A Moral True North

In this video, Henry Rollins uses the phrase, "moral compass," and I immediately tuned into it.  

I read the phrase in a recommendation for my event planning skills on LinkedIn, which reads, 

"She is a very hard worker, a great communicator and has a profound moral compass."

According to Dictionary.com, a moral compass is anything which serves to guide a person's decisions based on morals or virtues.

On Moralcompass.com, a group of men compiled a list of those virtues:

Integrity

Responsibility

Compassion

Forgiveness

and continue that if you embody these traits, then whatever organization you serve will have:

Purpose 

Trust 

Camaraderie

They even offer a Self Assessment if you so wish to try.

I found some great images of what am moral compass would look like:

There have even been studies that have found a part of the brain that is the moral compass,

and then decided to play with magnets and try to offset the good judgments of the participants in the study.

In that same study, they also mention a "God spot," which I have also heard about, but when I went to research it, many studies have debunked the theory.  

However, on the subject of the moral compass, let's get one thing straight: 

There is good and bad, 

an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, 

the voice of reason, or the voice of desire. 

A moral compass measures  how we choose to interpret and act on our own personal situations.

We are the only ones who ever know what we truly felt, 

and equally the only ones who have to live with our choices.  

Look at the moral compass as a gift - 

choose to use it wisely and it will continually direct you to a true moral north.  

Happy Trails!

Strength + Inspiration = ReLOVEution

I must be honest.  I watched this video because of the freeze frame image that appears on it before you play it.  It caught my interest.  I was both shocked and curious.  Does that mean that I am a part of the cycle?  Am I subconsciously contributing to the degradation of women?  In my heart, I think not.  However, it is content like this that makes me WAKE UP and see the problem for what it is..not just something out of my hands...but something CLEARLY linked to my choices and actions as a woman.



This video moved me.  Thank you http://www.missrepresentation.org/!  I visited the site and took the pledge to spread the word even though I already shared it on Facebook!


However, I went back to Youtube to read other's comments about the video.


Here are some hard truths that I found:


"Get ready for an unpopular opinion, but the world will NEVER stop looking at women the way we do......until women stop looking at themselves the way they do."

"This video started with a great real premise, the media effect on young women. It ended with an old stupid argument, men vs women. If you listen to this guy (4:45) he makes it sound as if media is tilted against women and it is just not true. Men are always portrayed as immature, losers and incapable of growing up (man-child). Women are always successful and superior as men. Read The Atlantic article "The End of Men" and google "Media Portrayals Of Men". Both genders are being degraded."

SO, I went on to read http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/ and I believe that men are not to be battled against in this argument, but a force to be teamed up with to gain a step in the right direction.  

Let's not blame media and men for this outcome, but rather be accountable ourselves and make our own decisions to change the way world we live in.

It matters what we choose to look at, how we perceive it, and whether we let it affect us or not.

If we stop looking and feeding into the media's show, then we may be the catalyst for change in our own reality.  Happiness is found by realizing what we DO have, not by what the media tells us we need.

Here's to happiness :)

Nature of Mother

Every month, an earthquake rumbles in my womb.
Fault lines emerge
Destroying the rich crimson walls
That took weeks to build.

The chemistry disrupts
Inside my blood
A roller coaster of hormones
Takes off...

Trudging uphill, backwards
Hitting every plank
A rickety old track--
Tests my confidence and patience.

I crest the hill
Free falling along the course
Losing my guts,
Clinging to my sanity
.
The world flips upside-down,
My stomach turns sour.
I want to be back on the ground
Sturdy again, but I must wait.

The cart stops
I step out
Back in the warm sun
Thank God it's over!

Familiar with the course
I am ready
Building up courage now
For next month's round.