have these huge responsibilities and innumerable roles. We are passionate about each of them. The workplace is generally rigid and unforgiving, though it is slowly shifting. 

In the meantime, we dull our pain with TV, we medicate with endless hours online, and our dreams lay dormant, suffocating because we cannot find the energy to open the window to let the oxygen in. It has to stop.

LG:  What’s the missing piece?

CW:  Vision. Passion. Purpose. Anchoring the daily details of our lives in a truly personal declaration of who we are and why we are here. Learning to harness and leverage that so that we can implement our vision into the reality of our existence. That is exactly why I chose to teach with She Negotiates above everyone else out there. 

 

LG:  Thanks for your trust and the compliment :)

CW: It's more than a compliment! The core curriculum that has been created here, with the She Negotiates signature training, Balance and Purpose and then the Busyness in Balance courses are taught by women who are not only experts in their fields, but who live and breathe their expertise. The core curriculum offers concrete, transformative tools for daily living.  

LG:  What are you most looking forward to with your course?

CW:  In January’s Balance and Purpose Course, we are going to get into the nitty gritty of this missing piece.  And then we are going to change the world with what we discover. 

LG: Yes. That's the inside out piece we all run with here at She Negotiates!"

You'll be hearing more.  Also my blog is undergoing a redesign and moving house!  I'll be making more detailed announcements soon, but the new look and name will give me a lot more freedom to explore different ideas and thoughts.  Watch this space!  

I'd love your thoughts on this new project of mine above, and if you'd like to join the course, you could give yourself a fantastic Christmas/Holiday gift.  Sign up for the She Negotiates Balance and Purpose Course here.

Cross-posted from the www.shenegotiates.com blog.

It's Always About the Culture

As part of National Work and Family Month, I was invited to contribute to a series of blog posts over at The Huffington Post.  My thoughts begin around the idea of culture, in our households, our workplaces and in our nations.  Last weekend I attended a retreat with The Power of Moms, where we spent a great deal of time talking about consciously choosing and creating a family culture.  It has to be a deliberate act, not something that just happens.  I will be writing about the things I learned next week.  But in the meantime, my piece went up earlier today and I wanted to share it with you.

"Do you want to have equality in your parenting and household management? No prizes for guessing, but it's grounded in the family cultures you came from and the one you're creating now. What about company work flexibility practices that are stated as policy on the outside but rarely happen on the inside, or least not consistently? Culture again. What about having a country that can wrap its collective head around non-linear, non-hierarchical, post-industrial age work practices, acknowledging human capital as human beings? It's always about the culture..."

(For the rest, link to my Huffington Post piece here)

I would love your comments on culture at all of these levels, either here or over at Huffington Post.  How do you go about the deliberate creation of a culture?  How do you involve your children, your employees, your constituents?

Image iStockphoto.com

I Am Mad As Hell

Have you counted how many google results come up when you search "leadership men vs women"? 37,700,000 at time of writing.  The fact that the default search variable that pops up includes "vs" gets us immediately to the nub of the issue.  If you change the "vs" to "and" it leaps to 49,000,000 results.  But scrolling through the first 20 pages or so (I couldn't take it any longer after that), the bulk of articles still pit one gender against another.

Why would you want to read yet another discussion of this exhausted clearly well covered topic?  Because we haven't nailed it yet readers.  We have not even come close. 

I claim myself a feminist, but do not have the academic grounding to discuss complex feminist theory.  It's more of an experiential thing.  Because I spent several years home full time with my children and now do business from my home, there are many who would insist I cannot and should not claim that label.  I view men and women as powerfully and equally yoked.  With many, many shared traits and a few that are different.  This is overwhelmingly to our collective benefit.

My theory on the elephant in the male and female leadership room is motherhood.  Yup.  The M-word.  It's not a unique theory.  In the paid work force it is the single delineating factor pushing salaries and responsibility downwards for women with children.  It has nothing to do with just anyone having children.  Only women.  I am a huge supporter of mothers having a season of their lives to be home full time with their children if circumstances and desire permit.  I regard it as a profound opportunity, even on the days when I don't.  I do not judge those who do not or cannot make this decision.  But I'm as mad as hell that my perceived value socially and economically takes such an enormous hit simply because I took the path I did.

Until we can embrace the totality of leadership qualities inherent in good mothering, irrespective of whether that mother works for pay or not, the arena of leadership as a whole is cut off at the knees, flawed and incomplete.

