It feels weird to bang on about relationships. It’s becoming harder, the more time goes by, for me to put myself back into the mindset of the woman that consistently put herself last. With partners who would swear blind that they didn’t take advantage, because men are raised with an innate sense of entitlement. They are meant to be at the top of the pyramid and don’t even notice the privilege of it when it’s all around them and for them.

Raised in the 70s and 80s, I absorbed this enough to make it unconscious. I didn’t rock the boat. I paddled. I steered. I guided. I bailed water. I never sat back in the prow with a cool drink and a parasol while he put some effort in. Any of them. They didn’t have to because I kept showing up. I got miserable and negative and stopped being any fun to be around, but I kept doing stuff. When we go so against our own inner needs, so far down we couldn’t name them if we tried, we eventually reach a breaking point.

Do we break inward? Or explode outward? Why are we constantly waiting for it to get to that point before realising we really need this to change?

Feeling empty and not understanding why is frightening.

We push it down because it’s just one more thing to face that we just don’t have the bandwidth for anymore. If we’ve been slowly putting bits of ourselves away to smooth things over or make our lives and presence more palatable for others, then we deserve to recognise that. We deserve to realise our worth is not solely in our service to others.

We all know her. There’s a woman you used to know who was so… spunky, just… lit up, who made every room better. I may or may not be leading you down to the conclusion that that was you. Maybe it is. At this point that’s irrelevant because we are all one on this. There are incredible women who have managed to keep that part of themselves and are wholly complete and still have connections and successful relationships. For most of us though, at some point something was tucked away, and then another thing, just to keep each day flowing smoothly. I’m specifically referring to personal relationships here, though the same can be said for the workplace. But that’s a conversation for another time.

Something I hated when I was in the weeds was pep talks and high-energy advice.

Feeling lost, not really understanding why but aware something was not right with me, did not have me in the right headspace for it.

Go and get it! You’ve got this! You just need to do x, y and z, and everything will work out! Put yourself first! Listen to your gut! I felt just like you, and I did this unimaginable thing, and now I’m cured! I’m great! That’s all you need to do!

I felt like a failure each and every day. Outwardly, all was well, but I was a shell. There is no worse feeling than worthlessness. When you don’t matter to yourself anymore, you truly don’t think there’s anything worth saving. That’s because so much of what makes you you has been tucked away out of sight just to make it through another day.

You may be like me. You may be stronger than me. I had to have my whole world blow apart to get me to take the first step, and I really don’t want other women to also crash to the bottom in order to move. Losing yourself to keep anything is contradictory. What is it about this relationship that makes the cost of reducing yourself worth it? It happens so very slowly that conscious thought doesn’t even keep up with it, and you forget things that make you whole. Forgotten is not gone. Tucked away are those parts of you that you felt were the price of this life. I’m telling you with love: that price is too high.

What I needed to know was that one tiny step was enough. Blowing the dust off one small part of me, that first sip of water after crossing the desert, was enough to begin slaking my thirst. Even someone as worthless as me could take a sip. So, I did.

I followed hypnotherapist Marisa Peer’s advice and wrote the words “I am enough” on a mirror I saw every day. I chanted them while shampooing. I didn’t think for a second that empty words I didn’t believe were going to be useful, but I was out of options. I was broken, and it was time to try anything.

Obviously tiny steps create walking momentum, which takes time and trying many things. But what I’m saying to you, the you who is currently stuck in the weeds, is that it doesn’t take big gestures. Big things are too hard right now, and they’re completely unnecessary. It takes about 3 weeks to form a new habit (though in NLP the norm is considered 66 days), and you feel like shit anyway, so how can it hurt? Pick a little step like Marisa Peer suggests and just change one sentence.

I promise that once you open the door to the archive and allow some of the dust to blow off, you’ll be more curious each day. It becomes something you want to do; open one more drawer and see if you recognise what’s stored in there. Bring out what you can handle, shred what no longer serves, and close drawers on what is too big right now. It doesn’t go away; it’s patiently waiting for when you’re ready.

Start small and often. Be gentle with yourself at what comes back. If you need a better reason to do this than ‘you’re enough’, do it for your kids or the ones you love who deserve to know the whole you.

You matter.

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I know so little about the female family history of either side of my family.

I have an ancestry tree that I really went nuts on a few years ago and constantly came across women who had no identity prior to their marriage certificate. No way of knowing who they were before ‘wife’ when they lost one identity and were given another.

I do remember my grandmother, in her declining years, telling me a story about her family. She was talking about meeting my grandfather (the boy across the road) as teenagers and how she set her sights on him. That was it for her. In the middle of the conversation, she said that one of the things she liked best about him was that he didn’t drink. She said her father was a drunk and “used to smack my mother around”. It was said so matter-of-factly that it stood out. I know my grandfather wasn’t a drunk and never hit her, but that’s not the only form of abuse. She didn’t have any money of her own or anything in her name. She never knew how much he made; she was just given housekeeping money each week that had to cover everything for the household and the children. But that conversation was the only time we ever had a conversation as women, and that’s because by then, she didn’t know who I was.

She was nicer to me, not knowing, than she’d ever been before. I found myself talking to Joan, not Nan, and I often wonder, if our society had been as it was centuries ago when matriarchs were revered, listened to and passed their knowledge down to the grandchildren, whether we would have been friends. She had a lot of misdirected fire in her personality.

I wonder who she could have been.

It feels strange to reach this point in life still carrying the same feeling of the unknown and to wonder if she felt it too.

There are so few of us that would say we feel settled. Whole. Just as we hit a new milestone, the old patterns return in our head, and we hear it. Can I do this? Our grandmothers couldn’t. Part of it is somehow linked to deservedness, as growing up in patriarchy will no doubt teach you that you only deserve what is granted to you, not what you earn. What you are ‘allowed’ to have or want versus getting it just because you want it.

That’s not very feminine.

Particularly if you don’t seem grateful. Stepping out of line is still dangerous, and I keep thinking – for fuck’s sake, it’s 2026! How much worse it was for those who came before us, yet it is on their shoulders we stand, and in their eye we spit when shrinking.

The shining examples of womanhood that are shoved in our faces, our grandmothers smiling in their aprons with matronly shoes and flour dusting their forearms after baking yet another pie, conceal the reality of a woman that has no money or legal standing, no ability to earn a living, have a bank account, get a loan, sign a contract or, indeed, keep her identity in any way other than the granted title of wife and mother. This is after resigning the title of ‘daughter.’ Property transferred. Our grandmothers.

Women, please, please, please look into the traditional meaning of ‘being given away’ by your father at your wedding. Please, I beg you. We as women have to look tradition in the eye, and remake it into something just as romanticised, that doesn’t slap the faces of the brides of our lineage for whom this was the absolute truth.

The very reason that women have the public platform to denounce feminism and spruik traditional values is DUE TO FEMINISM. The irony that is missed by those who decry it freely, that they have the right to do so BECAUSE OF IT, breaks my heart a little.

Why has it been weaponised when all it is asking for is equal human rights? What is the fear?

Softness is not weakness. Strength is not toughness. Subjugation by control is not cleverness but fear wrapped up in righteousness. Rather than unpacking how women are weaker and therefore need controlling, why not unpack the weakness of a psyche that only feels powerful when oppressing others?

When big tough men go off to war, if women really were weak and unable to function without direction, how do those left behind survive? Who took over the “man’s” work and kept industry running? Man’s need to conquer and control, when on the world stage in theatres such as war, ensured that women on the home front were required to step up and step into previously denied arenas, and they thrived and delivered.

So, step back and look at the big picture here. Men created this conundrum. In order to slake their thirst for dominance, they left a gaping hole that was filled by those previously dominated.

So feminism is a direct result of men’s need to control. Any way you look at it. For centuries they dominated with brute force. But they opened a door. And our amazing and courageous ancestresses stepped through and said, "More of this, please” and the fuse was lit.

Are we really going to be the generation who blows it out?

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When I read that only around 3 mammal species have menopause, I was proud. I thought that was cool. Go humans! Then I realised that the other species like whales honour their midlife females, understanding the value of the knowledge and wisdom that comes with successful survival. Who knows the hunting grounds and the safe passages when migrating? Well, for good old humans, this knowledge is passé. We build shelves and cages for our older women, ones that we not only have to fight out of but feel like we’re fighting internally too.

Reading about it all brings up the ‘grandmother hypothesis’, the idea that complex social systems benefit from older matriarchal knowledge of foraging and child-rearing. The cessation of being able to procreate erases competition between the generations and allows the elder to invest in the functioning of her family, helping the younger to survive.

So, is that true for humans? As a modern society we no longer understand the natural rhythms of life; we don’t live in connection with the land, and women are seemingly only valued for our breeding capacity and our youth. Both of which fade long before most of us drop off the mortal coil.

Do older women hold lived knowledge and learned wisdom? Yep. Is it valued? Do you really need me to answer that?

In this era, we have access to the most brilliant female minds (thank you, Internet). There are platforms and stages where knowledgeable, intelligent, and, of course, thoughtful discourse is served up for us to consume. There are tired women, angry, sad, despairing women all screaming into a void with voices growing hoarse from the effort, yet the number one factor tying them all together (according to keyboard warriors who need a shower and a mirror) is that they’re old, unattractive, or both.

Endless attacks on appearance. Or life choices or mistakes made in our past that we learned from and gained wisdom worth imparting.

Which has absolutely zero to do with anything.

Most of us are feeling grief, even if in our own lives nothing has gone particularly wrong. Because we should all be in this together. I’ve noticed as I age, as women, we do seem to feel the need to reach out to each other. But the gap between the generations is wider than ever. The further away from extended family gatherings to the insular world of social media we get, the less the young look to their elders for guidance. They now get it on a screen. This is true for all genders.

The inevitability of ageing is, to me, the strangest and strongest thing to point out to the young women who have been soaked in patriarchy and join the derision chorus. “You too, lovely, will age. What you say now will reflect in your mirror a lot faster than you ever thought possible.” I’m still not sure when it became a sin to age. My grandmother looked like a grandmother before she had grandchildren. I’ll bet it never crossed her mind to dye her steel grey hair at 45.

I missed out on the grandmotherly advice train from my own family. My dad’s mother passed when I was around 2 years old. My single memory of her is when we visited her in the hospital, and she stroked my hair. My mum’s mum, the above-mentioned grey-haired matriarch, was strict, harsh and vocally disapproving of me. But my early high school best friend lived with her grandparents, and I called her grandmother Gran, too. She was the white-haired, biscuit-baking, sweet, lovely soul that one imagines a grandma to be. I don’t even know her real name. She was just… Gran. We all have titles. She seemed to love that one.

We have a natural disorientation around midlife as humans. We live so far apart from the rhythms of the natural world that we don’t even know what to do, and our own grandmothers were so silenced by patriarchy that they didn’t sit around telling us what was to come. Shameful, never to be spoken about secrets about women that were uncomfortable and messy and just not valued.

But we have ways of connecting now that they never had. We can share information; we can talk to each other and normalise it as it should always have been. We can tell our children the truth, especially our sons, who should never be made to feel like they get a pass or that it’s nothing to do with them. They wouldn’t even be here without it all.

We need to tell them about midlife, about waking up every night at 3am, so tired before the day even starts. Looking at the years stretching ahead of us and feeling so isolated and uncertain that the idea of living those years feeling like this is more daunting than it should be. It’s the awful skin prickling feeling of not knowing how long this disorientation lasts or whether it ever goes away, feeling completely discombobulated in a life that from the outside still looks pretty ok.

You are not alone in feeling like this. At this moment, it’s 3am somewhere in the world, and a woman is awake right now feeling exactly what you feel, with no one to tell or to understand her. That’s the grief. Not because anything has gone wrong but because we didn’t have our grandmothers to warn us or normalise it, and we’re moving through it in the dark.

They think that Asian elephants also have menopause, but there has been less study of them than that done on the whales. Toothed whales apparently live years longer due to menopause. Mammals with teeth. We have teeth. Maybe it’s time to bare them.

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I’m writing this post for women who are done with thinking we have to remove parts of ourselves, stay silent and nod along.

Every time we hold our tongue, we snuff out a little flame inside.

Why do we feel so guilty asking for anything we need, as though from toddlerhood up we have understood that our needs are secondary? For years, we played with little boys and participated in the shoving, rough housing and playfights over toys until at some point we were shamed for it. Told to stop acting like that. Given reason after reason why we were wrong. Boys will be boys. You don’t want to be like that.

Rough play is out then. Dolls and sweetness and behaving are in. And as Jameela Jamil puts it so succinctly on the podcast ‘Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky’, “Boys are not raised to be men but not to be girls.” Anything feminine is hated, feared and looked down upon as lesser and weak.

So, to get along, we also start to put some of our feminine traits away.

Empathy and caring, listening, collaboration and support all seem out of place in the world. Out of sight and, if archived for too long, out of mind too. Forgotten, dusty and despised. By all it would seem, even us at our core.

We employ this strategy, oblivious as to why. It’s so much a part of our culture that we manage ourselves and the masculine drama queens around us unconsciously. We do it ourselves to other women. If you encounter an overly feminine woman, I want you to be reaaaaalllllly honest about how you perceive her and her abilities. Not rationally or logically, because you are smart and capable and can intelligently assess her. I mean deep within, to the version of yourself that has been taught to put all of that aside because it’s ‘weak’ and ‘incapable’.

What is your gut reaction? What does that mean? I applaud you if you can honestly say it doesn’t give you pause. Even a tiny one. To the same extent that a particularly aggressive, overly masculine posturer in the same space would? No. But it’s there.

I’m not too proud. I feel incredibly uncomfortable around an overly masculine person, like they are all sharp edges. My discomfort around the overly feminine is nowhere near that, but I admit I find a high-pitched ‘baby’ voice grating. Mincing and simpering are traits I don’t appreciate, and it takes me a moment to come back to my logical intelligence and remember the whole point of all of this is that people can be whomever they are with no input needed from me.

