Break the Chains
Owning your power and agency will set you free.
This post came to me after I’d spent some time working with two women, one a new acquaintance and one a long-time client, as they grappled with owning and claiming their agency, their full power, and the power of their work.
They share a common problem with all the women I work with - they believe what other people tell them about their work instead of looking inside and believing their truth.
How does this happen? Here’s what I’ve heard many many times from many many women:
“I’ve spent my entire career justifying my existence, fighting for space, and becoming successful in a company or organization that doesn’t want me there. I’m just one more diversity hire.”
Stripping your agency from you is their agenda.
Agency is a person’s ability to intentionally and effectively change events or their environment. It’s when you seize the moment and speak up for yourself or apply for that job that you’re not quite sure you’re ready for. It’s also when you speak up for others.
In other words, it’s the belief that you have control over your outcomes. Thomas Bateman in Psychology Today refers to it as the highest level of personal competence.
“They don’t want me there.” That explains so much doesn’t it? When we move through and work in spaces that don’t want us, we become smaller. Our spirit is crushed as the system and its acolytes eradicate our agency, and we forget the very things that make us the powerful women we are.
Oh. Wait.
That’s the entire purpose of that hostility - sexism, bullying, harassment, prejudice, bias - isn’t it? To shut us up. To remove any feelings of agency. To silence the power that threatens promises to overturn the systems that privilege one kind of person over another.
Because, really, is there anything more dangerous than an empowered woman exercising agency in her work?
Nope. There is not.
Break the chains.
So, my mission as I worked with these two women with widely disparate life experiences was to help them break free of the chains that held them in an untenable limbo - unable to move forward and unwilling to stay where they were.
My job as their coach is to validate and support them as they move toward reclaiming their power and the power of their work.
Validation
Validation is one of the most powerful tool in my arsenal. It’s exactly what I use to break women out of their chains.
Deploying validation is vital because so much effort is targeted at convincing women that what they see and experience isn’t real. And, if it is real, it’s not that big a deal.
B***s***. It’s real and it happens every minute of the day.
Validation is particularly important in marginalized communities - women, people of color, gender non-conforming, you name it. It’s important because when we are marginalized, we second guess everything we do. Then we hold ourselves up to some random standard that was created specifically for someone totally different from us. And, as usual, the person who represents the standard was absolutely the beneficiary of unspoken but really loud privilege.
And my job in figuring this out? I have the best job! My job is to call bs on all of the gaslighting, othering, racism, sexism, harassment, misogyny, bias, and insecurity and fear that lead to those gutting behaviors.
I get to call bs on all of that. I get to help clients label and name the forces exerted against “the others,” the people that don’t look like or act like those in power.
And that’s when we can reclaim the power of our work and take back our agency. Why?
Because we are standing in our truth. We are standing in our power.
Free from the noise.
So, as I sat with one of the women, a woman of color, I told her that she was doing what she was put on earth to do - connecting families of children with disabilities with the resources they need to flourish.
That her work was uniquely hers and her point of view and passion for her work were exactly, particularly, what the world needs right this minute. That she didn’t need to work inside the system in a regular job. That her mission would lead her where she wants and needs to go. We went through all the explicit and implied messages she’d received around her work, including those from family and well-meaning friends, and dismantled each one.
After about 15 minutes of this, she looked at me and said,
“You freed me. You broke the chains that held me captive.”
Now she’s ready to speak up and out in new ways - free of the noise that says she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Because, let me tell you, she knows exactly what she’s doing. And it will help dismantle systems of oppression for families and children with disabilities.
Different woman, same problem.
As another client and I worked to finish up her résumé and cover letter for her dream job at an organization dedicated to addressing the systems that hold women back, I encountered exactly the same problem.
She struggled to own her accomplishments. She struggled to elevate her understanding of her connections to the level they deserved. She almost outright rejected the power of her personal story.
And this is a very accomplished woman. She’s respected in her field (by women in the field and some of the men) and has had repeated visibility at the national level. She works in the most misogynistic and white-male forward industry there is.
Still, she was succumbing to the labels those privileged men had pasted all over her - mediocre, not special, not worth listening to (even though she delivered unprecedented results), not a leader (although she’s a powerful, powerful leader).
We were able to excavate her powerful stories – moments when she exercised full agency over her work, even though it was scary to do so – validate those powerful moments and finally, finally take them back.
When she took back those powerful achievements, she stepped back into her agency and realized she could determine her own future.
You are valuable just as you are.
Listen to me. Your worth is not determined by the noise of the external forces that you’ve been subjected to daily.
Your worth is determined by that fire of determination and achievement that lives inside you all day every day.
When people shove you aside and marginalize you, that means you are a threat to them. Let me say that again: You are a threat to them.
Which means you’ve accomplished your mission. You are changing the conversation and the people holding the power are scared. So, they double down on making you feel small.
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS. Do. not.
Don’t fall for that bs.
Instead, claim your agency and rewrite your narrative. Talk and write about your fraught journey to earning success in a company that is hostile towards you.
You may wonder how I moved my client into that head space.
The sentence about justifying her existence in a place that didn’t want her? It became the first sentence in her cover letter. It was so hard for her to put it there. She said it was too intense. I asked, “Too intense, or too personal?”
It was too personal. It was so personal and vulnerable and real that it felt threatening and scary to put it out in the world in a letter.
Which was exactly the end goal of those men who were determined to undermine her and crush her spirit. If she couldn’t speak her truth, they had successfully silenced her power.
Vulnerability = Power
Here’s the thing. The most powerful thing any human being can do is to be vulnerable and honest with other humans. It lets others know they’re not alone. It lets them know we have their backs. It breaks through the programming, messaging, and crushing of spirit that women experience every day. It says, “We are doing hard things, and we will keep doing hard things.”
Here’s the other thing. Being vulnerable and honest by sharing our truth is the only thing that will free us, that will break the chains.
The truth will set us free. Every time. And it will help us free others.
I see you.
I’m here for you. And I’m determined that you can take back your agency, speak up, be rewarded for exceptional work, rise to the next level, and be cherished and appreciated for all of the things that make you, you.
You are powerful. You are smart. You are worthy. You are priceless.
I’m honored you read this.
Never settle,
Becky