megdanielle

Rachel Hollis, for those of you who don’t know, is the author of Girl, Wash Your Face. That’s for me. I didn’t know. But my girlfriend did and when we were perusing Amazon Prime together this past Friday, she pointed out this documentary and told me that 1) I need to step out from under my rock and read Rachel’s books and 2) the documentary would most likely be worthwhile.

How many of you have read her book(s)? Raise your hands!

I watched the documentary. In my pajamas. Holding a baby. Fighting this obnoxious Spring cold which came in like a wrecking ball (thank you, Miley), seemingly overnight, and has me feeling some kind of way (the way I imagine men feel when they have a cold). Namely, I’m dying.

Perhaps it’s this cold or sleep deprivation (even though F3 is the BEST SLEEPER EVER – I love him) but I cried several times. In my last post, I talked about being a recovering perfectionist and what this female, recovering perfectionist loves about this documentary is that Rachel hypes women. She celebrates all of us. You and me and herself.

Short detour: Men, let me be clear: In hyping women I’m not saying that you do not deserve to be hyped. You do. I think so often in this toxic culture we’re taught that celebrating one person means putting down another. It’s not true. I’m one of my husband’s biggest fans. In fact, I think I might just be his 2nd biggest fan, right behind my husband. That’s not a joke. 95% of the time, he has this lesson down. And that’s a GOOD thing! A man confident in his God-given talents is inspiring (not to mention sexy). My jokes about men started and ended with the man-cold line in this blog post. Honest.

Anyway, hyping women. Rachel is all about us chasing our unique dreams. Not listening to naysayers. And it is hard. I come from a line of worriers. My mother and I used to have long talks about worry. She called it out by name. Made me promise to do better. I am essentially a carbon copy of my mother. Do you know her? Well, you know me. We worry. We worry about everything and anything. And it has cost us.

So I think we need women to stand up and hype each other. To encourage each other. To encourage us to encourage ourselves. I think that’s a valuable lesson. Worry tells you that you do not have a voice worth hearing. Your lack of resume builders means you lack success and the potential to be successful. Your lack of an obedient child means you lack the skills needed to be a good parent (You guys, disobedience at age 5 is actually a growth marker! What *clap* The *clap* Hell *clap* Why is this not part of the 4 year-old well visit? Why is this not tattooed on the backs of our hands so we are reminded when we throw our hands up in defeat? It’s N-O-R-M-A-L.)

Worry tells you that your lack of confidence means you’re not ready. You shouldn’t. You couldn’t.

Worry tells you that there’s something wrong. It might be here or it might be just around the corner but unchecked it causes doubt and fear and shame (3 things a lot of us are good at).

“Made for More” served as a reminder to focus on the positives, put down the worry, and take steps to owning my narrative. I’m going to lean into that idea today and I hope you do too.