The Working Mommy's Manual

I’ve had a level ten terrible last two weeks.  God is definitely testing me.  Specifically I’ve spent the last two weeks fighting.  With everyone.  About everything.  If I believed in astrology I’d be convinced that Mercury was in retrograde.  The reason I’m having such a tough time is that I’m typically fantastic at letting things roll off my back.  I rarely sweat the small stuff and I hate drama.  But I was also raised by two hippie parents in inner city Boston so my sense of justice is off the charts and once I have a dog in the fight it’s not likely I’ll back down.  It’s precisely because of my tenacity that I’ve taught myself to remain calm for as long as possible.  Because quite frankly, it’s exhausting and a waste of energy to attend every fight I’m invited to attend.

But it was like everyone lost their damned minds these last two weeks.

So I went to therapy.  With my girlfriends.  Over wine. And after listening to me verbally vomit about every bananas thing that had happened to me they gave me the answer I had been looking for. And I realized it is a formula we all can and should consider following when we see a member of our sisterhood on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

1.  Listen.  Just listen.  As women we have this built-in innate ability to sit and listen patiently while someone melts down.  We rarely feel the need to cut the story-teller short with a solution to all that troubles them.  I think it’s because as women we see things in such complex and interconnected ways that we feel compelled to understand the totality of a situation before jumping in with any sort of advice.  We know that there is no black and white in real life.  And we are comfortable with gray.  We also recognize that sometimes our friends just need to exorcise the demons that are tormenting them.  Just saying them out loud is enough to get them into a manageable place.
2. Be honest. At a certain point in my venting I did want some feedback to which one of my friends responded by saying that she had to take her “Nicole-friend-hat” off, and put on her “objective hat.”  I literally had to give her thirty seconds while she closed her eyes and got her mind into the right space. My heart just about busted open with gratitude because I knew that whatever came out of her mouth next was going to be not what I wanted to hear but what I needed to know.  I don’t want friends who agree with me to make me feel better.  I want friends who love me and want to help me live my best possible life.  That includes hearing hard truths.  Because that is the only way I am going to grow as a person.
3. Trust Yourself.  This I actually the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given.  Because at around age nine studies have shown that a girl’s self-esteem starts to decrease significantly.  Blame it on the media, the male gaze, the less pay for same work, of being dismissed for being a bitch or emotional, mansplaining, subconscious male-biases, body-shaming, slut-shaming, and, and, and…But whatever the reasons it’s a fact, Jack.  Look it up on the Google.  What this boils down to is that women tend to internalize all the external negativity as internal self-doubt.  Even when we are strong, middle-aged, grown-ass women we still have that nasty little voice in our head that tells us to shut up and be polite.  Well fuck politeness (thank you Karen, Georgia and the My Favorite Murder podcast).  But 99.99999999% of the time we know what we should do.  We just stop believing in our own internal compass.  But as my friend told me, I am telling you now, I hope you tell every friend you have and scream it from the rooftops:  trust yourself.  You tell that nagging voice of self-doubt to shut the F-up. And you let your inner warrior princess lead you on the path you know you should be on.