We can ALL do HARD things.

HFD Kerri2023-12-07T05:22:26-05:00December 7, 2023|Uncategorized|0 Comments

We’ve all seen this quote floating around. It starts differently, sometimes “beautiful girl”, sometimes “little girl”, sometimes “brave girl”, but it always ends the same….”you can do hard things”. I’ve bought trinkets for my girls with that saying on it in the hopes of making them believe it. What I haven’t been doing is believing it myself. What’s worse is that I wasn’t even aware of that. We women have been so ingrained with the idea that we are powerless, that we don’t even realize how deeply we believe it. I have spent this entire past year taking a good, long, hard look at myself. There have been epiphanies and there have been setbacks, good moments of forward movement, followed by the cycling back into myself. Mired in self doubt and fear. I’m finally able to see the cycles I’ve been repeating, year in and year out, for my entire life. I can now see when I start to pull back, shy away, shrink. Seeing it is hard. Knowing I’ve been doing that for so long is even harder. I don’t even have it in me to try to get to the bottom of why. I don’t think I need to. I look at the women around me and see them doing it too. We are programmed for it. Not only by men, not only by the “establishment”, but worst of all, by each other. I know I’ve expressed this before, as I’ve been on this path to clarity. Now though, I’m finally at the point of being able to say ENOUGH. If I can’t break this cycle, then what happens to my children? Girls and boys alike? They then, are either faced with this singular challenge of cycle breaking, or else cycle repeating. Well I won’t have that. I’m going to take some of my Mom’s advice and start “using the good brain that the Lord gave me” and start doing better. That means holding hands with my doubts. That means staring my fears in the eyes and pushing them out of the damn way. That is how we finally pull back the curtains on our lives and find peace.

There are so many women I know, and read about and speak with who all say these same things. And then we all give a collective sigh and a shrug and go back to our regularly scheduled programs of making ourselves smaller to make everyone around us more comfortable. Whether that’s  men, or bosses or our friends. Why do we do it? Why don’t we even realize that we are doing it? That’s the even scarier part, right? How do you fix a problem that you don’t even realize you have? It’s truly amazing the lies we tell ourselves in order to stay in our boxes.

Well no more. Today I pose a challenge to all of you Hot Flash Queens. Do the work. Spend the time on the introspection. Think about the you that you thought you were going to be, back when you were 20 years old and had the thrill and anticipation of the life roads ahead of you. If you’re that woman, if you’ve taken and held control of your own life all along, I salute you! I want to hear your story. If you’ve felt the weight of disappointment in yourself and done the work to fix it and come out the other side, girl, I NEED to hear your story, because you are a rockstar. If you’re reading this, and its resonating with you in either a very loud way or in a  slight whisper in the back of your mind, then hop on this train with us. Through communication and sharing our stories, we will find the strength and support to move forward together. To find peace. To find stability. To find our confidence and our pride. Most of all though, to find our dignity. Because feeling the power of straightening our crowns and taking back ourselves, for ourselves, will shape a new generation of women who will KNOW for certain, that they can do hard things. We will do a much better job of that than any bracelet or poster or jewelry dish will. Let’s start today and let’s talk about it, together. That was the whole point of Hot Flash to begin with. To help each other. To learn together, support each other and grow….and to have people to commiserate with when the damn hormones keep us up all night. So what’s your plan? What’s your goal? What’s your first step? Tell us all and let us help, because I’m depending on all of you to help me too.