Do you hear voices in your head that hold you back? Is The Gremlin of fear hissing, “You’ll never amount to anything!” or, “When are you gonna learn that ugly girls can’t do things like that?” or, “You’re not smart/pretty/talented/sexy/rich/wise enough!” when you start dreaming big?

Or maybe The Gremlin is spewing “You’ll never belong!” or, “What makes you think anybody would ever care about a book you would write?” or, “Get over yourself and know your place!” or, “Nobody will ever love you.”

So often, those voices stem from childhood. The Gremlin is just repeating things we heard from our parents or things we told ourselves when we were very young and impressionable.

And yet, those voices are powerful forces in our lives, and we may mistake them as truth, when they’re just bitter toxic lies spitting out of our minds like ammunition aimed at the jugular.

"Grief can make a liar out of you because there is a disconnect between how you feel, and how you think you're supposed to behave."

This was Maria Shriver's intro to her heart-gripping talk at the 2009 Women's Conference. I stumbled across the live telecast. The topic: Grief, Healing & Resilience. Interesting topic for a conference. That's kind of pushing it, I thought.

Art by Tricia Walman :www.seeyourvisionart.com

I did my Ask The Girlfriend Gyno chat in front of 400 students at Sonoma State University this week, and during my talk, I spoke about how I believe talking about your vagina can be very healing. After all, not only is the vagina where we create life and experience pleasure; it’s also where many traumas happen -- sexual molestation, rape, abortion, childbirth traumas, painful experiences at the gynecologist’s office, and traumatic sex. When we don’t release these traumas, they fester and manifest in ways we might not even associate with the original trauma. They might express as depression, eating disorders, or chronic pelvic pain. But when we talk about our vaginas, when we seek solace in the company of others, we set ourselves free.

Book tour, we have lift off! What's Up Down There? Questions You'd Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend hits shelves TOMORROW, Sept 28! Lissa wrote this post today en route to our very first stop on the book tour - Chicago, which as it turns out, has particular meaning to Lissa... Read on to find out!

Returning to the Scene of the Trauma

As I write this, I am on a plane, flying to Chicago where I start my book tour. The irony of this fact is not lost on me. You see, I lived in Chicago for four years while I did my OB/GYN residency at Northwestern. But I haven’t been back in more than a decade. Why? Well, it’s not that I don’t love Chicago. And it’s not that I don’t have good friends there. But my four years of residency were the hardest four years of my life. I honestly think I have post traumatic stress disorder because of my residency. It’s been more than ten years since I finished, and the nightmares only stopped last year.