Are we still doing this?

I hate this quote. Like I saw it and was pissed. First of all, I’m not a fan of taking stock model imagery and slapping a cheesy message on it. It feels very superficial and well, cheesy. I find it to be somewhat insulting. It’s irritating to me when an edited photo of a fully made up, beautiful woman is lazily paired with “female empowerment!”. But what really vexed me here was the definition of what a strong woman looks like. It is a dangerous message to tell women, overtly or subliminally, what they must do and be in order to be defined as strong. To me, this dumb caption promotes women as doormats in denial, though under the guise of false bravado. I read it as, and of course you don’t have to see it this way, a woman stuffing down her feelings and stoically carrying on, “no matter what life throws at her”. Really?? Are we still doing that?? I’m not. I was raised to believe that and trust me, it doesn’t work. All around me I see women who have no idea how to manage their emotions for the simple reason they were never modeled how to honor and acknowledge them. They were falsely taught that “strength” means to keep going, keep condoning, keep allowing, keep “taking the high road” (my personal favorite; it’s often an excuse that masks cowardice), and perhaps the most harmful if misused; letting go. Letting go is a wonderful thing to to do. It’s one of the key pieces in self liberation. HOWEVER, it’s only true and effective if we first deeply acknowledge and hold sacred space for our own hurt and wounding. To deny ourselves our humanity is not what makes a person strong. It’s a lot easier to take the weaker path of being too afraid to carry our own pain. Our emotional experiences can often be too much to bear, especially when a loved one has wounded us. It’s an extremely difficult thing to do to look very closely at our relationships, especially our stories around those dynamics. For example, it’s usually crazy hard for mothers to admit when we have caused our children pain; it negates the story we need to have that we are great moms. Hard, right? Easier to ignore and “persevere” without ever having the tough conversation. If a significant other hurts us, or if we’ve hurt them, that can tamper with the story of our solid relationship. To blindly persevere is to not cope at all. To forgive is usually a cop out, since it’s way harder to tell someone they really hurt us. Why? Because, among other things, we might lose them. THEY may not forgive US. Read that again. Therefore, since the dawn of time, women have been trained that true strength lies in never investigating our own stuff. We have been conditioned to deny, falsely forgive so as not to rock the boat, and just get used to marinating in hurt and resentment. This, to me, is weak. To sit with our hurt is the true exercise in strength, for the very reason that it’s intensely uncomfortable. I once had a friend say that she self medicates to avoid looking at certain relationships in her life. Think about the painful gravity of that statement. “Walking away” is hiding. Yes, we absolutely must remove ourselves from any form of abuse or mistreatment, no question. Toxic dynamics, insulting conversations; BYEEE. But I took this to mean walking away from our feelings, in the name of “moving on”. That’s where the self harm lies. All humans are deeply emotional and sensitive beings. What our culture does to men in teaching them to deny their feelings is beyond destructive. So basically, a strong man just “keeps going” and a strong woman just “keeps going”? Ok, cool. So what we are left with are generations of all types of humans who have no skill set in navigating their emotional experience. How can anyone relate to anyone if we lack this powerful language? How can we effectively raise other humans if we don’t know how to face and nurture our own stuff? One of the things I have learned is that to love, really love, one must look at themselves, before they then do this with others, with radical honesty and acceptance (I recommend the transformative works of Tara Brach). We cannot love anyone or anything without an open and accepting examination. I love myself because I see myself, and I love you because I see you. I can only see your pain if I first admit to my own. I can only fully appreciate your magnificence if I throw away the self deprecation, move through the shame and self berating, and appreciate my own. To love is to know. It even says that in the Torah. We cannot love without knowledge, and the willingness to know both ourselves and the others in our lives is an act of love itself. What is more demeaning and dismissive than if we share with someone we are in pain, and that admittance is met with, “let it go”? It’s unkind. To be courageous (the root of which means “heart” in French) is to not run from pain. It’s not to just forgive, forget, and get over it. Getting over things isn’t strength, it’s avoidance by trying to jump over the juicy, informative process of self investigation. We have to believe our feelings matter. It’s in the process of sitting with our stuff that we learn ourselves; the good, the bad and the ugly. Life is all these things, good, bad, and ugly. We can’t outrun suffering. In Buddhism it’s known as the ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows. All are often existing at once. All matter, and all are deserving of attention. To skip over the uncomfortable parts is to ignore reality. It’s the strong who don’t choose to ignore anything.

If you’ve been taught to just “move on”, I see you. If you have been modeled that forgiveness and condoning are interchangeable, I understand. You don’t have to subscribe to that anymore. You are meant to have a rich, complex, loving relationship with yourself. You are indeed designed to forgive, but true forgiveness comes after sincere attention to the matter. Otherwise it’s a cheap bandage. As far as perseverance, it’s not always possible in the moment. Sometimes we just can’t. Sadness, shifting, transitions, covid integration, grief, a breakup, deep introspection, a fight with a loved one, divorce, IVF treatments,a miscarriage, illness, whatever you’re dealing with. These are very heavy things. Strength is allowing the grace to not persevere (which can even mean numbing yourself with errands), and to take some time to process the heaviness. Please don’t think that allowing yourself to feel indicates weakness. Anyone of true value in your life would never want you to rob yourself of your emotional process. Don’t ever lose yourself in order to keep others. Now THAT is one of my favorite quotes on Instagram.