Hi I’m Julanie and I’m a mender… I’ve come to notice that I am a fixer (of people and broken things) and sometimes it’s draining.
Out of habit, when certain people give me praise or a compliment, I always wait for the “but”. I immediately anticipate the attack to follow, and it’s not out of insecurity or a lack of self- confidence, it’s merely out of habit.
For some, that person could be your mother, sister, an in- law, even your best friend, but it’s more often than not a woman in your life, and for me that’s sad. We ladies have perfected the art of backhanded compliments and snarky replies, fake smiles and laughs. We always hear stories of men breaking us down and how some have overcome that, as well as tips and tricks to get us back up again and set boundaries, but do we ever talk about the female relationship dynamics? Because I haven’t heard that conversation yet, in fact, we tend only to speak of the good aspects like amazing mothers, the strength of women, their skill, adaptability their beauty and, of course, their tenacity and courage, but then the conversation dies. If we are honest most of us have been kicked more by our fellow sisters, and I think it needs to change, but the only way it will happen is with you and me.
Don’t layer an attack with compliments. If you’ve got to have those difficult conversations, have them. When praising, dish out the compliments as long as they are sincere. The point I’m trying to make is not that we are all these fake girls without the guts to say what we feel. It’s more of an acknowledgment that we can be accountability partners and call each other out, but we don’t have to layer each heavy statement with a compliment, because in doing so, we create a pattern of women actually not believing an affirmation when they receive it, because the perception is that it comes with a list of changes, do’s and don’ts. So not only does the compliment not really affect us, but we don’t even hear it- all we are doing is bracing for impact! We’ve got to lift each other up! We’ve got to do better. Be better. We need each other, we need our sisters.