In the fight for equity (and I do mean equity), it is a mistake to believe that we can all somehow just be ok with everything different. Different from us and the beliefs and culture we are raised in. This is not where the work is. Firstly, it’s a generational shift, and it starts with how the children are raised. Secondly, what about all of us already baked? It’s not an ending if you’re willing to do the work. You may come out of the oven as a round cake, but a skilled cake decorator can turn you into something spectacular to behold.

What you feel in your body and think in your head only matters to others when they shape what comes out of your mouth. That’s in your control.

I worked in entertainment for several years. Every combination of traits you can imagine. I slowly became more connected to my feminine side working at the theme park, after being raised as the third daughter to parents who really wanted a son. My sisters and I helped build our family home, wielded hammers and wheelbarrows very young and were sporty. Femininity was not a big ingredient in our cakes. Despite that, the gender bias showed up constantly at school when I was encouraged away from Manual Arts towards Home Ec., even though I had gotten the highest grades in my cohort for woodworking and graphics.

Typically masculine endeavours.

So, working in a place where appearance mattered taught me better makeup skills. Living in a share house with attractive friends taught me self-care and girlish laughter. I never felt like I was losing anything; I was adding on. I was also retrieving old parts of me from the archive.

Some years later, I was still in a relationship with a man I met there, my first real relationship. We had been together a few years while working there and had split up before I travelled. We ended up getting back together during that time, but I wanted to continue travelling, so I took a year-long teaching job in Japan. I ended up returning after a few months to resume the relationship.

So, if I wasn’t to travel, I wanted to go to university. He worked out the timelines and was unhappy with how much longer it would be before we could start a family. Interesting, given we had gotten back together with the understanding that I was not having children.

I didn’t even really register it at the time, this unexpected expectation. Can’t blame him though.

We were both used to me changing my plans.

This is what an expired strategy feels like. It’s not dramatic, or even a particular moment of clarity. It’s just dreams tucked away so neatly you don’t notice their absence until you’re faced with yet another roadblock, and you look within and find it sitting there, still intact.

I decided I was going to university. No matter what.

No negotiation or arranging myself around someone else’s timeline anymore.

Just me, choosing me.

That’s what the strategy expiring actually feels like. It’s not loud or dramatic but a decision you make and DON’T UNMAKE. Regardless of the outcome.

Here I am with my bachelor’s degree.

Here’s where you can be. Stop and ask yourself honestly what you’ve been arranging yourself around. What plans have you changed so many times that it has stopped feeling like a change? Are you still running a strategy that really stopped serving you long ago?

Our silence is never weakness. It’s also not meant to be permanent.

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Being called competent is the equivalent of being patted on the head. I’m genuinely trying to remember a time where a man was called competent without it being faintly insulting. To be competent is to be adequate, not exceptional. Not even remarkable, just… good enough?

For women, competence is treated like high praise. We are celebrated for enduring and managing and holding it all together without complaint. The fact that endurance is seen as part of that, a lauded trait of a competent woman, is proof the bar was never set at excellence for us, just adequacy with a smile.

I spent a long time mistaking it for strength, the endurance of uncomfortable situations. Not that I was afraid of the work, but looking back, I think I was adapting, delivering what I thought would be acceptable. We don’t realise we are staying just small enough to not rock the boat and calling it capability. Leaving when things become impossible is sometimes all we can manage.

Women carry so much.

It really is endurance. But I would venture to separate it from competence. There is nothing simply adequate about what a woman will do in service to others, particularly her family, before herself. We are raised soaking in it. Little girls are resilient. Little boys are brave. Little girls ‘help’ their mother. Little boys get a pass. Generation X, a generation raised when women were finally starting to make headway, still watched a so-called normal family dynamic of Man earning money and Woman running everything with the disdain of ‘women’s work’ and ‘what do you do all day?’ sneers hanging over it all. No point complaining or explaining to deaf ears. So, in kicks the endurance. And the children soak in it.

Over and over again I would watch families at the theme park I worked at. In the majority of cases, the man walked around free of encumbrances while his partner carried the backpack/nappy bag/snack bag, wheeled the stroller, held the hands and carried the baby when needed. You don’t have to be at a theme park to recognise this dynamic. We’ve all seen it in public. If he’s this comfortable on display, imagine how much worse it is in private.

My favourite little ‘f.. you’ moments were when the preshow warm-up entertainers would publicly shame these men. They would stop them dramatically, make the woman pass over the bags, and once they were donned by the man, he would then be handed the baby/children/stroller duties. The performer would give the woman a doffed-hat pass and mime the boot kick to the bum as the man passed by.

The roaring delight of the crowd always had a slightly higher pitch…

You know when endurance is celebrated? When a climber reaches the top of a mountain, or finishes a marathon run or swim, or indeed anything that appears to have a start and finish time with immense effort in between. I celebrate that too. Percentage-wise, though, it is men getting the kudos.

Men’s endurance is often celebrated as physical. But a woman’s is all-encompassing. There is no separation from the monthly reality of our biology to the mental load of a family and household, the emotional support of any relationship, and the relentless pressure to be perfect in every facet of life.

Making sure no balls are dropped and no one (except us) suffers.

Being a working mum vs a stay-at-home mum, with the disapproval chorus no matter the choice. And the lack of the village.

We want the village.

Have you ever watched those experiments of men being attached to tens machines that simulate period cramps? I watched one man’s whole world shift after his attempt was deemed too painful at a lowish setting, his shrieking and howling as he tried to wash dishes causing the other men present to laugh and jeer. Then they all watched in awe as his partner washed the dishes calmly as the setting was pushed higher and higher. To be fair, we ‘endure’ this pain monthly from early on so we are more used to it, but we live our lives through it. Something our body needs us to endure to create life.

Do you know what women used to be told about intimacy in marriage? Endure it. It is your duty. Your body, your desire, and your pleasure are irrelevant. I’ve always thought about what it would mean to truly absorb that message from childhood. To learn that your experience of your own body is something to be tolerated rather than felt. Is it any wonder so many of us learned to endure everything else too? When your body itself becomes a site of obligation, one that is owned by another, endurance stops being a choice. It becomes a habit. Watched by our children.

What a different life we would all lead if all of it could be reframed to give us joy. I won’t speak for you, or any other woman, but the greatest joy in my life has come from my little boy wrapping his arms around my neck. Watching him grow and change. But that doesn’t mean it is necessary for me to lose out on everything else in order to have that. I don’t mind enduring things. As long as it has a start and finish time, like a marathon. I’m not interested in an unlimited sense of endurance simply due to my gender and societal expectations.

We are built differently. We had to be. Our bodies create, grow and deliver life. That’s no easy feat. We nurture, we care, and we protect as nature designed us to. When this nature is weaponised against us, it becomes endurance. Maybe we get to lead the reframe. Maybe we get to start the ‘village’ again and share the load. Maybe we raise our sons to be resilient and our girls to be brave too.

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So much love.

I never knew what it would feel like, those first few years of being someone’s everything. That all-encompassing requirement to be present, to take care, and to nurture another human. That there could be so much love, and before you know it, so much lost.

There was a version of me. Of you. She existed before. Saying it like that feels too simple.

I don’t regret a single moment. I felt a purpose like I never had, more reason to ‘get up and at ‘em!’ But it’s an odd society we’ve created. Once we label ourselves in terms of our relationship to someone else, it’s like we put our own brakes on. Stay in our lane.

We all feel that mothers are judged for every choice. No matter what we do, there is a cheap-seats chorus of derision serenading us while doing it. I lived it, as do we all, but I feel a little grateful that I was an older mother and more able to ignore the choir. Better yet, I got good at the frozen smile with the ‘I’m not doing that’ replies. Our kid. Our decisions. When it came to my kid, I was an immovable object. I saw too many other mothers sinking under the pressures surrounding them. The only advice I gave was to ignore advice and trust your gut.

Motherhood definitely brings out the competitive streak in some. The firsts! Whose baby is ‘advanced’? First-time mother? We’ve never done it before; we are learning every single day. But this society almost seems to try to actively prevent a woman using her intuition to raise her child.

This is one of those times where I will stand in the storm and state that the biggest problem in the ‘mothersphere’ is other women. Almost all of the critique, unsolicited advice and just plain arrogance that ‘their way was the only way’ came from women. The men’s nonsense was easy to ignore. “No uterus, no opinion.” The only man that had a voice in the raising of our baby was his father. True to this day.

My inner struggles with unworthiness were always only about me, and luckily my outward bluster and confidence gave me an almost impenetrable shield. I understand why so many women crumble and question themselves, given the racing hormones and lack of ‘the village’ that our society has become. If you are bombarded with the way all of your choices are wrong, and you have no support to back you up, fear and vulnerability will win every time. This is where the fathers need to step up.

I looked through the words to the underlying purpose in some of these interactions. That woman denigrating you for bottle-feeding? She was exhausted and sleep-deprived from a feed-on-demand baby who fussed and refused, and she watched as someone else was able to feed your baby while you rested. That woman disgusted by your display while breastfeeding? Maybe she was unable to and feels like a ‘failure as a woman’.

The Boaster? Possibly a high achiever in other areas of life she’s had to shelve for now. Competitive and demanding and secretly envious that your baby smiles and laughs more before learning to crawl.

But as stubborn and strong I was regarding how we were raising our baby, I was completely unprepared to forget myself in the mix.

I never thought that would happen to me.

It starts small. The love for this tiny human so wholly dependent on me for survival took me by surprise. The realisation that I would do literally anything for him. It turned out he had a small palate issue that made it almost impossible for him to latch and feed from me. I pumped for him for a year. I froze countless bags of milk. My dad bought me a small television for the nursery when he found out how often I was in there expressing. I expressed at work on my breaks and was able to keep the milk in the fridge there, so we weren’t wasting any of it. It just became something I did. That pump went with me anywhere I might have been for more than a few hours. I lost count of the number of times women said ‘Ugh, why not just go to formula?’ I never once had a man say that.

We co-slept. Safely, with a small contraption in the middle of the bed. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was his own little safe space. We held him and soothed him when he cried. We read to him and talked to him like he could already understand us. We chose not to do baby talk. A bottle was a bottle.

Most women reading this can hear the chorus from the cheap seats about every one of those choices. I will give my ex-husband his due here. He never once wavered or tried to change our decisions based on others’ opinions.

This all-encompassing love gave me a new title – "mum" – but it was like the explosive arrival in a movie opening. It landed and blew all the other titles up.

I didn’t even feel it happen.

So, while this article may not have an expressed point, or even a reason to be written, I guess I just want to say, “I see you.” You are still there. There was no explosion. There was an archiving. You just felt the need to open a few drawers and lay some things down. The drawers may currently be closed, but they are not empty. And they are not locked.

They will be there waiting when you are ready to open them up again.

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There’s a particular kind of unhappiness that’s hard to explain, because from the outside, everything looks fine.

You have a life. Maybe a good one. A relationship, a job, a home, people who need you. And yet somewhere underneath all of it is a low hum you can’t quite name. Like something is missing, but you don’t know what. Like you’re moving through your days slightly out of alignment with yourself, and you’re not sure when that started.

I spent years not knowing what to call that feeling.

I was naturally smart and sporty growing up. Doing well came easily to me, as long as I didn’t push too far past what felt safe. I’d learned early that stretching too far invited failure, and failure invited ridicule, so I stayed in the lane where I was good enough to feel capable but careful enough not to risk too much. Outward validation was the thing I was really chasing. Doing well was just the safest way to get it.

When I tried something out of my comfort zone, I almost always talked myself out of performing well. I can’t count the number of times I embarrassed myself publicly by allowing my inner dialogue to derail me before I even started. I began waiting to be noticed, rather than asking to be. Even then I’d often say no out of fear of failure.

Then I felt chosen for the first time. Really chosen. And it changed everything, because the person who chose me seemed to see the full version of me. The strong, stretching, reaching version.

But over time, slowly and without any single dramatic moment, I learned that the full version of me created problems. Not through any grand confrontation, just through the daily accumulation of moments where it was easier to soften, to step back, and to let it go. To make things comfortable for someone else, always at a cost that I told myself was fine.

When that relationship ended, I did something I needed to start doing with intention.

I chose myself.

I booked a working holiday to the UK and went alone. That trip was only possible because I let people help me. An old friend already living there who talked me through finding work. Another who met me at Heathrow and took me back to hers while I found my feet. I remember thinking, somewhere in those early weeks, that other people could actually want you to succeed. That reaching out wasn’t weakness. Accepting help was its own kind of courage, and feeling grateful, not reliant, was a better feeling.

I was starting to remember who I was.

And then some years later, I fell in love again.

It started as a fairy tale.

Someone who saw me fully, who wrote about me in the journal of his travels, who made me feel adored and cherished for exactly who I was. I came home early from my career on a cruise ship to give it a real chance. He really wanted that too.

But over the years, the same slow erosion began. His ambitions grew. His frustration deepened when life, a mortgage, a child, and responsibility got in the way of pursuing them. And somehow, I found myself becoming the one who keeps it all together. Who makes the calls when the delivery goes missing. Willingly and wholeheartedly at first. Expectantly, as time moved on. Whether true or not, anything I had ever wanted to do became a problem. Eventually I even lost sight of even having wanted to do something productive with my life. Someone had to parent. Someone had to hold the shape of the life we’d built together. That someone was me.

I had always railed against gender norms. Yet there I was, absorbed into them so gradually I barely noticed. Because that’s how it works. We are raised in the soup of patriarchy, and we can’t help marinating in it. When we absorb it, we don’t usually feel it happening. Rather, it just feels like keeping the peace, like being reasonable. Like love.

The relationship ending, and the inner work that follows, spotlights where we put little bits of ourselves away every day to avoid conflict or frustration or dispute. Most of the time, as women, it’s to make others’ lives more comfortable at the expense of our own. It’s just what we do.

And here’s what I’ve come to understand, on the other side of all of it:

I didn’t lose myself in that process.

I archived myself.

There’s a difference, and it matters.

