Permission to be human
If you needed permission to be granted, here is your sign
A turning point in my business came when I met my first business friend, Sam at a marketing conference. I’d never been to an event like that before, it felt expensive, loud and a long way from my babies.
Sam found me awkwardly sitting alone in a crowded cafe, just at the moment I was wondering if everyone else had somehow been best friends since school. We got chatting and while I was telling a, for me, very mundane story about my daughter losing her rag in Boots and being asked to leave, I noticed she seemed emotional, so I stopped to ask if she was OK.
To my surprise the emotion was relief. She was relieved to hear me say that my kids sometimes did things that got me into hot water and that I didn’t know how to handle it.
You see, Sam had read some of my “Dr Rosie” blogs about using psychology to survive and thrive as a parent and had assumed that I knew what I was doing because I could occasionally write something useful. The realisation that all of us, regardless of job title, are occasionally floored by our kids was so powerful.
This week I talked to
on the Business of Psychology podcast about how the perception of expertise can leave us drenched in shame as we shuffle out of Sainsbury’s, toddlers akimbo, terrified we’ll look up and into the eyes of a disappointed client.Of course, rationally we know that this is internalised misogyny and that maintaining a facade of perfection is not helpful to us or our clients but that “supermum” narrative sure is alluring and, when the world wants to see you that way, it can be hard to resist it until a child rips it off, along with the front cover of every Cbeebies magazine on the shelf.
And the world does want to see psychologists and therapists that way. We all need to live in hope that one day life will be easier, so we look for evidence that someone, somewhere has it sorted, because maybe if we find them we can just have a 50 minute session, read their book, impose their blueprint on our lives and everything will be OK. I know. I do it to Stacey Solomon (sorry Stacey).
This isn’t unique to psychologists and therapists. Regardless of your job, if you are a mother you have probably danced around this narrative, at times being pulled into being “all good” and at others crashing into the “all bad.” Perhaps a friend admired the state of your house or how good you look on 3 hours sleep and you had a moment to bask in the light of all goodness but then you felt the cringe of descent when your toddler swore at them (just me?) In the podcast, Dr Jade and I discuss what we can do to resist being pulled into this narrative and how we can better cope with the stress and shame that comes with trying to reach an unattainable standard for parenting.
The problem of how we stop putting women on pedestals from which they can only fall is a much bigger one. We still haven’t really nailed the idea of someone being just “good” they always have to be “exceptional” and when they can’t be they become “awful.” Our psychology struggles to allow people to be in the messy middle, despite the fact that is where we can all be found. The most powerful tool in overcoming perfectionism in my opinion is recognising the pressure society puts on you to be a perfectionist. Once we see the forces we are up against, we can rebel.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have had to rebel in the least comfortable of ways. I’ve been unwell for a while and I’ve had to accept that my body really can’t work to the standards I set for myself. The sickness sludge of cancelling much-valued client appointments, missing opportunities and being, frankly, unable to show up for my kids with my usual energy has been harder to take than the pain of surgery. I felt shame hanging heavily over my shoulders every time I had to stay in bed or retreat for a nap.
The positive I can take from the experience however, is that I realised the role that shame/guilt/perfectionism had been playing in how I run my life. Every now and again, something happens that allows me to see what is probably obvious to those around me, and it empowers me to take the action that needs to be taken. In this case, I gave myself permission to be human, to streamline what I do and focus on only the stuff which helps me be the psychologist and mum that I want to be. I will be sharing more about what that looks like over the next few months but for now you can expect to see me writing here more, from my lovely garden office, with a massive coffee and the sound of the birds.
Happy Saturday 🙂
Rosie