Little-league baseball season is over and I’m walking into the local pizza joint for the end-of-season party. We might have been a couple of minutes late, but we’d had a hectic day shuffling kids from school to dance and soccer and piano. Homework is done and it’s a miracle we made it at all. I’m feeling pretty good about myself as I unload trophies from the car and head for the door with my son, his friend, and my (almost) teenage daughter in tow.
My son and his friend spot a teammate and run ahead. As I juggle the things in my hands to open the door to the restaurant, my daughter — who is sweet enough to walk with me, and sensitive enough to have picked up on a frazzled vibe — says, “You know Mom, sometimes you don’t really have it all together.”
In mock offense, I challenged her, “What are you talking about? I totally have it together! I sooo have it together. You don’t know anyone who has it together like I have it together. I…”
In the middle of my lecture, my daughter clarifies, “No Mom, I mean… you aren’t exactly the kind of mom with cookies baking as we get home from school.”
I started to explain (more emphatically this time), exactly how “put together” I am when I was interrupted again.
This time, right as I started to get on a roll, I’m stopped mid-sentence as a man rudely taps me on the shoulder. I turn around, and he says, in the nicest voice possible, “Ma’am, I think you’ve left your car door open.”
Arrgghhh! That wasn’t even my car door – I’m sure it was one of those children that left it open! Doesn’t anyone understand? I do so have it together!!
This is where women struggle. We feel tremendous pressure to “have it all together.” We are constantly striving to be a wonderful mother, amazing employee, inspiring tutor, exciting wife, diligent housekeeper, and so many other things. When we can’t keep up with our own impossible expectations, we feel defeated and inadequate.
When reading the story above, some people will see the open car door, and think, “Why is she protesting so much? Clearly, she doesn’t have it all together.” If you look deeper, you will find a woman who has raised two happy, independent, and self assured children, while arriving at the party (mostly) on time, with all of her planned supplies, all while supporting her children in their athletic successes, and helping another mother with her own transportation needs.
As a bonus, I had a wonderful teaching moment, where I got to explain to my daughter that “having it all together” can mean getting the big things in order, appreciating which things really matter, and not beating yourself up over the rest.
One of my best girlfriends came over to visit me a few weeks ago. She walked into my living room and exclaimed, “Wow! If my house looked like this, I don’t think I could let people in.” Gee, thanks. Great friend, huh? She goes on to say, “No, that is what I love about you. I can know you for who you are, and you wouldn’t turn me away. I’m comfortable and accepted here.” I replied, “Oh yes, I intentionally left the laundry out, so you’d feel more comfortable. It’s part of my grand strategy as a counselor.” I’ve so got it together.
We all have moments (fleeting or prolonged) in which it may be easy to judge ourselves as falling short. Quite often, these same perceived shortcomings may actually be unseen strengths. We view the issue from one side, and the easiest side for women to see is usually the self-critical one, which leads to self-doubt, discouragement and despair. It may sound trite, but it is true and important to remember, that every quality has an upside. Disorganized can be carefree and easy going, obsessive is also focused, and needy can mean loyal. Strive to find the flipside of your perceived weakness. Find the advantages rather than the disadvantages. I’m not talking about rationalization, but recognition and appreciation for all that you accomplish and the means by which you cope with the many competing demands for your energy. F. Scott Fitzgerald once shared the insight that “trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement—discouragement has a germ of its own” (The Crack-Up, 1945). We all have troubles, but they don’t need to drag us down. Like the artist who observes and paints colors the rest of us can’t see, a counselor can help with re-coloring your perspective and help you find peace and satisfaction where you once saw only that you didn’t have it “all together.”
I have a hope for my daughter – not that everything she does will be perfect, but that she will learn to have confidence and joy in everything she wants to do, even if they are things she doesn’t do well. This level of confidence means she will have the courage to try new adventures and challenge herself – the key to learning and growing. I recently had lunch with a person who is professionally successful to a degree extremely few people ever attain. They attributed their success, more so than any other single factor, to the confidence their parents instilled in them at an early age.
It’s easy and comfortable to do the things that we are good at, and quite another to do things we stink at. Women often worry that someone will discover their imperfection, their secret, that they are a fraud and don’t really have it all together, and somehow that revelation will diminish their value. When we truly understand our individual value and worth, we come to find that it is not contingent upon recognition by others. We are valuable because of who we are, our character, and the noble spirits that women are.
At church on Sundays, I take pride in my loud, off-key singing. I know it may not be as enjoyable for the person next to me, but it seems to me that rather than be shy or self-couscous about it, I should be able to have fun and take joy in activities I like, whether I’m good at them or not.
Sadly, women lose this love of doing things that are fun as we get older, because we get ideas about what we “should” be. Nowhere do we see this more, than in womens’ relationship with their body. Before the age of ten, girls love their bodies for the most part. They are engineering marvels that move when we want them too; they run, jump, climb, kick a ball, dance, and can chew bubble gum. And then somewhere in adolescence, our bodies become our enemies. We quit marveling at what they can do. Instead we start seeing the imperfections in what our bodies look like, rather than seeing what our body does for us.
Although flawed, we shouldn’t be surprised when we see this line of thinking seeping into our self-perceptions. I was at the grocery store recently and made the mistake of looking at the magazine rack. What a terrible place for girls. The majority of the magazines that were marketed to women featured scantily clad models, with articles on how to please your man, and how to lose weight or tone up your body. When a young girl gets a daily dose of women’s magazines telling her how to “lose and tone” it’s not long before she gets the idea that something is wrong with her, and that she can make it all right by dropping a few pounds and picking up a few guys. It’s beyond superficial, it’s fiction. I didn’t see any articles telling young girls that they can be beautiful, creative and brilliant, warm hearted, strong, full of integrity, and all while fully clothed and loving the physical activities that their body enables them to participate in.
One of my greatest ambitions is to help women learn to find the beauty in their imperfection. It’s in those very real and imperfect moments that wonderful things happen every day, and we begin to see the true strength and virtue of being a woman. You have it a lot more together than you think.
Lisa Elieson, MA, LPC-S
© Hidden Lakes Counseling