檳榔嶼

Introduction
- We women learn to wrap our feelings of shame and inadequacy around us like an old familiar blanket.
  - We may be quick to ask "What's wrong with me?" rather than examining the dispiriting and disempowering forces that make us doubt ourselves.
- What's wrong with a focus on self-improvement? Nothing, actually. Working on our own self is a far more rewarding venture than trying to change another person who doesn't want to change.
  - Working on the self should be a self-loving task, and cannot be accomplished in an atmosphere of self-depreciation, self-blame, or perfectionism.
- If "who we are" is devalued and discounted by important people around us, or by the culture we live in, we will have to struggle even harder to love and value ourselves, to use and even acknowledge our competence.
  - A huge body of psychological research documents the fact that women in this society have far lower self-esteem than their male counterparts - a natural consequence of patriarchy.
  - The reasons for low self-regard or personal unhappiness are difficult to decipher.
  - Perhaps we're living in a way that compromises our deepest values, beliefs, and desires. Perhaps we do not have clear goals or a life plan. ... Maybe we face discrimination and unfairness on a daily basis. Countless factors from within and without can contribute to our dissatisfaction.
- The more centered the self, the more solid our connections to others.
  - the more humor, perspective, and balance in our lives - the better we'll handle whatever surprises life plunks down in our path.

I've Never Had an Orgasm
- You need to listen first to the wisdom of your body, not to your friends, or even to expert device.
- Masturbation is a normal way to give ourselves pleasure, to relieve tension, ant to know ourselves. It offers us the privacy, freedom, and control with which to relax and pay attention to our rhythms, sensations, and desires. 
  - Wemen are taught to pay attention to the passions we arouse in others rather than to our own pleasure.
- In our culture, sexuality remains one of the most contaminated and compromised aspects of women's lives.
  - Many are sexually abused or taught body shame, fear, and self-hatred.
- Try deleting the word masturbation from your consciousness. Touch your elbow, cheek, belly, vulva, hair, neck, nipple - without dividing your body or your responses into categories of "sexual" and "not sexual". You are all you.
  - Don't push your body to do or feel anything. The challenge is not to achieve orgasm or to achieve anything but rather to restore connection, self-regard, and self-love.

Should I Find Out my IQ?
- IQ testing is useful in clarifying any number of important diagnostic questions, but not in measuring general intelligence. Moreover, the construciont of standardized intelligence tests reflects racial, class, and gender biases.
  - This number would reflect nothing about your special abilities and limitations, even as measured by the test.
- When we begin to feel less than equal, we should question these standards and ask, "Who says?"
- Intelligence includes such complex and invaluable skills as the capacity for friendship, for empathy, for being perceptive, caring, alert, and emotionally present in the world.
  - The richest and most critical aspects of intelligence cannot be assigned a number.

I'm So Self-Conscious
- Often in our best efforts to change things, we make them worse.
- If you could surgically remove your shyness, you might also remove what you most value about yourself. Often, what we like the very best and the very least about ourselves are one and the same or, more accurately, different variations on the same theme.
  - You would be surprised at how common shyness is and how many people mask it with what seems like standoffishness, social superiority, or feigned confidence.

I'm Not Sure My Therapy Is Working
- It's often not wise to terminate therapy at a time of crisis or turmoil, which is not a tmie of clear thinking.
- Ultimately, you are the best expert on your own. ... no one else can - or should - make this decision for you, your therapist included.

Liiving with Chronic Illness
- It's not useful to keep a "positive attitude" when this means concealing or denying real emotions.

