Hey Sistas! I think I might have a good word for you today!
I was talking with an older coworker a couple of days ago and she was telling me about how her day had been so far. I could immediately see that she was quite "over it" for the day and her daily tasks at hand had gotten the best of her so I just stood and listened. After a while of her explaining, probably assuming that I was bored with her story, she stopped talking and looked at me...then she said "I guess it wasn't that hard, you know, it was just a lot to do.". Immediately assuring her that I did in fact understand her, I said "a lot of easy can still be hard...". You would think by the way she brightened that I had given her a million dollars! She had this look on her face, that I understand now, could have been gratitude. I truly believe that she was grateful to finally have someone understand her. At that moment, I was grateful too. I was grateful that someone had the same underlying insecurity as me. We ,especially women, spend so much time trying to justify why we are tired, aggravated, sad, or exhausted. It has become normal to overly justify our situations and emotions in order to fit into the "acceptable realm of justification" from others. This may be a little hard to understand so...
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Here's an example:
Your job is to stamp envelopes. Walking into work one day the boss stops by to inform you that today you will have to stamp 150 more envelopes than you had originally planned and they also have to be done by the end of the day...TODAY. Later, on the way home from work you stop to have drinks with some friends. They are all talking about their days and when it's your turn you tell how exhausted you are, how today was very overwhelming, how your body aches and you are ready for bed. Immediately your friends start to say things like "All you do is stamp envelopes!" "You literally have a gravy job!" "Why are you complaining?!" "Be glad you don't have OUR problems!". So you withdraw, back into yourself, and start to wonder if maybe they are right. Compared to other problems yours seem really minute and menial.
Now you feel bad for mentioning your problems and maybe even a little inconsiderate, selfish even.
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What your friends do not understand is, this morning when you clocked in you were already tired because you were up all night and couldn't sleep worrying about...(insert your problem here). You already had 500 envelopes to stamp today and the color ink you needed was empty. After coming back from getting the ink from another office located in the next town, you had to go into an emergency meeting that lasted about an hour and a half. You finally get to work on the envelopes and after stamping 50 you realize that the envelopes were upside down, so now you have to start over. By this time it's around 2:15, you have not had lunch, the phone has been ringing non stop, and you are supposed to get off at 5. For the last two hours and 45 mins of the day you sit in one chair, with no break, and try your very best to rush through the rest of the envelopes. It is 6 o'clock by the time you actually finish them and as you box them up you pray they are correctly done because you had to rush them.
Your back hurts, you can barely turn your wrist, your stomach is sore due to you starving and "holding it" ALL day, your brain is washed, you didn't get to finish all your daily tasks, you had to reschedule that hair appointment that took you three weeks to book, you JUST remembered that you were supposed to have a conference call with your department head at 3 and you are getting off an hour late. And don't get me started on the fact that you might also be PMSing on top of all that!
The moral of the story is... your day was exhausting and overwhelming. It was hard for YOU because YOU experienced it. Let's make a more conscious effort to express our feelings and emotions in ways that are healthy but also accurately justified. Accurately as in the way YOU want them to be justified. (Now I say that, BUT I also said to do it in a HEALTHY way!!!! I think my next post may be on reflection...anyway what I mean is KEEP your friends!) And to the Sistas on the other side of the table, let's be more open and intentional about actually listening to one another's struggles.
One more reminder for my helpful Sistas ( I was one of them too...) let's remember that sometimes a listen is all your Sista needs...It's hard I know but growth and greatness both come from also knowing that everyone won't need or want help. And we have to work on letting that be okay. Listening ears and strong shoulders do just as much as good...
The goal is to fertilize one another, water one another and watch each other bloom.
“The very best relationship has a gardener and a flower. The gardener nurtures and the flower blooms.”– Carole Radziwill
Thank you so much for tuning in! Stick around for more!
With greatness and growth,
The Salty Sista
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