by Jenny Rose | Feb 9, 2017 | A Flourishing Woman, Self-Love
I recently read a brilliant essay on tolerance that clarified for me why I haven’t always experienced successful outcomes while practicing it! Here’s a quote to think about from that article:
“[Tolerance] is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.” –Yonatan Zunger, ‘Tolerance is not a Moral Precept’
Photo by 小胖 车 on Unsplash
I’ve found that one of the many unpleasant effects of pleasing people, trying hard, being compliant and demonstrating unfailing compassion and kindness is that it’s stunted my emotional growth. It’s made me weak, naïve and dependent. It’s taught me to be powerless.
At this point in my life I’m making different choices, and as I do that I’m losing my fuzzy-headed, goody-two-shoes, sweet maiden aspect and becoming much clearer about who I am and what I believe in.
I’m not the only one, either. My second-hand exposure to social media through my partner, as well as my own reading of blogs, articles and essays, demonstrates loud and clear that many of us are in the process of refocusing our beliefs and values. Just yesterday I read an article about the devastating impact of the presidential election on close relationships and social media communities, as well as the way it’s opened up new connections.
As I listen, watch, read, write and think about it all, I return, again and again, to the conclusion that we’re all dealing with the same underlying ideas and issues. I know there’s a lot of heated and poisonous ideology out there about race and ethnicity, sexuality and gender politics, religion, and even what we eat, but underneath all that distracting noise are the same issues of tolerance and intolerance, power and identity, and fear.
I’ve written previously about reciprocity. When I read Zunger’s post, I immediately understood why my practice of tolerance has had, in some cases, quite devastating results. Once again, I was extending something I wasn’t receiving in return. Having been well trained (and slightly dim) it didn’t occur to me before that it’s not my responsibility to meet intolerance and disregard for my own boundaries with continuing tolerance. I’ve clung to the dangerous belief that if I just model and demonstrate well, the other party or parties will get it, and want to live in a more peaceful and effective way (my way, of course!)
After all, I don’t want to stoop to their level!
Ick.
Photo by John Salvino on Unsplash
This is a pretty effective set of shackles. Like many women, I’ve accepted them meekly for most of my life.
I’m bored with that now. It’s never worked well. It’s always left me terribly and painfully vulnerable. Turn the other cheek sounds like a lovely ideal, but in practice it sucks. In my study of combatives, I’ve found another option: Go in peace, but if a predator attacks you, be so explosively aggressive you become the predator and they become the prey. Take them out of commission as fast and effectively as possible and get away from them. Permanently.
I know, I know. Unattractive. Not nice. Being part of the problem rather than the solution. Violence solves nothing.
Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash
That’s all fine, if it works for you.
It hasn’t worked for me. I’m not sure why it’s unattractive and wrong to defend myself (or others), except, of course, from the predator’s point of view.
I don’t care what the predator thinks. Predators have to take their lumps, just like the rest of us.
It seems these days going in peace means having no opinions, asking no questions, voicing no disagreement, stating no beliefs and citing no personal experience. There’s sure to be someone who will step in and try to shut us down with violence, abuse and threats if we speak up.
I love the idea of tolerance as a peace treaty. It gives me everything I need. It accommodates my intention to seek and support connection. It allows me to continue to be completely disinterested in someone’s religion, sexual preference, gender experience, physical anatomy, race, ethnicity, diet or reproductive choices as a criterion for judgement. Tolerance as a peace treaty leaves ample room for the things I do care about — authenticity, compassion, power-with rather than power-over, the desire to connect. It’s a peace treaty I can honor whole-heartedly.
Right up until someone tells me to shut up and sit down, make myself small, stop asking questions. Right up until someone tells me what to believe, what spiritual framework to use, what to think, what agenda to accept, what to do with my body and what my boundaries should be. Right up until I feel uncomfortable, in fact. Then the peace treaty is broken, and I give myself permission to exit, quietly if allowed and like a fighting tigress if hindered.
Tolerance is not an expression of weakness. It’s not permission to use and abuse. It’s not an agreement to abdicate self-defense. It’s not a suicide pact.
Nobody is entitled to tolerance.
