rachelpaz

Yesterday it was 8 billion degrees outside, and I went for a walk around the lake in the early morning sun. I was wearing a sports bra and yoga pants. 

I don’t usually do this. It wasn’t out of my comfort zone, but it’s also not my default. You see, I sometimes hide the physically attractive part of myself to be more approachable in the world. (This is something I’m working on hiding less.)

But let’s be clear. I don’t have six-pack abs, and there’s no thigh gap to speak of. 

At the same time, I like my body and I’m comfortable in it. It gets attention from men (as if that deserves a gold star or something). 

Here’s what I noticed. 

Men walking with their wives looked, but pretended not to. Women noticed me and would immediately look away. Some women would speed up their pace, with an air of something to prove. Only men walking or running solo dared make eye contact with me. Not one single woman did. 

On a normal day of being fully clothed, walking, women will often notice my open face, my friendly smile, my desire to connect with other humans, even if just for a moment. They’ll smile back, maybe say hi. I often feel like I’m among friends.

And I felt a little sad. 

I wasn’t baring my midriff to show off, or to make others feel bad. 

But because I wasn’t hiding, it was like I was placed in some kind of female ranking competition that I don’t remember entering.

This sentiment has been echoed by other women I’m connected to recently. “If I talk about how wonderful I am, I’ll make other people feel bad.” 

“If I let people give me attention, I’m taking away attention from others who might need it more.”

And this is a core belief that leads to the behaviors that causes women to settle in relationships. 

Others don’t have to be less than for you to be wonderful. 

There is no one in the world exactly like you. (I hope you know that, right?) And there’s no better or worse, just different.

As I walked around the lake, I didn’t think, “Oh, that woman should definitely cover up,” or, “My body is 100 times better than hers,” or, “I hope she’ll hurry up and pass me so people don’t compare how defined her biceps are next to mine.”

People are where they are. You are where you are. There’s no more and no less. (Except maybe your judgment of it all.)

It is not your job to rescue others from their discomfort. It is your job to own yours. 

Rescuing others (or creating comfort) to make them feel better is something we often do to actually make ourselves feel better.

Me wearing a shirt yesterday under the guise of not wanting to make other women feel bad could very well have been filed away as the modest and appropriate thing to do. 

Instead, me not hiding meant I had to deal with my own discomfort – the discomfort that being an unapologetic woman often has me feel isolated from other women – not distract myself with someone else’s. 

Here’s the thing. There’s some hurt there. When I look at my own discomfort, I have to feel the hurt and decide where I want to go from there. How do I want to bridge that gap in my relationships with women…or do I just want to cut off my relationships with women altogether? 

But, one thing’s for sure: it puts the ball in my court. And while many of us scream about wanting the ball in our court so we feel empowered and like we’re not at the mercy of someone else, the number of times we give it away is unfathomable.

When you deal with your own discomfort, it paves the way for others to do the same.  You get to claim both your power and your actions. You being and having more means we all get to.  

The same thing happens in relationships:

• When you’re ready to have the “define the relationship” talk but can’t bring yourself to ask for it.
• When he wants to have sex and you aren’t sure if you’re exclusive.
• When you know you love him, but aren’t ready to say it until you’re sure he is. 

Face your discomfort, and you’ll give him permission to face his. It may not be comfortable, but it will be honest, and the path with become ever more clear. Drop me a comment below letting me know a place you try to make others comfortable instead of facing your own discomfort. 

Picture it. You’re driving down the road in a sweet, late 1970s-model station wagon. Probably a Chevy, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. It’s brown and has wood paneling on the sides. And an 8-track cassette player.

There’s a carload of people that look just like you. Only thing is, they all have different personalities.

There’s the one who wants to turn the radio up and listen to Duran Duran really loud.

There’s the one who wants to color, needs a snack, and always wants to cuddle.

There’s the one who’s super responsible and holding it all together. 

And there’s the one who knows at the core what’s right for you. 

They’re all trying to go somewhere, but not necessarily the same place.

So it’s like you’re navigating the station wagon in one giant fucking 12-point turn. 

You may not be a NASCAR driver, but you know a 12-point turn is ridiculous. A 12-point turn takes forever. You move an inch forward, then a couple inches back, then another inch forward. The lack of progress is maddening, and you basically turn in circles. (If you don’t believe me, go out to an empty parking lot right now and give it a shot.)

You think you want to start eating better.

You want to start standing up for yourself more, speaking up when you feel unheard.

You think you need better habits so you can be more productive. 

You probably need an accountability partner. Yeah, that will make this all go smoother.

But, no matter what accountability you have, what new habits you bring, you can’t seem to make the progress you want – in whatever place you’re stuck.

And because you’re likely not dating or in relationship at the moment, this is feels like an irrelevant article from a lady like me.

The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.

And if your car is stuck in a 12-point turn in your career, or your fitness regimen, or your house-buying mission, it’s sure as hell stuck in a 12-point turn when it comes to relationships.

If you want to get your car to move, you gotta get everybody in the station wagon in their proper seats. 

The coloring maniac eating goldfish crackers CANNOT be the driver. She can’t even reach the pedals and the steering wheel simultaneously, not to mention see over the dashboard.

The one who’s super responsible can’t drive either – she’s always worried that there’s going to be an accident and someone else might get hurt. 

And the one who wants to crank up the radio and listen to Duran Duran? Well, she’s a fine driver, but no one else in the station wagon is going to last very long if they have to listen to Duran Duran the whole time, so everyone else is better off when she’s in the back seat.

