Who cares what people think?
My youngest daughter made a comment 5 years ago that struck me deeply, and I’ve never forgotten it. It was after a raging fight I had with her older sister. It was one of many teenage battles in our house, but this one was gut-wrenchingly painful. I remember her screaming and yelling as she stormed out of the house. My first thought; was, “What are the neighbors thinking right now?”
She suggested we leave the house drama behind and get a latté. I took her up on it, but I was too upset to go inside. I sat in the car and gazed out the window, sipping my latté, trying not to cry. She looked at me and said, “Mom, what’s wrong?” My response was, “What are people going to think? Our neighbors, our friends?” She says to me, “Mom, why do you care what people think? Who cares?” She was so right, and shame on me for my then 13-year-old having to tell me these wise words.
Women can often forget who they want to be after years of being conditioned to worry about others’ perceptions. We live to please, and to perfect all of the many roles we play in our lives. We forget about who we are and place too much stock in the opinions of everyone around us—forgetting that when we are our most real and most authentic, we are aligning with who we want to be as a woman.
It’s easy to lose sight of our authenticity as women; that authentic expression of who we are gets lost in our roles as we approach mid-life. We often start to feel discontent. I know,. I’ve been there, and why I think finding your truest self is so essential for a woman on a remake or a woman who desires a remake. When I switched my mindset to supporting other women by owning my mistakes and weaknesses, I began to live in my authenticity.
One of the ways I’ve discovered this is by writing down the adjectives that personally describe who I want to be. I've carefully reflected on them to see if I was living the adjectives. For those I was not, I had to make some significant changes to make that happen. It wasn’t easy, but the clarity I found in this exercise was profound. These adjectives will be different for each of us--they’re not about who the people around us want to be, they’re about who YOU want to be as a woman.
Sometimes our kids can give us the wisest pearls of wisdom, often before they’re tainted by society’s suffering. You’ll notice your adjectives might be the very things you desired as that feminine, fierce young girl you once were. My adjectives: free, independent, content, authentic, sexy, confident. If I look at these now, I realize I wasn’t truthfully living inside any of them. I am now, and I want you to do the same. I’m grateful for my daughter’s wisest pearls that she offered that day when her mom had forgotten. Start writing your adjectives and start living the woman YOU want to be!
xo,
Kristin
PS. If you want more on this you can tune in to Episode 15: Who Does a Women Want to Be?