Powerful is the Woman Who Doesn't Care

Months ago I set this phrase as my screensaver to serve as a constant reminder to let it go. It was not just permission, but a challenge to acknowledge the issue and then move on from it. No unnecessary stress, no overthinking, no trying to solve something that I have no control over.

It brought on a sense of power. Every time I read it, I was reminded of my place and that worrying about minor details is not a part of the plan. 

I don’t care. What’s done is done. Let go of the false sense of control. Whatever comes I can deal with it but I don’t care. I don’t care means letting go of the past and moving forward with what is in our circle of control. It redirects focus onto what we CAN do and what we actually need to worry about 

Powerful is the woman who does not care. For hers is not the burden of worry.

Powerful is the woman who is relentlessly apathetic to the whims of anothers disturbance.

They cannot reel you in. You will not be held accountable to pay the price of their agitation. You are immovable.

For so long, you have been like iron to a magnet when someone lays their dilemma in your path. It is your nature to agonize over a single text, a passing glance, or an angry word. Clinging to the issue until it is solved. But there lies the weakness. That is our Achilles heel. All of that energy spent is energy you do not get to use to move yourself forward. 

Empathy can be powerful, but this is not empathy.

This is a frantic sense that we must fix everything, that we are the reason it is going wrong, and that we have the ability to make it all better. But you know as well as I do that it is a futile and exhausting existence. It’s an endeavor that will never cease to drain our reserves of power, kindness, and productivity.

Then, when we lift our heads to pursue what fulfills us, we no longer have the energy to do so.

So, powerful is the woman that does not care.

It is a habit you must practice to be any good. I catch myself at least a dozen times a day allocating precious focus to issues that do nothing but discourage me. The thoughts are quick to enter, so I have to be even faster to shut them down.

“My insecurities are overwhelming today” I do not care.

“My friend is complaining about something that they refuse to fix and come to me repeatedly to solve” I do not care.

“They aren’t texting me back” I do not care.

“I made a mistake at work today and embarrassed myself.” Say it with me: I do not care. Dismiss the thought and move forward. 

The list is absolutely endless. The worries that take less than a second to appear shift the entire energy of your brain into a cycle of distress. Your anxiety may appear trivial and the problem may feel insurmountable, but your reaction is equally important. The thought cannot have power over you if you don’t give it time to hold. I am learning that I must stay completely still and glide over the issue with “I do not care” absolutely relentlessly until the grasp of the dread has loosened. It gets easier.

It's the ultimate form of self-grace. To allow yourself to make mistakes, to allow the anxiety to exists but not latch onto it. To be in the midst of a problem that makes your cheeks flush or a life altering crisis and remain the the knowledge that, "I am good, and this does not shake me"

At first, I felt guilty and rude. I was scared of apathy and all of the negative connotations that it holds. Wasn’t I supposed to care about others? Isn’t it a little cold to say “I don’t care” about so many things?

But those thoughts quickly faded once I learned what it felt like to not care about every inconsequential thing in my path. And soon it became a broader term. I now feel more comfortable removing the “I care’s” in my life that make me play small. “I care about what they think”, “I care that people don’t believe in the things that I do”, “I care that I’m not good enough”.

So much unnecessary noise can be dismissed. Without that, I have the mental clarity to make decisions that move me to be who I want to be. To shed the things that have no business to be taking my time and energy.

No one can get under my skin. No issues will knock me over. Because I don’t care.

I will move forward anyways. 

And girl, it’s powerful. 

(P.S. here's the screensaver)