For many of us girls and Moms, we might feel very confident saying NO in certain areas of our lives…

Maybe at home with our parents. Or with many of our friends and colleagues. Neighbors.

But perhaps NOT with a certain classmate or a teacher. A boyfriend, a coach. Or our boss. 

There might just be one or two areas in our lives - which might even surprise us - where it feels so much easier to people-please… and just give in and say YES.

And why we don’t tend to say no in certain situations is because our brain - which is programmed to keep the peace - makes us feel very UNCOMFORTABLE…

Because if we were to say NO - then what will HE think?

And our brain usually answers that maybe he’ll be mad and think that there is something wrong with you.

Or that you are doing it wrong.

Or you’ll just disappoint him.

And what we have to teach our daughters is that:

YES, HE MIGHT ACTUALLY THINK

ALL OF THESE THINGS!

He might think that there IS something wrong with you.

That you ARE doing it wrong.

And he might even be extremely disappointed.

And what your daughter needs to know is that - IT’S OKAY.

Because his FEELINGS will always come from his own thoughts –

which she can NEVER hurt or control.

And he can choose to think whatever he wants, at any point in time.

And what your daughter may not realize is that what matters even more than what HE thinks about her:

IS WHAT SHE THINKS ABOUT HERSELF.

Because when she tries so hard not to disappoint him,

she might just disappoint HERSELF.

Because when she feels it in her gut…

That it’s too much.

Or too soon.

Or goes against her own truth or values…

it actually feels uncomfortable in her own body to choose his wishes over what she would like.

So saying NO will feel uncomfortable,

but so will saying YES.

So we have to prepare her for these moments of discomfort – to learn to stand in her own truth and have her own back.

To feel the discomfort of perhaps feeling awkward or scared…

And saying NO regardless.

And your daughter might slowly recognize that in certain ways she is perhaps LESS powerful than she may have realized.

Because she can’t control him – or anyone else’s thoughts about her – no matter how hard she tries.

And as she learns to release other people’s opinions and starts advocating for herself…

she generates her power to say her own truth:

be it a NO or a YES.

We originally evolved to react FROM our feelings for survival.

To fight when we felt injustice.

To take extra precautions when we felt fear.

Because our emotions’ job was to get us out from the comfort of our cave - for food, firewood, water – just long enough to survive the dangers of the wild.

But 21st century is now a very different place…

And there are certain moments when instead of reacting FROM our feelings for survival, we are now in a position where we have to learn how to MANAGE them.

Because screaming at a colleague – we imagine - probably wouldn’t serve us too well.  

And most of us are fine feeling our happier, more positive emotions – joy, love, peace, comfort, pride.

But perhaps not so much those more uncomfortable ones...

Fear, doubt, shame, injustice, stress, overwhelm.

Yeah, no thanks.

So from a very young age on, many of us found our own unique way to cope with them…

Because who wants to feel emotional pain?!

It’s very logical to want to ESCAPE them.

So we’ve learned to go out of our way to try and NOT feel certain emotions…

And eat pastries instead. Or zone out in front of the TV. Over-drink. Over-exercise.

And who knows what else.

But now perhaps we have bigger dreams and goals. And access to modern science.

And we start noticing that our coping mechanism may have its underlying flaws – and the extra pounds, the hangovers, or the goals not reached… start adding up.

So going forward, we might need a much better plan.

So we say good-bye to our coping mechanism like a pacifier we brought along from childhood – AND WE THANK THEM.

Because your brain managed to figure out how to help you make it here with the LEAST amount of emotional pain… which is a remarkable achievement.

But now you are ready to pick up the flag and forge ahead.

Because SELF-CONFIDENCE – which for many of us is the Holy Grail of emotions – is within reach and no longer distant.

AND FROM AFAR, SELF-CONFIDENCE MAY SEEM MORE LIKE CLIMBING AN EXTRAORDINARY MOUNTAIN.

OR FIGHTING LIKE WONDER WOMAN.

BUT WAY UP CLOSE, IT’S VERY DIFFERENT…

Because SELF-CONFIDENCE is just knowing that no matter what emotion comes up for you,

you can handle them.

