As a girl and young woman, there were rules that gave me guidance in pretty much any situation I confronted.
Smile. Be obedient. Don’t talk back. My lessons when I was a child, in my teens, in my twenties.
“You can’t tell me what to do.” “No!” “My face isn’t here to provide you ease or entertainment or aesthetic enjoyment.” My angry, rather militant backlash in my thirties and forties.
In both cases, I was reacting to societal messages, whether accepting or rejecting them.
It is only in the past ten years or so that I began to wonder if there was a third way. What if I could choose? Neither accept those early messages wholesale nor throw the baby out with the bathwater?
What if, instead of negotiating the spoken or tacit rules with which society tends to burden women, I had another way to judge what is appropriate for me? What if had a compass that I trust to steer me in every set of circumstances?
I had such a compass—my intuition—but I hadn’t listened to it in decades. When I was young, I was frightened of its demands that I sing or dance when the world wanted me quiet. I quelled its push to speak my truth when a little white lie might smooth over the situation. Later, I scorned its moderation when I wanted to come out swinging at every injustice I or others might suffer. I thought it wanted to soften me when I needed to be firm and strong.
Now, I know that my intuition was just trying to get me to be me.
Sometimes, that meant I needed to speak up and other times it meant I could serve myself (and others) best by calming the waters, to allow all of the voices present to be heard.
And I have to admit I listened so little to that part of myself that I felt it had shriveled, ignored, huddled in a dark corner of my soul.
It took many years for me to learn to listen to, hear, and trust my intuition. I’ve practiced meditation, counseling, coaching, hypnosis, etc., for several years now. And, to be honest, it is only in the past couple of years that I have felt comfortable making my choices without recourse to talking to every single one of my girlfriends, combing through conversations, sitting up journaling late at night.
But this burgeoning trust, sprouting in my spirit like a fresh, green shoot, is miraculous to me. I find myself wanting to nurture it, delighting in the freedom of knowing that I know: what is right for me, how to react, what I want.
So what does that mean? A lot of things, actually, but to just take one of the first lessons I learned. I learned pretty early on that when I smile, I could diffuse a situation, I could put other people at ease, I could soften something that might be unpleasant, and I could make myself less threatening.
That was then.
Now, I don’t smile because I want to set someone at ease or I think they will like me better. I smile because I am thinking joyous thoughts or because I just like how my face glows when I smile. It was difficult divorcing my physical settings from another person’s beliefs, needs, or reactions. But for the most part, I have done it.
I trust myself. And that makes me smile.
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