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Site Philosophy: The Ideas Behind UnconventionalWoman.com
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MEANING AND PURPOSE
We choose how we give our lives meaning. We all know that we each need to find our own drumbeat. But one of the things we have largely lost is the time to think and feel. The American “culture” is almost completely given over to feeding us negativity and seducing us into being “entertained:” which means distracting us from what is most important, and then creating substitutes that we need to buy.
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In fact, there is no product that can help us find ourselves. Only relationships, ideas and experiences, plus our own intense desire, can help us.  Bottom line, every single choice we make either nourishes the discovery and fulfillment of our purpose-- or starves it.
The only way is to step off the beaten track and begin to seriously listen to what’s inside instead of what’s outside, unplug from those outside influences, to find the ideas and experiences that move us inward. Here you'll find substantial books and ideas to stimulate your exploration, as well as other women who have the same goals.
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REWRITING THE RULES
Women are beaten with both ends of the beauty stick. The images and concepts which surround us typify a standardized ideal of beauty which is impossible to achieve at all for most of us, and hopeless for all of us after our 20’s. To look our best, to grow younger internally instead of older--yes! But to occupy our precious time and resources to look young at any cost--??
Intellectually we don't subscribe to these ideas. We know the purpose of advertising! Nevertheless, in some part of our brains, the program runs by itself - and we often  can’t help comparing ourselves to the women around us and to the ideal which is so lavishly and so constantly promoted.
Then we may feel inadequate; we watch helplessly as our bodies inevitably change and grow farther every year from the ideal of beauty that is seared into our brains. This drain on our self-esteem and continuously leaks the life energy that we could be using to create our lives and nurture ourselves and the ones we love.
And then, as we age, we fall through that sieve altogether and become more and more invisible. The unconscious ageism of most western cultures is shocking, and we all contribute to it.
Accepting this program is massively destructive on every level. It drains our confidence and pleasure in life. It depletes our financial resources if we get on the cosmetic or surgical merry-go-round. It causes or contributes to the “diseases of aging” by creating severe emotional crises of self-devaluation. But refusing to accept the program requires radical revision of our thinking…
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HEALTH
We have more information than ever before, and it is totally confusing. Doctors, researchers, and practitioners of all kinds, with many years of education and experience, simply do not agree on healing treatments. And the picture has been obscured for decades by powerful financial interests in the medical and food industries pushing their own agendas through the media.
In fact, although there are protocols for the treatment of every illness, there is not yet one answer to the question of how one stays healthy, or how one recovers from a given illness—we are individuals, chemically, energetically, and psychologically. There is, however, the answer which works for you. The bottom line is that we need to educate ourselves in what our individual bodies require by paying attention.
There are numerous effective ways to approach health, and some of the safest and most effective are most likely beyond the sphere of knowledge of your mainstream doctor. You will find a large number of health resources here. Here is a chart (click to enlarge) which may help make sense of the vast amount of alternative health information out there, much of which is explored inside the site.
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RELATIONSHIP
 We already know, and both psychological and biological studies have proven, that in order to be happy and healthy we need intimate contacts with fellow human beings—we need real friends. According to the authors of A General Theory of Love, “our nervous systems are not self-contained; from earliest childhood our brains actually link with those of the people close to us in a silent rhythm that makes up the life force of the body.”
Marla Paul (The Friendship Crisis) reports that when Dr. Redford Williams (director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Duke University) studied more than 1000 patients with coronary heart disease for five years, he and his team discovered that married patients survived longer than unmarried patients. But then they divided the unmarried patients into two categories – those with and without a close friend or confidante. Within those groups they found a dramatic difference. Half of the patients who were unmarried and did not have a confidante were dead within five years. About 85% of the unmarried patients with a confidante were still alive – the same survival rate as married individuals with a confidante.
It’s not a marriage per se that’s protective of health, but positive close relationships. An intimate relationship that is negative can be more destructive than being alone. Finding new friends and building closer relationships with those we have, especially as we head past middle age, is worth any amount of time and effort.
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WORK AND MONEY
 Work is what provides the means for us to live the life that makes sense to us. The work ethic in the U.S., even more than other industrialized countries, is dangerously skewed toward allowing jobs and work anxieties to take over "24/7". A shocking number of workers do not even take the vacations they are entitled to, or are expected to still be available by cell phone or email.
Some of this is the craziness of technology unchecked: if something can be done faster, then it should be. If you can be in constant contact, then you must be. If something can be done in a more polished way, then it has to be, no matter how many hours it takes. Does this trend really add anything of value to human life?
And some of it is the desire for MORE - the newest, the biggest, the best. Have we got our priorities straight? What feeds our real hungers?
But there is that bottom line - we have to have income to survive, and we have to have money to pursue our real interests, and we have to have savings unless we plan to literally die working. The first crucial step is to get clear about this. What, exactly, is your goal?
GO TO WHY THIS SITE WAS FOUNDED
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Site Philosophy 