How 2018 Made Me a Woman
Well, 2018 is FINALLY coming to an end. For most people I’ve interacted with regularly this year, 2018 has kinda been the pits. This week a client, in session and reflecting on the events of the previous year, said to me, “Isn’t every year just filled with terrible things?” Oftentimes, my clients drop some serious knowledge, and I’m just looking back like:
In all seriousness, 2018 has been one for the books, both professionally and personally. In 2018 I lost 19 pounds, grew to have a full caseload, moved offices to an incredible part of town, saw my marriage reach some tough times, and some incredible times, and experienced burnout.
I went to Canada, I learned I was going to be a sister again, and I experienced some health scares. Given everything I have experienced this year, I can concretely say that I am fully and wholly confident in who I am as a woman — as a person. I never thought I would get to this point so early on in my life and that has been an incredible transformation for me. Here’s how 2018 made me a woman. An adult female.
I Endorsed My Needs and Wants
It took several visits to a couples counselor to recognize that not only is it unrealistic to hope and expect that someone will care and love for you the same way you do, but that it’s unfair. We’re all wired to love and care differently, which is why the concept of the 5 Love Languages has grown so much in popularity.
The next layer we often fail to see when it comes to love languages is that it’s one thing to understand how others operate, it’s a completely different thing to teach others how you operate. When we use love languages, we usually think about how we receive and should give love to others, but we don’t take the time to actually teach each other how to express this knowledge.
Throughout this year, it’s become increasingly aware to me that our generation — that is millennials in case you weren’t sure about which hyper-self-aware generation I’m talking about — does not let up when it comes to striving. We have to be the best, know the most, and look the coolest. It’s effing exhausting. This year more than any year in my life, I decided to stop; stop striving and start asking. I started asking for help.
One night, after a horrible argument with my spouse, I called a friend and for the first time in my life, I asked someone to come over and comfort me immediately. Her response was warm and inviting. She asked if there was anything she could get me on her way and through sobs, I almost said no. But something in my core wanted to know it was okay to ask for more because I needed it so badly. So I said, “I’d really love some Chick-Fil-A.” Homegirl came through, and I was able to eat my feelings, cry on a friend, and work towards problem-solving the events that had just occurred. After that, I started asking for help and doing less on my own.
The thing about our generation that makes asking for our needs and wants trickier, is that we’re quite capable of acquiring those things on our own. My supervisor said it so eloquently: “Competency breeds neglect. The neglected won’t get their needs met unless they ask for them.”
What a concept. The more I started voicing when I needed help, when I wanted affection, attention, or acceptance, the more I got it and the more confident I felt that I deserved those things and was worthy of those things. Our core beliefs tend to be so fixed on our lack of value or worthlessness, that we think the way to hide those is by continuing to pour out. But this year I learned that for me to feel good about myself, I needed to be poured into, constantly, lovingly, without ceasing. It didn’t make me needy, or clingy, it made me human. That realization lead me to understand I needed to have more grace for myself.
That’s how…
I Forgave Myself
If you’re anything like me, then you play never-ending loops of the dumb things you’ve said, the scenarios you’ve tried to control, and the mistakes you’ve made.
I wouldn’t stop thinking about these things, and I’d repeatedly and without hesitation mentally beat myself up for stuff that happened years ago. 10 minutes ago. Right now. The narrative in my head was that I was an idiot for trusting. A fool for believing. Naive for trying. If things went wrong, the person at fault had to be me.
Then I experienced a betrayal professionally, and I didn’t know how to recover. I just moved on. I left the practice I was formally with and immediately started anew with a trusted colleague. I didn’t grieve and I blamed myself. After several months of working through it, I realized the situation that took place was a straight-up circus. And it wasn’t my circus. Those WERE NOT my monkeys. Asking myself “what am I responsible for,” and “what are they responsible for” helped me recognize that I could only control what was my piece of the pie. Learning the difference between fault and blame helped me understand the role of responsibility deeper. Oftentimes, if we’re at fault in something — hell even if we’re not at fault — we immediately take on all the blame. With blame comes shame. It’s hard to learn a lot from shame because it’s such a crippling emotion. But we can learn a lot from guilt if we can look at it from a healthy perspective.
Earlier this year, I felt some distance deepening between one of my absolute closest friends. When thinking through the cause, I recognized that a perceived difference in the worldview we held was making me feel unsafe. I initially blamed myself for letting this difference get between us and would try and force myself to abandon something so central to my identity in order to avoid confrontation.
