Everything Used Against You Can Be A Source of Power

It was not cool to be a bookworm. My 4th grade teacher didn’t call me “Kelly”; he called me “The Dictionary”.

My mom, exasperated with my bookish ways, would send me outside on sunny Saturdays and lock the door behind me so I couldn’t go back to my room to read.

(No matter. I’d hide a book under my shirt and read outside.)

There are photos of family events -- reunions, Christmas -- where in the midst of revelry and festivities, I’m at one end of the couch or picnic table with my nose in book. As a teenager, I preferred babysitting on Friday nights to going to parties. After the kids I was looking after went to bed, I could read.

Naturally, my relentless, obsessive reading was something that I was teased about.

Being an obsessive reader was not a predictor of popularity, was not attractive to boys, did not make me easier to get along with, was not chic.

When people mocked me for it, I did feel embarrassed.

It was extravagantly obvious to me that when someone commented on my reading, it was code for “You are not cool / you are too smart / you’re not malleable / you’re not playing the role of tentative young girl / you know too much to fit in.”

All of that was true, of course.

Thank goodness. Being smart can be an asset. Being sincere (rather than cool) can be an asset. Being obsessive and committed can be an asset. Being certain about what you know can be an asset. Being clear about who you are and what you like to do is an asset.

These qualities, in a young girl and young woman, however, are a threat to a social order that requires her to be less curious, less certain, less knowledgeable, less herself. That’s why people pushed back on me and my reading.

Except my mom. She sent me outside because she didn’t want me to wither away from a vitamin D deficiency.

And she probably wanted all the kids out of the house so she could read her book in peace.

Kari Kristensen is an amazing artist. She makes lino-cut prints. A friend of mine makes lino-cut prints, too, so I’ve seen the process. It blew my mind.

You make an illustration, and then you have to carve it into a piece of linoleum -- but you have to do it in reverse. Everywhere you want ink and colour to go, you carve that line/shape/dot into the lino.

Kari’s work, especially, is graphic and meticulous. Each image is composed of sharp, measured lines and dashes and dots, which means that a single piece can be composed of thousands and thousands of tiny cuts.

The labour, the loving obsessiveness, the attention to detail that goes into one piece -- it’s phenomenal. I don’t know how she does it.

She does. She explains that being gay made her a better printmaker.

Kari came from a very small town and as a teenager she didn’t even know that being gay & gender non-conforming was A Thing. As far as she knew, she explained to me, she was the only person on earth “like this”.

To cope with a world hostile to her basic identity, to cope with the endemic self-doubt, she developed a form of OCD called Arithmomania. This means that if she enters a room, Kari is mentally scanning it and rearranging it. She’s counting the number of objects, sorting them, and reordering them from biggest to largest.

And so an artistic process in which you have to repeatedly arrange lines and make thousands of tiny, meticulous cuts?

Heaven. Being gay in anti-gay environment led to Arithmomania as a coping mechanism; and she’s channeled her Arithmomania into a meticulous artistic process that yields stunning works of art.

The thing that was used against her became her source of power.

Personally, and as a culture-maker.

Glennon Doyle -- perhaps you’ve heard of her? :) -- was so profoundly, acutely, extremely sensitive that she developed an eating disorder at 10 and became an alcoholic in her early 20s.

In other cultures, in other times, she explained to Brene Brown, being so deeply sensitive and seeing the world so differently than other people would have been valued -- this is a quality of prophets and poets and shamans and healers -- but in our culture, it was a “problem”.

At school, at home, with friends, in the world, Glennon and her sensitivity was always a problem. And so she sought to numb the acuteness of her perceptions; hence the eating disorder and addiction.

Her own recovery, her willingness to be vulnerable and tell the truth about her life eventually led to create a massively popular blog called Momastery, write three best-selling books (Carry On, Warrior; Love Warrior, and Untamed), and found an organization called Together Rising that’s raised $25 million to support vulnerable + marginalized women and children.

Her sensitivity was a “problem” most of her life; but really, it’s her super power and the thing we most need from her.

The thing that was used against her -- and that she used against herself -- became her source of power.

Personally, and as a culture maker.

Everything you practice, you get better and faster at. Now, after a million years of obsessive reading, I can read a 200 page book in 2 hours. I can recall whole pages and re-read them in my head. I read several books a week, I read across genres, and I read everything from Audre Lorde to Peter Thiel.

My obsessive and wide reading is one of the reasons I think the way I do, see the world the way I do, and write the way I do. It’s one of the reasons I can connect dots, analyze, reverse-engineer, develop tools and courses and consulting processes for which I get well-paid for, and write, and lead.

In other words, my relentless reading -- self-education -- has been a profound source of power in my life.

That’s why education gets withheld from certain groups of people; that’s why people tried to shame me out of my passion for reading. Power, in a patriarchal culture, isn’t meant to be wielded by girls and women.

Power, in a white supremacist culture, wasn’t meant to be held or used by black people, indigenous people, or people of colour. It’s no coincidence, for example, that there were anti-literacy laws in the US, both before and after the Civil War, aimed at preventing enslaved and formerly enslaved African American people from reading, writing, or drafting documents establishing their freedom.

Governments, schools, and even families and friends will try to prevent you from exercising qualities that make you a threat to unjust systems -- and if they can’t use laws to prohibit you from using your power, they’ll use shame to do it.

Shame is a super-useful, scaleable, low-resource social strategy of control because it forces you to do the work of curbing yourself.

But often, when someone tries shame you for something, they tell on themselves. They’re showing you the cards in their hand -- and they’re showing you YOUR hand, too.

That thing they want you to stop doing or being? It’s probably a personal and culture-making source of power -- and maybe one you didn’t know you had.

So when people pushed back on my intelligence and reading, it wasn’t about the reading. They were detecting the glimmerings of power and non-conformity and trying to check it, early.

Before it became a real threat.

That’s why they try to shame us away from our own power sources. Because if you know your power source, and use it, then you can change...everything.

So...to get free of shame that’s NOT legitimate, and access your hidden power sources, make a list.

What are you ashamed of, about yourself?

• Thinning lips? Greying hair? They’re a function of age, and with age comes wisdom.That’s why women aren’t allowed to show age; because it telegraphs internal power.

• Too sensitive? You’re probably a human lie detector and social healer.Power.

• Broke? Poor? I bet you’re ingenious with money and making resources stretch. That’s a critical skill of every organizational leader, parent, and CEO.In other words: this is a serious power skill.

• High maintenance? You require equity justice in your relationships and everywhere and won’t settle for less.Power.

• Being a mother is a career block? In fact, Motherhood is a leadership bootcamp; mothering IS leadership.Serious. power. skill.

Being a woman. Being young. Being old. Being fat. Being gay. Being trans. Being racialized. Being a mother. Not being a mother. Being a survivor. Being disabled. Being too smart, too bookish, too sensitive, too quiet, too loud, too you.

All the things that have been used against you are in fact endlessly renewable sources of power. Everything the world has tried to shame you for are the reasons you see the world differently and know what you know.

This is how some artists become ‘great’ artists and how some culture makers become cultural icons. They changed the way we see the world because they saw the world differently.

That’s the source of their power and genius.

And yours, too.

The thing you’ve been shamed for is nearly always a source of profound culture-making and personal power. It can fuel cultural change AND fuel your own body of work and livelihood.

So go ahead and re-interpret shame as a reminder of the exact source of your personal and culture-making power. Everything used against you can be a source of power.