Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicide
The last couple of months have been a whirlwind in the best possible way.
Between sourcing new business, supporting current clients, joining a few non-profit boards, launching a new in-person community for women entrepreneurs, planting 144 buttercrunch lettuce plants (and keeping them alive) AND staying with my nieces for just over a week…
I was also introducing myself to a new layer of the grief that resides within me.
Side note - Hustle culture tells us we have to be busy to be productive or successful. This is ‘fast-living’.
I’m a strong advocate for slow-living.
I am slow-living because everything I’m doing I have chosen with intention and accepted this will make some areas of my life temporarily busy. I still make time to dance in the kitchen while cooking meals or sit on the porch watching the chickens sunbathe.
I’m overwhelmingly fulfilled by the work I’m doing, partnerships I’m building and the community I’m fostering. Although there can be great benefits for my business by being involved in so many things, my intention in saying “yes” to these opportunities is my desire to be involved and make an impact.
Ya know, the whole Gandhi style, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” kind of vibe.
Part of my work is meeting new people and expanding my network to create more brand awareness. It's my favorite kind of work because I get to meet so many amazing people, hear fun stories and be inspired to stretch or grow in new ways.
I've found some trends in my meetings, and I'm trying to check some of my biases as I write this. (The implicit bias is real y’all.) I don't want to stereotype, but there are definitely some key identifiers that will inform me to expect that I'm going to get a dose of unprompted advice & feedback I never asked for. 🙃
Last month, I opened myself up in a hot take LinkedIn post and knew to expect not everyone will agree. I was fascinated by the two people (not even part of my network, mind you) that felt so inclined to tell me how I was wrong in the comments. It’s one thing to disagree, it’s another thing to TELL me I’m wrong.
They're opinions/comments were aligned with every newsletter I'm reading in my inbox, all the posts I am encountering on LinkedIn and even encroaching into my Instagram sponsored ads and suggested content.
And then, I ended up in a blind networking call - meaning I don't really know the person, we haven't followed each other on socials and I have had minimal time to gather any intel prior to our meeting.
Had I researched early, I maybe would have identified the indicators that this call was going to result in…
…unprompted advice.
Although I think they were well-intentioned, what they are shared didn’t meet their intention. Personally, I think it’s rude to tell someone how to run their business without having first
a) built an actual relationship
b) serve as their mentor or
c) asked if they were open to feedback or thoughts.
My feathers were slightly ruffled at the unprompted advice and then fully ruffled when it wasn’t even kind.
It was unkind, hurtful and untrue.
Because this person didn’t know me.
If they didn’t know you, why did you care so much?
I am fully aware that advice from strangers should be taken as a grain of salt, but it doesn’t change the way I FELT.
It was the final blow to my deteriorating spine of confidence, and like Thor lifting his hammer to the sky and slamming it into the ground, it created a chasm in my body that went deeper into my core than I knew would be possible.
Showing up with oodles of confidence every day is already challenging. It takes a lot of positive internal self talk (energy) and intention with my time and schedule (more energy) and then I have to embody feeling confident when I show up to meeting new people, entering new spaces and doing new things (even more energy).
As the newsletters, LinkedIn posts, and conversations continued to say the opposite of what I believed, the work to stay confident in myself took even more energy than it already used.
Oh my gosh! What happened?
Long story short, the message was interpreted by my brain as:
“Adrianne, you’re too much.”
“Adrianne, you went too far out of the box.”
“Adrianne, you can’t be successful unless you follow the rules.”
I’ve been sitting with myself for nearly a month now and asking, “Why does this hurt so much and what is the hurt telling me?”
I’m angry.
I’m angry that my brain defaults to believing these lies.
I’m angry that I didn’t have support to navigate these beliefs in my formative years.
I’m angry that the only responses to these lies are cliche phrases like, “let it roll off your back”
I’m angry that someone doesn’t understand the power of words.
I’m angry that little me felt alone navigating these feelings.
I’m angry that little me took NOW as the time to tell me she still feels this way.
I’m angry I can’t talk about the situation without sobbing.
I’m angry that it matters so much.
And I recognize that anger lives in my body as a reminder that I had no boundaries for a very long time and there are areas within myself that haven’t healed from that yet.
I wasn’t taught boundaries. I was taught rules.
Obey the rules.
Fall in line.
Stay in the box.
Do as I say.
Conform.
And don’t question it.
When I was 15, I ran away from home.
I had just been ‘grounded’ for wearing flip flops in January.
Granted, January 2 is usually quite chilly in Minnesota, and there is nearly always snow or ice on the ground. Even still, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t wear flip flops because I wasn’t outside that long anyway. 🤷🏻♀️
My parents said something along the lines of “flip flops just aren’t worn in winter.”, and that response wasn’t enough for me to accept. So, I disobeyed the rules and wore them anyway.
When they grounded me and then left to run some errands, I ran away from home. In my flip flops. I took a bus to a friend's house in North Minneapolis. When my parents found me and drove me home, my mom said, “I wouldn’t even walk the dog in this neighborhood in broad daylight.”
And I responded with, “Well maybe I’m braver than you.”
Y’all - that did NOT win me any points and my grounded timeframe was then extended.
