Women and Money: Let’s Talk About It

With the current financial market crisis and national anxiety about our economy, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about MONEY.

Along with perhaps many others, I have gone on a big journey with money this year. I started my business, Lotus Blossom Style, exactly one year ago. I was new to owning a business and perhaps a bit green in more ways than one. While on many days I have felt great joy, pleasure, pride, and excitement from starting, growing and nurturing my own business, on other days I have gone through the darker side feeling shame, doubt, confusion, frustration, fear, anxiety, exasperation, you name it… as I watched myself go more and more into debt while trying to get a business off the ground.

Having a heartfelt connection and determination to continue growing my business, I had no choice but to confront issues with money that I have never looked at before.

One of the best things I could have ever done for myself was take a workshop called “The Financial Whisperer” with Pegi Burdick, who I like to call the “wizard of financial emotional intelligence.” The workshop is set up to help women examine and get insight into how they let their past manage their money today. It teaches women how to move forward with strength and confidence. Facing up to my financial challenges was not easy, but it was something that benefited me and continues to benefit me as I move forward.

According to the most recent statistics from the US Labor Department, women over the age of 25 earn 78.7 cents to every man’s dollar AND according to Linda Morgan, financial advisor here in Los Angeles, 80 percent of retired women are not eligible for a pension benefit. Yikes! Since women have lower earnings, lower retirement incomes, and live longer life spans (an average of seven years), women are DEFINITELY the ones who should be talking about money and especially money management!

Growing up in the environment that I did, I never felt it was necessarily “appropriate” to talk about money. No one ever sat me down to teach the birds and bees of finances. As a girl and then as a woman, I was taught to go for my passions, live my dreams. Not manage money. This is something perhaps I should have sought out myself, however I don’t think I even knew enough to do that.

Now that I have found some resources to talk about money as a woman with women, I feel more grounded, stable and more financially emotionally intelligent. As I am preparing for marriage to a most wonderful fellow, I can enter as an equal and not as a “dependent.” Maybe in the long run, as more and more women talk about money and the management of it — women’s financial emotional intelligence will continually increase and we will live in a world with more equality in pay and maybe even a lower divorce rate.

What do you think?

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Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.

Burned at the Theater

Earlier this week I went to see the Coen Brothers’ film, Burn After Reading, starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt. As is typical before the film, the theater played about 15 minutes of previews. I usually love the previews if I am going to a romantic comedy or drama, but this time I should have been smarter. I should have skipped the previews.

There was everything from Kid Rock promoting the National Guard through a hard rock music video ad called “Warrior” to Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris as a pair of hired gunmen trying to “clean up” a dangerous town in a film called Appaloosa. The previews’ focus on military, weapons and violence was tremendous. I felt like I had to protect myself from what was being shown on the screen, and by the end of it — I had felt violated. I came to see what I thought was a satirical comedy, but here I was feeling like I was going through a bloody battlefield. Yes, I could have gotten up and left the theater – but I kept on waiting for a non-violent and hopeful preview to come up.

The movie itself, Burn After Reading, had what I considered, a distasteful amount of violence. I understood that in some way, like Pulp Fiction, the over the top nature and absolute idiocy of the violence was potentially a way to make the point that we have become a culture so outlandishly obsessed with violence that we are in fact desensitized to it. On the other hand, I wonder if the Coen brothers actually meant for the violence to BE the entertainment.

Seeing this film and hearing so much military talk in the media lately has led me to think more about the nature of violence and why I feel so disheartened and sad when exposed to it.

The day after the barrage of unsettling movie previews, I had lunch with a very good friend. I spoke to her about my experience and how I was grappling with trying to understand the polarization between peace and violence, light and dark. She suggested that aiming toward the light so much and cutting off from the dark in fact cuts us off from our own power. She said, “In my experience, the light and the dark are the same…they are two sides of the same coin…If you believe the darkness will hurt you, it will. If you witness it, accept it, and release it you won’t be held prisoner by it.”

