Being a Woman in Public

Hey friends! As you know, I've been wandering lately and I'm a person who struggles to put herself out there, though I do it all the freaking time. As I've been exploring what's next for me, I've been informally interviewing people in the different fields that I love, talking to people with experiences I want to have and trying to count the cost of my various options. It has been awesome, overwhelming, exhausting, slow, scary and exciting.

The thing that keeps coming back to me is expanding my writing and public speaking. It gives me a real sense of purpose and I genuinely derive energy and excitement from it. I have be honest with y'all though. This is the path that is met with the most resistance for me socially and in community. It would be so much easier for me to just get a job. I want to put a disclaimer here that I have not been perfect through this process of writing and speaking publicly using my story and sharing my experiences. I have been unkind, uncharitable and way too damn specific. 

Unfortunately though, a big HOWEVER is coming. And the however is, there has been a sense of kismet in me for a long time that this might be an inevitable part of my path, my process, my story. That if I sidestep the words within me, I will be sidestepping my destiny. That sounds hella dramatic, but what I mean is, I am regularly being put in a position where I can choose to be socially accepted ("normal") or I can be myself. This has been a great source of loss and pain for me. I've written about that too. And with a lot of grace for my humanity and my community, I think I can be proud of how I've carried myself thus far. That is not everyone's opinion, but within myself I can validate a true effort to have healthy boundaries and fairness for my detractors.

I am reminded often that women who are public figures are given an unbelievable, disproportionate amount of shit. The recent gorgeous letter written by Beth Moore and subsequent evisceration of her character (I will not tag anything here to avoid increasing their clicks but it is there, trust me) was genuinely triggering to me. I want to believe that someone like her who has played the evangelical game long enough, with such incredible integrity, would have built enough credit in public opinion to be able to lift the veil a bit.

I'm realizing that no amount of credit will sustain a woman who speaks truth publicly.

Whether it be Brene, Rachel, Glennon, Elizabeth, Jen, Nadia...there is no fucking exception. 

So if my dream is to become a woman who lives out loud, publicly, honestly, and with courage, I AM GOING TO BE CLOBBERED. REPEATEDLY. And that forever changes a person. I see that going one of two ways. You can either let it break you or you can develop a thick enough skin and strong enough boundaries that you can continue to be who you need to be in the world. But the cost is fucking high and frankly, mightily unfair. So far, I've held my pain, honored it and defined what was mine and what belonged to my critics. I think that puts me on a path towards the latter result. But I have to tell you, that month where I was spiraling was one of the hardest months of my adult life. There were a lot of tears, so much soul searching and an incredible amount of self-care. That is what I did full-time for the month of October. That's a big deal. If I'm honest, I'm still rebuilding my self-esteem because I was judged by people who I thought really knew and loved me. If I up the ante in what I write and how I put it out there, that is only going to increase. It is the ultimate sifting, right?

I'm intimidated.

I'm not sure I want to lose the safety of anonymity. 

I don't know how much I can really handle being told horrible things about myself, whether they are lies or not.

I don't know if my well will dry because the well I write and speak from requires vulnerability. And only a crazy person would be able to continue in vulnerability when spoken of the way these women are spoken of. Their public perception can turn on a dime. There's no winning, not really. 

Okay that's not true. The winning is being true to yourself, being strong in the face of unbelievable cruelty and fulfilling your purpose. The cost is public acceptance (or false public acceptance until you put one toe over the line), anonymity and freedom from accountability. I admire these women. I don't agree with everything they say and write. Why would I? We're living different lives. But I admire their courage and often, their words give voice to what I'm experiencing, feeling, believing and give me a sense of camaraderie. The good they're doing clearly outweighs the cost it requires. It does. 

Time to put my big girl panties on? 

Truth Hurts.

I'll be honest with you guys. I've been torn since I published my post last night. I felt so exhilarated when I first clicked "post." It feels amazing when you're able to capture your thoughts and feelings so well in a moment. But as I saw in the following hours that the most recent thread and even the very profile of the person I referenced was taken down, I felt shame. I don't know who read my post so I don't know if this is a direct result of my writing, but it is possible indeed. I knew when I started promoting myself as a writer, when I stepped into the ring of online honesty, I was going to take some personal hits. And I knew that was going to be incredibly challenging for me. I really do like almost every single person I know. I can't help but write this way. I don't know how to dull my expression and I've learned that in doing so, I harm myself. So I speak my truth.  But if, in the process of being my authentic self I end up hurting others, I will hurt as well. I just will. And right now, I do.  

Is there a way to feel remorse but not regret? Part of me wants to double down because I hold to everything I said. And I desperately want people to listen. That takes boldness. It takes calling out sexism, racism, able-ism, etc. It does and I will. I can't not. I really can't. But I don't like feeling that in wielding my sword, someone is bleeding out. It's very difficult. This is painful for me. And I am fighting shame. I know there is shame in staying silent. And I felt like I could have taken my statements further and chose not to, so I was at least slightly tempered. But, when you step out, it's just so easy to second guess your words, your choices, your lack of subtlety. I have learned that I will not be so specific in my writing again. I don't need to call out specific people. Sadly, my experiences are relevant enough to not need to give full detail to make my point. So I will take that lesson with me. 

Tim and I were talking about this last night and it helped me understand why I was so upset in the first place.

I really want evangelical men to be the heroes I was taught they were.

I want them to be like Jesus. I want them to love God and to love me as a child of God. And that taps into my need for male approval, especially approval from spiritual leaders. I was not given a space to become a spiritual leader in my church. And so I ached to be counted as one. You can only be counted as one by one who is already in leadership - a man. I wanted to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be accepted into the fold. 

I really want these guys to be a savior. Not The Savior, but a savior of my beloved childhood faith. I don't want to leave them behind. I don't want to paint them with a broad brush and have those negative assumptions met. I want them to surprise me. I want them to change. So much so that I will call them out publicly on my own platform. But I want them to be who they told me they were for myself too. Yes, for them, for their followers but especially for me. I need them to be good and their behavior is not giving me the reassurance that I need right now. And that hurts and it's scary and unfortunately, it's really damn healthy. 

Growth hurts. Truth hurts. Keeping your humanity enough to speak while also finding the humanity of others while you hold them accountable is a really teeny line to walk. I'm not fully walking on it. And that's making me feel sad and ashamed. I still hold to defending those who are disenfranchised, in this case women, over wanting to please those on top. I will always lean that way. But as I develop myself and my audience, that is going to get grittier. And I may lose people along the way.

Oddly, one of the reasons this is so painful is because I am a woman.

As I stated in my previous post, little girls are groomed from a young age to orient ourselves around gaining male approval. And so losing it by speaking into this exact dynamic is a funny bit of irony. 

Sometimes your heroes really aren't your heroes after all. And unfortunately, even if they are, all heroes are human. And that's a difficult pill to swallow for a woman who touched back to her little girl self last night and found herself very disappointed.