By Celeste Berke Knisely, guest blogger

I am rubber. You are glue.

Who remembers that from childhood? When kids were picking on each other? Back and forth, back and forth, it went.

Fast forward a handful of decades, and I wonder why this isn’t my mantra now? Why is it so easy to let things roll off your back when you’re a child, but gets progressively harder as we age?

I often feel stuck from making any progress because everything sticks to me.

What holds you back?

What’s the one thing that holds you back from making progress?

When someone asks me this, I start to sweat, thinking, “Just ONE thing?”

I feel anxiety bubbling up inside me like a slow boiling pot – ready to boil over. How on earth can I pinpoint the one thing that holds me back?

For me, what holds me back is EVERYTHING: too many thoughts, plus fear, money, worry, self-doubt, not knowing, not being perfect, comparing myself to everyone… And probably a handful of other limiting beliefs.

If you boil it all down, I’d say that everything revolves around this: self-confidence. A lack of it.

Then there’s the shame I feel creeping up from old memories and times in my life when I played small and let the mean girls win.

The Early Days

I grew up in a household with two very strong-willed parents. I looked up to them. They were strong advocates for education and had no qualms about calling out another parent or the school. (How embarrassing!) I also feared my parents, just slightly.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my parents DGAF (that’s what the kids these days call didn’t give a fuck). They had their beliefs. They knew who they were and what they stood for. And they didn’t take shit from anyone. My parents were strong and self-confident, but in an unassuming way.

How is it that these two strong people could’ve created such a wussy? ME!

I mean I’m the kid that had a chin-up bar in the doorway. Because our bedtime routine also included chin-ups.

I was the kid who at nine years old was ironing not only my father’s shirts and pants, but also learning how to do laundry.

As kids, me and my sister often ran a mile with our dad, had competitions on who could hold their breath the longest, who could dive the deepest in the pool, and spent many Fall weekends raking endless piles of leaves and stacking wood for the furnace.

I felt full. My home life was stable and supportive. I was strong and confident. Until the day I wasn’t.

The memory that doesn’t go away

This is so silly to write. I’m a grown-ass woman with a great life. Why does this nagging memory haunt me from time to time? Can you relate to this?

I have a vivid memory of the last day of 8th grade.

You see, I went to a very small school in an extremely small, rural town. My graduating class had 57 people in it. The town had 3,000 residents. K-12 was in the same building. To say that my childhood was intimate, is an understatement.

There was no escaping, no reinventing yourself, no finding a new clique. Everyone knew who you were, and everything was personal.

As a young 8th grader, I was 13 years old, with braces and looking forward to my summer of babysitting, swimming with friends, and playing summer-league basketball.

I’m sure that you remember your early teen years. Awkward, right?

Those years were filled with tantrums. Bad hair days, pimples, the lack of the “appropriate” thing to wear can send a teenage girl over the edge!

I’m not looking forward to my daughter’s teenage years.

What’s even worse? Mean Girls!

Now, I’m not saying that I haven’t thrown some mean-girl words in my day, because I have. I’m talking about the girls who gang up on others over and over again. Imagine the anxiety of going to school every day not knowing what was coming your way.

During high school, I had a tater tot thrown in my face by a baseball pitcher. That sent me to the doctor and the only thing that saved my eye was my contact.

I had the word bitch written on my locker, where it stayed ALL YEAR LONG. (Remember those extra permanent markers? The ones with the HUGE tip that smelled like gasoline? Yeah, those – they leave a permanent mark.)

I’ve been called names, had people guilt me into copying my homework EVERY SINGLE DAY, and once showed up to school with about 500 photo copies of a newspaper article my dad was featured in – except the article was crossed out and the words written poked fun at my family.

So, that day in 8th grade is forever etched in my past.

I remember the last day of school and walking into one of the classrooms where all of the girls were hanging out. The ring leader looked over and said to me, “What are you doing in here? Don’t you know everyone hates you? You should leave.”

Stunned and holding back tears, I went to my locker, packed up my book bag, and walked the mile home with my head down.

Again, small town woes, and small childish pranks. The problem with them, and someone like me, is that I’m not rubber, I’m glue. I’m what you’d call someone who lacks self-confidence.

I did the unthinkable

Then, I did something unthinkable. I made an appointment to cut my hair. I wanted to be someone else. Unrecognizable.

I had long hair, down past my shoulders. I went in and asked for short hair and got what we would call, a pixie cut.

My summer was spent by myself. I had no one to call and no one to hang out with. I helped my mom and babysat and played basketball. To make matters worse, my coach called me “Timmy” because of my haircut.

Ugh!

Yet life went on.

Those girls slowly crept back into my life and I let them, without acknowledging what had happened.

I didn’t channel my parents’ strength and stand up for myself. I brushed it all under the rug.

I went on to graduate 3rd in my class and received the superlative, Most Likely to Succeed. I never looked back. Except, that memory has stuck with me for 20+ years.

For so many of us, words matter. We are sensitive and allow things to resonate. As Brene Brown often notes, the stories we tell ourselves are not often the reality.

In hindsight, I know that each one of those young girls was struggling with their own shit story. If I’d been strong, I would.ve said something back and stood up for myself.

My strength came from persevering and accepting them as they were.

Each day, I learned how to take steps forward to figure out how to make it in the situation I was in, until I could change the situation. I held on tight to my family, and my sister – my rock.

I learned that having a small group of supporters is much more important than a gaggle of friends. I learned that people will say whatever they want and that I have to toughen up on the outside and process things as best I can on the inside.

I am rubber and the world is glue.

For all of the mean-girl things I’ve done and to those mean girls who are now moms, grandmothers, aunts, know this:

1. Words and actions hurt. Say you’re sorry, and mean it.

2. We all struggle with self-doubt. Reach within or out to your network to pick yourself up!

3. We have the strength within ourselves to get out of bed. Even on the most difficult of days. To face our greatest challenges.

4. Self-confidence can be a daily battle. Just know, you aren’t alone.

5. We are rubber and the world is glue. Go and let your ideas and courage bounce off you and let them stick out there in the world.

PS. Mean Girls Suck.

And if you haven’t watched Brene’s TedTalk on Vulnerability, take 20 minutes and watch it now!

Need to vent about your own experience with mean girls and what you’ve learned? Share below or on Facebook at MothersRest.

About the guest blogger:
Celeste is a firm believer that to catapult one’s success, one must build a robust network. Coining herself as “the ultimate dot connector,” she taps into resources to help others move their needle – True North. Celeste left Corporate America with two middle thumbs waving goodbye, and has set out on a path to carve out the next step towards fulfillment and living a life she loves – on her own terms. Celeste resides in Denver with her husband and toddler and can be seen living in leggings.

Her current project is JV Partnership – Success on LinkedIn. Where she helps coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs (let’s face it, women) level up and create an online presence to gain clients authentically and to see what IS possible.

Featured image: Maria Lysenko on Unsplash