Get Over It

Try as I might to present a solid and composed exterior, I am still a gigantic marshmallow on the inside.  I worry way too much, laugh way too hard and cry way too easily. However, I will say I am getting better at managing my emotions and my abilities and I continue to learn daily at record speed.

After coming through a long few weeks, I am thrilled to proclaim that I have learned (or revisited) a few good life lessons in the last seven days. Here they are summed up. 

1) You can't please everybody all the time, so quit trying.

I was invited by the central Alberta Soropomists, to speak at their International Women's Day luncheon. I was very grateful for the opportunity.

I am not shy and I have a lot to say. Easy enough... I'll speak from the heart, balance with smarts, a dab of humour, punctuate with swear words. What can I say? That's me. I said exactly three swear words during my story telling portion of my speech. I said 'shit', in context of course. Then, during a particularly descriptive part of the speech, I colourfully said, "Most days I am shitting my pants," while talking about the business journey I am on. It got a laugh. Lastly, as I summed up the last of my thoughts I said, "women are most than the lines in their skin, the sum of the pounds or the perkiness of their tits."

Invariably, I offended someone. I'm sure she was a lovely, classy woman who thought I was completely crude, vulgar and classless. I admit, the words probably would have offended my Grandmother. But in the context of the stories/events I was sharing, they were perfectly acceptable in the eyes of a 'real woman on the run'.

So what? She didn't like me. Not everyone is going to like me. 

Not everyone likes Hillary Clinton, not everyone likes Barbara Striesand. Not everybody likes Madonna. Not everyone liked Mother Teresa. Not everyone likes me. Not everyone likes YOU.

You can't make everyone love you. There are plenty of people who do. Get over it.

2)  Nobody is perfect.

I may not be as big of freak as I think I am.

Do you know how meanly I talk to myself?  Oh, the mistakes I've made. Noone else has ever made the mistakes I've made. I must be doing 'it' wrong. My life would look different/I'd be more successful if I was doing 'it' right.(Whatever the 'it' is.) I wouldn't be 10 pounds overweight if I wasn't so lazy. I'm a bad mother because I didn't have yet another loonie to send to school for the 72nd time this week and I haven't ordered books through Scholastic yet this year. The kids will be traumatized for life! I'm not good enough, yet. If I was better as this, I'd have more of that.

Give me a break.

We've all got skeletons in our closet. We've all got imperfections. We all stink when we poop. I am NO better than you. You are no better than me... Everyone makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect.  Judgement/criticism is something people feel they must do to feel better about themselves. 

There is an idea of a 'perfect' someone we're aspiring to be that doesn't exist. The perfect me is a culmination of a mass of images and expectations in my head. Most of the images create a constant feeling of self-defeat for me. 

Why? Because it's a figment of my imagination, this 'perfect' woman who I will be when I've: lost 10 pounds, found a way to get rid of my stretch marks, bought better shoes, got a tan.  This expectation has been created from every airbrushed photograph or ad I've ever seen. And it prevents me from loving myself fully now. She is a woman without baggage, without wrinkles and stretchmarks; a woman who eats clean and dresses in classic and timeless clothes. 

We're forever taking advice from all the 'life-experts,'who are preaching to us from their flawed and imperfect pulpits (Example: Martha Stewart (prison), Anthony Robbins (Infidelity)). The ones that tell us what to wear, how to look, how to do, be and live more. Messages like: be a barracuda in the boardroom, a cougar in the bedroom, a swan in public and a bitch when caring for your pups.

As long as I am focused on the perfect woman I am aiming to become, or am searching for, I lose out this minute.  

So I need to remind myself to stop. Stop beating myself up. Stop setting myself up. Stop judging and criticizing someone else in order to feel better about myself (that doesn't work anyways).

I will become a better me everyday. I will love myself more for who I am and where I've been, without trying to mutate into someone I think will be smarter, prettier, funnier and more successful than me. I am enough right now.

Whoa. I almost lost myself there. Still with me?

3) I am getting good at 'the game'.

Developing and running a business is not for the faint of heart. Especially if you are a woman, new to the world of sales, business and networking, you need to feel as though there are people in your corner. People you can trust and lean on. I'm lucky. I've got those supports in place. Family, friends, mentors, colleagues.

I still experience daily challenges (opportunities to grow). I am still working very diligently to keep this wonderful venture afloat and it's hard. I am still awed to meet women (and men) everyday who are everything from generous, genuine gems to egotisical, selfish selves.  (I meet more of the genuine than the repulsive.)

But I've learned one really valuable thing this week that has allowed me to move (in my head) from 'mom of 4, bumbling along, doing a hogde-podgy, ah-thats-so-sweet-magazine' to 'woman, mother, publisher, and entreprenuer', who can hold her own. 

It's like a light has flipped on. A BFO. (a la Mom, that's a Blinding Flash of the Obvious)

I've discovered that I can hang onto the generous and loving one that I am in my heart of hearts and project the confident, firm, tough-as-nails bitch who can gets shit done when I need to. And I like it.

More importantly, I LIKE her.

I'm worth my time, my ideas and my price list.
I can write my own ticket and provide value for it. 
I'm proud of the work I am doing and the respect it is receiving.

And if me and my stuff doesn't work for 'you', oh well. 'You'll' get over it.

There are lots of people you can push around, walk over, tell what to do and make feel 'less than.' But I'm not one of them. 

I am a student of life. When I get uptight - and oh, I do - I must remember, I am doing everything perfectly. I'm right where I am meant to be.

And so are you.

Rock on, sister.