#7 Don’t free yourself from it (Eng & Fra)

Another look at other people’s look

*Scrollez pour la version française, my friends*

So, last Friday I made a vow of serendipity. I was walking down the street in my neighborhood decided to follow the randomness of things and my feet took me to a bookstore. As I entered I realized there was an event going on, a reading and some music, so I took a chair. A poetess (who I later learned is a quite famous one) and her guitarist friend were performing. She was reading her work, other people’s work, changing voices, changing tones, singing in different languages, even in egyptian a capella at some point. He was accompanying with his guitar, also performing his own creations including an adaptation of Baudelaire’s « Invitation au Voyage » on a bossa nova tune. To be honest, they were not very good. Or at least that’s what I first thought listening to this creative patchwork. But then, I stayed. Something made me stay that was not the fear of bothering the other spectators or hurting the artists.

There is a discovery I wanted to share with you. Last week I read Les Glorieuses NL that redirected to this article and for the first time heard about Carol Gilligan. Philosopher, feminist phychologist, she teaches education at Harvard university. In this article she talks about “the bargain girls do with patriarchy”. Her focus is what happens during adolescence: where do girls go? What becomes of these ambitious, fierce, unapologetic girls, and what mechanism turns them in a couple of years into tammed women? Gilligan shuts the light on this impossible choice girls face as they “become of age” between being accepted & being oneself.

There was something about their way to be engaged in their art that made me curious to know more and make space in my mind for doubting my first opinion. They were there doing their stuff, enjoying their stuff, putting their guts in their stuff. They were passionate, they were 100%, they did not question anything, they just embraced the moment as if there was no tomorrow, and as if, in fact, the rest of the world did not exist. And yet we were there, about 20 of us watching them.

Let’s pause there for a second because it is the pivot of the night : they needed people watching them, they just did not make it their compass. It’s not they didn’t care, they needed their audience but our presence was just a happy consequence of their work. People pleasing was not their drive, but their destination.

They were not free from other people’s look or expectations, but they were not governed by it.

Do you see me coming fellow impostor-syndromers ?

This is the moment where I should tell you to free yourself from other people’s look. But I won’t. Because it’s a very bad advice.

There is no such thing as not caring about other people’s opinion.

Definition number one of impostor syndrome is explaining your successes by external factors – « I was lucky », « That person helped me » and all their cousins.

Definition number two is focusing on people pleasing all the damn time. Being governed by other’s expectations - or what we believe their expectations to be : « Will I still be liked if I say this ? », « Won’t my boss get mad if I ask for more money ? », « Won’t my colleagues think I am pretentious if I promote my work ? »,etc. Endless speculation that ends up in a self loosing vortex.

This is the moment where I should tell you to free yourself from other people’s look. But I won’t. Because it’s a very bad advice.

I then bought her bestseller, here above represented, where she presents years of research interviewing girls from 8 to 16 years old trying to understand the relentless mecanics that silences girls on their way to womenhood. I like that her work focuses on that period of women’s lives, which seems to me a still too little explored territory. I am still reading it, and will surely let you know more about it soon.

There is no such thing as not caring about other people’s opinion. Nobody is totally free from that (that guy maybe). As human beings we need to be watched by others and experience other’s judgments. Being looked at is also existing.

The problem starts when that look becomes our inner tyran, both tammed by it and lost without it.

What I learned that night is this : do your thing. Focus on your job, on the parts of your job you most enjoy, the people that you like to work with, the challenges that excite you. Do your stuff, enjoy your stuff, put your guts into your stuff, have a blast !

Make others’ approval the result of giving your best, ignore the doubters, the mockers, the haters, and let people’s appreciation and respect emerge from the power of your assertiveness. Just like mine did that night.

Now, on your saddle, and off you go!

Clara

Et nous voici en French-speaking zone, enjoy!

Vendredi dernier j'ai fait vœu de sérendipité. Je marchais dans mon quartier, décidée à suivre le hasard des choses, et me suis tout naturellement retrouvée devant une librairie. En entrant, j'ai réalisé qu'un événement avait lieu, une lecture et de la musique, alors j'ai pris une chaise. Une poétesse (une célébrité comme je l’appris plus tard) et son ami guitariste se produisaient. Elle lisait ses œuvres, les œuvres d’autres, changeait de voix, changeait de ton, chantait dans différentes langues, y compris en égyptien a cappella. Il l'accompagnait avec sa guitare, jouait aussi ses propres créations, y compris une adaptation de l’« Invitation au Voyage » de Baudelaire sur un air de bossa nova. Pour être honnête, ils n'étaient pas très bons. Ou du moins, c'est ce que j'ai d'abord pensé en écoutant ce patchwork artistique. Pourtant, je suis restée. Quelque chose m'a fait rester qui n'était pas la peur de déranger les autres spectateurs ou de blesser les artistes.

Ils n'étaient pas affranchis du regard des autres, simplement ce regard ne les gouvernait pas.