June 9.... stuff to say...

I have been carrying around some thoughts and on first glance they don't seem to have too much to do with gratitude... but I have done this before and ended up somewhere lovely so here goes.

So yesterday's convo with S is still with me. I have been thinking about how we as women, often, put the relationship above all else. Many of us have put it ahead of our kids, certainly at the expense of ourselves, we drown out our desires and voices and wake up somewhere down the road asking ourselves how we got here. That's hard shit. How do we get ourselves heard? My experience is that sometimes even if we're heard, we're not. Perhaps the problem is the expectation of change once we are in fact heard. Nothing seems simple.

Today I was part of a group that is 99% women. There is a bully among us, among the 99%. No one is speaking up, challenging, putting a stop to it.. I guess that's why it's called bullying. Or mental illness, I'm not sure! Anyhow.. all that to say.. sometimes, you gotta stand up and say stuff that needs to be said. And sadly, even doing that isn't always enough (see, again!). Our voices are drowned out by an emotional reaction, our own guilt or fear, our own insecurity, or for the sake of "peace" - whatever the hell that would look like. Often rather than own our anger and unhappiness we get on board with the insane and say stuff like "Oh, I'm pmsing" or "Oh, I'm menopausal - I'll be less pissed at your inattention and disrespect when I age!" - wtf??? We DO this!

So where's the gratitude in one's voicelessness. How many are the ways we silence ourselves? Because many they are. I've been challenged recently to step up to a place of leadership. But I can see clearly... there is no support there for me. The bully is winning the day. And mostly everyone is afraid of a bully. There is a part of me saying - I can pick and choose my battles and I'm not sure this one merits my energy - precious as it is to me. How do I figure that out?

Gratitude.... in the melee of my day, I hear that I make a difference, I hear that I am being counted on to make a difference, I hear that in fact that is my role. I appreciated very much the definition of that today. From that feedback it would seem I have a voice, and someone is hearing it.