Stop being a bitch
I recently enjoyed a seriously nostalgic 90’s pop playlist session. I am not ashamed to say that.
One of my favorite 90's girl-power anthems is “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks. I can vividly remember driving my car with my girlfriends, windows down, screaming at the top of our lungs…
"I'm a bitch! I'm a lover!
I'm a child! I'm a mother!
I'm a sinner! I'm a saint!
I do not feel ashamed!"
The b-word is loaded, as we know. It gets twisted and turned depending on the situation and who says it. In the context of Brooks’ song, I always took it as a positive - a strong show of pride that women could act the way they wanted to without apologizing.
But it’s tricky, because we all know someone who we may consider a “bitch”, and not in a positive way. Powerful women frequently get labeled as such, an inherent, hugely frustrating double-standard when held up to male counterparts in similar positions or of similar stature.
What I find the most troublesome, however, is despite how kind and generous we as mothers are to everyone around us - friends, family, colleagues, children, strangers we pass on the street, the man at the deli, the teenage barista making our coffee, the dog, the spider we don't want to kill - WE CAN BE SUCH BITCHES TO OURSELVES.
Seriously, though. Stop for a moment and think about what’s been going on in your mind in the last 24 hours alone. My internal monologue sounds something like this:
- “My pants are tight. I need to work out harder this week”
- “God I sounded stupid in that meeting when I made that comment”
- “Why is my kid (throwing his food, hitting his brother, peeing on the rug), I haven’t been working hard enough to discipline him.
- "You should forget about starting your own business, no one will take you seriously, or worse than that, they’ll laugh at you. Hahahahahaha!"
Queen B-iatch over here.
Here’s a question. If you met a person who talked to you the way you talk to yourself, would you hang out with them, be friends with them, listen to them? My guess is F-No. So, why do we let ourselves talk to ourselves the way we do?
How often has your internal bitch stopped you from doing something you wanted to do? Mine has kept me in perpetual fear of making changes professionally for years. (“I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I don’t have enough experience. People will think I’m a fraud.”)
Honestly! How rude of me! If any of my friends came to me with the concerns I’ve been believing about myself, I’d say to them “Girl, you got this. You are stronger than you know. You are badass. I believe in you 100%. Put yourself out there!”
It's time we give the love that we give to others back to ourselves.
So, please, stop being a bitch to yourself. Indeed, we are all a mix of things - a bitch, lover, child, mother, sinner and saint. We sure as shit should not feel ashamed.