Tell me you've never been relaxed without telling me you've never been relaxed
Tell me you've never been relaxed without telling me you've never been relaxed was an internet trend popularized through TikTok in 2021. Like most trends, it was popular because it was relatable.
I found myself drawn to it, because I, also, hold my breath when I drive past grave yards and always throw away the first few squares of toilette paper when using a public bathroom.
I, too, am rarely relaxed.
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In the fall of 2022, I went to see Elizabeth Gilbert speak live at The Farquhar. Despite all her brilliant shares around creativity and right timing and following your heart, I was left chewing on the elusive, all too appealing idea of what it takes to become a Relaxed Woman.
During the Q&A, a kind-hearted mama asked the following question: my daughter is young, yet already incredibly anxious. I’m concerned this anxiety will follow her around for the rest of her life. How do I help her be less anxious?
Liz thanked the woman for her question, chuckled at the parent for asking her, not a parent, parenting advice, and proceeded to offer a response to the effect of this: model to your daughter a relaxed woman. Show her what it looks like to move through the world without the perpetual voice of fear so many of us have grown accustomed to.
Liz laughed, again, “of course, I am not a relaxed woman, nor do I know many women who are.”
As Liz Gilbert claimed she didn’t have the key to perpetual female relaxation, my terrible fate settled in. All the ways in which I am in fact, not a relaxed woman surfaced.
Panicking about what’s for dinner tonight. Doom scrolling the Relator.com App (this is not a sponsored post). Crying over how I think so-and-so felt when I said blah-blah-blah. The list expands.
I’ve known this about myself for quite sometime. And, thankfully, my state of non-relaxation has improved over the years. Once filled to the brim with social and health anxiety, I have therapy and yoga to thank for my now manageable frame of mind.
Yet, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to the aspiration of a relaxed woman. As a concept alone, the idea of being a relaxed woman feels nice. As relaxed woman escaped Elizabeth Gilbert’s lips, I knew I wanted a piece of that pie. I wanted more for myself than to just manage my stress. I wanted freedom from the anxieties of my body and mind.
Lynn Hershman Leeson, Graph to Early Signs of Stress, 1975
Of course, when you Google “how to be a relaxed woman” it leaves much to be desired.
“Take slow, deep breaths… soak in a warm bath… listen to soothing music" reads the benign insights from the Associates for Women’s Medicine.
I imagine most of us are somewhat aware of how we contribute to our own spirals. We fuss over the small stuff, care a lot about what others think, and stew over irrational fears that hover between our conscious and unconscious mind.
I also imagine that much of our awareness contributes to self-blame. Why am I like this? Why can’t I just stop?
As an aside, in my work as a psychotherapist, I’ve learned that self-blame is never a productive stance to elicit change. Recall your favourite coach, teacher, or mentor. What did you love about them? Did you love how they berated and reprimanded your every mistake? Or, did you love how they always saw the best in you, while gently ushering you into more?
Far kinder than self-blame, lives curiosity.
As we zoom out from blame, we might see how our tense posture was learned.
I come from a long line of women who worry and fuss. Every Christmas, all the matriarchs of the family would hover about the kitchen, alternating turns basting the turkey and whisking the gravy. The days leading to Thanksgiving, hosted every year by my family, was like hosting the Olympics. Under the guise of my all too caring mother, my father, brother, and I would reluctantly clean and prep the home for our expected guests. We’re having people over, we have to make the house clean.
We have to make the house clean felt like having to make the house perfect, including the inhabitants of said house. Thus, a belief was born: only show the outsiders the very best parts of you. For even your extended family will judge you if you slip.
Of course, this wasn’t true. And more importantly, this wasn’t even the voice of my mother. It wasn’t the voice of my mother’s mother, or her mother’s mother, but a learned message from our broader culture.
In her book, Patriarchy Stress Disorder, Valerie Rein, PhD, shares the genetic transmission of oppression and trauma passed down through millennia. With biological influence, it’s also been culturally normalized for women to tend to the needs of others, to care about what others think. As women, we carry this stress in our bodies, and it often manifests as worry and anxiety.
In 1985, Carolyn Rosenthal coined the term kinkeeping to describe the emotional labour conducted by women that largely goes unnoticed. Kinkeeping is found in the dentist appointments your mother booked, the changed bedsheets, and emails back-and-forth with your distant uncle. Kinkeeping keeps the family ship running, and it has a toll on the mental and physical health of mothers, especially those also in the workforce. (The pandemic highlighted not only gender pay discrepancies, but also illustrated the role of caretaking still largely residing in the hands of women.)
By considering intergenerational stress and the stress carried by resuming many, many roles, the intention and journey to Relaxed Woman feels equal parts healing, revolutionary, and lifesaving.
To free ourselves of stress is both an inside and outside job. Meditation, therapy, and prioritizing sleep are all incredibly supportive and effective ways to lower stress levels. And, they have their limitations.
Understanding why as a gender we’re so overwhelmed, and making conscious efforts to uncouple from assumed roles of caretaking, so we can take kinder care of ourselves, is one way we begin to resume the role of relaxed woman.
Image photographed by Alissa Mae Photography
Go Deeper
Consider your most beloved worries. While in a state of worry, how does your body respond? When you notice thoughts of worry and how worry manifests in your body, practice coming back to presence. Worry is fear based in the future. Try to come back to the here-and-now.
What gender-based scripts did you learn in your family system, or from the broader culture? How do they vary compared to the messages embodied by men, or people of other genders?
What would a Relaxed Woman do? (WWRWD?!) How might they respond to the assumed scripts you listed above? For example, one gender-based script I learned was to only show others me at my best. Exhausting. Anxiety-provoking. Relaxed woman me rejoices in her imperfections, and delights in letting others experience her authentic self that is far less than perfect.
