Solidarity, Sistas

Inner peace...Mine was disturbed a number of times over the last week.  It is quite amazing how someone else, or a particular situation can rock you to the very core of who you are, making you question decisions made and putting dents into self confidence. It is equally amazing how we can support someone and give great advice yet not follow that same advice yourself.  This last couple of weeks has had times of rocking (not rocking out unfortunately). 

 

After my disastrous group presentation I was feeling so discouraged, and this was only compounded when one of my 'classmates' added to my humiliation by pointing out to those who were not there that I did a terrible job.  Thanks, mate [insert red face and sweaty palms there!]  I wasn't the only one to have my inner peace disturbed.  I'm lucky to have a lovely bunch of 'sistas' in one of my classes, and in this 'safe place' we traded stories of how we were feeling discouraged.  I told how I was feeling like maybe I had made a not so good decision to study again, then listened to one 'sista', hearing how she didn't have the confidence in her own abilities that I admire so much.  So, as I was talking to my 'sistas' it was comforting to know that I am not the only one who feels discouraged.  We, all of us, at times feel inadequate, not good enough for this uni caper, or perhaps even other aspects of our lives.  I had a moment of 'Solidarity 'sistas', we are the same'! 

 

Then once I thought about it a bit more, however, this moment made me feel a little sad.  Not because we could find solace in shared feelings, but that we fall back to these feelings in the first place.  And that so often it is because somebody else taps into our own negative feelings and brings them to the surface.  I'm also referring to those times where we are self effacing, those "no I really didn't deserve that good mark/compliment/whatever'. 

 

What is going on ladies (and I say ladies as I do not usually see these kinds of attitudes or responses in the blokes)?  What makes us behave this way?  It could be a gender role that we have taken on, and certainly the studying sociologist in me wants to at least partly attribute it to that.  It could be that we succumb to these things for any number of reasons.

 

I don't really have the answer at the moment, but what I do know is that we need to bolster each other up at these moments, so that when something does happen (like somebody else causing us to question our own abilities)  we can say "I have your back 'sista"'.