Tolerance is a gift that must be both given and received. Let’s be worthy of it.
Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Jan 19, 2017 | A Flourishing Woman, Self-Love
I went to a self-defense class last weekend, and it changed everything.
I’ve been thinking about self-defense a lot lately. In the past month or two I came across a book by Kelly McCann titled Combatives For Street Survival, illustrated throughout with photographs. That book opened up a whole new world to me. Not only is McCann direct and clear, he has a no-bullshit approach to the techniques and skills of self-defense. He knows what he’s talking about, as he’s an ex-Marine and has a wide variety of experience all over the world. He’s not interested in ideology. The only thing he’s interested in is what works to discourage or disable (note I did NOT say kill) an attacker, and he makes the point, over and over again, that if you’re forced into a fight in spite of good situational awareness and avoidance tactics (preferably running like a rabbit), you’re more likely to live if you learn a small set of flexible techniques and practice them.
What struck me most forcibly about McCann’s book was it represents permission to defend oneself. No one ever gave me that before. On the contrary, it seems to me all I’ve ever learned is that self-defense is not allowed. Self-defense is disloyal, a betrayal, dramatic, hysterical, disobedient, shameful, disruptive and makes others uncomfortable. For God’s sake, don’t make a scene!
I think a lot about boundaries. Self-defense is maintenance of boundaries. So, according to what I’ve learned in the world, maintaining boundaries is inappropriate. In fact, self-defense is violence, an act of aggression.
This is complete nonsense. Self-defense is not offense. Self-defense doesn’t come first. Self-defense is a response to threat or violence. Self-defense is not entering a building with guns blazing. It’s not swaggering down the street picking fights. It’s not bullying, machismo, unprovoked hostility or aggression. Self-defense is not a power grab.
Self-defense is a willingness to protect a boundary. It’s the right to say yes or no. The point is not whether others respond to or respect our boundaries (although that would be nice). The point is not whether others come to our assistance when we’re under attack. The point is we have a right to protect ourselves.
Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash
So, with all these thoughts jostling around in my head, I went to a free self-defense class at the local community center.
The class consisted of about fifteen women, age range high school to 50s. The instructor was a local martial arts teacher and he had female and male students with him to assist. It was a three-hour class.
Two things happened there that I’ll never forget.
The first was learning how to punch. This is not a thing I’ve ever wanted to learn. I don’t have much upper body strength, I know it’s easy to break your hand punching people or things, and I’ve no desire to punch anyone, ever. However, it was part of the class, so I learned. Then the instructor and male assistants filtered through the class, coming to each of us and asking us to punch them in the abdomen.
A large young man, over six feet tall, solid, strong, with hair dyed strawberry red, came and stood toe to toe with me, grinned, and said, “Hit me.”
I looked up into his face. “I don’t want to do this.” (Variations of this statement could be heard all over the room.)
“Go ahead. You won’t hurt me.”
This, I reflected, was probably true. Even if I’d known how to punch, I doubt I could have really hurt him. That wasn’t the thing holding me back.
I was being asked to deliberately, in cold blood, hit a nice young man who might have been my sons’ age or even younger, a stranger, in the stomach with my fist.
In that moment, I began to see the enormity of the disempowerment of women around self-defense and boundaries.
Photo by James Pond on Unsplash
I said to him, “I’ve been hit before, but I’ve never hit anyone else.”
His face darkened. “Then here’s your chance.”
“But it wasn’t you!” I said, on the edge of tears.
He stood there, waiting. I doubled up my fist and hit him.
“Again,” he said.
I did it again.
“Harder! Put your shoulder into it!”
I did it harder. Not as hard as I could, but harder.
“Good.” He stepped in front of the woman next to me.
This was happening all over the room. I saw women in tears. I saw women “hitting” with force that wouldn’t have knocked over a kitten and then apologizing abjectly. Eventually, with a lot of coaxing, most of us tried with at least moderate strength at least once. This single exercise took a large chunk of the total class time and was the hardest part of the whole class for me.