So, I decided I wanted to die and tried to figure out ways to kill myself. This is how I ended up seeing a counselor for the first time in my life.
I realize at the surface, not being able to wear flip flops seems like an incredibly silly reason to want to die. As an adult, I also understand that my parents’ goal in having me wear closed toe shoes was to keep me safe & healthy. Hopefully you realize at this point, it wasn’t about the flip flops at all.
It was feeling like I couldn’t be myself.
It was feeling like my ability to be unique and different was being taken away from me.
It was feeling like I am ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ for wanting to be different.
It was a reminder to get in the box and stay in it.
Counseling created a safe space in the office where I could read my exceptionally dark poetry and share how I was really feeling. And, it reiterated the message to conform.
Feelings are okay, but only in the counselor's office.
I learned how to mask so it would appear as though I had conformed.
My brain formed neural pathways to protect myself from wanting to die while living in the box.
After weeks of internalizing the message of being ‘too much’ (in worse words), my little self found an extra scoop of courage to scream out:
“See - this is why we stay in the box. No one wants us when we’re out of the box.”
My body feels the pain from when I was 15.
And all the times I was hurting before those neural pathways were created.
And all the times I kept myself in the box with chains of others’ expectations after creating the neural pathways
I have done a lot of work to change my internal dialogue. It’s the basis for my personal tagline: “I didn’t spend thousands on therapy to be silent.” I’ve built my life back from nothing twice and I’m confident if I have to do it again, I can. I’ve found new confidence in myself, my skills, my knowledge and ability to figure shit out.
And (this pesky motherfucking word 🙄)...
I have 20+ years of neural pathways I’m fighting to rewrite.
Imagine you are walking down a clear and beaten down path through a beautifully wooded forest. The sunlight is streaming through the tree cover and a light breeze is flowing between the tall trunks. The path is easy to navigate and you know exactly which direction to go.
You come to a point where you’re looking at the path ahead and see a fallen tree followed by a massive puddle and bridge with a few missing planks over a small creek. You could navigate the treacherous path and get to the other side because it’s clearly the path everyone has taken.
Or, you can turn into the low brush surrounding the forest giants and make a new path towards a more narrow section of the creek that you could just hop over. Carving out a new path in the forest is more work, but also feels safer so you opt to push a small thorn bush aside and start walking away from the beaten path.
Now, imagine every step of the way someone is telling you…
“You’re not going to make it. You’re going to waste so much energy. You should just go back and take the path, it’s not that bad and it’ll be faster. You’re such an idiot for choosing the harder path. No one is going to follow you. We’re going to take the faster path even if it’s dangerous.”
That’s what happens in my brain every time I’m met with language or messaging that tells me to get in the box.
I’ve been cutting down thorn bushes for 5 years and there are still so many more to remove. Hearing the shout of little me is the equivalent of hearing, “Go back and get on the path.”
But, I want little me to know that we can be different AND safe. We can do things our own way and still be successful. We can live outside the box and still be loved.
I’m sitting with my anger because ultimately I know I’ve unlocked a new layer of grief. It’s feral and ferocious and showing up to remind me that a boundary was crossed. At 15 and at 36. (And a plethora of times before and in between.)
Boundaries are how I choose to respond, not creating rules for other people to adhere to. The difference between when I was 15 and today is that I was dependent on my parents to take care of me. Today, I can choose to walk away, end a call or stand up for myself in the moment.
As I’ve been making space to sit with my grief and allow the anger to exist within the mitochondria of my cells, I’ve been thinking about my word of the year; discipline.
I started out the year thinking it’d be about creating more habits (and maintaining them), but instead I think it’s serving as a reminder to be disciplined in showing up for myself.
At 15, I tried to share how I was feeling but it was misunderstood. That’s where it stopped so masking was the best next step.
At 36, I sat dumbfounded with a new chasm of heartbreak reverberating through my body. And the anger is fueling new ways to respond that include: “I heard you say _____. Is that what you intended?” Or, if it feels right, “I no longer think this is a productive call so I’m going to end it. Thank you for your time and all the best to you.”
In 2023, letting the word “patience” orbit around my existence taught me, “Know the difference between being patient and wasting your time.”
In 2024, I’m already embracing, “Be relentless and unyielding in how you show up for yourself.”
They say the 6th stage of grief is “making meaning from your loss.” I can feel the antsy energy in my body to take action on my anger.
Little me would like to take a destructive route - torching things and breaking plates.
Current me is making space to feel it. Crying, screaming, stomping my feet, deep breathing, and writing.
Like writing this piece in an effort to help little me feel seen and to remind you:
Anger shows up for a reason.
Have you looked inward and explored what it’s telling you?
I felt really seen reading your descriptions of fighting the internal battle for confidence and self worth. Thank you for sharing!
Every time I read one of your pieces, I’m in awe of your strength and intelligence. Life is so damn hard, and you keep forging your own path. I fully understand the thoughts that go through your mind when people tell you to get in the box - I have them too. It’s unfortunate our generation wasn’t given a lot of resources to help navigate tough situations, especially if our caregivers struggled with their own issues.
Keep doing great things, Adrianne. ♥️