Whew! The last few days here at The Manifest-Station have been wild. Thank you to the Today Show and Yahoo! and The Daily Mail and Cosmopolitan UK, Nieuwsblad in Belgium, and all the other places that are linking the site and sending traffic and readers our way. I am humbled. I am grateful. I am excited. It’s been a rough 6 weeks for me with my foot breaking. I’ve been battling some pretty serious blues as well as severe physical pain so the site’s success is literally putting a spring in my step. I leave for Paris Saturday where I will spend a few days hobbling around with my mom (to thank her for running my retreat business like a badass) before I head to Italy to lead a retreat followed by a workshop in London.
I wanted to share with you all how excited I am that HuffPost Women put my essay about how women apologize too much on their home page today! I woke up and almost fell out of bed, which wouldn’t have been good because the last thing I need is the other foot broken. I want women (especially young women) everywhere to read it. Thanks Huffington Post for choosing to feature it. It was scary and it makes me want to barf a little that it’s really out there in the world but I know that those are often the things that often need to be shared the most.
Here’s an excerpt:
If I had told that guy I didn’t want to sit on his lap, or I had yelled at that man to let go of my chest, then I would have lost them, and in some small way, I wanted to make them happy, like the teenager in that mom’s letter. I squirmed when I read the letter because if I was as brave as this mom was in writing to me, then maybe I could write a piece on the things we let slide and how quiet the world would be without so many “I’m sorries.”
This is my small attempt at understanding the way we keep ourselves underfoot, the way we don’t say what we want to say for fear of losing what we probably never had in the first place. So, to answer that teen’s question in the letter of “What difference does it make?”: It makes the kind of difference, say, where you stand up when he touches you and you say, “Excuse me, but please do not touch my body like that.” Or, “F*ck you, get your f*cking hands off me.” That’s the kind of difference it makes.
And then you grow up and maybe when you get to be my age you only say I’m sorry when you’ve hurt someone or reared your car into theirs.
Click here to read the rest. I would be humbled if you’d share it. #NotSorry
It makes me feel terribly vulnerable, this piece. But, ultimately I know it is important. I hope you will read it and send it to a young woman you think it would do some good for. It would mean a lot to me. And don’t apologize for it. I won’t either.
Thanks to you all for being so fierce and faithful. I love the people who read and write for this site.
I would love to hear below in the comments if you over-apologize. And, if you do, where? Looking forward to your thoughts! See you in London or Seattle at the end of July! Love, Jen
Jennifer Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Her work has been featured on The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Jezebel, Salon, among others. Jen’s leading one of her signature yoga/writing retreats to Ojai, Calif over Labor Day in Ojai, Calif and she and bestselling author Emily Rapp will be leading another writing retreat to Vermont in October. Check out jenniferpastiloff.com for all retreat listings and workshops to attend one in a city near you. Next up: Seattle, London, Atlanta, South Dakota, NYC, Dallas, Tucson & Lenox (guest speaker at Canyon Ranch.) She tweets/instagrams at @jenpastiloff. She’s currently finishing her first book, a memoir.
You are beautiful, inside and out! Nothing flawed about that picture.
Bravo! Smart and insightful — I doubt there’s a woman who doesn’t hear a voice from within saying “yes” when reading this. Thank you.
Wow, what a great piece. One that really every girl/woman should read. I apologize 24/7, for everything and anything, and am only now slowly, very slowly unlearning it.