Berate the Fool or Honor the Warrior?

I hear women call their past selves all kinds of names.

The Fat Girl From Brooklyn.
The Service Unit.
The Girl Who Peed Her Pants on Stage.
The One Who Should Have Known Better.

I get it.
I don’t agree with those awful names, but I get the impulse that created them.

The impulse to look back at the girl who screwed up, tolerated too much of what sucked, carried the weight, stayed too long, hid too much, gave too much, asked for too little.

What the hell was she thinking?
How could she have let this happen to us?

We’re angry.
Disappointed.
And stuck grappling with her mistakes while trying to carve our own futures.

Of course we want to kill her.
But, in truth - it’s a completely illogical battle.

And frankly - how dare we?

How dare we stand here (knowing full well how scary life can be) and throw stones at the girl who survived it?
How dare we call her foolish because we know things now that she never did.
How dare we call her weak as we stand on the foundation of strength she built?

It’s too easy to remember the shame she felt and feel ashamed of ourselves.

So we shame her for not having enough courage, for not getting it right
and for just not being enough.

And then we blame her for why we don’t move forward.

I’ve always referred to my past self as Sancho Panza.

The one who stood just behind the quest.
The one who made things work.
The one who was useful, loyal, funny, practical and always available…

…but not the one wielding the sword.

She never picked the adventure or charged the windmill.
She was decidedly not the hero of the story.
Instead, she was the one perpetually bent forward, carrying the supplies, and smiling.

Clearly, I judged her harshly for playing that early life, when there was so much promise, so small - so safe.

For being a girl that could rally for someone else’s dream before she could even admit that she had one of her own.
For mistaking loyalty to others as permission to hide.
For thinking being chosen was the same thing as choosing.

There are days I want to travel back in time, grab her by the shoulders and scream, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WOMAN, GET ON YOUR OWN HORSE!”

But on other days, I can see that Sancho is more than just the sum of her parts.

She could find a way to carry literally anything. (And I’m pretty sure I actually mean literally here.)
She could read a room, light the way when things were dark, and make the impossible feel possible.
That girl had, grit, humor, and a power to hold worlds together.

So the question I keep coming back to is what if she doesn’t need to be berated and exiled? What if she simply need to be recognized as the warrior she’s always been?

It’s impossible build your next chapter by beating down the girl who got you this far.
But we all do it anyway.
Dragging that girl around as evidence that we don’t or can’t have what we want.

See?
This is why I’m behind.
This is why I’m ashamed.
This is why I’ll never…

But when we really look - when we truly see her, we see that there is no fool.
Just a really tired warrior in outdated armor.

Armor that once made perfect sense for her.
Armor built from the rules of her family, her marriage, her career, her body, her faith, her community, her losses, her fears, her responsibilities, her longing.

Armor that now feels tight and itchy - wildly impractical for the life she is trying to create.

But armor nonetheless.

The Fat Girl From Brooklyn survived being seen when being seen didn’t feel safe.
The Girl Who Peed Her Pants On Stage kept going even when approval wasn’t available.
The Service Unit honored her value that love is not only given when it’s convenient, easy, or fair.

These women don’t need a rebrand.
Their armor feels tight now because they’re in the middle of an evolution.

This is where the work begins.
In seeing her accurately.

Sage.
Warrior.
Creator.

We’re not becoming the hero of our own stories, we’re recognizing we’ve been her all along.

So before you use that old name again, pause.

Ask what she carried.
Ask what she protected.
Ask what she made possible.

And then ask yourself what would happen if you turned all of that love, tenacity, grit, and savvy toward the life you’re building now?

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This is the kind of work we do inside Liminal: seeing the old armor clearly, honoring why it was needed, and deciding what no longer gets to define the next chapter.