Losing suggests something is gone. ‘Archived’ means it was carefully stored. Set aside. Preserved, while life required something else from me. None of the ambition, the voice, the reaching, the parts of me that wanted to stand tall and take up space disappeared. They just became a hum underneath everything else, that breath that never quite reaches deep enough.

I think this happens to so many women, and we don’t notice it because it never happens all at once. It happens in tiny moments. A comment we don’t make. An opinion we keep to ourselves. A dream we stop mentioning because it causes tension. A version of ourselves we gradually stop bringing to the table because it’s just easier not to.

We marinate in it because we’re raised in it and no one thinks twice about it. It’s just what we do.

If you’re reading this and something in you is nodding, even faintly, I want you to know something.

The parts of you that went still are not gone.

They’re waiting in the archive.

And archives can be reopened.

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Have you ever watched a bird at a birdbath? It lands. It shakes. Every drop, every bit of mud that was never its own... gone. And then it flies.

Last week, I took myself out of my comfort zone, ironically to the very thing that used to feel the most comfortable. I used to talk in front of people for a living. I haven’t done it for a very long time, and I was so sure it would be like riding a bike. But it was more like a clown bike with training wheels. Not the actual speaking part. That’s muscle memory now. But the heart. The heart was missing. And I felt it. I wasn’t particularly connected to what I was saying. I had had a small window of time to come up with something that I could do a 7-minute speech on, and I always feel like there aren’t enough words in the world to cover what I really love to talk about. Which is women gathering their power back.

Together.

I felt performative.

Not informative. Nothing I talked about was particularly of much consequence. I have the usual slights and injuries in my past, certainly nothing like the death and destruction that many people’s speeches referenced and centred.

What became clear to me about myself, about how I’ve been performing even when I thought I was being authentic, was I’m still in some small way swimming in water you can’t see.

I had tried really hard to find a story from my past that I could use to bring a speech together, with some form of ending and advice I could give. The stories were just so… minor, talking too much, feeling not enough, etc. Just the usual ‘woe is me’ stuff that doesn’t feel authentic. Accurate, but not nearly enough.

I feel like I’ve come so far already that these stories have almost been erased. I didn’t have an emotional connection to them anymore.

I feel more emotionally connected to the narrative that women are still living under, where our purpose and value are validated through the male lens, and it’s time for us to shake that off, like the mud from our wings.

The gap between what I spoke about, ‘the individual’, and what I want to be connected with, ‘the many’, almost feels too big for me to articulate.

So I played it small.

Why? That’s the question I need to answer. Why did I play it small when I have something bigger to say?

Was it:

• Safer to talk about my individual past than the collective present?

• Easier to tell a tidy personal story with a resolution than to name an ongoing problem?

• Fear that speaking about the collective would be “too much”?

• Old conditioning that the big thing isn’t acceptable in any space?

What I’m choosing now (not to play small anymore, even when it’s uncomfortable)

It’s all of it. But mostly that I still believe, somewhere deep down, that my big thing is too much. That speaking about the collective struggle of women is less acceptable than a tidy personal story with a bow on it.

Even after all the work I’ve done and even after teaching my son differently. Even after writing these essays week after week.

I still reached for small when I had the chance to speak big.

I’ve really had to dig deep this week to try to understand what it was I was doing. What I think I realised is that the gap between what I said and what I wanted to say isn’t personal failure. It’s just the water I’m still swimming in, the conditioning that tells me to just make it about me, keep it small and palatable.

Next time I have a microphone, I don’t think I’m going to be talking about my individual past. At least not as the main focus. I’ll be talking about what’s alive in me now, which is women gathering their power back.

Together.

Definitely not because I’ve overcome the fear that it’s too much (that’s going to be ingrained in me for quite a bit longer), but because I’ve decided the cost of playing small is higher than the cost of being too much.

Next time I have a microphone, I’m talking about women. That’s what’s alive in me now. That’s the speech my heart wants to give.

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If I could go back and tell her one thing...

If I could go back and tell him one thing…

I’d tell her: You were never too much.

I’d tell him: You were always made of woman.

You were just surrounded by people who couldn’t hold all of you.

You were just surrounded by people who expected so little of you emotionally and called it being a man.

That voice in your head, the one telling you to be quieter, smaller, more agreeable?

That voice in your head, the one telling you to man up, stop snivelling, be strong, and don’t show emotion?

That’s not wisdom, little one. That’s a cage... disguised as advice.

That’s not wisdom, little one. That’s a cage… disguised as toughening you up.

You’re going to spend years trying to make them understand. Finding new words. New tones.

You’re going to spend years fighting your natural instincts. Finding safe words. Deep tones.

New ways to shrink yourself into something they can accept.

New ways to enlarge yourself into something they can accept.

They won’t get it.

They won’t get it.

And one day... you’ll realise their understanding was never the price of your freedom.

And one day… you’ll realise that breaking free of these constraints was always the price of your freedom.

So stop asking. Start rising.

So stop performing. Start listening.

Find your people. Raise the children differently. Lift the men who already get it.

Find your people. Be a present and emotionally available father. Lift the women who can teach us all.

And the rest?

And the rest?

Leave them behind. Not with anger... with clarity.

Leave them behind. Not with anger… with compassion for what they were never taught.

Stand tall, speak clearly, step up.

Create space to help others share the bounty of privilege.

You were always meant to soar.

You were always meant to share the sky.

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In Year 7, I was part of a group playing on the oval at lunchtime. One of the girls had brought her portable tape deck to school and was playing one of those compilation tapes. My memory is hazy as to why I was the one operating the stereo, but when I did, the tape snapped. Those of us old enough to remember tapes know this happens, right?

This started an aggressive campaign of bullying and school yard harassment, with her trying to get me to pay her $10 for breaking her tape.

Someone I thought was a friend approached me at lunch to let me know that Julie just wanted to talk, and that I should come down to the oval. My adult self cringes at the fact that I went.

Of course I was surrounded by half the class. Pushed around by Julie in a created cage of cohort, most of whom I thought were friends too.

It took another few days before someone who actually was a friend told our teacher what was going on.

I hope you all have a teacher like this in your memory. One who acts like you as an adult if we had the chance to go back and protect our younger self. He did that for me.

The bullying ended. But not the betrayal, the knowing that most of these people were not my friends at all.

And I remember just how unsafe I felt in that cohort cage. Plenty of people seeing me, but no witnesses.

Identity

I’m someone’s daughter. I was someone’s girlfriend. I became someone’s wife. I am now someone’s mother. At every stage of my life, I have been defined in relation to someone else.

And at every stage, I have been taught, whether explicitly or not, that my safety depends on how well I manage my visibility.

Not too loud. Not too opinionated. Not too much. Don’t break anything.

Because being seen... can be dangerous.

I’ve talked about how I was chased through dark streets at 3am once.

I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was simply... visible. Walking. Existing. Trying to get home. Being a woman in a space where someone decided I shouldn’t be.

And I ran.

I’d be curious to know, for those who don’t know the story, how many of you wondered what I was doing out there at that time of night? With a little judgement?

I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking. I just remember my throat burning and my heart pounding and my body knowing that being seen in that moment could cost me everything.

That night changed something in me. Or maybe it just confirmed what my body had always known.

Visibility is not neutral for women. It never has been.

And that instinct to hide, to shrink, to stay small, didn’t go away when the sun came up. It just... kinda buried itself, and got nice and warm and cosy.

Your nervous system has one job. To keep you alive.

It doesn’t care about your content strategy or your career ambitions. It cares about survival.

And for women, survival has always been tangled up with visibility.

Our bodies learned long ago that standing out could be dangerous. That being seen by the wrong person, in the wrong moment, could change everything.

Why Silence Made Sense

For most of history, a woman’s survival depended on the protection of others. Her family, her tribe, her husband.

That protection often came with a price of compliance, silence and invisibility.

If you were too loud, too visible, or too opinionated, you risked being cast out, and being cast out didn’t mean discomfort. It meant death.

So, women learned to shrink, stay quiet and not make waves.

Silence wasn’t weakness. It was survival.

The women who stayed small lived long enough to have daughters. And those daughters inherited the instinct.

Why Modern Visibility Feels Dangerous

Now, on the backs of our formidable ancestresses, we have the ability to be visible. To speak and take up space.

Our logical brain says this is all fine. It’s just an opinion, a video, a post. But our bodies remember 3am, or being surrounded by a group; every time being seen made us unsafe. The pit in your stomach that still happens when you step out of line and put yourself forward is not self-doubt. It’s your survival system screaming at you, 'Don't. Stand. Out!’

With cruel irony, the more important your message, the louder that alarm becomes, because the things that matter most feel the most dangerous to say.

What I’m Choosing to Do About it

I know my nervous system is doing its job. I know silence made sense for survival. I know my body remembers every time visibility made me unsafe.

But I’m tired of letting ancient fear decide what I’m allowed to say now.

I’m teaching my son that visibility doesn’t have to mean danger. I’m showing up even when my body screams at me not to. I’m writing these essays even when it feels unsafe.

Not because I’ve overcome the fear. Because I’ve decided the cost of silence is higher than the cost of being seen.

The rules have changed. Our bodies just haven’t caught up yet. But we can help them learn.

The Reframe

I am someone’s daughter. Someone’s mother. But I am also me.

And I’ve spent too long letting my body’s old fear decide what I’m allowed to say.

I’m going to stop calling it a confidence problem and remember it’s a safety problem. It’s all very well to proclaim loudly that we should be able to be seen and safe, but right now it’s not the reality. The world has not caught up with this idea yet. We have more freedoms than we did, but we are still not truly free.

Teach your sons to be a part of the solution, and let’s reframe the language. Until we can be seen and be safe, be loud and survive, remove women from the passive position. Stop saying ‘a woman was attacked'. Say, ‘someone attacked her.’ Stop saying ‘women hit a glass ceiling.’ Say, ‘patriarchy keeps it there.’

The rules have changed.

Our bodies and our society just haven’t caught up yet.

But we can.

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I wasn’t raised in the church.

Living in a Christian-based society, it permeates every corner of your life. I read children’s Bible stories in the dentist’s office. We had RE (religious studies) as a school subject. I know the Lord’s Prayer off by heart. I had school friends whose families were integral to their local church.

My best friend’s dad was a leader in theirs (not Catholic but Baptist, I think). Both of her parents were. Until they were getting divorced, and suddenly, they were being phased out, no longer feeling particularly welcome. Not even the kids.

That was my first clear indication that the belief in Jesus’ love and acceptance for everyone came with conditions.

Their daughter, my friend who played piano, and I used to muck around and sing songs together. She used a chord I had been playing around with and wrote a song for her church that we sang together at one of the last Sunday services they would go to.

“Do you really care for the hurting? Does your heart ever ache for the lost? Why can’t you see that to Jesus, their lives are just as precious as yours?”

She was screaming at them in song for the way they were turning on her family. The result? I was asked by the pastor if I had ever considered lending my voice to God. I told him that a God that would turn his back on a family in distress was not worthy of it.

Lucky for me, I wasn’t a member and was only there that night in support of my friend, because I was not welcome back after that either.

I’ve been thinking about the cage of religion. All faith is divine and heart-centred, but organised religion? That’s something else. Something constructed. And if any of it were true, surely Jesus et al. would be tearing their hair out at the way their teachings have been twisted.

Before organised religion, there were other ways of living.

Beautiful legends and stories from worshipping ‘pagan’ societies, who were egalitarian and living with the breath and cycles of the world, whose leadership sprang from the enlightened ones, and who gave thanks to the wind and rain.

Those who were uncontrollable by way of spiritual fear, because they understood that love and connection rule the natural world. And that seemingly unfair things usually balance out.

Ancient humans and the animals lived in the circle of life, killing and harvesting only to eat and survive, and sharing and community and symbiosis were the ruling forces.

The feminine was revered, the bringer of life, the healer and the wisdom keeper.

Until power-hungry invaders began conquering and taking and wanting more. Coveting lands and innovations belonging to those living successfully in the rhythm of the land.

Control

Finding a way to control and channel these peoples was a challenge because there was nothing to fear spiritually. Killing them off was doable, but it left you without a populace to do the work.

Control was preferable to warfare, particularly when you want those people to do your bidding and ensure the fruits of their labour line your pockets.

Enter religious deities outside of nature. Outside of your own soul.

Thousands of years later, we are living in the wreckage.

Strength

Somehow, the belief became that the only strength worth honouring is physical. That no matter what, anyone who builds, or creates, or conquers, deserves reverence.

The rejected strength of women growing someone. Creating life.

The endurance it takes to be a woman. The physical and emotional pain and courage. The absolute limit of human endurance. As I’ve said before, loving something that physically hurts us so terribly to bring forth, and immediately protecting and nurturing them with our whole self without pause. Without language.

It is so revered, so envied, that a story was constructed about a woman being created from a man’s rib.

We tear our bodies asunder to birth someone, so as the assigned protectors, men battle in wars or fighting cages to understand the limits of human endurance that women naturally experience.

Together we should rise. As they defeat, conquer, and overcome, women create, collaborate, and connect.

Cages

Unfortunately, as brute strength is the most honoured, those who are missing inner strength and courage create and enforce a construct to cage women’s power because those men can’t touch the pinnacle we stand on honourably.

Brute force is used to cut us off at the knees over and over and over. Yet we still rise. Because without us, there is no them.

Great men, of which there are many, understand that to honour and revere the feminine is to bring forth the best in the masculine.

Honouring strength, real strength, is not a modern gender issue. It’s not a battleground. It’s human, and it’s ancient.

It’s all of us.

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I’m tired this week.

Not of writing. Not of showing up. Just tired of watching the same patterns play out over and over.

Shopping in a hardware store, even with my 13-year-old son, means he gets the attention paid to him when I’m the one asking the questions. Also known as the hardware store invisibility. The assumptions about who knows what. The way responses get redirected to whoever has a penis, even when I’m the one asking the questions.

I’m teaching my son differently. Teaching him to see people. To ask the person who’s actually asking the question. To notice when someone’s being treated like they’re not there.

