2-3-4 Friday
‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’
1 thought
Did you know what’s the biggest reason why girls drop out of school?
Make a guess.
Poverty? Nope.
It’s period poverty.
But this isn’t just a story about periods. It’s a story about what people are doing
to fight it. Just yesterday, I met a female businesswoman who started Calmfident in 2021, taking on the big FMCGs (fast-moving consumer good companies like P&G, Unilever).
Her reason?
Because pads were just too expensive.
So she made the cheapest pads, ever, in the market. No expensive, fancy marketing - just useful pads.
Something she said surprised me about why period poverty is a problem.
Imagine if a girl is having her period. Her bloods stain her dress.
How is she going to school?
At the heart of this, is shame.
The shame of having to go to school without the ability to
afford pads.
Shame, is an emotion that we often don’t talk about. Shame is the idea that you are bad, and not simply that you’ve done something bad.
It often is something that people find hard to articulate, but it’s the feeling you get when you might have your boss criticising you at work.
You feel your ears sting. A chill runs down your back. You wished the ground would swallow you up.
And you find it hard to
understand just what’s going on within you.
Shame is often known as the master emotion, because of how it hijacks so many systems, and how its root is not from a single emotion like sadness, or disappointment, but multiple ones.
Shame is vital to talk about, because we don’t realise that shame drives much of our actions.
One simple example is that of the stereotype that Asians need to be doctors or lawyers to live up to the expectations of
their parents. It’s not a desire for overachievement that drives these desires, but the desire not to lose face.
Or you might see shame appearing in your workplace, when a coworker suddenly laughs at your work. He might mean it as a joke, but you don’t. Or your boss laughs about how your dress makes you look cute, when you thought it would make you look chic.
Or your supervisor suddenly pulls you aside to give you some feedback about how you shouldn’t be
using your phone during the meeting, when you were using your phone because of a family emergency.
These stir shame, because of how it makes us, not our actions, look bad.
How do we fight shame?
People like Brene Brown talk about how vulnerability is the antidote to shame, but I think what’s usually missed is the ability to perform emotional first-aid on shame.
1 talk
The antidote of shame isn't
just vulnerability. It's validation, of your self.
1 tip
It’s like what Calmfident did - doing something about shame.
Rather than sitting and wallowing in it.
Each time you feel a sense of shame, and here this can be hard to tell (beyond the signs such as:)
- The chill running down your back
- Your ears suddenly feeling hot
- Wishing the ground would swallow you
- Hoping that the problem would go
away
- Suddenly feeling your eye twitch, and being unable to hold a straight face…
That’s the time you need to find a piece of paper, and start writing out what you’re proud of yourself for.
The qualities you’re proud of, and how you’ve shown them in the past.
I’ve given this particular first aid strategy many times, but I don’t think it’s worth changing if it’s good.
When do you feel shame? What do you do when you face
it?
Let me know.
John
Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love
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