We knew, at the end of the class, there would be an opportunity to role play with one of the assistants or the instructor and demonstrate some of the techniques we’d learned. The instructor spent a lot of time talking to us about situational awareness, body language and the psychology of violent attack, and emphasized making noise in order to create an audience and discourage an attacker. He gave us language to use (WHAT DO YOU WANT?), and demonstrated. It was very clear, and the easiest part of the training — no new moves needed.
When it came time to role play, the instructor asked for volunteers. The nervousness in the room was palpable. Nobody wanted to do it, though there was an agreed upon safe word that would immediately end the role play and the situation was completely contained and controlled.
This is not the sort of thing that intimidates me, so I volunteered first and chose as my attacker the strawberry-haired gentlemen who so kindly encouraged me to hit him! Everyone laughed at this, because he was the biggest assailant I could have chosen. He was very pleased. He’d thought no one would pick him for this part of the class.
I strolled along in the middle of the classroom and he came up behind me and grabbed my shoulder. I turned around and asked him, loudly and aggressively, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
He grinned and transferred his grip to my upper arm.
I faced him, got my hands up and yelled into his face, “BACK OFF!”
It wasn’t him I was yelling at, though. It was a whole crowd of other faces, both male and female, people who have hurt me with fists and words, people who have shut me down, shut me up and taught me to be small and silent. I felt like a snarling wolf, a cornered tiger. With those two words, I reclaimed my willingness to self-protect and the power to do so.
I surprised him. He flinched back a little and his grip loosened. The instructor wanted the role play to continue until he felt that each woman had done something that gave her a chance to run. In less than a minute I was back against the wall with the rest of the audience.
One by one, with a lot of encouragement, every woman got up and tried the role play.
Not a single woman was able to use more than a moderately loud voice or any kind of an aggressive tone. They sounded terrified. They sounded weak. Their tone of voice was begging and pleading. The ones who did manage a puny blow or an evasive maneuver apologized to their pseudo attacker even as the attack continued. The instructor prompted, over and over again, “Louder! Shout out! Let us hear you!”
They couldn’t do it. Some even said, “I can’t!”
This assortment of ordinary women with a wide span of ages couldn’t be verbally aggressive with an attacker, even though they had full permission, were encouraged, supported, totally safe, and had my example paving the way.
Are you understanding this? These women couldn’t defend themselves, even verbally. All the guns and knives and skills in the world wouldn’t have helped them.
It boggled my mind.
Ever since that day I’ve been thinking about the power I felt when I yelled, “Back off!”
Ever since that day I’ve been thinking about a culture that silences, shames and disempowers women to the point that so many are unable to protect themselves.
Ever since that day I’ve reclaimed the right to defend myself.
Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Jan 5, 2017 | A Flourishing Woman, Minimalism
Photo by Maja R. on Unsplash
Every week I spend some time thinking about what I’ll post about. It’s a little like kneeling next to a small pond and trying to catch fish with my bare hands. It’s not that the pond is empty of fish. I have folders and favorites, a tickle file, quotes and poetry and stories enough to blog about for years, but I’ve never been able to write on command, as it were. Every week is the perfectly shaped container for…something. I can’t begin to write until I find the right something, the fish of the right size, weight and color. Each week is different. Each fish is different. As a writer, I come to each week, post and moment slightly different.
Last night I was sitting in my little attic workspace thinking about the week ahead. The holidays are over. The new year begins. Now what? What will I post about , and how will I fit it into the week’s landscape?
It was very quiet. I didn’t have music playing, and I was conscious of the clock on the wall ticking and the scrape, scrape of a snow shovel down in the driveway as my partner continued digging us out from the last snowstorm. I luxuriated in no words.
I control my exposure to the news on TV and radio as well as online, but it’s impossible to miss the typical new year chatter, a glamourized mix of juicy recap and even juicer prediction. It’s so captivating, so provocative and enticing to revisit everything that broke or was lost in 2016 and then, for dessert, to wallow in what might happen next. We can look at pictures and videos, read quotes and statistics and listen, aghast, as talking heads polish their crystal balls with words.
Then we can go onto Twitter or Facebook, or the social media of our choice, and look at more “news,” this time especially tailored to our interests and tastes, all due to the benevolent omniscience of social media algorithms, and find validation and pseudo connection with those who agree with us while bullying and scorning those who don’t.