Small ripples. Teaching one boy to be different. Asking him to notice how it feels to be expected to have all the answers just because he’s male, regardless of his knowledge or interest.

A microcosm of daily life as a woman.

That’s all I’ve got this week.

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Small people get small power.

Drifting through life, thinking the rules don’t apply to you does tend to favour the very attractive or the very powerful/rich. However, we can’t ignore the fact that it plays through every aspect of our lives. When a small person gets promoted at work, suddenly there’s a little dictatorship energy. I’ve had coworkers become supervisors, and all of a sudden the less desirable tasks become the sole responsibility of their least favourite coworker.

I had a summer job delivering phone books in a team of 2, and we worked really well together. Always hit our target, and hand on heart, never tossed away blocks of books in dumpsters (as we knew some other teams were doing). When one of those teams was bragging about it one morning, my teammate told them off.

That team had the highest efficiency rate (duh, they didn’t deliver half of the product), so they were given the slight promotion of deciding the routes for all of the teams each day. Apparently because they did so well over each route, they would be able to allocate resources for the fastest outcomes.

I think you know where this is heading. We were given the toughest route. Every day. It was meant to be rotated, but little people don’t play fair. Especially when they’ve been challenged.

We had been doing the job properly and had become quite fit by then. For a week, we finished on time or early. So, that team dumped a pack of their books in a dumpster on our route and advised the supervisor that there had been a customer complaint about finding them there.

At the next morning meeting, the supervisor told all of the teams that there was suspicion that dumping had occurred, and that he was going to ride along with a different team each day that week to see if he could figure out what was going on. He couldn’t keep up with us on our ride-along. He ended up driving the van for the afternoon while we delivered. The team that he had promoted was apprehensive, to say the least. The day he rode with them, it was obvious that their fitness was not equal to the work. He managed to find 3 teams that week that he suspected of dumping due to their lack of ability under the pump.

Hubris, thy name is dickhead.

We know there will always be people who abuse whatever power they get.

We can pretend otherwise, but all of us have a phone book story. I’m also sure those of us who have worked in service industries could fill a library with stories of people who have abused us over small nothings since ‘the customer is always right’, and we are not allowed to fight back or risk losing our jobs. The smallest power trip of the powerless in their own lives.

We may watch in mute frustration as people in power ‘get away’ with things on a daily basis, but towers eventually topple. The Mongols had a far-reaching empire once. The Holy Roman Empire was extensive. History is littered with powerful people ‘getting away with it’ – until they don’t. Avert your gaze. Live your life in a way that lets you look at yourself in the mirror. To thine own self be true.

Teach our kids differently.

When my son was little, I always encouraged him to say hi to the checkout operator at the supermarket and helped him respond as they engaged with him. As he grew, he started asking how they were without prompting and was able to chat and ask questions. I had made it a point, after each interaction, to have a conversation with him about how he thinks that person feels about it and him. We would discuss how they smiled and felt seen and respected. Then I’d ask him how that made him feel.

He realised very early that pleasant encounters make everyone feel good. That the ripple effect of that could be felt by the next person in line who may have needed a kind word and now has a smiling interaction to follow. And it costs you nothing to be thoughtful and aware.

The more of us that do that, the more people follow the mantra ‘Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.’ As power structures collapse, the hope is that an inherently strong, decent person will fill the void. The more of us there are who are championing them, instead of tearing down anyone who shows a shred of decency, the better chance we have of finally being proud of those in power. Let’s not forget that when the rot is systemic, it will be that much harder for the decency to work. Rotten joists have to be removed, or the new floor will fail too.

Where you work, do you smile at and thank the cleaning crew? It’s gotta start somewhere. It’s got to start with us all.

As John Lennon sings in “Power to the People”,

‘Say you want a revolution
We better get on right away
Well you get on your feet
And out on the street…

Power to the people, right on.'“

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This lifelong training is deep in our bones as girls. As women. We can be “awakened’ and still find ourselves accidentally bending to another’s will or brushing off disrespect because making others comfortable seems so normal. Even when we know that, for us, it is not our responsibility, we are like acrobats trained from childhood into contortions. We still have muscle memory.

I collided with a man on the footpath last week. It was outside a shop where the path was plenty wide enough for two, but it was beside where the cars drove around to find their parking spot. My point is that it’s not safe to step off the side. This is not usually a consideration, as most people (women) move to one side, like we do on the road.

Old mate decided he wanted to lumber right down the middle. He was a large man, portly some would say, yet not unsteady on his feet or particularly old-aged. Just… taking up all the space. My body wanted to move to the side, that old training instinctively coming up, but that would have put me on the road. He had room to move to the shop side safely by barely inching across, so we could easily have passed as ships in the night. I saw him clock me. I saw him imperceptibly veer in my direction. Just a little. Just enough to make it very inconvenient to pass him without stepping off or making way to let him pass. So, I mirrored him. I veered ever so slightly to him, and we had a little game of footpath chicken. I knew it wouldn’t hurt me to bump into him, as he was a soft, squishy ball of a man, but I have sharp elbows and I wasn’t about to draw them in.

Yep. As we weren’t going fast, it was more a comedy arm side swipe bump than anything major, yet this man was piiiiisssseddd. As he drew breath, I said, “Well done. How much room do you actually need?” It really helped that I was taller when next to him.

“You should have moved!” cried he.

“I was on my side of the path; there’s only one of us needing to move, mate.”

I’m not going to insult your intelligence by repeating what he called me. I remember times in my life when, even though I was right (like this one), I would still be shaken up by such an interaction. You know that awful shaky adrenaline feeling we get when feeling under attack, the one we all know so well.

I was oddly calm this time, as I congratulated him on knowing the word, though he was probably quite unfamiliar with the body part. And I thanked him for so loudly showing his insecurity so that all the women in the vicinity could steer clear. Well, maybe I didn’t say it quite so eloquently, but you get my drift. (I also called him a fuck knuckle).

My inner voice was being matched by my outer voice.

Whose Comfort?

I look back at all the times where a man has felt comfortable enough in the patriarchy to use his presence to insist that I give way to him. Young and having my boss ask me to turn around in a circle so he could admire my outfit. Shushed in group settings. Denied opportunity because girls aren’t strong enough or smart enough or blah blah blah.

When you know what you can do and can back it up, the best behaviour is capability and confidence. I was working at IKEA, and in one shift I was putting furniture together. I was very good at reading those stupid instruction (destruction) manuals and could knock together items efficiently. I was sent a newer staff member to give me a hand, as it needed to be done quickly. Unfortunately for the staff member, he was of a cultural background where men had a lot of control over women and had the arrogance of that mindset. He was also stupid, could not read the manuals, and was very resistant to being shown by a mere woman. IKEA, for any faults it may have, does present as an equal opportunity employer, and they don’t follow sexist practices, which made him a bad fit for the company indeed.

This ended very badly for him. There was dining room furniture to be built in a short space of time, and that's the very reason I was the one sent to do it. There was one tricky chair that had a specific order of construction. I told him we would do a chair side by side so he could learn it, and then we would complete the 12 we needed quickly. He asserted he could do the job better and didn’t need interference(!) from me. I watched him skim the manual and begin. As he struggled, I offered help (ignored with nose inhales) and continued making mine, and by the time I’d finished five, he was still on the first one and was damaging it from taking it apart repeatedly to start over. I told him straight up that he was clearly having trouble and that it would be best if he let me show him so we could get this done.

In front of customers, he snapped, told me he didn’t need to be told what to do, and in his frustration, he broke the chair. He stormed off and a minute later had brought our supervisor over, as I had “undermined his efforts” and “not given him the respect he deserved”, and it was my fault he broke the chair. Unfortunately for him, one, my supervisor knew me very well and was not swayed in the least, but two, some of the customers were still in the department. And they were more than happy to tell him everything they saw and heard.

Younger worker me would have offered my help in a much softer way. Words to soothe and revere. Fuck that shit. I wasn’t rude or abrasive. I was matter-of-fact and straightforward. The way a man would have been.

The way that kids act when they’re trying to get a game together, the way my Unshakeable Child would instruct and be direct, was the way I was trying to get that coworker to do his job. With collaboration, no fluff and no apology. (BTW, he was let go…)

The more women behave as though they’ve always had the right to speak and just expect to, the more normal it will become. I’m a big believer in deciding the way you want something to be and then just acting that way.

So tomorrow:

Ask for what you want. Basically by stating it as a fact.

Stop enabling bad behaviours. If someone doesn’t step up, you don’t rescue.

If you have children, really focus on whether or not you subconsciously treat your children according to gender tropes. Then stop it.

Use that beautiful voice to articulate just what your invisible labour is and how it keeps things running. Make it visible. Make it uncomfortable if you have to. Stop filling gaps. Let things fall through them.

Like the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Teach Your Children”

“You, who are on the road

Must have a code that you can live by

And so, become yourself

Because the past, is just a goodbye

Teach your children well…”

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#notallmen, but #allwomen know men like this in our everyday lives. We know the most likely man to mask up and commit violence simply because he can, under the guise of “law”. We know the ones who are feeling neglected since he must do more than just exist these days to be able to have a woman willingly in his life. He must perform at work to get the promotion and compete with intelligent and capable people of all genders to do so. Disgruntled, alone, angry and blaming the world, he is an easy ‘get’ to enlist to do the dirty work.

What does it mean to watch these men get permission to be so cruel? Familiar.

Destruction, coercion, disgust. Big and tough because of fighting in video games and in a few bar brawls, spouting on podcasts that your woman should be grateful and feel safe with you because she knows you could kill her and choose not to? How is that even a thought, let alone verbalised? Because all that shows is that you’ve considered doing just that. What kind of person is this? To a lot of women: Familiar.

Can you imagine if we as mothers started posting on our mum-boards or whatever social collective we have, that we think our children are lucky we don’t kill them because we totally can? We’re way stronger and bigger than them. Wouldn’t the world very quickly scream about how unbalanced it was to even have the thought? Would we be in danger of losing our kids? One hopes.

I once angered a guy so much at work that he went and destroyed a room elsewhere on the property. Full-on temper meltdown, smashing walls and furniture. I had no clue this had happened until I heard the gossip. The gossip! That was when I heard that I had been the catalyst for this tantrum. That’s how innocuous the interaction had been from my perspective. Apparently, I had made a joke that he felt was belittling. I hardly knew him and now don’t even remember his name, so I’m sure I wasn’t even telling him the joke; he was just in the room. To this day I have no idea when or what was said, or who else was there, and no one was ever able to tell me what I said that was so triggering. That’s how little fuel needs to be poured on the fire.

Ask any woman, and I’m sure she’ll be able to point out a guy at school, work, or social events and friend groups that has a hair trigger. One that she heard stories about or witnessed herself. When we can cause this outrage by existing and not even know about it, the world feels even more dangerous. And when men like this get given a weapon…

We have to raise the next generation thoughtfully.

I told my son that if he was ever walking on a footpath at night and he was coming towards a woman on a pretty empty street, to cross the road and walk on the other side for a while. He’s 13, so I could see how absolutely puzzled he was by that.

“Why?”

“Because once she’s noticed you, she’s calculating many scenarios in her head. All designed to get her past you safely.”

“I’m not going to hurt her! I would help her!”

“Honey, she doesn’t have the luxury of finding out that you’re not a bad guy. We don’t care at that point. We just want to get where we are going safely, without hassle or harm. Since you’re male, you need to understand that she is in full awareness mode, and is figuring out her safest option, right now. If you can take some of that stress away in the moment, then you absolutely should. You doing something as small as crossing the street to give her space, that takes so little effort from you, gives her some peace. And you can maintain your own watchfulness to see that no one else is hassling her either.”

“Is that really what you’re thinking?”

“Oh honey, every day, at least once.”

My 13-year-old son is determined to be a reason that women feel safer, not apprehensive. Women, we need to tell our sons our reality. Don’t hide from it. Express it.

Because wishing things were different is lovely, unless it just stays a wish. We have those boys for a few short years, and we should make the most of it. Information is vital. If we get it right, doing the right thing will be muscle memory for them as they move through the world as good men. It will be

Familiar.

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I sit at my desk today, tired and frustrated. I know what I want to be saying, but I never really know what to say anymore. I feel like my writing is no longer supposed to be gentle witness essays. I feel like Neo from the Matrix. “I got unplugged, and I can’t unsee this, and I need you to see it too.”

It is so ingrained that so many women actually fight any other woman trying to help remove the yoke from them. It’s like we are so pitted against each other and trained from the beginning that we are each other’s competition that we don’t realise we have the numbers to just STOP. Can we be woken up? I can’t fathom women staying asleep in 2026, after all our ancestresses did for us.

That’s the voice we all need. That’s what will cut through.

That’s not quiet. That’s not lyrical. That’s urgent.

I’m writing for women who are starting to wake up but are surrounded by women who are still asleep. Women who feel crazy for seeing the yoke when everyone else calls it a necklace.

I’m not writing to wake up the deeply asleep women; I’m writing to the ones who are already stirring, who feel the rage building, who can’t understand why other women are fighting to stay in the prison.

That’s who needs my words.

The feminine has been corrupted and co-opted as a weapon. The fact that we are all so different with such different desires leads to infighting and backstabbing. Really, at this point, do men even need to be the oppressors? Are we not constantly oppressing each other? A hell of a lot of the critical and cruel commentary on a woman’s presence/appearance is from other women.

Let me be clear. The fact that any of us have choices means that feminism is succeeding. I will never understand a woman blaming feminism and believing that it has been detrimental to women’s “place” in the world who doesn’t see the irony that she is using the freedoms gained by it to spray her poison. Yet I champion her right to feel that way. I stand by any woman living her truth. When you consider feminism is just asking for the boot to be removed (or the yoke, given my analogy), I’m not sure what the issue is.