Even create a temporary home for them.  

And you keep moving forward towards your goals,

IN SPITE OF THEM.

So some of your MORE INTENSE EMOTIONS that you can’t just process or change, you learn to bring along like a purse or a backpack…

Which means that you WELCOME them.

But you don’t react FROM them.

You just feel the discomfort of feeling perhaps anxious, terrified, overwhelmed – and not make it a problem.

And instead of a fierce battle cry, you learn to tune in

to the quiet roar of your own self-confidence…

And one step at a time, you lead the way for your daughter,

and keep forging ahead towards your glorious goals in the distance.

They tend to teach us in our modern world that ALL feelings are important.

That all feelings have a message, that all feelings matter.

But at GIRLS REVOLUTION, we DISAGREE.

Your daughter’s emotional intelligence doesn’t come from learning how to feel ALL her emotions.

But rather, learning how to discern the feelings that actually matter to her.

BECAUSE SO MANY EMOTIONS

ARE AN ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME TO PROCESS.

Our brains throw out around 60,000 thoughts a day – 85% of which are subconscious.

But each one of those thoughts will create a feeling for her.

Because her FEELINGS are generated by her THOUGHTS.

And how many of her thoughts might just be RECYCLED thoughts from her past?

Thoughts such as:

“I’m not good enough.

I’m not worthy.

I don’t know if I can.

What if I fail?”

So her power doesn’t come from processing all her feelings… but rather, being able to catch these thoughts and learn to take control of them.

Because your daughter’s power lies in realizing that

SHE IS THE CREATOR OF HER FEELINGS!

With her own THOUGHTS.

And she doesn’t have to be at the effect of them, if she doesn’t want to be.

So at GIRLS REVOLUTION we learn how to create emotions that give her power, and learn to process her big emotions in a way that help her move forward, instead of weighing her down.

Because her feelings ARE important.

And when she learns how to take control of them, it unleashes her power in a way that is unmatched…

Because her emotions are the FUEL for every action she takes in life – whether from confidence, love, courage, compassion, or determination.

And all of these emotions, she has the power to create.

She is THAT powerful.

And it is finally time, that she finds out.

To help your daughter become the powerful girl you know she can be, she needs to first learn where this power actually comes from.

Because our brains tend to believe that certain people are just naturally born with this sense of girl power or an air of self-confidence.

And if your daughter perhaps feels like she wasn’t, then her brain might tell her that if only she would…

win that coveted competition,

or get into that top school,

be chosen for the lead role,

get a hundred likes,

look a certain way,

or be a part of that popular clique…

then she would finally join the ranks of confident girls.

Because our brains tend to put up goal posts to make us believe that we need to DO MORE, BE BETTER, AND ACHIEVE OUR GOALS…

in order to reach that coveted confidence.

But this is the very long way to go about it…

And most likely won’t even work.

Because if you were to look around yourself, you can probably meet Kindergarteners who can barely spell their names, full of confidence.

And PhD students, Oscar winners, Olympic athletes, full of self-doubt.

The reason for this is that your power, and how you show up in the world, doesn’t depend on how much you have achieved, what family you come from, or whether you can even spell your name correctly or not.

Rather, the way you show up – whether with power or self-doubt - is always determined by the thoughts that you are thinking.

And these THOUGHTS end up being the CODE that your daughter runs her life on…

So it is these thoughts that determine the way she FEELS about herself and the world around her, which then generate all the ACTIONS she decides to take.

I’m sure you’ve all heard that confidence for girls peaks sometime before puberty…

And what actually ends up happening are changes in the THOUGHTS

that your daughter is thinking.

Her brain is programmed to pick up sentences from the world around her, from social media, her peers, teachers, parents… which become more pertinent as she gets ready to leave the nest of childhood.

And for girls, the sentences she inherits can be endless reminders of society’s expectations of girls: 

Don’t make a mistake.

Get good grades.

Look a certain way.

Be nice.

Follow rules.

Achieve more.

Be a good girl.

Don’t stand out from the crowd!

So the individual shift can go in elementary school from “I make friends really easily,” all the way to “I feel like everybody is so smart and pretty and I’m just this ugly girl without friends” by middle school or high school - based on a survey of 1300 girls between the ages of 8-18.