I Just Can't Say No!
- Women are often far more sensitive to other people's needs than to our own.
  - As a result, we may feel guilty if we're anything less than an emotional service station to others.
- Changing age-old pattern is understandably difficult.
- Some suggestions :
  1. If you're feeling even slightly uncertain about a request, don't give an immediate answer. "I need a little time to think about it. I'll get back to you tomorrow."
  2. Choose carefully when you really want to say no. If you don't feel comfortable saying no in a particular situation, that's OK.
  3. When you do say no, make sure your explanations are only about you and not an implicit criticism of the other person.
  4. Don't try to change the other person's response.
  5. Avoid becoming defensive or providing lengthy explanations for your decision.
  6. Try to stay clamand low-key.
  7. Steer clear of blaming others for your choices and behaviors.
  8. Connect with other women in your family to learn how they managed the dilemma you are struggling with.
  9. Go slowly and start small.
  10. Try not to distance yourself or retreat into anger.
- Few things are all good or all bad.

I'm Ashamed to Undress in the Locker Room
- Few women are unaffected by narrow and unimaginative standards of attractiveness and acceptability for whatever body part we may happen to focus on.
  - Heterosexual females rarely have the opportunity to get accurate visual information that allows us to appreciate of our anatomical variability. As to the "What's normal?" quest, vulvas differ widely in style, color, size, and proportion, and many include "turkey wattles"
  - Shame-inducing messages about our bodies and sexuality are everywhere.
- A woman's shame about her vulva may mask deeper anxieties about sexuality or reflect a history of sexual trauma, but this is by no means always the case.

Am I Codepedent?
- It makes good sense to resist negative labels of any kind.

I'm Afriad I'm a Lesbian
- A woman may unexpectedly fall in love with another woman at any stage of the adult life cycle.
- What is shameful is the ignorance and prejudice of a society that condemns honest affections.
- We know very little about the nature of erotic passion and what determines our sexual orientation. Falling in love can reflect an irrational, anxiety-driven response or an enduring, solid bond.
  - You need not label yourself one way or another, nor must you decide today whom or how you will love next year.
- Try to become less concerned about what you are and more comfortable with where you are at the present time. Give yourself permission to experience uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion. These are normal feelings that reflect the tension between where your heart has led you and societally induced shame.
  - To this end, don't deal with your problem in isolation.
  - Don't shut the door on psychotherapy. ... Inquire directly about her or his values and beliefs... You don't need to pay a therapist to increase your shame or narrow your opinions.

Help! I'm Too Gorgeous!
- Whether you are beautiful or not, relationships are invariably difficult, at least somewhere along the way.
- A woman's beauty - or lakc of it - tells us virtually nothing about how her relations will fare over the long haul.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell
- Anger is neither right nor wrong legitimate nor illegitimate.
- It is hardly surprising that we are encouraged to remain nonthreatening "girls" rather than to become strong women, and that the wisdom and experience of older women are devalued and ignored.
  - The fact that mystifying and concealing the number of years we have been alive is normalized or culturally sanctioned does not make it less of an assault on our dignity and self-regard.

Can We Cause Our Own Cancer?
- How we live is more important that how long we live.
- This blame-the-victim syndrome is a terrible distortion of our recognition of the healing powers of loving oneself and one's life.
- Any threat to our survival can inspire us to be more passionate, clear-eyed, and awake.

Is My Fantasy Abnormal?
- Any particular sexual fantasy may say nothing about what we actually want in real life.

Should I Pretend to Be Happy?
- Putting on a happy face is hardly useful if we conceal real feelings that need to be acknowledged, shared, validated, and understood.
- No amount of smiling can substitute for the hard work of addressing the actual sources of your unhappiness and taking action to solve your problems.

I Trusted My Doctor
- You did what our culture encourages us to do : you trusted your doctor.
- Don't assume that your doctor operated out of greed. Medicine is an inexact science that leaves much room for differing opinions and wisdom through hindsight.
  - When any kind of surgery is recommended, always get a second (or third) opinion.
- Any number of activities can help you get a grip on your intense emotions: keep a journal, join a hysterectomy support group, talk with family and friends, become an advocate of women's health issues.

Should I Quit Group Therapy?
- How good are you at communicating your own needs and vulnerability - and making yourself heard?

My Abortion Haunts Me
- Create a special ritual that will allow you to express your sorrow and grief.