Director examines personal horizons
by Don Hicks, reporter

    “If I had my life to live over, I would ...” the director of Tarrant County Women’s Center asked participants during a Transitions To Success seminar.

    Karen Perkins told participants to write spontaneously all the things that flow on paper when they heard that sentence beginning.

    “Don’t stop to think,” she said, “just write all the things you can.”

    The idea, Perkins said, is to get past all the social and personal restrictions women have been taught and to expand the personal horizons and possibilities.

    Next, Perkins asked students to complete the statement, “My life would be better if ...”

    “Don’t lie to yourself,” she said. “Again write and write and write past your inhibitions until you get to all the things that are probably hidden feelings and thoughts.”

    Perkins advised students to write periodically and to tell themselves the truth.

    “There is a power in naming these things,” she said.

    When a person identifies these areas, one can deal with them, Perkins said.

    “I believe the questions don’t change, but the answers do,” she said.

    In order to have a transition to success, people must know what success means to them, Perkins said.

    “Often women are taught not to want. Your sense of what you want helps you make decisions,” she said.

    Perkins pointed out that a woman’s success is relevant to all parts of her life: marriage, career, parenting and home.

    “Bitterness and snarling is a sign of being trapped and cutoff from personal potential,” she said.

    In Afghanistan, the Taliban required women to wear burqas. These head-to-toe coverings with only a small screened viewing area were designed to decimate women, Perkins said.

    “Women have always aspired to rise above but have been taught to be passive, don’t think, don’t question.”

    Perkins urged her audience to fight those traditional lessons.
“Don’t ever give up loving your potential. Love yourself, and you’ll be more loving,” she said.

    Then, Perkins wrote on the top of the board: “What Do I Want?” At the bottom, she wrote, “Where am I now? Don’t Lie!!”

    The idea, Perkins said, was to fill in the differences between what one wants and where one (really) is now, with ideas and things to “make tries.”

    “Women think when they get an idea, they have to live with it. You don’t have to live with a bad try. If it doesn’t work out, shift; try something new,” she said.

    Writing this list down is an exercise that will let anyone shift to her free wheeling “right” brain, the more creative side, Perkins explained.

    “It’s okay to know what to do and realize you have to wait,” she said. “We can’t all control our lives. But we can get some of what we want if we know what we want.”

    Transitions to Success was part of the Community Seminar and Health Forum series sponsored by Women in New Roles. For more information about the program, contact Triesha Light, WIN-R coordinator, in the South Campus counseling office, at 817-515-4740 or by e-mail at triesha.light@tccd.net.