I’m sitting at a coffee shop a couple of doors from the Apple Store, waiting for one of the geniuses to become available to get the malware off my computer. This morning, with a loud continuous message of dire warning, the computer shut down so thoroughly I could not continue to use it. No need to take this personally, the woman at the table next to me says this has happened to her too. To me this incident seemed just part of an ongoing gigantic assault on my peace of mind that began with watching Judge Bret Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Ford give their testimony before a congressional committee, followed by watching and listening to the whole world continually react to it.
This national conversation has triggered memories for me, not of sexual assault, but of the lack of respect and attention given to me and other women in the workplace. Being overlooked and underpaid was a way of life for women of my generation and I’ve been finding myself getting angry about it all over again, a reaction my husband warns me is off-putting to others.
The worst is I’m having bouts of being angry at myself for tolerating such treatment. The time I objected to making less money than the man I was supervising, yet I stayed in the job, the class action lawsuit against the university on equal pay for women I joined that indirectly caused me to lose my job, and that has never been settled to this day, the first formal meeting with the company my husband and I sold our business to where a male executive of the new company kept referring to our clinic as “Richard’s Place.” The woman next to me finally asked, “What do you do at Iatreia?” I answered, “You’ve probably been in corporate America long enough to appreciate this, but I am the co-founder and co-director of “Richard’s place.”
That memory never goes away but at the time, I felt I handled it well. Nothing off-putting. But now I feel mad at myself for not objecting more loudly. As a therapist, I know events in the past can influence and color our reactions and responses to the present and noticing my reactions is helping me realize I still have work to do to live with a clear head and joy in my heart. And has an author of a book on Self-Care, I recognize this as a moment for Radical Self-Care. https://sheilakcollins.com/stillpoint-self-care-playbook/
As everyone in our country seems to be repeatedly asking the same question – “who is telling the truth?” I know that some people don’t know enough about what’s going on to be able to tell the truth. Their own perception is all they have room for in their brains. It’s clear that, in the scenarios of the partying teenagers, many people were drunk and it is a scientific fact that people who are drunk do things they wouldn’t do if they were sober. It’s also true that people do not remember much of what took place when they were strongly under the influence.
Alcohol interferes with the laying down of dendrites in the brain.
As I exit the coffee shop two Navajo proverbs, written on a shopkeeper’s sidewalk signs seem to offer advice for these difficult times. The first I took to my own heart, “Thoughts are like arrows; once released they strike their mark. Guard them well or one day you may be your own victim.” The second truth made me laugh – “You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.”
Next week I’ll be on tour in Texas and performing the book with my co-author, Christine, in three locations. Join us if you can! Details can be found here:
www.stillpointselfcareplaybook.com
Sheila