I don’t want to hear anymore about the poor sad lonely men epidemic. Directly correlated to the fact that for centuries women had to marry to be able to survive in a world that allowed no autonomy at all, a man just had to be male to qualify as a husband. Modern man only needs to learn to be a decent human to earn that right. Not a big deal, since they’re all ‘nice guys’ anyway, right? It’s such a recent change, only 50 years or so, that the current crop are still being indoctrinated by grandfathers and old standards. And still infuriated by being told to step up. As if that’s too much to ask.

I am raising a man in this world. I know many more good men than bad in my life.

The more the masculine/feminine balance can be restored within every one of us, the better chance we’ll have.

I notice now more than ever, and I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to unplug more women. More men. Men are a huge part of the solution. But the squeaky wheels are taking up all of the oil.

I don’t know. I’m tired. But I’m energised by hope. Of more women choosing for themselves. For the tide to turn. For people to finally say “enough’.

I am in awe of what women can do. We can bear pain that takes us apart and love the very thing that hurt us so badly. We want to see the best in others (for the most part), and that is why such liberties get taken with our souls. Our hearts. For us to choose ourselves, it feels as though we are taking that from someone else. We’ve been taught that from the womb. In fairy tales. In descriptions and expectations of us and our behaviour.

In silence is complicity. In disdain are new knots added to the binding. In vitriol is splashback. You cannot denounce another woman without the ramifications being felt by us all.

If you’re about to scream, subscribe. This is where we support each other.

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The drunk man in the audience was getting louder. Drunk whisper loud.

I was working at the casino, watching the show from my position upstairs in the balcony seating. He’d been steadily getting louder as the show began, not quite disruptive enough to remove him, but enough that people around him were shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

I went and asked if he could be a little quieter. He argued. Told me to “step off”, and “don’t make me get up” in a menacing manner.

I nodded and walked away.

No hesitation. No rehearsing what I’d say. No stomach-clenching doubt about whether I had the authority. I just went to the foyer, grabbed the security guard there, and together we created a beautiful charade in front of the man and his friends.

My actions were calm. Clear. Firm. We gestured upward to the security cameras. I counted the seats in the row and told the guard the seat number. We nodded and spoke, constantly glancing at the man in his seat.

I didn’t need to say another word to him.

He had argued. Of course he had. But by not engaging with the argument and taking a different tack, I had calmly demonstrated that he had no power here. His friends hissed at him, “if you get thrown out, we’re not coming with you! Shut up!” The whole thing took maybe three minutes.

For the rest of the night, other patrons came up to congratulate me. My boss thanked me. The security guard I’d borrowed praised how I’d handled it, said it was the most fun he’d had in one of those situations.

I was struck by the fact that I wasn’t shaking afterward, or replaying it in my head, wondering if I’d been too hard on him or should have done it differently. I wasn’t second-guessing my authority or apologising to anyone.

I’d just... done it. Used my voice (with the guard). And my silence (with the patron). Trusted myself completely.

Something had switched on for me. It felt like new wiring because now my confidence wasn’t performative. I had no other shield apart from my own ability to speak up and out, and the brains to know how to use it.

The volume button was under control.

My voice had returned.

What “Voice” Actually Means

Being brash and loud is not the same as using your voice.

For me, being loud was a bluff and a front. A way of staving off people knowing just how insecure I was. I had a pretty fancy shield.

I was the “look at me!” third child. I bantered, I zinged with comebacks, I made people laugh, but underneath all that noise was a girl who didn’t actually trust herself, who was performing confidence instead of having it.

When your real voice returns, it’s different. It’s not about volume. It’s not about being the loudest person in the room or the quickest with a comeback. Or even needed to speak at all.

It’s about alignment. When the voice in your head and the voice coming out of your mouth are the same person. When you say what you mean and you mean what you say and you trust yourself enough that you don’t need to rehearse, perform, or apologise.

That’s what it feels like when your voice returns. Not necessarily louder. Just... true.

The Evolution of Silence

I learned very young what my safest option seemed to be in the moment.

I was ten years old, walking down the highway on the Gold Coast in a new shirt and shorts I’d gotten for Christmas. A car drove by and the men inside whooped at me. Catcalled a child.

The younger the better here, apparently.

In my late teens, I had stereotypical long blonde hair. More catcalling from other cars while I was driving. At least I was legal by then.

It stopped in my late twenties. In a place where youth rules, I was no longer the general populace’s cup of tea.

Then in my early thirties (I was 34) I worked on a cruise ship in the Bahamas with a lot of men from other cultures. That was never-ending catcalls, particularly in the staff corridors heading to work at night all dressed up. To save your sanity, a quick “thanks” and continuing on your way was enough to be left alone after that.

Respond or snap back at your peril. I heard many tales of harassment because a woman raised in Western culture told off one of these men from a culture where they use words to show appreciation.

We women learn, very young, what our safest option is. We calculate risk constantly. Strange places, familiar places, doesn’t matter, we’re always assessing.

I doubt most men have ever thought twice about somewhere they need to be. Strange and foreign, or home ground, they just head on in with nary a thought of personal safety. Most of them, if questioned, would probably proclaim that anyone looking at them funny would be in trouble. They have such an inflated sense of their own toughness, probably because so many of them practise it only on smaller women or children.

There’s a reason I love watching the TV show “Reacher.” Tough men can be good, and good men can be tough.

But what I learned through all those years of calculating safety, of choosing silence, of saying “thanks” instead of “fuck off” is that I lost my voice in the process.

Not because I was weak, but because I was smart. Because staying safe sometimes means staying quiet.

The problem is when you can’t turn it back on. When the silence becomes your default even when you’re not in danger. When you’ve forgotten how to speak up because you’ve spent so long learning when not to.

The Pattern I Couldn’t Break

When I first fell in love, I couldn’t stand solid in who I was because I didn’t really know who that was.

I ended up making him my main focus and totally relied on him for my happiness. That’s suffocating and hard to be around. Bless him, he tried. But it’s too much for someone to be another person’s all.

Ironically, I travelled after we broke up and found a little piece of myself again. We got back together a couple of years later, but I lost it once more and fell into the same pattern.

Turns out I didn’t learn a damn thing. We ended it again.

I’d like to say I went off and did some true inner work. That I dug deep and discovered all my limiting beliefs, patterns, and self-sabotaging triggers. That I spent time figuring myself out and what I really wanted out of this short life.

I think you know where this is going.

That’s when I met my now ex-husband. Right before I travelled again, following the same pattern as before. You should never start a new relationship before you do something monumental. You spend the time that you need to be sorting yourself out writing emails to your new beloved and keeping yourself stuck in a holding pattern, thinking everything’s fine and not realising it’s just another outfit on the same store dummy.

I will never regret setting myself back fifteen years because out of it all came my greatest blessing; my son. Having him is worth all of it. He gives me reason to speak, and he gets to witness a mother, a woman, who lives true to herself and as authentically as she can.

What happened to my voice in that marriage was that I went silent when things were not okay with me. I kept the peace. I stayed agreeable to whatever was requested of me, but I was breaking so badly inside that I became very difficult to be around. I was extremely negative in my outlook, and I found fault with most things around me.

It’s not a pleasant state to be in. Or to be around.

The House That Needed Renovation

I liken it to houses you drive past sometimes that seem unkempt, cobwebby, pretty dirty, and not cared for.

You know that at one time, they were fresh, new, clean, and welcoming. People were happy to live there. But over time, less care was taken with maintenance. The house is still serviceable, holds off the rain and blocks the wind, but it’s now an eyesore and unpleasant to be in.

People seem to be a little sick from all the dust, and the bugs have a better time than the humans. There’s very little incentive to clean it up. The lethargy has set in and no one’s even noticing anymore.

Fault? The house? Or the ones who chose not to take care of it in the first place?

It’s best they move out and allow others with kinder hearts and bigger imaginations to take it on.

That’s what I did. I chose me.

The First Sounds

When the marriage ended, I screamed those guttural, from-the-feet howls that you see in movies and never think could come out of you. It’s like a dam bursting.

I finally went all in on figuring out what the fuck I was doing and why I kept sabotaging myself, and why I kept going silent when things were not okay with me.

I went back to something I used to really like to do, which is community theatre. I spent time with like-minded people who had no idea of my past and just took to me as I was, right there in that moment.

I went back to studying. I noticed that one of the trainers was a bit of a larrikin, so one afternoon, I bantered with him. Like I used to.

I spoke up in class. Engaged in discussions. Helped other students and it felt like the me I was supposed to be.

I made people laugh like I used to. I’ve always had a quick wit and I’m zinging with my comebacks, often to surprised snorts of laughter.

I spent time with true friends who supported me and gave me the freedom to figure this out.

And somewhere in all of that - the theatre, the studying, the laughing, the bantering - my voice came back.

Not the performative loud voice I’d used as armour. The real one. The one that knew what she thought and wasn’t afraid to say it. The one that could banter because she was secure, not because she was bluffing. The one that trusted herself.

What It Actually Feels Like

When your voice returns, here’s what changes:

• Your throat doesn’t hurt anymore.

Remember Chapter 1? My throat hurt most of the time. Not from crying. I’d stopped crying. From swallowing everything down.

When your voice returns, that ache disappears. Because you’re not holding everything in anymore. You’re letting it out. You’re speaking.

• You stop rehearsing conversations afterward.

Before, I’d replay every interaction. What I should have said. What I could have said better. What they probably thought of what I did say.

Now? I say what I mean in the moment and then I move on. I trust that what came out of my mouth was true, and that’s enough.

• You don’t need permission anymore.

To speak. To contribute. To disagree. To state your opinion. To take up space in the conversation.

You just... do it, because you’ve remembered that you have as much right to be there as anyone else.

• The guilt doesn’t show up.

When I state a preference now, there’s no automatic guilt. No more inner voice asking if I’m sure, or if it’s okay or I’m being too demanding.

I just state it. “That doesn’t work for me.” “I prefer this.” “I’m not available for that.”

Complete sentences. No apology.

• You recognise your Unshakeable Child.

When I speak now, I hear her. The seven-year-old who knew she was worth listening to. The one who had opinions and stated them. The one who expected to be taken seriously.

She’s been there all along, waiting, and now when I speak, she recognises me.

What It Looks Like in Real Life

Having your voice back isn’t abstract. It shows up in specific, small, daily ways:

At work:

• I share my idea without prefacing it with “This might be stupid, but...”

• Someone interrupts me and I say, “I wasn’t finished” and continue my point

• I correct factual errors without apologising for the correction

• I say “I disagree” instead of “I see what you’re saying, but...”

• I don’t second-guess myself afterward

At home:

• I state my preference without checking if it’s okay first

• I say “I don’t want to” instead of making excuses

• I make plans that work for me without guilt

• I move the furniture whenever I feel like it

In social situations:

• I contribute to conversations without waiting to be invited

• I disagree without needing to soften it

• I leave when I want to leave

• I banter because I’m secure, not because I’m performing

In all situations:

• I trust myself

• I speak up, speak out, speak first

• I don’t abandon myself to make others comfortable

• The volume button is under control

Speaking Up, Speaking Out, Speaking First

Your voice returning happens in three ways:

• Speaking Up: In meetings, in conversations, in moments where before you’d stay silent. Raising your hand, interrupting back and claiming your expertise.

In that class, I spoke up and engaged in discussions. Helped other students when I could, and contributed my ideas without waiting to be called on.

That was my voice coming back. Tentatively at first, then stronger.

• Speaking Out: Against injustice. Against dismissiveness. Against behaviours that diminish you or others.

The drunk patron at the casino wasn’t just disrupting the show, he was making everyone around him uncomfortable. Before, I might have only called for a supervisor and let someone else handle it. Considered whether or not I had the authority.

Now? I acted. Immediately. Because his behaviour was wrong and someone needed to.

• Speaking First: Not waiting to be called on. Not waiting for permission. Starting the conversation instead of waiting to be included in it.

When I bantered with that trainer, after he asked how everyone’s week had been, I drily stated that was none of his business. His bark of laughter set the tone for the rest of the session.

That’s what having your voice back looks like. You stop waiting for permission to exist in the conversation.

The Ripple Effect

When your voice returns, it changes more than just you.

My son sees a mother who lives true to herself and as authentically as she can. He’s learning that women have voices that matter, that speaking up is normal and you don’t apologise for existing.

I’m raising a man who won’t expect women to be silent or be surprised when women speak first, disagree, state their preferences, and take up space.

That’s the ripple effect. My voice returning doesn’t just change my life. It changes his understanding of what women are allowed to be.

Other women notice too. They ask how I got so confident. They tell me they wish they could speak up like that.

I tell them. You can. Your voice is already there. You just have to stop silencing yourself.

The Vulnerability of Being Voiced

Having your voice back isn’t all triumph. It’s also vulnerable.

Because when you speak, people hear you. When people hear you, they can disagree, reject you, get angry, and even leave.

When you stop being silent, accommodating, and easy, relationships can fall apart.

That’s information, not failure.

The people who love the real you, the voiced you, those relationships got stronger, deeper and more honest.

It is scary at first. Using your real voice means people see your real self, and what if they don’t like what they see?

So what? The people who don’t like your real voice never liked you anyway. They liked the small version of you that made them comfortable.

Let them be uncomfortable. Use your voice anyway.

It’s Not Loud. It’s Aligned

The older I get, the less fucks I give.

Not in a reckless way. Not in a “burn it all down” way.

In a “my time is finite and I’m not wasting it being someone I’m not” way.

My confidence now is not performative. I don’t need the armour of being loud or brash or the quickest with a comeback.

I can be quiet when I choose to be quiet, and I can be loud when the moment calls for it. I can banter or I can be serious. I can disagree or I can listen.

The difference is that it’s my choice. It’s authentic and it’s aligned with who I actually am.

The volume button is under control.

That’s what it feels like when your voice returns. Not that you’re suddenly always speaking, always contributing, always making noise.

But that when you do speak, it’s true. It’s yours. It’s the voice that was there all along, before the world (and you!) taught you to silence yourself.

What Changed

I started to understand that all the choices were mine now.

I don’t ever want that rinse-and-repeat life again. I don’t want to be with someone because of how they make me feel, especially when it should be a fling and becomes a long-term sentence.