Read more »

And There's More!

I've been writing a lot about mothers lately.  Readers who are fathers and non-parents - stick with me!  It's all so connected.  When we get it right for families, the knock-on effects for all us will be monumental.

A few post scripts from my UN Foundation experience that might interest you.

• Inspired by our panel on women on-line getting socially engaged, PhD in Parenting wrote a searching post on the ethical issues of supporting a cause that is also sponsored by a company you find unethical.

• Emily McKhann, Kristina Daniele and I were interviewed by UN Week Media here.  Watching it reminds me how incredible these two women are and what a gift it was to be surrounded by such talent.

• Mothers Acting Up invited me to write some thoughts on mother leadership here.  I am blown away by the work of this group and I will definitely be talking more about their work.  I would love your thoughts on this topic.  Please read and comment.

• Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers Club was at the early part of the UN Foundation Mashable Digital Media Lounge at the 92nd St Y. She is pitch perfect on how the week moved her from overwhelmed on global problems to seeing the power of one, and specifically leveraging her substantive on-line expertise.  Her post "It's All About People Contributing to a Collective Idea" is here.

October is Work and Family month in the US and I'll be trying to post more often this month as well as participating in some blog carnivals on relevant topics that I'll share with you as the month proceeds.  Final note, a few changes coming for the site, more on that front soon!

I would be honored if you would subscribe via email or RSS on the right hand side of the page as we explore all manner of topics connected to living with integrity and balance.

Image from and in homage to Mothers Acting Up www.mothersactingup.org

I'm Gonna Be a Bad Mama Today

Because we all wake up with that conscious decision in our heads, don't we?  I'm going to scream and shout and panic.  I'm going to teach my kids bad words and how to goof off school and responsibilities.   I'm going to bribe them, belittle them, be cruel.  I'm going to use my children as a weapon against my partner.  Really.  With much of the messaging out there, I sometimes wonder.

In my quest for tools that foster a meaningful life, a life that matters, peaceful vision-based parenting is high on my list.  I discovered a group of amazing women at The Power of Moms (www.powerofmoms.com) who completely understand that the vast majority of parents are doing their best to be wonderful mothers and fathers.  Founding partners Saren Eyre Loosli and April Perry have made it their mission to provide specific tools, ideas and inspiration for women to be the kind of mothers they truly want to be.  The kind of mothers we all wake up in the morning hoping we will be that day and every day.

Whilst I've mentioned their work in the past, I've recently been using some of their fantastic tools (more on this soon) and will be attending my first retreat with Saren, her sister Saydi Eyre Schumway and Sarah Turner, in New Hampshire later this month.  There are a few places left on the retreat and so I wanted to get the word out to my networks in the New England area.  Details are here and the registration deadline is Wednesday October 6th so HURRY!

FTC disclosure: I am attending The Power of Moms retreat as a paying attendee but at a reduced rate.

I would be honored if you would subscribe via email or RSS on the right hand side of the page as we explore all manner of topics connected to living with integrity and balance.

Mother Power

"We are here.  Use our voices."
Katherine Stone, Post Partum Progress

This post is about and for us all, even though it is titled for mothers. Inspired by my participation in the UN Foundation's Digital Media Lounge last week in partnership with Mashable and the 92 St Y, it is a call to action for all.

I am a mother.

No sooner are those words out of my mouth then in every society across this planet, there are instant connotations.  It could be implied that I left my brain somewhere, that I’m sleep deprived, that I have “pay me less money” stamped on my forehead, that I sit around eating chocolate and watching Oprah.  That I sold out feminism by staying home with my children, that I sold out my children by going to work.  In many cultures it could mean I get up first, go to bed last and am entirely responsible for every drop of water, every morsel of food in my household.  It could imply I am caring for my parents, my grandparents and my children.   

It might mean that society views me through the lens of sacrifice and honor or simply by how much I’m worth in the Mothers’ Day sales figures.  It might mean I give birth to my babies on a mud floor or in a hospital where the walls are covered with blood and women are two and three to a bed.  It might mean I have never given birth, but call the forgotten and abandoned and sick of heart, my children.

Watch live streaming video from mashable at livestream.com

The rise of the digital age is giving mothers their power.  Political power, social power, economic power.  Mother power.  Mothers are telling their stories.  And mothers who don’t yet have that digital access, are telling their stories to mothers who do.  We amplify each other’s voices and we reach across the globe.