Photo by Biel Morro on Unsplash
Meanwhile, now slips away, a moment at a time, that elusive interval between past and present, tiny as a thimble, large as the cosmos, and we never see the subtle shimmer of its passing because we’re deafened and blinded, overwhelmed and staggering in the clamor of technology, external racket and internal tumult.
Last night, as I sat, I remembered an old Zen story about an empty cup, and I thought I would look it up. How I could write a post about emptiness and the peace of wordlessness? It’s strange to be a writer and also feel occasionally hostile to the squawking of words.
The new year is a traditional fresh start, and everything I see and hear tells me in order to make a fresh start I should take more on. Ten ways to be more positive, seven foods to eat for better sex, six ways to stop smoking, twelve ways to stick to a workout routine, eight foods to eat for weight loss, twenty must-have beauty products for a new me!
There are people who write and talk about simplifying, unplugging, decluttering and just breathing, but there’s a lot of resistance. Many of us say we want our lives to work better, but when it comes down to actually making it so the sacrifices are too great.
Except on the other side of sacrifice is relief, and freedom and the peace of now. It’s just that we never get there!
So, this year perhaps we could empty our cups, just a little, and make room for sun flood and starlight, for bird trill and laughter. We could empty our cups enough for heartbeat and a deep breath, enough to grow feathers and learn to fly. We could give ourselves space for questions, curiosity and tender new shoots of growth. We could give ourselves room to kiss our own shoulders, take our own hands and listen to the whispering of our hearts.
May your cup have room in it for a joyous new year, my friends.
Photo by ORNELLA BINNI on Unsplash
A student came to a renowned master to inquire about Zen. The master served tea, pouring it into the student’s cup. When the cup was full he kept right on pouring, and the tea spilled down the sides of the cup onto the table and the floor.
The student watched in consternation, protesting at last. “Stop! The cup is full! No more will go in!”
“You are like this cup,” said the master. “You’re full. How can I teach you Zen unless you empty your cup?”
(This is a classic Zen story and there are hundreds of versions, both in print and on line. It’s usually titled A Cup Of Tea, or similar. The book in my hand is Zen Flesh Zen Bones, a collection compiled by Paul Reps.)
All content on this site ©2017
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Dec 22, 2016 | A Flourishing Woman, The Journey
It’s taken me a long time to come in peace to Winter Solstice.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Just a week or two ago, I wrote my mother that I’ve always felt desolate during the Christmas season, but I didn’t know why. I couldn’t say what would make it perfect. Somehow, in nearly fifty Christmases in my memory, I’ve never gotten it right. In the last years, without children or significant other, I’ve always chosen to work and just pretend it wasn’t happening.
This year, quite unexpectedly, is different.
Human beings are strange creatures. We create a winter celebration around the sun’s rhythm. We do fire rituals and tell stories during the shortest day of the year in order to woo the sun back for the next cycle of life and growth.
Then we superimpose a religious festival on top of that old pagan celebration and talk about miracles, new life, humble beginnings, peace, joy, faith, hope and all the rest.
Then we agree the season is really about commercial opportunity. We develop traditions and expectations involving food, drink, parties, decorations, lights and presents. We emphasize giving to others out of our own resources, whether it be money, time or kindness, but we don’t talk about whether we have any resources to give out of.
Then we build it up big with music, movies, stories, a guaranteed ‘vacation’ and a fat man in a red suit, and we throw all these elements together while we drown in advertising that informs us what we must have, what we want and what we must buy to prove our love for others.
We mix this all up with broken and dysfunctional families, loss, poverty, depression, addiction, mental illness, homelessness, hatred, bigotry, late nights, obesity, isolation, obligation, duty, over scheduling, exhaustion, health problems, insomnia, guilt, shame, debt and (in some places) winter weather, smile at strangers and say, “Merry Christmas!” Or, if we want to be politically correct, “Happy Holidays!”
Ho ho ho!
Yikes!
There’s nothing I need from Christmas. For years, I’ve been focused on being alone because I failed in my marriage, financial limitations (another kind of failure), having adult children who are living their own lives (because I taught them to!), and my introversion, which includes being uncomfortable with crowds, noise, stimulation and drinking.