I want to be with someone because of me and how they fit because I’m solid in who I am and they complement that, not complete it.

I got a lot more secure in my authority. Not just with drunk patrons, but with myself.

I trust my own knowing. I don’t need external validation to know I was right to speak. I don’t replay conversations wondering if I should have said something different.

I just speak, and trust, and move on.

That’s the new wiring. That’s the voice that’s returned.

The Unshakeable Truth

Your Unshakeable Child never lost her voice. She’s been there all along, waiting for you to remember.

She’s the one who spoke up in class when you were seven, had opinions and stated them and who expected to be heard because, why wouldn’t she be?

The world taught you to silence her. You learned very young what your safest option seemed to be in the moment. You calculated risk. You said “thanks” instead of “fuck off” because staying safe sometimes means staying quiet.

But somewhere along the way, the silence became your default even when you weren’t in danger.

You forgot how to turn your voice back on.

This chapter, this whole phase of the journey has been about remembering and about finding the key you’ve been holding all along and using it to unlock your voice.

And now that it’s back, everything changes.

Not because you’re suddenly perfect or fearless or always know the right thing to say.

But because you trust yourself enough to speak anyway.

What Comes Next

Phase Two was about finding the key and realising the cages are self-imposed. Changing your internal voice, living to your own value, pushing back and reclaiming your voice.

You’ve done that work. Your voice has returned.

Phase Three is about what you do with it.

How do you live authentically every day, not just in the big moments? How do you sustain this unshakeable self when the world is still pushing you to be small? How do you keep choosing yourself when it would be easier to slip back into old patterns?

How do you live unshakeable?

That’s what comes next.

For now, just feel this. Your voice has returned. The volume button is under control. You’re speaking up, speaking out, speaking first.

Your Unshakeable Child recognises you.

Welcome back.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. When was the last time you spoke without second-guessing yourself afterward? What did that feel like in your body?

2. Where are you still performing confidence instead of having it? What’s the difference between your “loud” voice and your real voice?

3. What relationship or situation only worked because you were silent? What happens if you use your voice there?

4. When you speak now, do you recognise your Unshakeable Child? Does she recognise you?

5. What does having your voice back make possible that wasn’t possible before? Be specific.

Next week: Chapter 9

Part Three - Living Unshakeable

If you’re ready to live with your voice fully returned, subscribe. Phase Three begins next week. This is where you learn to sustain the unshakeable life.

Welcome to the Unshakeable Collective.

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The manager took me to her office. I sat across from her, my hands clasped in my lap.

“We need to talk about my pay,” I said. She looked confused. “Your pay?”

“I’ve been doing Level 2 work since I returned to working here. Almost to the day. But I’m being paid Level 1.”

I watched her face as she gathered her thoughts. The slight frown as she started the explanation of the company line, work a certain amount of time before being assessed blah blah blah.

She said, “You’re right that you’re a different case because you only needed a refresher. I should have caught that.”

Should have. Past tense. As if this was just an administrative oversight and not the fact that I’d been underpaid for weeks while helping coworkers who were making more than me.

“The reason I even found out about the pay issue is because of what happened with Teresa. She’s being paid Level 2 but doesn’t have the skills. She gets other people to do her work for her. And when I helped someone she’d asked because I thought I was helping the younger worker, not covering for her, she was abusive to me in front of clients.”

The manager sighed. “Do you mind if I have a chat with her?”

“I want an HR meeting.”

That got her attention. “If after I chat with her, the situation isn’t resolved, then we absolutely can do that.”

“It’s not just her bad behaviour. I need the pay issue fixed as well. So, I still want the HR meeting.”

The HR Meeting That Wasn’t

They tried to fix my pay by paying Level 2 half the time, until I reached the magic window of time lapsed. I disagreed, and said if I wasn’t going to be paid correctly I would provide Level 1 work until then.

HR listened to my concerns about the coworker’s behaviour. They noted that she was being paid for skills she didn’t have. They acknowledged the pattern of her asking others to do her work, and the abusiveness she showed in front of customers towards me.

Their solution was to offer a mediation between us. I agreed, she didn’t. So they just advised that I should stay out of her way.

I stared at them. “Stay out of her way.”

“Try not to engage. Keep things professional.”

Professional. As if I was the problem. As if the solution to someone else’s incompetence and hostility was for me to make myself smaller and more invisible so she could continue being ineffectual and unpleasant at Level 2 pay.

I handed in my notice two weeks later.

Living to Your Own Value Meets the Real World

Chapter 6 was about choosing yourself in private. Moving your furniture. Buying the cheese you actually want. Going to bed when you’re tired. Those are choices you make alone, and they’re important. Revolutionary, even, when you’ve spent decades defaulting to everyone else’s preferences.

But furniture doesn’t talk back.

The couch doesn’t chide me for placing it in the path of travel. The cabinet doesn’t complain when I use it for stemware instead of a television. I get to make those choices, own whether they work or not, change them again. And there won’t be a peep from the furniture.

But there often will be from another person.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course people can have opinions about their own living circumstances. But when the opinion is uttered solely to push buttons or cause frustration rather than be constructive and helpful? Give me moving furniture in my own place any time.

This is where living to your own value meets other people. And other people have expectations. They’ve gotten comfortable with you being small, accommodating and easy. They’ve learned that you’ll absorb the friction, do the extra work and stay quiet even when you’re treated poorly.

When you stop doing that? They push back.

And that’s when you have to push back harder.

The Cage We’re All Swimming In

We forget because we’re so drenched in it that we live daily in the assumption that “that’s just how it is.” But we’re half the population. Half.

Yet somehow we’ve accepted that our bodies are policed, our preferences don’t matter, and our professional and emotional labour is less valuable than men’s.

You just have to look at the marriage industry. If you don’t want to change your name, you’re abnormal. But a man changing his? He’s a simp and she wears the pants. The wedding tradition of being “given away” by your father, delivered to your husband, is rooted in ownership by men. Property transfer. Why the hell would we want to perpetuate that? You’re born with your father’s name and take on your husband’s name as part of the transaction.

The inherent, inbuilt nurturing of the female is weaponised to keep us domestically operational, because “that’s what we’re suited to.” We would all be stupid and vacuous if that was truly our only vocation. If men really believe in religious deity, they must be consistently pointing upward and telling it that it got it wrong, because the world isn’t neat and pretty and serving them.

I’m tired of patriarchy masquerading as nature.

And pushing back against it in the workplace, in relationships, in every interaction where someone expects us to be smaller feels dangerous because it is. Not because we’re actually doing anything wrong but because we’re disrupting a system that’s comfortable with us being uncomfortable.

The “difficult woman” label is waiting. The accusations of being aggressive, demanding, and unreasonable. The suggestion that maybe we should just “stay out of her way” instead of addressing the actual problem.

The cost of NOT pushing back though, is higher than the cost of doing it.

Every time you don’t push back, you teach people how to treat you. You lose a piece of yourself. You build resentment that sits in your chest and makes it hard to breathe, and you become invisible in your own life.

So yes, pushing back is risky, but staying small is guaranteed erosion.

The Tools for Pushing Back

How do you actually do that? How do you push back without apologising, without softening it so much that your boundary disappears?

Tool 1: The Pause

When someone makes an unwelcome request, or says something that makes your stomach clench, your instinct is to answer immediately. To smooth it over, to say yes or laugh it off or minimise what just happened.

Don’t.

Pause.

Let the silence sit there. Let them be uncomfortable instead of you.

The pause does something powerful: It puts you back in control. It gives you a moment to feel what’s happening in your body. To ask yourself: Do I actually want to do this? Is this behaviour acceptable? What do I need to say here?

The script is simple: “Let me think about that and get back to you.”

That’s it. You don’t owe anyone an immediate answer. You don’t owe them your automatic yes.

The first time you pause instead of immediately accommodating, it will feel excruciating. The silence will feel like it lasts forever. Your people-pleasing instinct will scream at you to fill the space.

Don’t fill it. Let them sit with your pause and wonder what you’re thinking. Let them realise they can’t just expect your automatic compliance.

Use this for any request that makes your stomach clench or any comment that feels dismissive. Any moment where you feel yourself about to say yes when you mean no.

Tool 2: The Complete Sentence

“No, that doesn’t work for me” is a complete sentence.

So is “I’m not available for that.”

And “That’s not something I can take on.”

And “I won’t be doing that.”

We’ve been trained to cushion our nos, to add explanations, justifications, or apologies to make our refusal so soft and gentle that the other person barely feels it and often doesn’t hear it as a no at all.

Stop doing that.

Say the sentence. Just the sentence. Without “I’m sorry, but...” or “I wish I could, but...” or “It’s just that...”

The complete sentence is a boundary without apology. It’s information, not negotiation.

When they push back you repeat it. “As I said, that doesn’t work for me.” No new explanation. No justification. Just the same boundary, stated again.

This feels brutal, even rude at first. Your internal voices (remember Chapter 5?) will tell you that you’re being difficult, unreasonable and a bitch.

Those aren’t your voices. Those are the voices of everyone who needed you smaller.

Your Unshakeable Child knows how to say no without apology. She’s been waiting for you to remember.

Use this for: Requests that cross your boundaries. Expectations that you’ll do work that isn’t yours. Situations where you’re being ‘voluntold’.

Tool 3: The Redirect

When someone interrupts you, talks over you, or dismisses what you’ve said, you have two choices: Let it slide or redirect.

Letting it slide teaches them they can do it again. And again. And again.

Redirecting teaches them you’re not background noise.

• “I wasn’t finished.”

• “As I was saying...”

• “I’d like to finish my thought.”

If they’ve taken your idea and presented it as their own or attributed it to someone else:

• “Actually, I raised that point five minutes ago.”

• “I’m glad you agree with what I suggested earlier.”

The key is to make it factual, not emotional. You’re not accusing them of being rude (even though they are). You’re simply stating what happened and reclaiming your space.

This one is particularly hard because it has to happen in the moment. You can’t pause and think about it. You have to catch yourself in real time before you swallow it down and move on.

Practice in low-stakes situations first. When your friend interrupts you in casual conversation or someone talks over you in a meeting about where to go for lunch.

Build the muscle so that when it matters, like when you’re being interrupted in the meeting where decisions are being made, or where your ideas are being stolen you can redirect without hesitation.

Use this for: Interruptions, idea theft, being dismissed or talked over and being erased from conversations where you have expertise.

The Comeback Arsenal

Sometimes you need something sharper. Something that makes your point while maintaining your professionalism (or at least the appearance of it).

Here’s what you think versus what you say:

“Can you do this? You’re so good at it.” (Translation: I can’t be bothered so you do it.)

• Internal: “That’s how I got good at it.”

• External: “Then it’s about time someone else got the chance.”

“Why can’t you be normal?”

• Internal: “According to you?”

• External: “Pretty sure I am the normal one here.”

“Can’t you take a joke?”

• Internal: “Tell me one and we’ll see.”

• External: “Tell me one and we’ll see.”

Sometimes the internal response and the external response are the same. Sometimes you get to say exactly what you’re thinking.

That’s the goal, actually. To close the gap between what you think and what you say. To live so aligned with your values that your internal voice and your external voice are the same person.

The Risks Are Real (And Worth It)

I’m not going to lie to you. Pushing back has consequences.

Some people will be angry. They were comfortable with you being small, and your boundary disrupts their convenience. HR will sometimes suggest you “stay out of her way” instead of addressing the actual problem. You might lose relationships, opportunities or jobs.

This is real, especially for women of colour, older women and women in male-dominated fields. The risks aren’t evenly distributed.

But I’ve also found that pushing back can disarm people in unexpected ways.

When I was 18, working at the pool shop, a middle-aged man came in angry. Rude. Overly aggressive. Clearly in no mood for a girl to tell him how to do manly things.

I stopped what I was doing, straightened up, looked him in the eye and asked: “Do you have a daughter?”

He said he did.

“When you’re all having dinner tonight, and she talks about her day, and she tells you about a man who treated her the way you’ve been treating me now, how will you feel about that?”

I’ve never seen someone go as pale as he did in that moment. He had nothing more to say as we finished our transaction. I like to think I made a positive change that day.

Years ago at a party, a young man shook my hand like a limp, wet fish. I confronted him about why he felt that women were “less than.” (I’d already had a couple of drinks). He didn’t actually seem to know what I was talking about, so I asked him to dig deep and figure out why he gave my partner a firm, normal handshake and then turned to me holding out my hand in the same manner and did the fish thing. These handshakes were a second apart.

We had a productive discussion. Or rather, I grilled him for ten minutes as to why he thought women were weak, until my partner told me to give him a break. One man protecting another again, instead of helping to uncover the why.

Next time I met him, he walked up to me, looked me in the eye, gave me a firm handshake, and told me I had changed his life.

I like to think that me pushing back helped.

Sometimes being deadpan in delivery works, particularly when backed up by facts or hard data. Then the accusation of “too emotional” can’t land. I had a boss once who was apparently quite sexist, but I never once saw that side of him. Perhaps because I didn’t behave as though that was what I expected from him. I behaved professionally, expected professionalism, and I got it.

When a misogynist is clearly on the rampage, another tactic can be stillness as a great defence. Let their steam run out. Then clearly lay out what they said back to them.

But over time I stopped pushing back in my marriage. Losing myself to what was expected cost me my happiness and sense of self. Leaving the marriage saved me.

I often wonder how different my life would have gone had I stayed true to myself the whole time.

That’s the real risk. Not that you’ll push back and face consequences. But that you won’t push back, and you’ll lose yourself piece by piece until you don’t recognise who you’ve become.

Start Small, Build the Muscle

You don’t have to quit your job like I did. You don’t have to confront every injustice immediately. Start with one small push-back this week.

The Low-Stakes No: Someone asks you to do something minor that you don’t want to do. Say: “No, that doesn’t work for me.” Don’t explain. Don’t apologise. Notice what happens.

The Redirect: When someone interrupts you, say: “I wasn’t finished,” and continue your point. Take note if they apologise, notice or care, or if they do it again.

