I can still remember the faint light in her eyes when somebody told her she was good; those feelings of worthiness and value coming from those pats on her back, from all her achievements, from doing what she’s supposed to do, from ultimately, being a "good" girl. But when that was punished because of all the “wasted time”, she learnt that all her life, she can only feel good through the validation of others, through doing. So she did everything that society told her would make her a “good” girl, was a quiet and easy child, stayed in school, got the job that helped others, bought the house, found the husband. She performed for others, stayed shiny and new for them until they got sick of her and left.
Through fear and shame, they wrapped her around their finger, contaminating her mind with “shoulds” and “have-to’s”, telling her she’s a born sinner who wouldn’t even come close to heaven if she gave into the simple pleasures of being human; years of twisting her mind around until all that was left was that fundamental feeling of “being bad”. She became so obsessed by the pursuit of goodness because they told her that was her purpose. She tried to outrun the bad until she realized that this was the ultimate trap: the feeling of being bad didn’t actually belong to her, it was put there by society, to control her.
This was the beginning of her feminine rage awakening. Uncomfortable with the truth, people condescendingly reminded her that this was always her life and that she could choose what she wanted. Her rage screamed back, “I didn’t choose any of this! It was never a choice if I HAD to do it”. This sinking feeling in the core of her being told her that, “My life doesn’t feel like mine, not my body, not my time. If it’s not for the benefit of others, then I can’t have that, even if it's mine.” Rage was grieving the lost time, the misaligned priorities of training to be a good woman and the harm it put her in at the cost of her safety and well-being. Rage remembered being told to dress for the male-gaze and watching her food because she needs to be skinny, being blamed for the assault even though she didn't ask for it, the bullying and needing to hide her neurodivergence because having a disability meant shame for her family. Rage saw how the intersection of religion and patriarchy and capitalism have harmed all women and other minorities, specifically colored, differently-abled and queer people like me. Rage screamed at the loss of autonomy. It showed me fragments of when religion and other adults punished my curiosity, my beautifully intense feelings, my body until all that was left was the resounding shame that has been living inside me, constantly starving to feel enough but nothing ever being enough.
Now shame, she doesn’t let me have rest freely. She tells me I need to “earn” rest, as if my sole reason for being here is for others. How they laud the mother who sacrifices herself for her family at the cost of herself. She is in need of replenishment and nourishment the most and yet, society shames her into thinking it's selfish. Religion tells her that you must give unto others as you do yourself but also tells her “in humility count others more significant than yourselves”. So where does that leave her?
At war with herself, being unable to rest, feeling unworthy, useless and like an unnecessary waste of space if she’s not constantly serving. Her body longs for what she’s told she can never have: the freedom and peace to simply exist.
This was my story but this story is not mine alone. It echoes the voices of so many others that are told that being good, even if it costs you your life, is all that matters.
I still feel the burden and pressure to be good. It feels like this soul-tiredness of having run a race for decades, realizing that you don’t even want to play this game anymore but your body can’t stop. You don’t want to be pit against other humans, you don’t want to perform “goodness” anymore, you just want your authentic self to surface. Yet, your nervous system is stuck in doing-mode, because your survival depended on it and operating out of survival is never peaceful. So I have to sit with my young parts, soothe and rock them until they feel safe enough. I can make space for them to show me who I really was before society told me who I needed to be. My system shows me faint glimmers of a time gone by when I just wanted to exist in the quietness of nature, making music, dancing, creating art for art’s sake, where I was learning to choose what I genuinely wanted to do, where my unmasked self was out and proud, no matter what other people thought or said.
I don’t always know how to give myself permission to slow down and make space for my authentic self because I'm still trying to figure out what that feels like without the mask and the noise but I know one day, I won’t feel so separate from myself. Because guess what? I’m the adult now and NOW, I really do get to choose. And I’m choosing to draw a hard boundary around my young parts instead of forcing them to compromise and placate others. I wish I could go back in time and save myself, reminding myself:
-Boundaries are not just things other people get to have, I get to create them too, even if it disappoints others,
-I can let people make up their own minds about me because what really matters is how I feel about me;
-Rest and Play are essential and don’t need to be earned;
-Your purpose for existence can be whatever you make of it; the fact that you're even here, alive and trying your best is more than enough.
My invitation to us today is to take that deep breath, soften those shoulders and slow down. Put your hand on your heart and give yourself permission to be here.
You’ve already made it, you’ve already done it all.
And you know what the most relieving part of all this is?
Now that you don’t have to be perfect,
now that you don't have to be good,
You can just be real instead.
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