If you want to move toward a particular destination, you gotta address the needs of all the passengers.

We all have different personas, or archetypes, within us that want to be heard, seen, and attended to. When the various archetypes aren’t getting their needs met, they start a mutiny. They jump into the driver’s seat and take over the wheel. (Which can be frustrating as hell, because with all the fighting over where the car is headed, it’s hard to get much of anywhere.)

If you have somewhere you want to go, you’ve gotta get all the passengers to agree to the destination. And not just agree because they’re tired of fighting. Each archetype has to trust that they’ve been heard and can have what they want – so they can be like one happy family of identical quadruplets heading to the same place. 

How to make everyone in the hideous station wagon happy. 

To get out of the dreaded 12-point turn and finally start heading toward your destination, first, you have to decide what has you stuck. What’s a decision you’ve been wanting to make that you just can’t? 

Then you have to identify your passengers. Four is a good number. More than that and they start to blend together.

What happens next is a conversation with each passenger to hear what they want and what they need to see if you can get some consensus. 

Your turn.

I’m not gonna lie – this is a tricky conversation to have with yourself. If you’ve been on the fence about deciding whether you want a relationship or not – and you’re ready to be unstuck about that particular decision – I want to help you. FOR FREE. 

Go here to schedule a TOTALLY FREE call where we’ll chat a bit and do exactly this exercise and you’ll be clear at the end of it what’s next for you. No more stuck. 

And, in case you were wondering, I’m doing this because I like you and want to see you move into having all the great stuff that happens once you decide – either way. 

I’m in the middle (ok, Day 24) of a month of being sober. Not sober because I have a drinking problem; sober because I noticed a slight pattern start to emerge on difficult evenings with my child and I wanted to get to the bottom of what was bugging me.

When things felt like they got intolerable and I didn’t have any tools (or energy) left to make them more tolerable, I’d pour a drink. Unfortunately, what was intended to make things smoother only resulted in me feeling exponentially less tolerant the next time a difficult evening rolled around. Not effective. 

Why am I telling you this? Well, because I was out walking in the woods today and feeling a lot of intensity around my emotions and what’s what in my world. And it occurred to me that I was grateful for not drinking because if that were not the case, I would be drinking a beer and not walking in the woods feeling my feelings (and subsequently getting clear about what I wanted to do about them.)

As I was saying a quiet appreciation for not being at the local pub, I was reminded of my married days, and how I avoided so many conversations with my ex by drinking.

Only, the problems weren’t avoided.

They just got pushed down. 

And, as a result, they got so much bigger than they needed to be.

And, I also didn’t really get to know who I truly was in the presence of the man I decided to marry. I shoved that aside in favor of a margarita and comfortability and doing things the way I thought they were done. 

But who doesn’t love a good margarita (especially if there are chips and guacamole around)!?  

This is not a rant on alcohol. Trust me, I would never speak poorly of something I’m so fond of. It is, however, an invitation to notice what role alcohol has in your relationships, romantic and otherwise.

And, more important than noticing the role it has, I want to draw your attention to what happens in the absence of alcohol. 

Is hanging with your girlfriends not as fun anymore? 

Is it more difficult to be alone in the evenings without a glass of wine?

Do you get more agitated around family members?

While it’s not always used specifically to avoid, alcohol inherently allows us to avoid. We get a little bit numb, and don’t have to feel quite so much. We can use it to distract ourselves from what’s really happening on the inside because it gets all mixed up with that pleasurable buzz.

What’s the thing that would be harder to ignore if you didn’t have a way out? 

If I had answered that question in my twenties, this list would have been really long. My discomfort with my own desire for sex, my discomfort with someone else’s desire for sex, my inability to say what I wanted or what was bothering me, my fear of not being fun or being too uptight, my desire to be liked, on and on and on.

If I had answered that question in my thirties, it would have shifted a little. My need for love and my inability to really let it in, my fear of not being enough, my fear that I was always being judged, having to admit how tired I was and that I needed help, and having to admit that I didn’t have it figured out one little bit. And, whether or not I was worthy of having the life that I wanted.

Now, answering that question in my forties, the answers have shifted even more. I don’t always fit in with people and sometimes it’s hard to be graceful about that, I sometimes get mad at myself for being human, and currently, there’s something about my relationship with my kiddo that needs some attention. 

I think there’s always going to be something on that list of what I could avoid, and I can be ok with that. The real lesson for me, though, is that ignoring any of it makes it all worse. 

The subversive message of avoidance.

Avoidance can be such a double-edged sword. 

You escape an uncomfortable situation: hooray!

But now you feel like shit because you didn’t tell that guy how mad you are: booooooo! 

So, while the instant gratification of not having to address something is a relief, it sends a deeper message to us internally:

Your feelings don’t matter enough to bring them up.

You’re always overreacting and overemotional.

You’re not deserving of sharing what’s going on for you on the inside.

Betcha never thought that avoiding something could create so much wreckage, huh? Let’s not stick around long enough to find out!

Your turn!

What’s something in your life that you turn to when you’re not wanting to deal with how you’re feeling about what’s in front of you? Booze? Cigarettes? Ice cream? Social media? Tell me in the comments what your avoidance vice is, and then set yourself up with a little game to see if you can break the habit for a few days. See what comes up. What do you notice about how you feel? I can’t wait to hear what you find.