In talking about it with my spouse, I brought insight into the fact that this friend is incredibly loving and can handle confrontation and the guilt of hiding this from her pushed me to be transparent. It was my fault we hadn’t had the conversation yet, but if I shamed myself any further, I knew it would never happen. I arranged for us to meet for lunch and I brought up my concern. She asked for further understanding, listened, and validated. She apologized too. It was such a redeeming moment for all the times I’ve lacked trust in others. I forgave myself for not bringing it up sooner and for getting so wrapped up in my head and moved forward.
I Grew Into My Authenticity
If I see another damn quote about being yourself, I’m going to lose it … deep breaths. It’s one of those abstract concepts that become a meaningless bumper sticker idea. The problem with over-conceptualizing these notions is it becomes harder to tease out the “how.”
How do you “be yourself?” <——- Grammar choice intentional, ya’ll. It makes it more humorous. Now that I’ve explained it, it’s lost its zing. Oh well … continuing in 3 … 2 …
We respond to broken self-esteem with “just be yourself” and “forget about what other people think,” but often times we don’t know how to actually do the things our most popular sayings suggest. Oftentimes, I’m met with blank stares when my clients work to alleviate their more distressing symptoms and are left with a person they barely recognize. Several times I’ve heard a client say, “Now that I’ve figured all this out, I don’t know who I am.” Our fears, insecurities, and doubts often create a shadow of ourselves and when we lift the shadow it’s hard to adjust our eyesight. Deeper identity work does require a good chunk of therapy, and there are definitely a few things that helped me solidify my identity this year.
I started taking care of my body. Being authentic to myself meant carrying a physical image that felt congruent to me. This meant I had to stop dressing my body as a result of fear and shame and start dressing my body in what felt most comfortable and congruent for me. Instead of hiding my flaws, I worked to accentuate the things I loved about myself and worked to become healthier. Now that I’ve lost weight and have a healthier outlook on food, I feel comfortable dressing more to my personal style which is a little on the edgy/vintage side. Kat Von D = goals.
I was so concerned about whether people would take me seriously, that I kept off getting a dream tattoo and leaving the red lipstick at home. Once I decided to be authentic to my aesthetic, though, I only ever got complimented. I felt more confident to tackle intimidating professional environments.
I also stopped explaining away or apologizing for my thoughts, beliefs, and desires. This year I became more comfortable just saying “I’d rather not do that,” or “I disagree” without giving more context. I don’t need to justify every single one of my desires. Sometimes I just don’t feel like engaging in a specific way and that’s OK. Instead of getting met with reproach, I started to hear back, “OK, that’s fine.”
I couldn’t believe it was that easy. My self-esteem came to grow more because I was accurately expressing my desires without yielding or pretending to be someone who had other desires.
I Learned to Let Go
This was a toughy for me, but it was definitely building up as a theme for all of 2018. One of the number one questions I get from my clients is, “But how do I let go?” As a therapist, this has been one of the hardest questions to answer because the process and degree of hurt and attachment to the situation are different for everyone.
There were several walls that built my “House of Letting Go.” The first was the concept of externalizing the situation and recognizing the situation apart from myself. That let me do a few things. First, it led me to ask myself, “How important is this to me, really?” If the truth was that at the end of the day my personhood, identity, or free will were not being questioned, then I was more willing to drop my arsenal. The second thing externalization allowed me to do was to shed light on the bigger situation. If I were on my death bed, or if I knew that I would exist forever (I know, I’m getting existential, just bear with me for a second), how much would this matter in those circumstances? For example, if my spouse decided to take a route that I personally felt would get us to our location longer and we bickered about it, would I be laying on my deathbed cursing him for not turning onto the highway vs. taking a back road?
The last wall of my house was to ask myself, “What is mine to keep, and what is mine to throw away?” All of our emotions are valid but not always justified. Being annoyed at a petty comment makes sense. Living my life in sheer anger and raging from within until I became a she-hulk over this comment would not serve me in any way …
other than maybe looking like a badass. Recognizing what was mine to hold on to — valid emotions, justified hurts, proper defense for my actions — was all that was mine to keep. Everything else didn’t serve me in becoming a better person or working toward my goals. So why keep holding on to it?
I Embraced Bittersweet
The biggest theme of 2018 was to embrace and hold on to the bittersweet moments in life. This notion has become very simple for me, especially after ALL THE ISH that has gone down in our world this year. The core of the human experience is to understand and sit with the pain that is feeling wholly connected to hurt, wonder, joy, and loss. I have never felt more whole than when I’ve been forced to sit in true agony and still have the capacity to laugh in these circumstances.
We are resilient, strong, and capable people. Instead of always holding on to grudges, refusing self-forgiveness, being inauthentic, and denying our needs and wants, I want to work towards embracing the sweet parts of life that allow me to be who I truly am at the core. Even if it’s bitter, I know I’ll be better for it in the end.
Happy New Year