Topless Women Teach me About Taking Up Space

After wrapping up a client contract that left me questioning my business, my abilities, and honestly, myself, I found myself spiraling into some old patterns I thought I'd already worked through.

Then I went to Portugal.

What started as a birthday trip quickly turned into an unexpected lesson about confidence, people-pleasing, self-worth, and the exhausting habit of making ourselves smaller for the comfort of others.

And surprisingly, that lesson came from watching a couple of topless women sunbathe on a beach.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

What's Helpus Women in Portugal taught me about taking up space? Welcome to Middle-aged woman. This is episode four. I always knew this day was coming. I knew at some point I was going to hit a wall with this podcast. I just didn't think it would happen this soon. When I started this, I knew there would eventually be a moment where I sat down to record and thought, what am I even doing? I just thought that moment would happen much later. But here we are. I've talked before about why I started, why not five years ago, why not next year, why now? And honestly, it was very much an either now or never situation. I wasn't willing to let another year go by talking about starting and then not actually doing it. So I started. I knew it would evolve. I knew it would probably pivot. I knew I would figure things out as I went. What I wasn't expecting was for something on the business side of my life to completely throw me off course. Or maybe not throw me off course, maybe force me to stop and ask questions I thought I had already answered. Who am I trying to be? What am I trying to build? What am I trying to do with business? What am I trying to do with podcasting? The frustrating thing is that I genuinely thought I'd done a lot of work around this stuff. I've done EMDR therapy, by the way, highly recommend. I've spent years unpacking trauma, I've worked on myself, or at least I thought I had. And then life has a funny way of presenting you with a situation that makes you realize, oh, we're still working on this. Apparently, I'm not done yet. So I stopped recording for a bit. Not because I wanted to quit. Not because I didn't have anything to say. I think I just needed some space and some time. But now I'm back. And I need to tell you how Telpus Women in Portugal somehow became the reason I came back to this podcast. I know. It's a ridiculous sentence. It feels ridiculous even saying it. But stay with me because we're going to get there. But first, we need to talk about what happened in May. May for me was a lot. It was the month that my partner and I were heading to Portugal for his 50th birthday. Very exciting. It was also the final month of a contract I'd been working on since November. Mmm, not so exciting. So I was wrapping up one thing while preparing for another more exciting one. My brain was kind of living in two different places at the same time. And honestly, looking back, I think the signs that I wasn't doing great were already there. Normally, when I go on vacation, it becomes a whole production. Hair appointment, paddy care, manicure, waxing, packing lists, backup packing lists. I'm a Capricorn. Outfits planned two weeks ahead. We always joke that all my partner has to do is throw a few pairs of shorts into a suitcase and he's ready to go. Meanwhile, I'm running project management software in my head. And this time though, I didn't care. Not in a sad way, not in an angry way. I just didn't care. I got my hair done, I got my eyebrows done, I handled the basics. But the nails, I didn't do them. And for the first time in probably 20 years, I wasn't even worried about what people would think. In fact, my partner suggested, why don't you just get them done in Portugal? And I remember thinking, yeah, why don't I? Who says I have to be, you know, have perfect nails on the plane getting to my destination? Why am I even creating more stress for myself before every vacation? Who exactly am I doing this for? So I didn't do them. I also didn't pack two weeks ahead of time. I didn't even pack one week ahead of time. I packed the night before. We were literally at Walmart buying sunscreen the day before our flight. And somehow it was the least stressful travel experience I've ever had. I remember standing there putting things into a suitcase and thinking, why have I not been doing this doing it this way the whole time? Little did I know there was probably a much bigger reason I suddenly didn't have the energy to perform perfection anymore. Because at the same time that all of this was happening, there was something else going on. For those of you who don't know, I'm currently transitioning from being a virtual assistant to becoming an online business manager. It's exciting, but it's also terrifying. And one of the contracts I'd been working on was originally brought on, I was originally brought on as a virtual assistant. Not necessarily where I wanted to stay long term, but it was work and I needed the money. Over time, though, the work started changing. I began taking on tasks that were outside the original scope of what we agreed to. And because I am me, I kept saying yes. Because I didn't want to disappoint anyone, I didn't want conflict. I didn't want someone thinking I wasn't capable. So I said yes. And every time I continued to justify it. Meanwhile, I was doing work that people charge double or triple for. But I kept doing it. And then during our final month