This year, I’m laughing at myself. This year, I realize it’s not that Christmas doesn’t want me. It’s that I don’t want it!
Winter Solstice, however, is a different story. Today is Winter Solstice. I’m sitting in a small two-room second floor space at the top of a steep, uneven staircase in our one almost two hundred-year-old farmhouse. The sun is coming through a pattern of frost on the window behind me and shining on my hands as I type. A crystal hanging in the window throws glinting rainbows over the walls and sloping ceiling. A clock ticks at the head of the stairs. Now and then I hear my partner putting wood in the wood stove, directly below me. These rooms are unheated, but the brick chimney rises up through them and radiates heat all winter. I’ve a garland of twined artificial ivy, red berries and gold fringe, made years ago, hanging from a shelf. I have an old candle lantern somebody gave me with a gold pillar candle in it and another garland of red glass beads and ivy wrapped around it. There’s a simple string of red lights in the other room, where my work station is, and when the early dark comes I plug it in.
Photo by Teddy Kelley on Unsplash
Outside the windows, one looking north and one looking south, are trees; the smooth snow-covered slope down to the pond, punctuated by stalks of last year’s cattails; the two-lane road, covered in a thick layer of ice, salt and sand; and the driveway, covered in a thick layer of ice, wood stove ash and cat litter for traction. Crows enliven the trees around us; the ravens grace the air outside my windows, coming to check for victims of our mouse traps, which my partner throws out on the slope for them; and jays call harshly, forcing the smaller birds away from the bird feeders by the driveway.
This week we’ve had snow, and then on top of the snow we had freezing rain and subzero temperatures. I had to run to the post office to mail a package to my mother for Christmas, and I floated gingerly over the icy road, feeling the tires slip. The patient sleeping trees were backlit by the low sun and every twig, every pine needle, every single stem and blade was coated in sparkling ice, preserved by the polar air. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so beautiful, and I’ve carried the picture in my mind ever since.
It’s Winter Solstice in central Maine. No tree, no stockings, no pile of presents, no special food or drink. It’s Winter Solstice, and I’m alive. The trees are skimmed with diamonds, the low sun is shining, I’m writing and my hands are comforted by my mug of tea. A lifetime of favorite Christmas music plays from an iTunes playlist I created. I’m quiet. I’m at peace. I’m with two people I love — myself and my partner. I know joy. Later, when I go swimming, the sun will shine in the poolside windows and I’ll swim through sunlit rippled water as I do laps. If the pipes freeze in the kitchen sink again, we can do dishes in the bathtub. If the power goes out I can read by the light of my gold candle.
Tonight, on the longest night, I’ll lie snug in bed in our unheated room. We’ll read for a bit, our hands getting colder and colder as we hold our books in the frigid atmosphere, and then we’ll turn out the light and go to sleep while the house pops and cracks around us in the cold and whoever is moving around in the roof (Squirrel? Chipmunk? Mice? Wood rat?) scratches and scrabbles over our heads.
It’s Winter Solstice, and I wish you peace, and joy, and a still pause in which to be.
The light returns.
Photo by Das Sasha on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Sep 1, 2016 | A Flourishing Woman, Body
Last weekend I took my own advice and surrendered to the now of my life. Two big, heavy wooden doors opened like wings and I came home to dance between them.
One of my dearest friends introduced me (kicking and screaming all the way) to dance more than ten years ago.
“No,” I said, “I can’t do that.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t know how.”
But she, in her infinite female wisdom, nagged and niggled and poked and prodded until at last I agreed to try it. Once. Just to get her to shut up about it!
So I tried it and found myself there, waiting. I rarely missed a dance for years afterward. Ours was a small group of dancers, ebbing and flowing over the years, but the core group remained remarkably the same. Sometimes there were only two of us. It didn’t matter. It was a safe place, a place to be with myself in candlelight, a place to be in my body without thought, shame or responsibility. Everything happened at dance. We raged, we sobbed, we hurt, we lay on the floor. We shouted and clapped, farted, belched, giggled, played, pounded on the walls and danced until we drooled. It’s one of the few places in my life where I’ve felt I belonged.
