Beauty, self-love, and women.

I have a theory that a lot of grown men have anger issues. I've had personal experience with passive-aggressive men, you know those guys who promise things and then don't do them and it feels like they're really just saying "f**k you"? Freud wrote about how we, as children, have to separate from our parents by rejecting them, thus the difficult teen-age years. This is tough for little girls who then have to actually kind of reject themselves to accomplish this. For guys, they reject their mom but then she's the 1st woman they ever fell in love with, so do they spend the rest of their lives with anger over this conflict? Or did they just have moms who ignored or belittled them?

I was reminded of this today with an email from a guy I don't know, but who is on my list of guys to invite to my free singles parties. I'm arranging a party in the park on an upcoming Sunday, a free party with a well-known band and ladies bringing desserts to share with the guys. What ever could anyone find wrong or upsetting about that? Well, there is one guy with the words "dirty boy" in his email address who responded to my invitation with this: Delete me from your spam list. I don't care about Sha Na Na, I don't care about your parties, I don't care about your blog, and I REALLY don't care about you. If I get one more email from you I will come to your next party and spill red wine all over you. Geez, if he isn't angry, I don't know who is!

So I was thinking, is this also a female phenomena, having such anger issues? I don't have any women friends who are angry, but I think I know what we ladies do instead. I became aware this week, one of those light-bulb moments, that I spend lots of time each day in self-criticism. Some of it is obvious, like when I see someone who I think is thinner or smarter or better dressed or more confident and I get that immediate feeling in my gut that makes me feel small and not-as-good as her. And then I realized that it's possible that I do this on a subconscious level, like when my boss suggests I may have done something wrong and I feel kinda stupid when I'm not.

I had dinner with one women friend this week who talked about her lack of confidence in social settings, especially around women she perceives as strong,how she feels less-than in their company. So one of those same friends told her this week how much she is admired, that she provides such a balance in their group of women and how she always seems so centered and confident that it calms them all. Another friend is still having trouble letting go from a recent break-up, continuing to second guess her decision or what she should have said or is the guy thinking she's crazy? My opinion is that she did amazingly well, dropping the guy almost immediately after she realized that he seemed to be a bomb waiting to go off and that he was barely controlling his animosity toward women. To me, she didn't fail in any way, but showed her strength and courage to let go of a guy who everyone else liked. She worries that she wasted time, but I think there was a lesson she needed to learn from him and now she is better for it. See, women criticize themselves when the reality is that they are are succeeding big-time.

So, let's vow to recognize our self-criticism. Let's vow to replace those thoughts with kind affirmations about ourselves. Let's tell ourselves that we how we are good to our friends and our family, how well we manage to provide for ourselves, how we do our best at our jobs, how we are kind and generous, how much our friends love us, and on and on. And - that we are beautiful and perfect in this very moment. Because we are.