Being a woman these days feels somewhat like a competitive sport.
It feels like everyone is out there frantically pushing others over in order to make a name for them selves. The harsh opinions thrown out into the air of social media for everyone to feel the weight of and compare themselves to. The absolute truth to one person is weighed onto the next, the perfection of their life makes your messiness look less than. The bashing of employment, education, mothering style, husbands, friendships, struggles, churches, it feels as though it never ends.
I’ve never been much of a lover of competition; I’d rather embrace my enneagram 2 and connect with you, emotionally rather than through sweating and screaming at each other. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good game and a little competition, but can we just take a moment to identify how out of control this ladies game has become?
Not even out of our own faults or insecurities has this game spun out of control, I believe it’s the pure nature of whom we are as women that can lead to this unhealthy state.
No one has to teach my 8-year-old daughter about competition for attention, it’s just brewing inside of her. When daddy has a date with one of our daughters, but intentionally declines the invitation to the other, out of desire to make them have a little ‘one on one special time’… immediately the other daughter gets a look of disbelief, a look of loosing your first softball game or cheer competition. Most times I will hear something like, “Mommy, that’s just not fair, why does she get more attention than me…”
You see there is a huge difference I am seeing between my boys (2 of them) and my girls (2 of them). We can have the same routine with our boys but a completely different reason for being upset, one will stay behind and the other will be chosen to go on an exclusive donut date on a random Saturday morning, and instead of being upset about the attention and alone time given, the son left at home will have tears because he doesn’t get a DONUT! Are you seeing the difference? Why is it the innate nature of the girl to immediately call it a competition for attention? A competition between the one chosen at the time… and immediately it becomes, “she’s better, she’s more loved, she’s the favorite, she got the better story.”
I see this with my girls in more ways than just donuts, dates and daddy time. I see this growing sense about them that no one built in them, no one told them to compete, no one placed those thoughts in their little hearts and as much as we fight to make it even and fair, in their little hearts, there is always a fight to see the TRUTH of the story. Lies creep in every single time, “Daddy must like her more. Daddy ALWAYS takes her and not me. Daddy never chooses me.” When the truth and the reality is actually not that at all.
Ladies how often do we drag along our childish beliefs into our adult lives and proclaim truth and reality onto relationships, careers, mothering… whatever it might be… to spur on a game of competition when in reality, who you are competing against is really your teammate?
Are you one of those women, (who I used to be) which says something that might go a little like this: “oh, I don’t have women friends, I just never have”?
Could the underlying reason for that loss of relationship building all be stemmed from the deep-rooted competition game we are playing?
The hardest question I have had to ask myself is: “Cadey, how are you going to change this?” Because the reality is, you can pretend that you don’t need “those kinds of relationships”, or “you just don’t like women” or “you are an introvert”… I’ve used all of those excuses for years, but the reality is… we need each other.
How often I hear people pleading for connection and relationships. Doesn’t it seem intentional that God created us to live on this earth together not separate. How ignorant for us to believe there is a certain “group” that God designed in the image of Himself, that we just “don’t get along with or need”. Doesn’t that seem wrong? Doesn’t that seem like we may be missing a HUGE piece to the bigger picture.
We complain about loneliness, yet we are unwilling to change. We cry out for attention, yet we bash those who get it. We fight our way to the front of the line, yet we cry when we are standing alone.
So what is holding us back from stopping the game and turning the competition into connection?
I believe the answer to my change, and maybe for yours is: vulnerability.
The moment I finally surrendered to this make believe, pretending, smile on my face, “hi, I’m good and you” (while you are walking away) but there is no real relationship… into, completely breaking down the facade and being vulnerable enough to experience connection, the lies, the game… it stopped.
To break a habit takes complete commitment. It is committing to be 100 percent different, all of the time.
So, I decided to change it all. When someone asked me “How are you doing?” rather than rushing by and answering while we aren’t even really looking at each other, I forced myself to start by STOPPING, looking them in the eye, and thinking about what I truly wanted to say, rather than the fake answer, the lie, the game.
It seems so simple, but when was the last time (other than with your best friend or husband) did you stop, look someone in the eyes and honestly, ask and respond? You see, I believe in that vulnerable moment, we stop the game!
My answers became a little bit more like this: “I’m actually not fine, this morning sucked, being a mom is so hard and you are the first adult conversation I’ve had all day, but I’m alive.” NOW, at first I had no idea what that was doing, I just knew I needed a change, I needed to connect and stop pretending… and me participating in the competition game of lies and shame wasn’t falling into line with what I read in scripture about hope, community, the church, forgiveness, grace, patience… It wasn’t that I wasn’t receiving any of that from any one, it was that I didn’t believe that the women around me were going to accept me as their teammate, it was that I had bought into the lie of the game. I bought into the childish lie I had been hearing all of my life… and I didn’t know how to stop it.
What vulnerability does is it STOPS the game. It allows the other person to see themselves in you and respond in: “Oh my gosh, me too!”
Every single time we come into contact with someone we have the ability to bless him or her with connection. We get the opportunity to invite them in.
Maybe this competition all started with a fear, a deep rooted lie that said, “Oh no, you can’t let them in, they will see something ugly and they won’t choose you.”
Can I just say I truly believe if we started each day with the thought of connection rather than competition, this world would feel less lonely. You would find hope at the play date at the park, you would feel embraced when you rush into work after dropping the kids off and you have throw up on your shirt. You wouldn’t feel alone when the weight of the world starts to creep up onto your shoulders. Your anxiety and depression wouldn’t only be fought by one, but fought by many or your need for advice wouldn’t be met with pride and shame but rather with connection and relationship.
What if we all set aside our little girl selves (we all have them) and started to vulnerably seek after one another, knowing that we desperately need more teammates rather than competition!