One beautiful morning last week, my husband and I were laying poolside in Mexico as the sun cast itself upon our legs. We were enjoying our morning coffee when a staff member walked across the shallow pool. She made her way into the deeper end as two older women followed. It was time for the morning pool workout. Slowly, the group grew in number. I watched from the side as they began their warm-up. Shortly after they began, I watched as a little girl, no older than 5, walked toward the group. She circled her arms as the group did, inflatable lifesavers around each arm, and joined right in. I kept watching, unable to take my eyes off them, when my husband leaned over and asked, “you want to join them, don’t you? Go do it.”I jumped right in and made my way over to the deep end. They had already shifted into the full workout when I got into the group. At this point, everyone sitting around the poolside was watching. All different ages and ability levels had gathered to get some morning movement in. Soon enough, the little girl was too little to do some of the movements,…
Whenever I talk about my passion for working with young women on releasing perfectionism, there’s one response I hear that has a way of crawling under my skin. “Oh that is so needed,” people say. The tone they use to deliver the sentence makes it sound like I’m a hero stepping up to rescue young women. “Oh that is so needed…” the subtext being young women are constantly at risk of some type of peril. Over and over I hear it, and over and over I say “yes, it is” because I have nothing better with which to respond. How do you respond to someone implying there’s a fire constantly burning and you’re the one coming along with a bucket to try to calm it? You’d think I would have come up with a better response after a decade in this work, but, alas, I have not. Something about it is always irksome to me. What they’re saying, is they’re aware young women are suffering and they’re happy to hear someone is doing something about it. They know being a woman in a society determined to make them second-class citizens is really freaking hard. They know the early decades of life, spanning anywhere…
The Courage of Tiny Humans
One beautiful morning last week, my husband and I were laying poolside in Mexico as the sun cast itself upon our legs. We were enjoying our morning coffee when a staff member walked across the shallow pool. She made her way into the deeper end as two older women followed. It was time for the morning pool workout. Slowly, the group grew in number. I watched from the side as they began their warm-up. Shortly after they began, I watched as a little girl, no older than 5, walked toward the group. She circled her arms as the group did, inflatable lifesavers around each arm, and joined right in. I kept watching, unable to take my eyes off them, when my husband leaned over and asked, “you want to join them, don’t you? Go do it.”I jumped right in and made my way over to the deep end. They had already shifted into the full workout when I got into the group. At this point, everyone sitting around the poolside was watching. All different ages and ability levels had gathered to get some morning movement in. Soon enough, the little girl was too little to do some of the movements,…
She doesn’t need a savior
Whenever I talk about my passion for working with young women on releasing perfectionism, there’s one response I hear that has a way of crawling under my skin. “Oh that is so needed,” people say. The tone they use to deliver the sentence makes it sound like I’m a hero stepping up to rescue young women. “Oh that is so needed…” the subtext being young women are constantly at risk of some type of peril. Over and over I hear it, and over and over I say “yes, it is” because I have nothing better with which to respond. How do you respond to someone implying there’s a fire constantly burning and you’re the one coming along with a bucket to try to calm it? You’d think I would have come up with a better response after a decade in this work, but, alas, I have not. Something about it is always irksome to me. What they’re saying, is they’re aware young women are suffering and they’re happy to hear someone is doing something about it. They know being a woman in a society determined to make them second-class citizens is really freaking hard. They know the early decades of life, spanning anywhere…