Powerful and private

Why curating your stories doesn't make you a coward

Last week, I was this close to posting something on LinkedIn that would have ruffled more than a few feathers.

It was about International Women’s Day. And, if I say so myself, was brilliantly written; witty, sharp, righteous. The kinda post that gets a lot of nodding-face emojis from women and a slightly defensive silence from everyone else.

It was about the men who post glowing tributes to their wife / girlfriend / mother on #IWD with captions like “celebrating the amazing women in my life’ - as if feminism is a thank-you card.

Mate. #IWD isn’t about celebrating women. It’s about the long-overdue fight for equity. There’s a difference. A BIG one. You can fuck right off with your soft-focus photo too.

And then, I clocked an event invitation aimed at women. How to celebrate IWD? Come and learn how to network better on LinkedIn. I was sorely tempted to post the reply “Will you be addressing the documented gender bias in the platform while you’re at it?”

Dearest reader. I didn’t post either of those things.

And I want to talk to you about why.

Not because I’m advocating for biting your tongue, staying palatable (yuck!) or being the bigger person. But because I made a conscious choice and there’s a difference between than and ‘performing’ professionalism out of fear.

The myth of radical transparency

Somewhere along the way, “show up authentically” got twisted into “share everything.”

Like the only way to prove you’re real, to be trusted, to be taken seriously as a woman in business, is to bleed onto the page, turn yourself inside out and offer up your worst moments to prove your credibility.

Brené Brown explains shame and vulnerability better than anyone I’ve ever heard. But here’s the bit I’d add specifically for women using storytelling in business: you don’t owe anyone your trauma to prove your worth.

You can be powerful and private.

You can share your truth without turning yourself inside out.

Authenticity is not the same as total disclosure. Vulnerability is not the same as oversharing. And the pressure to ‘bare all’, your grief, your rock bottom, your most humiliating moment, is often just another version of the same old demand: make yourself smaller so others feel more comfortable.

So, what’s the difference between curating your stories and self-censorship?

This is the question I actually really care about because there are two very different reasons women, in my experience, don’t share things.

One is fear. Of being judged, dismissed, deemed ‘too emotional’, too political, too…much. That kind of silence is a survival strategy and I’ve written about that before. It’s not a confidence problem, but more a rational response to systems that punish honesty.

The other is choice. Knowing what you have to say and deciding, on your own terms and for your own reasons, not to say it right now, or here, or like this.

That second one? That’s not shrinking, it’s curating. And there ain’t nothing wrong with it.

The check I actually use

Before I share anything, a post, a story, some content, I ask myself three questions:

1. Is it relevant to my audience?

2. Is it relatable? Will it land, will they see themselves in it?

3. Is it interesting? Does it give them something to think about, sit with or do?

My IWD rant failed on the third one. It was relevant, it was definitely relatable but it wasn’t going to give anyone anything useful to take away. It would have felt ooooh so good to post but then it would have been gone.

So I sat with it instead. And then I turned it into this article. That’s not suppression as I see it, that’s craft.

Your boundaries are yours, not a dress code.

Here’s where I’m going to get a bit rant (again, I know).

When we talk about what’s “appropriate” to share, we usually means what’s acceptable to the “system” i.e. the patriarcy. What won’t make people nervous. What won’t get you branded difficult. What fits the invisible dress code of a ‘professional’ and ‘credible’ woman

That is not the boundary I’m talking about.

The boundary I am talking about is yours. It lives inside you and is based on what you actually want to share, what feels true and what serves a purpose beyond performance. NOT what you think the room will tolerate.

You get to decide what truth looks like when you tell it. You get to keep things and you’re allowed to have an inside life that doesn’t all become content.

What we’re not saying

Which brings me to something I’m running on Friday 27th March.

It’s called What We’re Not Saying and it’s not a workshop, not a networking event and most definitely not masterclass in being more confident. It’s a deliberately small, deliberately quiet, deliberately anonymous online space for women to share the stories they’ve never said out loud but want to.

Because the stories we’ve been taught to keep quiet aren’t just personal, they’re collective. And when you hear your experience reflected back in someone else’s words - when you think ‘oh, it’s not just me then’ - that’s where the real power sits.

Not in oversharing or performing your pain but in choosing to say the true thing, in a room where it’s safe to.

You can come with your camera off, submit your story anonymously and no-one, I repeat NO-ONE, is going to suggest the answer is confidence coaching.

Tickets are £5 with all sales going to Bristol-based charity, LoveWell

You can sign up here and I’ll send you all the details of how you can get involved.

Remember, there is no pressure to share and if you do, it will all be done anonymously before the live session.

Hilary xx