So as your daughter’s brain starts the shift to puberty, she needs to learn how to navigate her world with continued power.

Because her life runs on her THOUGHTS.  

And if we want just as many girls to describe themselves the same as boys:

“I am confident, strong, adventurous and fearless…”

then she needs to learn how to make sense of the evolving sentences in her brain that guide her every move in life.

Your primitive brain has a default setting…

And this setting, if you let your primitive brain respond to life on its own, will most likely be some version of “You can’t handle it, so you are probably going to die...”

But we need to be thankful for this message, because our brains being on the lookout for things trying to kill us, have kept humans alive for millennia.

However, there are no longer gnarly animals out there trying to kill us…

Just junk food, phones, and our boss.

And even when there is an actual virus threatening our health, this default setting is not designed for long-term threats. Just quick actions, such as jumping back onto the sidewalk, when we might see a car barreling towards us.

So with this default setting, even when you sign up for a new exercise class, your brain will often confuse it with you wanting to tame a hungry tiger.

So it might warn you:

Don’t do it! It’s too scary. What if you are the worst in the class? That would just be too humiliating.   

As a result, 99.9% of our modern life needs a very different approach, instead of this default setting.

A NEW SETTING, THAT BECOMES HER MAIN BELIEF SYSTEM ABOUT HER LIFE,

WHICH YOUR DAUGHTER GETS TO DESIGN ON HER OWN.

And this starts with a sentence.

Just one sentence.

Because how you want her to go into the world is armed with a sentence that decides ahead of time how she wants to think about anything that happens to her – on purpose.

Instead of her default fear setting writing the script for her, such as:

You are not capable.

You are not good enough.

It’s too scary.

Life is hard.

It’s not fair…

Committing to a new sentence that becomes her BATTLE CRY actually fueling her power:

I’m a total badass.

My fuel is courage.

I’ve got this.

I have the power to create what I want in my life.

And this won’t be easy, of course.

Because her default brain has had years and years of training and will beat her to many obstacles at first, telling her to quit now or at least reconsider.

But with each practice… she will grow new neural pathways. 

And by claiming her sentence, she will start approaching her world in a confident new way.

Because how she experiences her life is ONLY dependent on how she THINKS about it.

So her power really begins with just one sentence.

And guess what?!

So does yours.

Everyone has a story they tell themselves about themselves.

Your daughter does, too.

It is a fully developed story with

a TITLE,

a BEGINNING,

a MIDDLE,

lots of different CHAPTERS -

which are made up of hundreds of little stories...

and a CONCLUSION.

Or rather, many conclusions.

And these conclusions from each little story

make up her SELF-IDENTITY.

Perhaps with thoughts such as:

I’m just not very confident.

Or I’m not creative.

It’s hard for me to make friends.

Or I’ve never been very athletic.

But things that happen to her in her life actually DO NOT determine her relationship with herself - how confident or creative she is, or how many friends she has.

Rather, what matters is how she decides to THINK about anything that happens to her...

ON PURPOSE.

BECAUSE THE CONCLUSIONS SHE DRAWS FROM EACH STORY IN HER LIFE

DICTATE HOW SHE THEN SHOWS UP FOR HERSELF.

This is the reason why famous actresses, powerful CEOs, Olympic champions… can (and often) still feel inadequate, insecure, or just not good enough.

Because it is never about WHAT YOU DO…

But rather, HOW YOU THINK about all the things you do or don’t do that fuel your life.

So at GIRLS REVOLUTION we teach Moms how to help their daughters take control of these conclusions, some of which might possibly be weighing her down, and instead write powerful stories that give her momentum forward.

Because as her Mom, it is in knowing WHAT TO SAY when life happens to her,

that creates the most powerful opportunity for her growth.

Perhaps when your daughter is scared…

Or when she says something mean about her body.

Or when you notice her people pleasing, giving up, or giving her power away in some way.

Often it is in these emotional moments that we can best help her through the challenges, targeting those micro-moments from her life.

And we can help her step into her power, no matter what happens to her…

One powerful conclusion at a time.