Get sharing ladies!

A good friend of mine asked me a few months ago; “Why do women never talk about certain things?”. Like what, I said. And she began to tell me about how growing up, she was always horrified about the hairs that grew on her big toe. I proceeded to roll around in laughter, but then in all seriousness, she talked about how she had kept this secret until very recently (she’s now in her mid-thirties) when another friend of hers shared a story about going for a pedicure. There, the beautician plucked the hairs from her big toe without any fuss or prejudice. Finally, after her friend’s description, she was able to talk about it to her girlfriends. This got me thinking about things I have rarely shared with friends. I’m not sure why other than my concerns about my own self-image and sadly, my shame about them. Stretch marks. Spots. Post baby body. Why do we have such a fear of talking about them? Without this becoming a rant about society’s portrayal of perfect women in the media or about how lacking education is in promoting healthy self image in young girls, I really feel women need to support each other more.

These thoughts came to a head yesterday. I had a great day yesterday. In the morning, I was on the phone to a company representing the British Franchise association, who are doing an article on “Women in Business”. Lucky for me, they are doing an article about me and my role as Principal of Stagecoach Performing Arts Trowbridge and Frome. They asked me some really interesting questions. One of which was, how would you encourage women who perhaps lack confidence to go into business. Boom! Thank you for this question! I found myself talking about collaboration. Women need to support women. We need to meet up with like-minded women, talk the positives but also talk the negatives of business. We must get out of this Facebook culture of only posting about how wonderful everything is. Everyone has obstacles and hoops to jump though, and the best way to overcome them is to work together.

By a weird chance of fate, later that morning I had a rare coffee date booked with another principal of a Stagecoach school and we spent a couple of hours putting our Stagecoach worlds to rights. It felt good to share our thoughts, our pains, our stresses. Ultimately, we knew we were going through the same things and could support each other accordingly. We both parted saying we must do it again soon.

So, I would encourage the ladies out there to spend time with your girlfriends talking and sharing. Their support will have an impact on your mental health and will help you to feel much better about yourself. And share everything! Get those self-image niggles off your chest because I expect your girlfriend has them too. No shame! Just have a giggle about them.