together, we had a conversation during one of our weekly meetings. And I was told that she had brought me on for sales and had not gotten the sales that she expected. She said it hadn't been a good investment. She said I had not been a good investment. Now looking back, there were so many things I wish I had said. I wasn't hired for sales strategy. I wasn't hired for business development. And even if I had been, nobody in their right mind would be charging what I was charging for that level of work. I didn't say any of that. I sat there quietly because I knew if I spoke, my voice would shake. And if my voice shook, I would get emotional. And we all know what's next. If I got emotional, I would feel weak. So the best thing for me to do was to stay silent. That's what I did. The contract ended. But the conversation didn't. That conversation stayed with me. It followed me around, it was on my shoulder. Not good conversation, caught bad conversation type of thing. It was just bad conversation. It was hovering. And I hate admitting that because logically I know better. Logically, I know I went above and beyond. I know I was doing work I wasn't even hired to do. I know one person's opinion shouldn't derail me. But when you're emotional, you're not logical. And I spiraled. Not clichin floor sobbing spiraled like I did in the past. So I would consider that growth. But I spiraled enough that I started questioning everything. The business, the podcast, my future, my worth, my val, everything. And unfortunately, that was the mindset I boarded a plane to Portugal with to go on vacation. Not ideal. I did my best to enjoy the trip. Portugal was beautiful, the beaches were beautiful, the food was amazing, all of it. But if I'm being honest, it took effort not to stay stuck in that funk. These were my feelings to deal with, not my partners. He deserved to enjoy his birthday trip. He didn't need me sitting beside him replaying business conversations in my head. And then came the topless women. I promise we are getting to what I started this with. One day we're sitting on the beach, and there was this couple. You know the type, maybe you've seen them. They start vacation looking one way, and by day four they've transitioned into human fruit leather. That's what I call them. By their last day they are practically a different race. You see them on the beach. You see them on every beach. I made a joke about it and went back to reading my book. About an hour later, I looked up and realized the woman had taken her bikini top off. I've never been to Europe before. I didn't know that was a thing. This was new to me. I looked away immediately, embarrassed. I then looked back. Then looked away again. I wanted to make sure I had seen what I saw. I wasn't offended. I wasn't judging. I was just shocked. The next day we're back at the beach. Different couple, same thing. The woman takes off her top and starts sunbathing. And what struck me wasn't that she was topless. I mean, that was part of it because now there were two women on the beach topless. What struck me was how little she cared. She wasn't posing for anybody. She wasn't performing. She wasn't worried about whether people thought she looked good. She had a goal, no tan lines. And she was committed to achieving that goal. That was it. She didn't apologize. There was no explanation. No concern about strangers. And for some reason that stuck with me. It didn't fully click until the flight home. But I kept thinking about those women. Not because they were topless, but because they didn't care. They weren't spending energy managing everyone else's comfort. They weren't making themselves smaller. They weren't asking permission to exist exactly as they wanted to exist. And somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, I realized I've spent most of my life doing the exact opposite. From probably age 16, I'm 49 now. That's decades that I have adjusted myself based on what other people might think. What other people might feel, what other people might say. I spent so much of my energy making everyone else comfortable. And suddenly I could see the connection. The reason that client's conversation hit me so hard, and why the same thing has happened in the past, it wasn't necessarily about the money. I mean, it was, but it wasn't the money, it wasn't the contract, it wasn't even the work. It was her opinion of me. Her opinion mattered more to me than my own. That's why I stayed quiet. That's why I didn't advocate for myself. That's why her words and her opinions followed me all the way to Portugal. And if we're being honest, that's a hard realization to have at 49 years old. Because you think you've worked through these things, you think you've healed them. And then life hands you a mirror. Or in my case, uh, two topless women on a beach. And you have to re-evaluate everything. Now, let's get one thing clear. My takeaway from this trip is not that I'm going to start sunbathing topless. That is not happening ever, ever, ever. But I am going to use those women as inspiration. And I'm taking their lesson with me. And the lesson is that maybe I don't need everyone's approval to do what I am doing. I don't need permission to create. So maybe learning from some very unexpected teachers is what I needed from this vacation after all. Thank you so much for listening. If you're learning, if you're trying to learn how to take up a little more space in your own life, just know that you're not doing it alone. We'll figure it out together. Talks in the