Choose Your Fighter

I'm a lover, not a fighter, so what am I doing taking a stand?!

Photo by Arisa Chattasa on Unsplash

Before I launch into this post, I feel the need to preface it with a reminder from the one and only Brené Brown. She discusses the idea of comparative suffering in her book Rising Strong, and also on an episode of her podcast Unlocking Us that aired during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Rising Strong, she says, “Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity.” So, from a scarcity view, if your pain is more than my pain, my pain is not worthy of being felt. This mindset comes from a place of not-enoughness. And I have been working hard over here in my ol’ noggin to evolve my scarcity mindset into one of enough-ness. Abundance is the ultimate goal, sure, but I’ll take enough-ness for now, thank you very much!

All this is to say: I am writing this post from the perspective that my challenges are different from the challenges faced every day by everyone else in the world. And also that there is a lot of bad stuff happening in the world right now. But pain is pain. And just as I try to respond to others’ strife with empathy and compassion, so too have I tried to practice self-compassion this week as I’ve gone through my crap. As Brené so brilliantly puts it:

“I’m a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.”

So here I go, complaining with perspective.

Twice in the last week (TWICE!), I have had to take a stand for what I believe in. For a people-pleasing, confrontationally-challenged Libra like me, this amount of advocacy is exhausting. All I want to do is throw on my jammies, grab a jar of Nutella and a spoon, crawl into bed with the second Outlander book, and never talk to anyone ever again.

What I don’t want to do is have to point out to as many people as possible that something is gravely, blatantly unjust and would make a lot of kids (mine included) feel othered and less than. I really don’t want to have to use Facebook to get my point across. [Insert nauseated face emoji here.] And I’ll take a hard pass on spending hours writing a professional-sounding, level-headed, well-composed email to a bunch of local bigwigs to protest something that should never have been instituted in the first place.

I also do not enjoy having to confront a bully. Especially at the risk of being interrupted, yelled at, or mansplained to. (I’m so annoyed I am dangling my prepositions and I DO NOT CARE BECAUSE I HAVE HAD IT WITH THE BULLYING!) Especially when the bully is trying to steer a ship for his own benefit instead of in the direction that is best for the freaking ship — and the ocean itself!

My therapist would tell you that situations like this are hard for me because I spent my childhood trying to not rock the boat (still going with the nautical metaphors, apparently) after my parents’ divorce while growing up in two households. I know my therapist would tell you this because this is what he told me this afternoon. And he’s right.

What I would add is that situations like this are also hard for me because it sucks when people don’t do the right thing. Or when people try to put other people down for the sake of their own advancement. Having to stand up to that sort of behavior, and feeling like my words are falling into a black hole of indifference while I go hoarse from the effort? Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.

By the way, I realize I’m sharing very vaguely, and I know that might be annoying for you. You want me to spill the tea! I get it! But I can’t. Tryin’ to stay on the high road over here.

What I can do is to tell you where this has all left me, and what I’m taking away from it. I feel exhausted and discombobulated. I feel like I am carrying around a LOT right now. Like, literally, in my body, I can feel myself carrying the weight of my anger and anxiety and frustration.

Two instances of taking a stand in the space of a week. One went my way, the other didn’t. Guess which weight I’m still carrying: the weight of victory or defeat?

I moved on from the victory as I do from any other accomplishment. That is, I forgot to take the time to savor it and pat myself on the back. I’m sure I had dishes to wash or emails to write. And soon enough I was back in the ring for another fight anyway.

That one didn’t go my way. And I’ve been carrying it around ever since it happened on Tuesday, as I process what happened and try to figure out my next move.

Because it was a snow day on Tuesday and my kids were home, they heard me raise my voice and tell the bully to stop interrupting me so that I could finish speaking. They also heard me crying to my mom on the phone afterwards. They heard me stand up for myself, and they also heard the toll that it took. And I’m ok with this. I don’t want to shield them from real life. I want them to know that even supermoms are also human. I want them to hear and see me feeling my feelings so that they learn to do to the same.

My work now is learning to fight the good fight, and recover better. If it goes my way, savor that win, baby! If it doesn’t pan out in my favor, let it go — preferably with tons of self-compassion, oodles of self-care, and a Stanley cup full of self-confidence. Easy peasy! (Definitely not easy peasy. But I’m going to try.)

The best boxers (people, I mean, not dogs) are able to shake off every round so they are ready for the next. Whether a round goes their way or not, they take a rest and reset before bouncing back into the ring.

I am between rounds now. I don’t know how long it will be until the bell signals the start of the next fight. I am using this time to rest, process, hydrate, recalibrate. I’m taking stock of the what I did well, where I fell short, and how I want to improve next time.

Because there will be a next time. And I know I will show up stronger for having gone through this last week.