When "I'm Fine" Isn't the Whole Truth

I've been noticing something lately.

Maybe it's because I've been paying closer attention to women in this season of my own becoming. Maybe it's the conversations I've been having. Or maybe we're finally reaching an age where some of us are becoming less willing to pretend.

But I've noticed how many women are carrying things no one knows about.

You ask, "How are you?"

"I'm good."

"How's the family?"

"The kids are doing great. My husband is good. Work is busy."

We give the update.

The children. The husband. The job. The business. The parents. The trip we just took. The thing we're working on next.

And somewhere in the middle of reporting on everybody and everything else, we never actually answer the question:

How are YOU?

Not your family.
Not your career.
Not your calendar.

You.

I've been thinking about how easy it is for accomplished women to become very good at giving the update without revealing the truth.

And I don't necessarily mean that something terrible is happening.
Sometimes the truth is simply:

I'm tired.
I'm lonely.
I'm disappointed.
I'm questioning something I thought I was certain about.
I've outgrown something I don't know how to leave.
I'm grieving a relationship that technically still exists.
I'm trying to figure out who I am now that everyone doesn't need me in the same way.
I'm excited about what's next and scared to death at the same time.
I'm realizing that some things I tolerated for years don't fit me anymore.
I'm becoming someone new, and I don't quite know her yet.

Those aren't always easy things to say over brunch.

So we say, "I'm good."

Becoming requires truth.

Over the last several months, I've watched women make some courageous decisions.

I've watched women reconsider long-standing friendships.
I've watched women establish boundaries in relationships where boundaries had never existed.
I've watched women acknowledge that something can have been beautiful, important, and necessary for one season and still not belong in the next one.

There is grief in that.

We don't talk enough about the grief that can accompany growth.
Because becoming isn't only about what we gain.
Sometimes it's about what we shed.

An identity.
An expectation.
A friendship.
A habit.
A way of thinking.
A role we've played so long that other people have come to expect it from us.

And sometimes, the hardest thing to release isn't another person at all.

It's the version of ourselves who participated in the pattern.

This is where I think grace matters.

I use the words courage, confidence, and grace often.
But I've been thinking more deeply about what I mean when I say grace.
Grace is not permission to continue behaving in ways we already know are harmful.
It isn't an excuse for repeatedly violating our own values and then saying, "I'm giving myself grace."
For me, grace is much more honest than that.

Grace is forgiveness for what I didn't know yet.

It's compassion for the woman who made the best decision she could with the wisdom, information, healing, and courage she had at the time.
It's forgiving ourselves for staying too long.

For leaving too quickly.
For not speaking up.
For speaking before we had the right words.
For trusting someone.
For missing the signs.
For getting it wrong.
For simply not knowing then what we know now.

But once we know better, grace doesn't relieve us of responsibility.

Grace allows us to forgive who we were.
Growth requires something from who we're becoming.

I think we need both.

And we need places where we can tell the truth.

This may be the piece I'm thinking about most.
Where do accomplished women go to say:
"I'm actually not okay."
Or—
"I don't need anybody to fix this. I just need somewhere I don't have to perform."

Where can we have conversations that don't require us to package everything neatly?
Where can we say the thing we're still figuring out?
Where can we admit that the life we've worked hard to create may still contain places that need attention?
Where can we be successful and uncertain?

Strong and tired?
Grateful and wanting more?
Faithful and questioning?
Whole and still becoming?

We need those rooms.
Not rooms built around gossip or complaining. Not spaces where we're encouraged to stay stuck.
Rooms where truth can be spoken without judgment and where women love us enough to support both our healing and our growth.

Maybe that's also why I've become so intentional about the rooms I create and the women I bring together.
I'm realizing that connection isn't simply about having people around you.

It's about having somewhere you can tell the truth.

So as we enter this next season, I want to leave you with a different version of the question we ask one another all the time.

Not:
"How's everything going?"

But:
How are you really?

And perhaps an even more important question:

Who knows the real answer?

If you can't think of anyone, don't judge yourself for that.

Just notice it.

Because noticing is often where becoming begins.

With courage, confidence, and grace,
Leslie