Hello & I hope you’re having a lovely day to anyone reading.
And yes, doing things for you includes saying no!
One of the most difficult things to unlearn if you’ve been raised as a woman is learning to refuse things. Understanding that you have the right and the capacity to choose things which make a situation better or more comfortable for you works completely against patriarchal messaging about the spaces women occupy and how they should occupy them. Being cognisant of what ‘doing things for you’ actually means for you also means recognising the current steps you might be taking to inconvenience yourself for others’ benefit.
This is particularly relevant to any people raised as women when it comes to dating. These same expectations make you, at least in my experience, far less likely to stop initiating or making effort with people you’re even slightly romantically interested in. While this is, of course, a generalisation based on my and my friends’ experiences, I do think some truth exists in this assumption. The fact that femininity is treated as a less valuable commodity than masculinity means that those raised as males are taught to value themselves and their time intuitively. This accordingly relates to the way in which men often carry themselves in romantic relationships, recognising the value of both their own time and a greater sense of surety or decisiveness in their own actions.
But doing things for you is a far broader concept than the external validity of romantic relationships. Beginning to re-shift your perspective in a way which doesn’t automatically accommodate for others’ needs above your own can have a striking impact on your approach to daily tasks or hobbies. Out of obligation to others I felt guilty about changing even this small newsletter to a bi-weekly thing, even though I knew how much easier it would make my life (and it did!). Release expectations for yourself that everything you do has to be perfect or is somehow a reflection of yourself or your best work. As long as you’re happy and proud, then what you’ve done has, at the very least, already made one person’s day.
While being considerate of others has become, for most normal people, a natural consequence of the pandemic, this doesn’t have to completely smother our ability to self-serve. An intuitive approach to your hobbies and creative or non-creative pastimes which values making yourself feel good is beyond important right now. It’s basic advice but time is never wasted if you’re enjoying yourself! Why disvalue your own happiness? Or relaxation? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the right to decide what makes you happy is entirely your own.
Thanks so much to anyone who took the time to read this. Love to you all.
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Life update: I am hoping to move to London in the next month or so, and am beyond excited! But this may make my uploads a little more chaotic, so apologies!
My current feel-good song: ‘water color’ by Whee In