Her Shoes.

Imagine for a moment that you have to stand in the shoes of the woman you have been the most critical of in your life. The person that if you're honest - you've judged. The person you promised yourself you'd never be. As you stand in those shoes, you start to see her life from a new perspective. You start to see the reason she is the way she is, why she does things the way she does. You see her hurts, her struggles, her insecurities - but you also see her successes. Do you think your opinions of this person would change? Do you think that you might be less quick to judge the next time you see her and her life doesn't meet your high (or low) expectations and standards?

I'm ashamed to say that for me, there have been quite a few fellow women throughout my life that I've internally sneered at, criticised and judged. I didn't sit around with a clip board marking them, I didn't openly arraign them. But I did draw conclusions about them, I did satisfy myself with the thought that  " I might be like this...but at least I'm not like that ". This doesn't just happen with women we know or see on the school run everyday either, it happens with our opinions of celebrities, politicians, royalty and many more people in the public eye. I know a few of my colleagues who would happily remind me of my strong criticisms of a certain new young royal I was berating over lunch one day recently.(It's always a pain when people don't agree with you isn't it 😉) But if we were to stand in their shoes for just one day, I know our perspective would change.

As a Mum, I know very well what it is like to feel like you are not doing a very good job. But when you get the feeling that other Mum's are looking in and judging you for the very thing you struggle with, or the values you hold dear, it can be one of the most painful things ever. The 'Mummy' scene is a unique one. As I mentioned in my blog post 'Being Mum', it is a hard hard job being a Mum. When I had my first baby - my daughter, I attended an NCT 'Bumps and Babies' group. I went (as the title suggests) when my daughter was a bump, then continued after she was a 'baby'. Each week when the group finished, another group would filter into the room for the next session - 'Breast feeding club'. Those that were breast feeding were allowed to stay on from 'Bumps and Babies' and continue their 'Mummy fellowship' with the self-congratulatory (look I judged them!) group who had succeeded in nourishing their child with their own nipples. 

As I am sure you have guessed by now, I had to leave. I don't intend to go into it now, but I struggled breast feeding. I was grieving the death of my Mum 3 months before, I wasn't sleeping, my milk production was poor. After 9 weeks of trying - I resorted to the bottle. It changed mine and my daughter's life. We never looked back. But I did 'look back' to those feelings. Those feelings as I had to pack up and leave, the loneliness I felt as I left that room. The judgment I felt by the 'breast is best' gang whether it was intentional or not, was real. I had comments like 'oh I wouldn't worry, I know someone whose child was bottle fed and ended up going to University' - did I actually hear that?! Do we ever really consider what impact our words will have on someone before we say them? 

There's a favourite quote on the mummy scene along the lines of ' Good Mums have sticky floors, messy kitchens, laundry piles, dirty ovens and happy kids' - the implication that if you're spending your time cleaning, then your not a good Mum because you're not spending your time with the kids, and they won't be happy. After the death of my Mum, and the subsequent birth of my daughter 5 weeks later, I cleaned a lot. I got lost in cleaning. Cleaning and having things organised in my home has always helped me feel in control when everything else in my life felt out of control. It distracts me, it comforts me, it helps me feel safe. My environment and the things around me act as a symbol of comfort in times when I feel sad, anxious or worried.  I know that I have been judged for this. This has hurt me.(For the record - when my son was 3, he loved nothing more than Monday cleaning day when he could follow me around with the furniture polish and duster 'helping Mummy'. I hope his future wife will thank me one day 😋)

We all have our thing. We all get lost in something. We all need to feel safe. What works for me won't necessarily work for you but there will be something that is yours, there will be that thing. And you will be judged for it. To be aware of this is half the battle won. To disallow ourselves to be caught up in others opinions of us is a gift. To be able to be ourselves and to soldier on despite the nudge of judgment by others is freeing. I'm not there yet, but I'm certainly on my way. Are you? This leads me to the question - Do we have a sisterly responsibility to pause before we judge a fellow woman. Should we stop for a second and imagine ourselves in 'her shoes' before we jump to our conclusions. I would say the answer to this is a resounding YES!

People who struggle with their weight stand in the category of some of the 'people most judged' in my opinion. The assumption that they are 'lazy' or 'greedy' is a cruel one and more often than not, the furthest from the truth. I'd like to tell you a story of an overweight woman who was walking along the road one day and stumbled on the pavement. A bunch of school kids laughed at her from the other side of the road, shouting profanities and mocking her size. A woman sitting in her car watching, chuckled to herself as she watched the woman try and regain some composure, laughing to herself as she saw her drop her bag in the road. 

The woman who tripped, was tired. She'd been caring for her elderly father who had been admitted to hospital the night before. The items in the bag she dropped were his clothes she was taking home for washing. The woman had struggled with her weight ever since she started looking after her father who had a stroke 2 years ago. To be honest, she'd always struggled to keep the weight down since she was a teenager.  From an early age she had battled with depression and the comfort she found in food at times had overwhelmed her, it made her want to hide. She had worked hard all her life. She cared for people, she gave of herself until there was very little left. Her tank was empty. As she continued her journey that day the tears rose in her eyes. She felt judged. She heard the comments, she saw the laugh - she was humiliated. In a world where the greatest value is placed more and more on looking good. This lady felt worthless.

This extreme example is a tough read and most of us would never dream of laughing at someone in this situation. But things like this DO happen. They happen all the time. People are contending with things behind closed doors that most of us would reel at the thought of. People who neglect themselves, are often the ones who are judged by the ones who put themselves first. This tired, overweight woman was sad, she'd neglected herself in order to put others before herself. She needed someone to be kind.  Kindness : defined as being friendly generous and considerate, would have been the difference for this lady. The difference that could have changed the course of her day, the difference that could have given her the strength to go on.

We are all battling something. Some battle a lot more than others. Not all situations of judgment are this cruel, there are subtle criticisms of other that can creep into our minds with the ability to snowball and become out of control. We grow our mindsets from the smallest seed sometimes. I have been at the rough end of judgment and I have judged. As I write this today I feel challenged by my own writing. Challenged to stop and check my thought processes, to 'take captive' every thought, own it, take responsibility for it and make sure my response is kind. Ironically, I am going to end this post by using a quote I heard from the very lady I have judged repeatedly over recent months.  It is a quote by Georgia O'Keefe and used by Meghan Markle this week. It's now on my list of favourite quotes and I think all women would do well to embrace it in light of all I have talked about in this blog post :

"I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain, and I am quite free"

Thanks for reading.