Leaving my dance group was the most painful loss when I left my old life and came to Maine. I knew I could never replace it, but I hoped to find another place, another group, another dance.
The farmhouse I live in is more than a hundred years old and that means the ceilings are low. I don’t need a lot of room to dance by myself, but I do need to be able to move freely. I did dance a couple of times the first winter and spring I was here, but I had to make myself small so I didn’t scrape the ceiling with my hands and my heart was filled with what I’d left behind. It was so painful I didn’t want to face it again.
In Colorado we danced in a yoga studio. It was a beautiful space — clean, high ceilinged, wood floored. Perfect. Our little town was safe after dark. The studio was easily accessible, heated, had a bathroom available, and for most of us it was less than a five-minute drive to get there.
Since I’ve come to Maine I’ve searched for a local group. I’ve talked to several women about dance. Some have been intrigued, but they’re busy, or they have partners, or we don’t live very close together, or there’s no place to get together and do it. You know.
Here, the nearest town is twenty minutes away in good weather. I’m sure there are places in town we might use, but I don’t know where. Or who. Or how. I’m intimidated and overwhelmed and it seems ridiculous to try to find a suitable gathering place when there’s no dance group to use it.
So I stopped trying. Too painful. After all, now I have a partner to hang out with in the evenings. I told myself I’d keep thinking about it, look for openings, and eventually, maybe, be able to start another group. Or even find one. One day. When we had more money. If we moved somewhere else. If we had a better car that could actually deal with driving on winter nights.
But this summer there’s a lot of movement and change, not all of it comfortable. I’m learning a lot. I’m feeling a lot. Writing is good, and so is swimming, but dance accesses something deeper. I’ve known for a few weeks now I need to find a way to get back into those depths for my sake and for the sake of my loved ones.
So I decided to quit playing games with myself and figure this out.
Naturally, an old farmhouse in Maine comes equipped with a barn. Ours is a total of 
four stories, a typical New England nineteenth-century barn. There’s a bat colony in the top of it and it’s an apartment house for rodents. It’s constructed of gorgeous beams and posts with high ceilings and huge blocks of stone in the foundation. Windows look across the tops of the trees and over the river valley, most of them without glass now. We have six cords of hardwood stored in the driveway level and miscellaneous stuff on the top two floors. The spirit of the building is in the cellar, though, which is accessed through two huge heavy wooden doors that are permanently propped open in the back of the building. This area is mostly underground and the stone foundation can be clearly seen. There are old pens and animal stalls built by hand from the plentiful wood here; not boards, but logs and saplings, rough cut. The mowed area in front of this lower floor is not visible from house, driveway or road and is surrounded by trees.
So, I built a playlist of good music, a mix of old familiar dance tunes and some new discoveries. I swept and raked, picked up trash and got rid of some impressive spider webs. I found an old rusty tin can, filled it with dirt, and stuck incense in it. I put on a skirt and some jewelry, found a pair of light shoes I thought would work (I’ve always danced barefoot), grabbed a yoga mat to sit in the grass and stretch on and went to see what would happen.
They were all there, my dancers. It seemed to me I could almost reach out and touch them. They mingled with the ghosts of animals who once lived in this barn, long dead; generations of birds, now flown from empty nests in the rafters; and the dirty lace of old cobwebs. My feet felt clumsy and heavy in shoes and it wasn’t night, but my body remembered how to move and my brain remembered how to lie down and rest. The music swept me up, pushed me with sharp elbows and knees, shook me by the scruff of the neck, played with me and soothed me. I danced with my expectations, my stories, my fears and limitations and loss. I danced with my disappointment and grief and rage. I threw down my rigidity, refusal and denial and danced in their blood. I danced with the joy of coming back to myself.
I danced in an old barn, in a new life, but not alone. The past is still with me, the dancers I knew green and supple in my memory. The pain of change is not, after all, too great to bear. I don’t need money. I don’t need a better car. I don’t need anything that hasn’t been here all along. I don’t need to wait for anyone else or anything else. I just needed to surrender to what is now.
