So . . . he starts to kiss you in a way that makes you feel like he is a bull and you are a salt lick. But you really like him. So, you say nothing, and just kind of try to hope that one day it improves.
Or:
Your partner continues to drink too much and get too loud at parties. You are utterly humiliated, but you weakly agree to drive home and say nothing. Again.
Or:
The gal you live with is a pack rat, and your apartment is gradually looking more and more like an overcrowded storage unit. But you don’t want to risk losing the relationship, so you hold your tongue.
Do you ever wonder, why do women make these choices?
They are being “nice.”
Nice.
“If I tell him the truth, I might hurt his feelings.”
“If I tell her the truth, she might leave me.”
“If I tell her the truth, she will get mad at me.”
So, instead of saying the truth, I am going to be nice.
Nice.
Why has that word turned my eternal stomach since the dawn of time?
The Latin root of the word is nescius, meaning ignorant. Interesting, huh?
Girls: sugar and spice and everything nice.
Be nice.
Look nice.
Act nice.
Yuck, blech, no thank you.
This is why women consistently, consistently, consistently fail to speak up.
Consistently.
And it is not that we are actually ignorant. Or we do not know. Women make a deliberate decision to dumb down. And sit on their truth.
They act nice, instead of speaking up and speaking out with their exciting, amazing, elevating, educative points of view.
And this failure is a not kidding no kidding problem.
It has led to a world run amuck.
With intolerable, inexcusable behavior.
I see this nice problem everywhere. Nice is silence. Nice is holding your tongue when you are hurt or offended.
Women—universally and habitually—sit on their truth.
My younger Sisters feel unable to call out the guys they date for bad behavior, because they want to be popular. Other women hold back in order to please their partners, or simply because they have never really learned how to stand for their own perspectives.
Sisters. We can do better.
If women would give up being “nice” and toss in a huge dose of truth, everything would change.
Actually, truth is waaaaaay more nice than ignorance.
When a woman risks her truth, the world around her recalibrates and everything is elevated.
The only way to disconnect a woman from “nice” and connect her with her truth, is through plugging her into her turn on. That is what frees a woman to go for what she wants, speak her truths, and stand for herself and her desires. Nothing else does. Nothing. Not ever.
What you have been longing for most is always the last place you look, isn’t it?
Who knew that the discipline of pleasure could connect a woman to her core fire in a way that nothing else can?
Living truth is high risk.
Where in your world are you longing to spill your deepest truth right now?
And what would you say?
Is it with your partner?
Your kids?
Your work?
Boss?
Co-workers?
Your family?
Friends?
What would you say to the world at large?
How could your perspectives elevate everyone around you?
What do you see that no one else seems to notice?
Let it rip, Sisters… it’s time.
xox,
Regena Thomashauer, aka “Mama Gena”
The School of Womanly Arts
Regena is a feminist icon, a teacher, a speaker, a mother, a best-selling author, and creatrix and CEO of The School of Womanly Arts.