The Boundary: Someone asks you to do something that crosses a boundary. State your boundary clearly without apologising and if they push, be a broken record. Notice how many times they try before they stop.

The first time, your voice might shake, the guilt could show up and the people-pleaser in you will scream.

Do it anyway.

Each time you push back, the muscle gets stronger. Each time you refuse to make yourself smaller, you remember a little more of who you were before the world taught you to shrink.

Your Unshakeable Child never apologised for existing. She pushed back naturally, instinctively, without a second thought.

You’re remembering how to do that.

She’s been waiting.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. Where do you need to push back but haven’t yet? Name the specific situation and the specific person.

2. What’s your biggest fear about pushing back? Is it real, or is it the internalised voices from Chapter 5?

3. What’s ONE small way you can practice pushing back this week? Who? What? When? Where?

4. When you imagine yourself pushing back without apologising, what does your Unshakeable Child say? Does she recognise you?

5. What has NOT pushing back cost you so far? Be specific. Make it hurt. Because seeing the cost is what gives you the courage to stop paying it.

Next week: Chapter 8

If you’re ready to stop apologising and start pushing back, subscribe. Your voice is coming back. She never really left, you just forgot how to use her.

Welcome to the Unshakeable Collective.

Subscribe now

I’ve been wondering how I even tell if my first instinct is gut or habit anymore.

As I get older, I’m finding it interesting, teasing out what my inherent values are versus those I’ve been socialised with. I spent decades accommodating, defaulting and not caring; at least, that’s what I told myself. I’m figuring out that it wasn’t really “not caring.” I think it was just easier than the eye roll, the huff, the feeling that I was being difficult, or as one ex shouted at me, “why can’t you be normal?”

I didn’t usually have enough skin in the game to have a real entrenched opinion one way or the other. But looking back, I think that’s just because I never really gave myself much option, and you can’t learn what you prefer without practice. Besides, if all you know when you do finally express a preference, is that the other person rolls their eyes and huffs because it’s not what they would have chosen, it becomes obvious you get it wrong anyway. You stop choosing and tell yourself you don’t care. In your constant accommodation, you forget you ever had preferences at all.

Learning to live for what you prefer isn’t about throwing it all away and burning your life down, it’s just about finding the gap between what you know (that I deserve better) and what you do (I’ll just accommodate ‘cos I don’t really care either way). It’s about the small, daily choices that tell you, “I matter. My preferences do count and my comfort has value.”

One small choice at a time.

The Patterns I Never Saw

In my relationships where I’ve lived with someone, I had a pattern. I wouldn’t really “care” about shopping preferences. At their insistence, I was only buying a certain brand, or a certain type of food. You know, full fat proper mayonnaise instead of the low fat or “not” mayonnaise options. Crumbly sharp aged cheese. Not great melty cheese for toasties, but always the vintage because apparently it was the only one worth having.

I did get to have the brand of milk I wanted though.

Don’t get margarine, it must be butter, and supermarket bread is shit, so only get it from a bakery. Name brand everything, the other stuff is crap. Fresh vegetables are the only ones worth eating, frozen vegetables just aren’t as good. And it was easier to go along with it, not really because I genuinely preferred those things or tasted them all and decided vintage cheese was superior. It just made my life quieter.

It all seemed small and not worth fighting over. I mean, it’s just groceries, just cheese. What I didn’t take into account was that each little capitulation was sending a signal that my preferences didn’t matter and that keeping the peace was more important than knowing (and stating!) what I actually liked.

I didn’t learn to broaden my tastes because I never got practice choosing.

Small Surrenders

It wasn’t just the shopping.

My car would become the shared car when theirs was having issues, yet somehow they always wanted it when they wanted it, and it didn’t seem to matter if it was inconvenient for me. As long as my inconvenience was a little less than theirs would be if I refused, then they got the car. I shared and I took on the inconvenience of figuring out how we could both use it.

If there were different night schedules, I found myself staying up much later than I wanted so I didn’t have to hear that I never wanted to spend time with them.

I didn’t start with gender politics but I was clear from the beginning that I don’t do laundry for anyone else (except my son when he was too little to do it himself). This was always accepted, until it wasn’t. Somehow it meant that I didn’t care. Because as the woman, that’s part of what I should have been doing. The standard for the house seemed to be their standard, like the bakery bread, fresh veg only, and name brand shopping. A certain way of doing things. None of it felt like oppression at the time. It just felt like... compromise and partnership. I didn’t even know there were waves to make.

When I look back now, I see it differently.

I see a woman who didn’t know what she wanted because she’d never allowed herself to figure it out. Who said “I don’t care” so often she started to believe it and made herself smaller and smaller until she fit into whatever space was left over.

The Turning Point

I was working during COVID restrictions, just as my marriage was breaking down.

I found out my role was being expanded to include Social Monitoring. We were all very aware it was going to be tough as we were hearing that a lot of people were pushing back, refusing to follow instructions, and making it difficult for the business to stay open and function. I just knew that I was not going to be emotionally capable of taking that on in the state I was in. I was coming to work to get away from frustration, anger, and stress and to have some laughs. To escape the drama. Now they wanted me to take on a role where I’d be abused on a regular basis.

It was made clear that this role expansion was non-negotiable. I asked my supervisor for a quick word. She’s really lovely and had been wonderfully supportive through this tough time. I told her that I was aware the new role expansion was happening, but that I was definitely not in a good enough place to come to work, a place I came to have some laughs and get away from drama and be abused on a regular basis. So, if there’s no way to avoid those shifts, I had no choice but to leave. She asked if she could change my mind. I was very touched that she didn’t want me to go.

But I was very aware that I was too fragile to do the job like that and for the first time in a long time, I listened to my inner voice and chose myself.

I put myself first.

When the Big Stuff Falls Apart, the Small Stuff Loses Power

Something I didn’t expect to realise is that when you have big life changes, the little ones lose their impact. When you understand that nothing is what you thought, and you’ve been twisting yourself in knots for years over groceries, schedules, and things that seemed too small to matter, something shifts.

I finally couldn’t give two hoots if someone had a problem with any decision I made outside of what was going on with my family breaking apart. I began just saying what I wanted outside, since I felt so helpless in the big stuff.

Because seriously. Who cares?

I had been pretending I didn’t have preferences, acting like their specifics were just fine with me. Buying full-fat mayonnaise when I preferred low-fat and buying vintage cheese when I wanted Swiss for my toasties. And for what? It’s so dumb now, but why didn’t I just buy both types? Who would care if he gave me shit for it? He didn’t have to eat it. When your entire life is imploding, you suddenly see how ridiculous the small accommodations are, and just how much energy you waste trying to avoid eye rolls over mayonnaise.

So, I stopped.

Living Differently Now

These days, I’m single and my daily life looks completely different.

I go to bed when I’m tired. Not when someone else’s schedule dictates and not to avoid being told I never want to spend time together, but when I’m actually tired.

I give people lifts when it’s convenient and I know they appreciate it rather than expect it. My car is my car. I share it when I choose to, not when someone else decides my inconvenience is less important than theirs.

I buy whichever option suits my budget or my taste that day. Low-fat mayonnaise, if at all. It’s not the most interesting condiment. Swiss or Cheddar cheese for toasties, and often quite frankly whatever’s on special. I’m met some wonderful toasties made with unexpected cheeses. Trust me when I say Brie is a revelation… Some things, like my milk or my tea, I don’t compromise on. But with most things I’m still figuring out what I actually prefer and I get to try ‘em all. And that’s better than fine. No eyerolls here.

I still don’t use margarine, but that’s a taste and health preference. Less chemicals, not someone else’s rule I’m following. My actual preference that I discovered by trying.

I don’t mind having frozen veg as a backup. Fresh is nice. But frozen is fine, especially the Australian brands, and I don’t feel the need to serve salad with lasagne if I don’t want to, which my son appreciates greatly. What he doesn’t know, is that I chop up spinach into the meat sauce. Am I co-opting his preferences? Maybe, but as a parent that’s about love, not control.

My house is as tidy as I can be bothered to make it day by day, to my preference, not someone else’s standard. To mine. My laundry gets done when I feel like it. Revolutionary, I know.

I get the furniture I want now, and I move it around constantly. I love the freedom of moving a room around until you get that feeling of “oh, this is right, everything makes sense now.” I like introducing new pieces and figuring out where they fit. It’s very satisfying and as long as my son and I like it, all is well.

If I lived here alone, I would convert one of the bedrooms into a living room and make the current living/kitchen/dining room into just kitchen/dining. Because that’s what I’d prefer and my preference matters. My current preference, however, is to have my son here instead of the room change, and I get to have that too.

Now I make plans or not, depending on what I want to do. These days, I make all the decisions regarding food and spending my own money.

No guilt here anymore.

The Nuance: It’s Not Selfishness, It’s Discernment

Some people seem to have the wrong idea about “living to your own value”, that it’s becoming selfish and refusing to accommodate anyone ever. It’s really just about knowing the difference between choosing to accommodate and defaulting to it.

My son is now the only person I bend my life for, and I do that gladly. There are people in his life whose schedules I need to consider to minimise how much disruption he has. He already dislikes living in two places so I choose not to make it harder on him if I can avoid it. I keep it fair and don’t use my son as a weapon.

That’s a choice. A deliberate, values-aligned choice, not a default. It’s not an accommodation to avoid conflict but a true, conscious decision based on what I value most, which is my son’s wellbeing and stability.

There are also a few values of mine that must take a backseat until he’s older. There are people in our lives that I’m very much looking forward to removing once he’s on his own. My preference towards honesty and getting rid of toxic influences will be very much honoured. Later.

For now, I’m making a choice, and I know I’m making it for us. That’s the difference.

Taking Up Space

It’s not just about the big decisions but also about the physical space we occupy.

We, as women, spend a lot of years not really maintaining our path as we move around. How often are we the ones who step aside, because women move out of the way? It’s what we’re taught. Make yourself smaller, don’t take up space, be accommodating.

Now I maintain my path. I move aside when politely necessary, not automatically. Definitely not only because I’m female and therefore responsible for making space, but when it’s genuinely necessary or kind. It’s a small shift that signals something to myself every time I do it.

I have as much right to this space as anyone else.

Learning My Tastes

Something unexpected that came from all of this was discovering I didn’t really know too many things I liked. I’ve spent so long accommodating and saying, “I don’t care,” that I genuinely lost track of my own preferences.

Now I’m learning and experimenting and giving myself permission to figure it out. There have been some absolutely horrible results from this, but some mouth singing delight too.

Alcohol, for instance. There was always alcohol around in my relationships. The feeling of needing to “join in,” but I don’t really like to drink much at all. I prefer not to drink unless there’s a reason or special occasion, and now I’m discovering I do better not drinking even then. I have found that I no longer need the tipsy buzz to enjoy myself, because I get to choose the company I keep who make me feel good, and I like myself a lot better now. I don’t have to fake it anymore.

That’s a preference I didn’t know I had because I’d never had the space to figure it out. I was always masking my smallness.

It’s like that with a lot of things. Food. Check. Music. How could I have forgotten the joy of eighties’ music, rather than ‘real’ or ‘cool’ musicians? How I spend my time doing what I actually enjoy versus what I was told I should enjoy. I’m still weeding out what my own values are versus those I’ve been indoctrinated with and still figuring out gut versus habit.

I’m okay with that. I get to choose what to try each time. Every time.

Small Starts, Real Impact

No one is perfect at change, and I catch myself slipping back into old patterns or hearing disapproving voices in my head when I reach for something boring or basic, or God forbid cheap. The main thing is that I’m practising, every day in small ways. I’d like to get back into self-care. Going to the gym and getting healthier has taken a back seat and the habit has disappeared, but I know I can start with five-minute sessions to build good habits again.

Five minutes. That’s it. Because living to your own value doesn’t have to be dramatic. It can be five minutes of movement because you matter enough to take care of yourself. It can be buying the cheese you actually want or going to bed when you’re tired. It can be saying “that doesn’t work for me” instead of “whatever works for everyone.”

One small shift at a time.

The Ripple Effect

By recognising my own value and living with happiness and trust in myself, I’m demonstrating something important for my son:

Knowing what you want and what you’re willing to accept from others leads to feeling safe within yourself. He sees me make decisions based on my preferences and set boundaries without apology. I accommodate him gladly, but not everyone automatically.

He’s learning that:

• Women have preferences that matter

• Accommodating someone else’s preferences is a choice, not a requirement

• Saying what you want isn’t selfish

• Both people’s comfort matters in a relationship

• Self-respect is normal

I’m raising a man who will see women as full humans with preferences, boundaries, and value, who won’t expect his partner or friends (male or female) to default to his cheese preferences or stay up late to avoid criticism.

More than anything else, that ripple effect matters.

The Practice of Living to Your Own Value

How you actually do this and close the gap between knowing your value and living it is by starting small. You start with one thing.

This week, pick one area where you default to someone else’s preference.

Maybe it’s:

• What you eat

• When you go to bed

• How you spend your money

• What you watch

• Where you sit

• How you arrange your living space

• Whether you say yes to something you don’t want to do

And this week, choose your preference instead.

Not to prove a point or make a statement, but because your preference matters. Buy the cheese you want, go to bed when you’re tired, and say “that doesn’t work for me.” See what happens. Notice how it feels to choose yourself in that one small way.

Then next week, pick another thing.

One small shift at a time is one preference honoured or one accommodation questioned. You can examine one “I don’t care” to see if it’s true or just a habit. You don’t have to burn your life down, quit your job, leave your relationship or dramatically change everything. You just have to start noticing where you’re living to someone else’s preferences instead of your own.

One choice at a time, go close that gap.

The Freedom in the Furniture

Remember the furniture I agonised over moving and the days of internal argument about whether to rearrange my own space? Now I move furniture constantly. I try new arrangements and experiment. I figure out what feels right. I’ve even bought pieces based on their weight and manoeuvrability because I know I’m going to be trying it in several different places.

