Starting Over

I started out watching starting over during it's first season in 2003. For some reason there are certain episodes that are not available and I have no idea why. So I cannot re-watch some of the episodes I found most interesting.

I truly prefer the earlier seasons when Rana Walker was a Life Coach and the house was in Chicago. The move to California was just fine. However, I do not understand why Rana was replaced. She was genuinely kind, compassionate, nurturing, caring, inspiring and EVERYTHING those ladies needed in a life coach. Not ONCE did she ever resort to BULLYING, INSULTING, MOCKING, DEGRADING or EXPLOITING any of the women in the house.

I can only find episodes from season three online. Season three is very hard to watch. There's also an episode from Audrey and Brenda Starr's season that I wanted to see but it never aired. It's also not available online. Why that is only Bunim-Murray Productions knows.

The counseling sessions in the California house were truly teeth grinding to watch and hard to endure. My heart truly went out to Tess. I don't think she was a bad person at all. I think she was just super defensive because she had a lot of pint up hurt and frustration from being taken advantage of and having people spit on her kindness and throw it back in her face. I used to be that way myself as I too know the pain of my kindness being taken as "weakness" by those of lesser character.

It was also difficult to watch some of the other women in the house misunderstand her and put her on trial for PRACTICALLY everything she said and did. I honestly lost all respect for Meg when she questioned why Tess was wearing her headphones while cleaning the kitchen. Maybe she wanted to listen to music to UPLIFT herself as she felt like a black sheep who constantly needed to tiptoe around the other women jumping on her case every other day about the pettiest of issues and the two insensitive Life Coaches joining in with them.

God bless her. Cause regardless of what my Husband thought I would have left that house in the middle of the night after the first gang up session. Had Rana been there, I think things would have gone a lot more smoothly for Tess and she would have felt as if she had at least ONE good ally on her side. Poor girl.

I know she's glad it's all over and I hope she's doing great. There are some truly great Counselors and Life Coaches in the world(Rana Walker especially). However, some of them can be very know-it-all and uppity at times as the Starting Over experience proved. They don't perceive themselves as having a God-complex though many of them do.

I agree that Iyanla can be a bit opinionated, but that other one --Rhonda--

Could she possibly be more self-righteous? Meanwhile, she never really listens to what anyone is saying. Did she take a Learning Annex class in "5 Steps to Being a Good Listener"? Maybe it was a prerequisite course to "You Too Can Be an Analyst" She asks clearly scripted questions, nods with a furrowed brow during the girls responses and follows it with a "ya" and a quote directly off one of those motivational posters.

Example: In the last episode ... Rhonda starts using all the clichés and textbook inspirational quotes to this one woman who was really going through it badly. She takes her through this ridiculous word association thing to arrive at the conclusion that her father is the cause of all her woes (which had already been established anyway, by the woman herself). Rhonda gives an understanding "Ya" and sits all self-satisfied that she broke her. Then Iyanla proceeds to rip the girl apart, saying that she is lying and covering up the real issue and makes her come to terms with the fact that her mother is really at the root of it all but she never could face or admit to herself. After 10 minutes of Iyanla tearing down layer after layer, lie after lie, the girl is obviously a wreck and then Rhonda chimes in with this pearl: "Its OK for your mother to not always be right" smiling smugly as though she knew the mother was the real issue all along. Iyanla looked like 'is she kidding with this'???

Rhonda seems to feel that she and Iyanla simply have different styles of therapy --- yea qualified and not qualified is the difference. She looks like a soap actress wannabe who never quite got her break but decided to put this show together and trying to act like a therapist. A bad one.

I have to admit that I am addicted to this show. Having said that, I would like to send my opinion out there. It seems to me that the life coaches are, as others have written, "know it all's". They are not very specific at times, leaving the anxious ladies (probably too intimidated to ask if they can get help from the other women, quit, etc...) receiving negative feedback from the coaches. I think there is a bit of evil in Rhonda's eyes now and then.......she would scare me to death if I got on her bad side. Just once, I would like to hear an "I apologize, I was mistaken" from the coaches! I realize we all have had problems in our past, as did Rhonda and Iylana, however, they sometimes appear to have forgotten their past. When someone is "down and out" (as with the women who come and go through the house), they certainly don't need to be screamed at and humiliated. However, the change for the positive is remarkable in most of the women when they leave the starting over house!!!

Of course, the show is not perfect....it's a "reality" show about women and the problems that their needs lead them into. The life coaches are indeed not "know it all's", but have faced many of the same issues that "everyday" women face and have a better perspective, a clearer path to resolution. The knowledge and understanding of the life coaches naturally entice us to look to them when we need the focus that they have already demonstrated in real life. Hence, the reason that they are referred to as "life coaches."

Women and men are certainly equal in all capacities, but the path that we follow and the "tools" that we use to get there are not the same and cannot be treated as such. It is a fundamental part of the entire "Starting Over" process to help "women" to recognize the tools at their disposal, as well as to teach them those that they are missing by using the similarities in other women to build from.

This show is not about entertainment, but rather restoration and regeneration. It is merely a vehicle to reach those who want and need the message.

I am a stay at home mom who has herself overcome a terribly painful past, with the help of Starting Over. Y'all have seen the opener...."this house changed my life"....it is true for me, and I never even walked thru the doors, although i would crawl on my tongue for the opportunity for that kind of healing!! Things those "Know it all" coaches have said come up in MY everyday life, and people have noticed a change in how I react to things around me, because of those awarenesses. It all comes down to how OPEN YOU ARE!!!! I feel those of you who are angry at the life coaches, have a reason to be, as they bring up those emotions, (whatever they may be) in you so they may be properly dealt with, and you aren't even aware of it. That is the job of a life coach, to dredge up the ugliness we refuse to deal with daily!

BIG HUGS to Iyanla, and Rhonda, and Dr. Stan too!!

Peace Y'all!