In the US, the rise of the “mommy blogger” has been greeted with celebration, derision and exploitation.  The term has become offensive to many, as in some circles it has come to mean wanna-be journalists with a penchant for free stuff.  Or worse, “let’s pitch this to some of those cute mommy bloggers”.  We are not interested in that conversation today.  We are interested in the real, tangible impact mothers who blog or engage in social media or simply share things they discover on-line are having on their neighborhoods, communities, nations and of course, the world. 

There is always a thrill when you’re looking at your blog traffic statistics and you see you have a reader in Mongolia (hello!).  I write predominantly for American women and the bulk of my readers are in the US, with Australia and the UK close behind.  I write predominantly about work, parenting, childcare, elder care, marriage, juggling it all, finding work life balance, whatever that means to each of us.  It seems like a conversation for the privileged and I understand that, but disagree. 

Every society has to examine how it incorporates women in its formal and informal systems of work.  Work/life constraints most severely affect the poorest. Blogging about these issues in the developed world have opened my eyes to what mothers face in other countries.  In fact, the sheer act of starting a blog has opened me to the force of connectedness I have to every mother.  The cliché is true after all; what unites us is infinitely more than what divides us.

I am not part of the development community. I certainly don’t pretend to have solutions to the great global challenges.  But I know how to tell stories that I care about.  And that’s how we connect, engage and find the spaces where we are all the same.

In this process of learning more about global poverty, illness, the role of women and access to resources, through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), I realized the need for more balance is our lives is even more critical. Each of us with the desire to serve and simply DO SOMETHING needs to carve out that priority in our lives.  It's too important to leave it to somebody else.  

I renew my commitment to cajole, agitate, advocate and educate individuals, organizations and governments to find more innovative ways to structure our social and workplace systems to maximize productivity and open the door for truly global scale problem solving.

For inspiration, and a further call to action, listen to A Conversation on Faith, Women and the MDGs with Marianne Williamson, "don't shut up... keep talking about the issues."  That's exactly my intention.

Welcome new readers, it is an honor to have you here.  It would be wonderful to have you here more often, please subscribe on the right column of this page by RSS or email and comment so I can connect with you more fully.

My deep gratitude to my on-line community who through twitter and facebook and email shout-outs keep lifting me up and reminding me I can fly.  Finally, kudos and huge virtual hugs to my co-panelists Emily McKhann and Kristina Daniele for a truly magical experience.

The World's To Do List: United Nations Week

The energy and story telling are inspiring.  And you don't have to be in New York.  Live streaming is here http://www.unfoundation.org/global-issues/millennium-development-goals/unweekdml.html.  If you can't watch the streaming, a special media site has been set up here http://unweekmedia.com/ highlighting all that's happening through the course of the week.

Right now Oxfam are talking about maternal morbidity, a topic deeply close to my heart.  During the time world leaders discuss programs for maternal and child health today, 1000 women will die in childbirth.

A mix of organizations and individuals sharing their stories are making the "world's to do list", the Millennium Development Goals, accessible to all of us.  Yesterday's topics at the UN Foundation Mashable Digital Media Lounge at the 92nd St Y, brought home the power of story telling.  Bloggers/writers take note.  We have an enormous role to play in helping the world solve poverty, disease, maternal and child health, empowering and educating women.  Step one is that we talk about the issues. 

For example, tuberculosis, a disease we've known how to diagnose for 100 years, known how to treat successfully for 40-50 years, is still the leading cause of death for those with HIV/AIDS and a top killer across all parts of the developing world.  And do you know what kills 1.5 million children a year?  Diarrhea (World Health Organization).  Elizabeth Gore of the UN Foundation said yesterday "I wish there was a rock star against diarrhea."  That seems to be what it takes to be heard.

So what are the Millennium Development Goals, or the world's to do list as quoted from the UN Foundation?

"The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development targets set forth by the United Nations. Adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015, the MDGs seek to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries."

1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2: Achieve universal primary education
3: Promote gender equality and empower women
4: Reduce child mortality
5: Improve maternal health
6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7: Ensure environmental sustainability
8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development 

The session I am moderating is this Friday morning Sept 24th, 11am New York Time.  Australian friends, if you can't sleep in the wee hours of Saturday, that's 1am your time!  "Changing the World, One Mother at a Time."  In our families, in our neighborhoods and communities, I know we can.