So this one’s for you, my dear Bobbi; for you, Jill, in all your beautiful sensitivity; for you, Rena, who taught me so much about strength, courage and being real; and for you, Pat, who brought essential balance to our group and allowed us to dance with a playful small boy.
Half a world away, you all still honor my dance with your presence.
**************
We based our dance practice in Colorado on the work of Gabrielle Roth, and I still follow this template. Please see my resource page for links. Also, here’s a wonderful piece about the power of dance.
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
by Jenny Rose | Jul 14, 2016 | A Flourishing Woman, The Journey
This blog is my resignation from a job I’ve held my whole life.
Photo by Anna Dziubinska on Unsplash
It’s a big world with a lot of people in it, all living their lives, thinking their thoughts, trying to find a place to stand, trying to survive, trying to get loved. I’m just like that. I’m not rich or famous, especially intelligent or beautiful or talented. I don’t do social media. I’m not a special success or failure.
I’ve done all the average things most every American does. Grew up, got a decent education, worked, got married, had a couple of kids, got divorced, moved, got older, watched the kids grow up and fly away, worried about money, tried to do my best, made a lot of mistakes.
But all that was incidental to my real job.
My real job has been to please people.
I wonder how many of you read that last line and felt sick. I know I’m not alone. I know you’re out there, as invisible and tired as I am.
I now intend to Fail to Please Others.
That’s not to say I refuse to ever please anyone again. No. That would only be another kind of jail. What I mean is now my choices are not based on what he/she wants me to do, say or be. Now my choices are based on The Right Thing To Do — for me.
I nearly always know what people want from me. I nearly always can identify The Right Thing To Do for myself. The problem is they’re rarely the same choice and I always, infallibly, reliably, boringly, sickeningly choose to please.
Why do I do this? Oh, that’s easy.
I believe I won’t be loved if I don’t do it.
Now think about that. Think about a life empty of people who love you. No one. No parent, no family member, no child, friend, lover. Think about believing, all the way to the soles of your feet, that if you Fail to Please, people around you will withdraw or withhold their love and/or leave. Forever. As in permanently.
I assure you I understand, as all People Pleasers do, that pleasing others to get loved doesn’t really work. Oh, in the moment you might get rewarded for it, but it never ends, the pleasing. Once isn’t enough. 100,000 times isn’t enough. Also, some people are impossible to please. Someone like that probably taught us this dreadful belief in the first place.
Well, life has just given me exactly what I needed to finally decide to make a change. Something happened, and I said no.
I never say no — at least not when I know the answer wanted is yes.
The answer wanted this time was yes, and I said no, because that was the true answer, the honest answer, the Right-Thing-To-Do-for-myself answer. I said it repeatedly to the two people whom I love best in all the world. There was upset, and outrage, and fury. There was a scene, not a violent smash-the-dishes-scene but a verbal scene, the kind I’ve spent my whole life trying desperately to avoid, the kind of scene that makes me want to run out the door and throw up under a bush. The word “betrayal” was used. But something about the whole situation woke up a deep streak of stubbornness in my nature and I just kept saying no.
I laid awake all night crying, telling myself now I was truly alone, as these two who heard “no” from me are the center of my heart.
But the next day I asked one of them if he still loved me, even though I said no.
And he said yes.
Now, bear with me while I explain what all this has to do with this blog.
I’m a writer. I’ve got a finished manuscript, another started, and am exploring the hair-raising process of getting published. I’ve always been a writer, since I was a child, but I’ve always tried to stifle it, hide it, ignore it and otherwise amputate the desire to do it from my life.
Why?
Because I find I can’t write anything but the truth.
My truth is unacceptable.
It Fails To Please.
The digital age has swept over us and people blog. I read lots of blogs. I’ve wanted to blog myself for a long time.
But I haven’t.
Why?
Because everything I want to blog about will Fail To Please — someone.
This is my first post. I’m still building the site. Feel free to explore and watch for new additions. Check back for weekly posts. Please leave a comment. Let’s have a conversation. If you’re hateful or disrespectful or a spammer I will block you without apology.
Please accept my resignation from the role of People Pleaser, effective immediately.
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash
All content on this site ©2016
Jennifer Rose
except where otherwise noted