I am still contemplating all of this.

Should we face the violence and try to understand it? or should we stand up and try to eliminate it from our every day lives?

What’s your take?

Can War Really Lead to Peace?

I was recently invited to attend Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Day of Peace event here in Los Angeles in Griffith Park coming up on September 21. This day will commemorate the United Nations International Day of Peace that was established in 1981 to highlight efforts to end conflict and promote peace around the world. On this day there is actually an official “Global Ceasefire.” After watching the Republican Convention a couple of weeks ago on television and seeing so many military families present, I questioned as I always do — do people really think that war can lead to peace?

Since I was a child I have always questioned the purpose of war and still to this day do not believe that it is helpful and certainly do not believe that it can bring peace. Some people would call me naive and question me about how I would “protect” my country. I didn’t necessarily always have an answer, but did know in my heart and common sense intellect that war would only breed more war and the cycle would continue.

So I was thrilled to hear about the Peace Intention Experiment coming up on September 14. Lynn McTaggart, internationally recognized spokeswoman on the science of spirituality and award-winning author, is working with scientists to test the power of group intention to lower violence in areas experiencing high levels of conflict and war-torn areas around the world. In other words, they are embarking on scientific studies to determine whether “group mind” has the power to increase peace in our physical world.

On this same note, I heard that last Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to practice yoga in the name of peace. Later, thousands more came to add to the peace celebration and enjoyed the Power to the Peaceful Festival which is put on annually by yogi, musician and peace activist Michael Franti.

Events like these and the International Day of Peace give me great hope that with more and more of us meditating, praying, holding peace gatherings, peace concerts and so forth all over the world we can make progress.

At the same time that I was feeling so thrilled about the peace events, I came across a short article in LA Yoga magazine that made me question war and weaponry once again. The article was about the Hindu Goddess Durga. Durga is known as a warrioress who rides upon a tiger (sometimes a lion), carrying weapons and wearing a compassionate smile. It is said that Durga uses her power to defend the highest truths and that at times of adversity, her strength is called upon to overcome negative influences, destroy evil and restore peace! As you know, I am a big fan of goddesses and I know it is usually best not to translate the stories of the Hindu Goddesses literally, but I couldn’t help question, “do we really need weapons to destroy evil?” I still think ‘no’.

Do you think living in a world without wars is possible?

If so, what are the ways that you think we can achieve this?

If not, why not?

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Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs and emerging authors get their message out. Additionally she is the founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company created to support women in their personal transformation. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.

Does Progress Have a Gender?

With the recent selection of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska by John McCain as his running mate, I have been thinking a lot about the significance of his choice. What seemed like a simple choice for many women who were Hillary or Obama supporters, may have just gotten more difficult.

While I think it is amazing progress that a woman could be chosen as a Vice Presidential candidate and that choice is considered a strength rather than a weakness, I am distraught at how the selection of Sarah Palin could effect our country and our world’s future.

I have to tell you that in expressing any doubts about her, I am feeling very sensitive about potentially criticizing and putting down a woman. From my other blog entries, you know that I am a huge proponent of women coming into leadership and power. But can I stick by that position even if I don’t agree with the woman’s values?

For example, Sarah Palin is a proponent of oil drilling. I am not. Sarah Palin is against women having a choice for an abortion. I am for women having a choice. Sarah Palin would put America first beyond all other countries. I on the other hand feel that an “America First” attitude will lead us to more “us vs. them” contentiousness and ultimately more war.

Since John McCain’s announcement of his Vice Presidential running mate, I have been challenged by the questions: Does progress for women simply mean more women in power no matter what their political view? Does it mean men in power who respect, support and promote women? Or does it mean women in power who focus on what may be our future’s most important issue — the interrelated nature of humanity and our Mother Earth?

I have heard that people like to vote in their own image. This makes sense to me, but it also worries me. Will there be Democratic women voting Republican because there is a woman on the ticket? Where are men on the issue?