Tired being told what to do?
Let's exfoliate fucks-given
Did you survive it? Not blue Monday itself but the onslaught of articles, radio items and social media message telling you it’s so?
It’s the week of blue Monday, when most of us apparently feel down with the festive fun and frivolity behind us, and the long, laden year lying ahead.
The resolutions are resisting kicking in and are kicking our asses instead. Blue Monday is based on some sort of research, in fairness, any Monday in January isn’t going to be reigning down the sunny good feels but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true. Truth for me on Monday was that I was still on a high from a warm sunny Sunday when I managed to get one of my teens up a mountain (her in shorts!)
I was actually in a good mood on Monday, as I’ve been easing myself gently but firmly into the year with purpose and pacing. What’s happened is that I’ve slowly, but surely, actually got some good stuff done. There really is something in the old saying: less haste, more speed.
Anyway…there I was, sitting down to my laptop feeling smug and satisfied having done my morning yoga, dried off from a wet dog walk and got my mocks-studying kids off to school without drama and was assaulted by a plethora of posturing emails about the doom and gloom of Blue Monday.
It felt a bit bullying. And I’m getting real sick of being bullied by bullshit telling me what to do and think and feel. I’ve had a lifetime of it. So have you.
We were raised to believe “Good” women behave this way. Good Girls don’t shout too loud (shrill), be too opinionated (bossy), get too demanding (nagging). Do you ever notice that there is a whole vocabulary devoted to keeping women in check? Words that would never be applied to men.
There was always subtle (and not so subtle) attempts to put us back in the box marked “Pleasing.”
And although this week’s Blue Monday messaging wasn’t in that vein, it triggered me. Because we’re the generation of midlifers who are re-writing the script and rejecting the messaging.
I’m 56 next month and it feels like I’m arriving into a whole new stage of my life.
Losing my dad recently brought to an end 15 years of parent-care, some of which was extremely intense. This year two of my daughters are adults heading off into the world on Erasmus and to college. They’ll be coming home but still, 20 years of intense parenting, ten of which was single parenting, is easing dramatically. (It also helps that my youngest daughter who was literally dragged up, is the most self-sufficient and house-capable of them all!).
Last month, I had my ex-husband and his new husband for Christmas Eve dinner (if you don’t know my story, then yes, you read that right…. my marriage ended when my husband came out as gay). After ten years of dealing with the fallout of that and the divorce, I finally feel totally free from the bruising of that relationship. All the emotional baggage has diminished.
And so here I am, unburdened from a significant amount of mental, emotional and practical pressure, able to live in a way I haven’t been able to in over 20 years. And like a catalyst, what I’m finding is that I want even more liberation. I am done being told what to do, how to feel and what to want. I’m flexing my don’t-fuck-with-me muscles and it feels so good.
I’m in my Year of Living Dangerously - for those around me. Hold me back at your peril. (I bought each of my girls their own washing basket and now only have mine to do. Liberating!!)
It’s also my year of fun. It’s my year of expansion and emotional ease and saying yes to everything that will be fun.
It’s my year of saying “I want…” at the top of the list…not just after everything is done and everyone is happy.
It’s my year of exfoliating my fucks-given from my skin, and stroking the new skin underneath, the skin I’m really in when I emerge from the depths of dependency on what I’m supposed to be.
I’m not alone.
It’s not a coincidence that 50’s is the age most women seek divorce from marriages that don’t support them. It’s the age most women leave jobs from workplaces that don’t support them. The fastest growth area in the travel industry is solo travel for women 50+. (You can be part of that stat by coming along to my Soul & Spice adventure to Marrakech in March!).
It’s not a coincidence that as our hormones recede and oxytocin levels plunge, we break free from our nurturing dominance to love and care more freely from a place of self-support not support-others-first policy.
We grew up in a one-lane system and women where always going against the traffic because men were the default human. We grew up in a system and society that was built for, and by men. We could use the facilities but we didn’t design them to suit our natures and the caring roles and responsibilities we juggled. This is played out in so many areas of life, from finance, workplace structure, childcare, medicine, research, even safety. (The first crash test dummies physiologically built to match women’s bodies have only recently been introduced.)
Thankfully we are shifting into a two lane system, but to do that we need men (and society) to stay in their lane and stop telling women how to feel or behave. You don’t tell us misogyny is gone and we are all equal when you’ve never been in our lane and carry the mental and emotional load. The number of hostile comments I have received from men when I write an article about fairness, or appear on a radio show to talk about trying to equalise things in the home is still horribly consistent. Any women with a voice and an internet connection knows what it feels to be trolled as a witch and called a bitch in the name of “feedback.”
I don’t know how it feels to be a young man in a world that is telling young men they are bad and toxic. So I don’t tell my daughter’s boyfriend and my nephews to get over it. I listen to what it means for them and where they are confused, and what support they need.
The relationship psychologist Dr Terry Real explains that in a patriarchy boys are taught to become half a person and girls are taught to be half a person. Each gender is told to shut down aspects of themselves that don’t fit the script. But an equal and equitable society means we both get to be whole people. We have to normalise women’s lives to make it a two lane system where we can all travel together in the same direction but each safely and whole.
So here’s to seeing where the messaging is failing us, and to writing our own scripts to lead a life the way we actually feel.
Let’s all exfoliate the fucks-given from our systems. You in?
If you are feeling the January blues - or know you want to rewrite your script - how about some 1:1 coaching? You can book my one hour Breakthrough Empower Hour just to work through what you might need (and want!) going forward. Or you can also sign up for my RESET coaching package which is just 3 sessions to give you a shorter, sharper, specifically focussed support to set your year off in the direction of your choosing, not just all the demands and expectations. (My Unburdened 12 sessions is still available for those who want a longer, deeper transformation). All details are here.
And there are two places left on my Soul & Spice (un)retreat to Marrakech. So if you fancy an adventure inside and out book now!
Brilliant take on how cuultural messaging becomes emotional baggage. The "exfoliating fucks-given" idea captures exactly what happens as oxytocin recedes and support-others-first programming fades. I'm a decade behind but already noticing how stopping absorption of Blue Monday-style narratives clears mental space, crazy how much lightr it all feels.