The Real Reason Women are "Stepping Up - and burning out"
“Women are stepping up and burning out” rang the subject line of a recent newsletter from a women’s advocacy group I follow.
And it’s true. Women are throwing themselves at their work and routing obstacles “by tsunami,” I like to call it. They advance by unleashing a noticeable volume of output, which of course fits nicely the narrative that women must “overdo” to be recognized and valued.
But if you think about it that’s just the opposite of being valued. What’s valued here is the magnitude (volume and quality) of our production, and our ability to generate “more” than the next guy – and in this situation I do mean guy.
What then is valued in this exchange is not who we are, and not even what we personally contribute, but rather the volume of what we contribute. Not just better than, but better than by a long shot.
No wonder women are burning out. On the surface this is a very easy equation to understand. But this is hardly the full truth of why women are burning out.
Women are burning out because we accept this equation, that our value equals our output.
We’ve been going along with the unspoken narrative that our value lies in the magnitude of our contribution and so we do all the exhausting things that such a narrative would suggest.
Transform the ailing department with limited support – no problem. Mentor five more people – no problem. Work full-time and care for the house and kids full-time – no problem. We go along to get along, waiting for that big cultural paradigm shift that’s supposedly coming and will of itself turn things around.
Ha. And again, ha ha.
No one’s coming to save us. We are in fact the engines of that cultural shift, and it is in our hewing to a new narrative, right now in the midst of the old, that the tide will begin to turn.
Want to be recognized and amply appreciated for who you are, you with your organic limits that include your desire for your own time and pleasure? If so, you’ll need to start recognizing and appreciating yourself for who you are before anyone else does.
That means valuing your time and pleasure and the limits that naturally arise from the deep commitments in your life. Right now, while everyone’s still telling you that that’s not the way it’s done, or could be done if you hope to meet with success.
But this is big.
And how does one even begin to start valuing oneself in this way when the roadmap to our true selves has long been lost, with the buried treasure of our emancipation right beside it.
Well I would suggest, and The School of Dae Nova teaches, that the steady road back to oneself follows a predictable route that starts with three things:
The exercise of appropriate boundaries,
Knowing who you are and what you need and want as a precursor to making those appropriate boundaries, and
Valuing yourself “as is,” which is why you’d even spend the time to understand who you are and what you need/want. These three core tasks of self-recognition and self-advocacy all work together.
In your day-to-day can you create appropriate boundaries in most all situations, and if you can, are they the right ones? Meaning, one’s that are right for you, that truly reflect not only the situation, but who you are and what you want? Do you know who you are and what you want, and if you do, do you value your Self enough to act on what you know?
Difficulty with exercising these core elements of an “effective self” is a dilemma that afflicts most every woman I’ve ever met. And if you’re not struggling with #1, it’s most likely something about #2 or #3. Think about it.
It’s easy to feel frustrated with ourselves when we come up short isn’t it. But that’s taking a very narrow view of the situation. How fully have you been supported in your life to see and value yourself in this way?
What stories have you been raised with, the ones affirmed by family, religious institutions, education and society at large, etc.? Just remember the tsunami narrative at the start to get a sense of the hidden though pervasive messages women are confronted with daily.
We breathe the air of these stories moment-to-moment, stories that get translated into the “truths” of who we are and should be.
And though we are surrounded by stories - with their embedded “truths” that would undermine who we are - we only become truly vulnerable to these stories if we don’t have an “effective self” on board, a self that who knows who she is with the boundary skills needed to walk in her truth.
Honing one’s “effective self” is the critical work women are being called to at this time. To choose above all the journey back to our true selves, so we have the clarity and strength of purpose to live her out into the world where she can effect the paradigm shift we’ve all been waiting for.
Are you walking that walk? Maybe it’s enough right now to know you can.
To your wellbeing and Aliveness,
Eva