It’s deeply satisfying.

Not because the furniture placement matters that much in the grand scheme of things but because it’s a daily reminder: This is my space and my preference matters. I don’t need permission to make my own home work for me anymore. That’s what living to your own preference feels like. Like rearranging furniture in your own home without torturing yourself, without ‘permission’, without worrying about someone else’s reaction.

Like buying the cheese you want and going to bed when you’re tired.

Choosing yourself, one small decision at a time, until choosing yourself becomes your new default.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

Where are you still defaulting to someone else’s preference instead of your own? Name three specific areas.

What’s your “mayonnaise”? The small thing you accommodate on that signals to yourself your preference doesn’t matter?

If you removed the fear of pushback, what would you choose differently today? Just today. One thing.

What are you teaching the people watching you (kids, friends, younger women) about whether your preferences matter?

What’s one five-minute thing you could do this week that signals to yourself “I matter”?

(My book, “Mindful Guidance: Find the Five Minutes of You” can help.) (AU version) (US version)

Next week: Chapter 7.

If you’re ready to start choosing yourself in the small things, subscribe. The furniture is waiting to be moved.

Welcome to the Unshakeable Collective.

Subscribe now

I remember standing in my kitchen/dining room, staring at the tall corner tv cabinet (with no tv in it, it was spare furniture being used for dining things), thinking that it could be good as a drinks cabinet, arguing with myself for days.

I wanted to move the furniture around. Try different placement and use, for better flow and maybe just to try something new. But I couldn’t do it. I’d walk through the room, imagine the change, then talk myself out of it.

The voice in my head was relentless:

“He’ll be annoyed that you did it without talking to him. He’ll think it’s unnecessary. He’ll tease you about it, tell you why it doesn’t work like that. Just leave it. It’s fine the way it is. Stop making everything complicated. Don’t forget how he acted when you decided who got which spare room for their office.”

On and on, for days.

Never mind that it was MY home and that I lived there too. Never mind that of course I was allowed to move furniture without ‘consultation’.

The voice said no, so I didn’t do it.

Finally, I asked a friend to help me move everything around, and the whole time, I worried about his reaction.

Which turned out to be positive. “Oh, that’s great. Nice! We have a drinks cabinet!” Cue my internal confused face. I’d tortured myself for days over nothing, over a voice that wasn’t even real. Over a reaction that never happened.

Whose voice was I actually hearing?

The Voice Inventory

When I started paying attention, and I mean really listening to the voice in my head that kept me small, I realised something awful.

It wasn’t my voice at all.

It was a chorus. A compilation of every person who ever needed me smaller, quieter and less, speaking through me as if they had permanent real estate in my head.

Let me introduce you to some of them.

The Trainer’s Voice

“You’re too chatty it’s too much. You need to be much less friendly.”

I was always good at customer-facing roles. Friendly, efficient and good at connecting with people. I got hired at a call centre for an energy company, thinking my natural warmth would be an asset. Nobody likes calling these places, because it’s usually so impersonal. Why not make it pleasant?

We spent weeks in training to learn the systems and processes, but really, hardly any time on calls with experienced staff. The third week, I sat in on calls with buddies on the main floor. They were friendly, professional and efficient but nobody told me how long calls should take. I guess the buddies were so good at their jobs they’d forgotten what it’s like to be new and unsure.

The next week, we took live calls with our buddies while trainers monitored from the training room.

I got a chatty client. We had a good conversation, some laughs while I solved their problem. They were happy and I was happy. The call ran a bit long, but from both our perspectives, it was successful and I really thought I’d done a good job.

Later that afternoon, the trainer called me in for a debrief.

He tore me to shreds. The call was too long, I laughed too much which was unprofessional, and I wasn’t considering the people waiting in queue.

Then he said: “Listening to that call, I wanted to put my head through the computer screen.”

I stayed one more week in that job. Then I left.

I let a small man shut me down and let his voice move right in and take up permanent residence.

For a long time after that, any time I was warm with someone, friendly and chatty, that voice kicked in: “You’re too much. Tone it down. Stop being so friendly. You’re annoying people.”

That’s not my voice, that’s his. I’ve been hearing it for years.

The Grandparents’ Voice

I think I was twelve when I asked my mum why my grandmother hated me. Looking back, I think that broke her heart. She understood why I thought that though.

I was shushed, all the time. My grandparents didn’t like my noise, my asking why instead of just accepting whatever they said. They really didn’t like my exuberance, or maybe it was just children who took up space with their energy and volume.

“Settle down, be quiet.” Over and over until the voice became mine.

Sometimes when I want to be enthusiastic, excited, and fully present with energy, that voice whispers: “You’re too much so calm down. Nobody wants to deal with this.”

The School Voice

“…she talks far too much.” Verbatim on my grade 2 report card, and pretty much echoed through primary school on the others. Every frustrated teacher’s comment.

I wasn’t disruptive. I was engaged and interested, and I wanted to participate. But the message was clear that my voice was a problem.

I have to fight it now, in conversations, in any group setting, when that voice is there telling me to stop talking, that I’ve said enough. Nobody wants to hear more from me.

The Home Voice

At the dinner table, my sisters and I weren’t allowed to speak except in the ads. The news was on and my parents wanted to hear that. My voice was an interruption.

So, I thought what I have to say didn’t matter, and that other people’s information was more important than my thoughts.

I still sometimes hesitate if it feels that someone is more focussed on something else other than what I’m saying.

The Boyfriend’s Voice

He thought it was all in fun, that he was just kidding and that he fully supported whatever I decided to do.

We had what could be called a “sarcastic relationship,” and I never felt free, truly able to be me and I’m sure now that I didn’t even know who that was.

He managed to make it a fun mission to “push my buttons” whenever I tried something different. Always with a smile, “just teasing.” He used to wait until I was getting frustrated and then say, “Fire up!”

I often wondered if it wasn’t because in his family, he was a golden boy. He had people who really thought the world of him so he had an entitled view of the way things should be. The office rooms argument showed me he didn’t like it when he wasn’t agreed with or deferred to. Not in a scary way, he just didn’t like it.

So, when I wanted to move the furniture, the voice in my head sounded exactly like him, that this is silly. He’ll make fun of it and probably be annoyed. Just don’t bother. Even though he wasn’t in the room or said those words about the furniture.

His voice had become my voice.

The Bullies’ Voice

In primary school, I wore a bracelet I really liked and got bullied for it. It was big, ugly and stupid, and had a weird hinge so you could put it on. I stopped wearing it.

Years later, as a teenager, I put it on again and the same bullies admired it. “Oh, that’s really cute. I love how it goes on. Where’d you get it?”

I didn’t learn the right lesson from that. What I found was that people are thoughtless and needlessly cruel just because they can be. What I should have learned was that their voices don’t deserve space in my head, particularly since they can’t even be consistent.

But I didn’t. For ages, any time I liked something that felt slightly outside the norm, that voice was there. People will mock you if you don’t hide it. Don’t let them see what you love.

The Cultural Voice

Raised by a traditional family unit. Raised in a culture that objectifies women and negates their ambition.

The message was everywhere, all the time that women don’t lead. Women don’t take up too much space or want too much. They are vilified for daring to stand out or speak out. Women serve, accommodate and shrink. I absorbed it into my bones and into my voice.

Any time I wanted something big, ambitious, and unapologetic, that voice piped up. That’s not for people like us so stay in your lane and don’t get too big for your boots.

None of These Voices Are Mine

The voice in my head that tells me I’m too much, too chatty, too loud, too ambitious and too different is not wisdom or intuition. It’s not me protecting myself from any real danger.

It’s the trainer who couldn’t handle warmth in a customer service call or the grandparents who wanted quiet children. That’s the teachers who wanted compliant students and the home where my voice was an interruption at the wrong time. The boyfriend who made my preferences targets, and the bullies who mocked what I loved. Above all it’s the culture that needs women small.

That’s every person who ever needed me smaller, speaking through me.

I’ve been amplifying them for decades, thinking their voices were my own good judgment.

The Cost of Listening

You lose yourself.

I was kind, friendly and interested. I liked connecting with people and trying new things. I liked what I liked without apology. Slowly, bit by bit, I lost all of that. I developed sarcasm as armour, as a way to get my shots in first before anyone else could, to protect myself from mockery by being sharp and biting.

I stopped being warm because warmth made me too much and stopped trying new things because change made me a target. I stopped showing what I loved because preferences made me vulnerable.

I handed over my agency, piece by piece, until I forgot it had ever been mine.

All because I was listening to their voices that drowned out my own.

My Unshakeable Child’s Voice

I had a voice before all of theirs moved in. My Unshakeable Child had a voice, and it sounded nothing like the critical, limiting, fearful chorus that’s been running my life.

Her voice was excited about new things (let’s try it!), warm and friendly (people are interesting!), clear about preferences (I like this bracelet), unbothered by others’ opinions (so what if they don’t like it?) and confident in her right to exist (I live here too!).

That voice is still there under all the others. Like the volume knob has been turned way down but not off, and I’m starting to turn up the volume.

How to Tell the Difference

The internalised voices, the ones that aren’t mine, have their own characteristics.

They sound like specific people. I can hear the trainer’s tone, the grandparents’ exasperation and the boyfriend’s teasing edge. They come with shame, fear and anxiety. A tightness in my chest, a sense of dread and a need to make myself smaller. They use absolute language such as: “You always...” “You never...” “You can’t...” “That’s not for you...”. and they predict dire consequences. “He’ll be annoyed.” “They’ll tease you.” “You’ll embarrass yourself.”

They may try to keep me safe from judgment, but they kill my joy.

My Unshakeable Child’s voice is different. It sounds like curiosity, excitement and knowing. “I wonder what would happen if...” “This feels right.” “I want to try.” It comes with energy, even if the thing is scary. A sense of aliveness, a pull toward something and an instinct I can trust. It’s specific and present. “Move the furniture today,” “Wear the bracelet,” “Be friendly with this client,” and not abstract worry about all possible future judgments.

It protects my real self, even if that’s risky.

The Practice

Listening to the right voice is not a one-time decision. It’s a practice, and a choice to make over and over, catching the internalised voices and choosing differently.

Step 1: Catch the voice

When I’m about to do something and stop myself, I listen to what the voice is saying. “He’ll be annoyed if you move the furniture,” “You’re too chatty,” or “That’s not for people like us.”

Step 2: Ask whose voice it is

Does it sound like someone specific? When did I first hear this message? Who needed me small? The boyfriend, the trainer or the culture?

Step 3: Thank it

This feels counterintuitive, but it helps. The voice thinks it’s protecting me, keeping me safe from criticism, rejection and mockery. For this, I thank it for trying to protect me.

Step 4: Choose differently

I’m not that person anymore who couldn’t handle criticism. I can move furniture and handle whatever reaction comes. I choose to listen to my Unshakeable Child instead.

Step 5: Do the thing anyway

Feel the fear and do it anyway, even if feeling small and scared. Especially when the internalised voices are screaming. Move the furniture, be warm on the call, wear the bracelet and try the new thing.

It won’t feel natural at first. The internalised voices have had decades of practice. My Unshakeable Child’s voice is a bit rusty from disuse.

The more I practice, the easier it gets to hear her, trust her and choose her.

The New Voice I’m Building

I’m not trying to replace the critical voices with toxic positivity or forcing affirmations I don’t believe. I’m building a voice that sounds like my Unshakeable Child grown up. Kind but truthful, encouraging but realistic. Protective of my authenticity, not just my comfort or false sense of security.

What does she say?

When I want to move furniture. “You live here too. Try it out. You can always move it back.”

When I’m being friendly. “You’re warm. That’s a gift that some people won’t value. That’s their loss.”

When I like something outside the norm. “Wear the bracelet. The right people will see why you love it.”

When I want something ambitious. “Why not you? Why not now?”

This is the voice I’m choosing now. Not because it’s easy but because it’s mine.

The Furniture as Proof

I finally moved the furniture with a friend’s help, instead of my boyfriend’s, hearing his voice telling me it was an unnecessary hassle. His reaction? “Great idea! That’s a better spot for it.” I’d tortured myself for days over nothing, over a voice that wasn’t even real and a reaction that never happened.

The internalised voices will always predict disaster. They’ll always warn me away from change, risk and authenticity because that’s what they were designed to do. They kept me safe when I was small and powerless, when I actually did need protection from harsh voices, bullies, and people who wanted me quiet.

But I’m not small anymore, or powerless. I don’t need their protection at the cost of my self. I forgot about me for years. Decades even. I forgot about the girl who wore the bracelet, who wanted to try new things, and who was kind and friendly and interested.

I’m remembering now.

The Invitation

The voice in your head that tells you you’re too much, that you should stay quiet, play small, not try, not want and not be?

That’s not your voice.

That’s the trainer who couldn’t handle your warmth, the parent who needed you quiet and the partner who made your preferences targets. That’s the culture that needs women small. That’s the bully who mocked what you loved.

That’s every person who ever needed you smaller, speaking through you.

You can choose to stop amplifying them.

You can move the furniture without asking permission and be friendly even if someone thinks it’s too much. Wear the bracelet and be loud and enthusiastic while wanting ambitious things. You matter.

You forgot about you. But you’re remembering now.

Your Unshakeable Child’s voice is still there under all the others, just waiting for you to listen.

What is she telling you right now?

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

What’s one limiting phrase you say to yourself regularly? Whose voice is it actually? Can you trace it to a specific person or moment?

When was the last time you let someone else’s voice stop you from doing something you wanted? What did the voice say? What would your Unshakeable Child have said instead?

What does your Unshakeable Child’s voice sound like? What is she telling you right now that the internalised voices are drowning out?

If you could talk back to one internalised voice and really tell it what you think, what would you say?

What’s one small thing you could do this week that the internalised voices would say “no” to, but your Unshakeable Child would say “yes” to? Just one small thing. Then do it.

Next week: Chapter 6

If you’re ready to start distinguishing whose voice you’re hearing, subscribe. Your Unshakeable Child has been waiting for you to listen.

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