Fridays are for Feminism: the birth of "full of yourself"
I used to be obsessed with making the perfect milk shake that would bring ALL the boys to the yard...
When I was 20, I had a friend who swore up and down that his job was to keep my head from getting too big. He would comment on my confidence, calling it arrogance. He would crush my self esteem (and my dreams) and I was convinced he was truly, helping me out.
I was so sure that this dance between us both was adding VALUE to my life, that he was doing me a long term favour by “keeping me in check”.
“Finally, a way to be surely loved”, all I had to do was tip out all of my Self, and fill it up with whatever was in fashion!
I was so sure that I needed to be less. So sure that he knew what would make me loveable, that somehow he was given the manual for men worldwide and it held the secrets. I wanted the attention so badly that I started to empty out. I demolished the foundations of loving myself that I had JUST built up after leaving high school and a long term relationship.
Of course, writing it down like this it glaringly obvious that he was not, in fact, doing me ANY favours.
When I emptied out, I became “full” of him. I was a collection of likes and dislikes that were never mine in the first place, in the hopes that he would choose me.
Ironically, there was none of me left to choose.
I realised simply being someones “dream girl” wasn’t enough unless I coupled it with being “wife material” and so, I started digging. So sure that the pinnacle of my evolution would come from being admired by some boy. As if being a shiny trophy that never altered would be the way to my own fulfilment and happiness.
So I brought on every David-Deida-Alison-Armstrong-Men-are-from-venus-tantric-polarity-based curriculum that I could get my hungry little hands on. I was gobbling down Matthew Hussy like it was the air I breathed. I WOULD be able to be the perfect selection of delicious actions and reactions that would mean I was the no-brainer choice. My milkshake WOULD bring all the boys to the yard. I would become irresistible through “science”… or so I believed.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to get out of this habit with men.
And for a long time, I thought that I was the only one doing it so I could now put it down to being super gay. Of COURSE I didn’t know how to be perfect for men, OF COURSE it didn’t come naturally to me when I thrive in relationships with females.
But, if it was simply that I am a raging homosexual, why was there so much content out there regarding the topic?
It wasn’t long until my curiosity got the better of me, and I dived deep into the worm hole. If it was so natural to behave in this way, why did we need so many reminders? If we are “naturally” meant to relate with the opposite sex, why are there so many rules? Why is it so restrictive? And why is it ASSUMED that it will be wholly unsatisfying, and the only way to feel fulfilled in it is if you follow these strict set of gender based roles?
And HOW THE HECK were women supposed to keep up with it all? Be confident enough so he notices you, but lose all of that and be dependent on him so he feels like a man? Be innocent and childlike so he thinks you’re fun, but also become his mother and do all the domestic labour? Don’t expect good communication, connection, thoughtfulness and emotional intelligence, but absolutely make sure you are ready to have sex whenever he wants because otherwise he won’t feel “manly” and you DO want a manly man… right?
Honestly, it smacked me in the face that like most things, it was a construct that kept us further away from ourselves. From trusting ourselves. From feeling fulfilled and honest and LOVEABLE just as we are. And when we don’t feel like that, man we fixate on getting it. And when all of that energy is going into trying to snag a husband before we expire or gain the approval of a male boss that couldn’t give a shit if you dropped dead the next day, well… there isn’t much time left over to consider what YOU actually want, or what YOU actually think.
I often ask myself how much time I must have wasted curating a new personality for every man I dated, and to be honest, I’m scared to add it up.
I often wondered how people could just do things. Take action without thinking about what they LOOK like taking that action. People able to just walk out the door as they are. Able to share their interests without it feeling like a confessional.
My ex was the first person who begged me to be myself with her. And, I couldn’t. I hadn’t spent any time finding out who that was. I had emptied out my boundaries and my desires. I was so used to being wet spaghetti in a relationship because I thought that’s what ensured the longevity of it. My needs, standards, desires, or just general vibe got in the way of its success.
As much as she asked, I couldn’t do it. I had no idea what I was pulling on, and I was so scared of her leaving me that I didn’t want to take the time to find out.
Eventually, we did separate. And I was forced to really confront this part of me that emptied out whenever I got the chance.
I use the example of relationship here, because EVERYTHING is relating.
I even curated the perfect version of me that accepted working part time FOR FREE, for promises, for a vision that wasn’t even mine. Because I was too scared to “leave” them and confirm I was a bad person.
Being empty of MYSELF and full of everyone else’s junk paralysed me. I couldn’t move forward with MY LIFE. I was too scared to have standards and I didn’t even know how to find them. I had no boundaries because there was no separation between me and other people - most of me WAS them. I couldn’t create - was simply thinking about what I would look like creating.
I started using poetry, art therapy, somatic practices and TIME to really get to know myself. To notice the things I didn’t “watch” myself do, but I just did them. To notice the people I felt anxious around and the situations where I was SURE I just made a fool of myself. I became a professional myth buster for all of the relationship repair industry and I let myself see the absolute audacity and tragedy that was heterosexual culture (the idea that we need to half ourselves to be loved) and the fluffy nonsense that we feed ourselves based on our genitals.
Like cmon, being prescribed expectations, desires, interests, abilities, habits, gifts, downfalls and colour preferences BASED ON YOUR GENITALS AT BIRTH. Its Insanity. Like, do they teach psychic readings at med school? I don’t think so.
So, friends. If you have related to any of this, I wanna reach through the screen and give you a big squish because not “feeling yourself” is genuinely the most uncomfortable state of being.
If you wanna refill in Bali with ME and my epic Fiancé, check out our Full of Yourself Retreat in AUGUST. Its gonna be epic, and we want you there. There are only 4 spaces left so make sure you get in contact if you’d prefer to come on this retreat that commit to the mid life crisis later.
Love this share and I feel like I got front row seats of Erica 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 ...... 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 lol
It’s been a fun time,
But can totally vouch for this evolution in you and amidst parts of chaos, it’s also been beautiful. I love you.
You write so well
Loved this, but made me so grateful for 1) parents who really did a good job of raising a girl in the 1950s and early 60s with unconditional love, and 2) the sheer embarrassment of how quickly I abandoned my self-esteem with my first college boyfriend. In the name of showing him unconditional love. When I read a story like this (or hear friends tell their own tales) I really wonder what would have happened if this boy had been more subtle? Instead, I let him abase me in truly ridiculous ways. I couldn't wear my glasses with him- so until I could make it home and get contacts, I went around with him, blind as a bat. He ridiculed my clothes, dismissed my opinions, and even gave me joke handcuffs for xmas because I tended (still do) to wave my hands around when I talk. And, we never "went out" formally because he didn't want people to think I was his girlfriend. And I put up with this because I believed I needed to show him "unconditional love," and excused his commitment phobia because his parents were divorced (can you believe it, he was the first person I ever knew with divorced parents!).
Lord, I put up with this for 2 years, getting more and more angry at myself, and then he transferred away. Thank heavens, and in about two months I fell in love with a man who was completely different, a man who had no trouble with my decision in 1972 to keep my own name at marriage, take a year off of working to read everything I could about feminism, supported me as I got my doctorate in history (essentially majoring in women's studies--which didn't really exist in those years-the single course at my institution being taught by a man), a man who loved me for who I was, not what he wanted me to be, I fortunately I was smart enough to recognize how rare and precious that was for a man of my generation so that I am still married to him over 50 years later.