Issue 31 | Bloom with Ruth Penfold

Hello beautiful human

When I was a newbie VP People, I felt like a fraud with a dream.

So I figured, let me get close to the people that look like they know what they are doing.

And I learnt they didn’t know what they were doing either.

So when I started my role as Chief People Officer, I knew that everyone on my team was figuring it out.

But deep down, I still knew I wasn’t being as big as I knew I could be.

So I figured, let me be close to really confident people and I will become it.

Then I realised, confidence, real embodied confidence can only come from within.

You can’t act it, you have to be it to claim it. Which means changing how you see yourself.

It rises up in the form of rage and indignation that says:

1. I deserve to be here.
2. I deserve to live an amazing life.
3. I deserve to express what’s in my heart.

I was reflecting recently on why it took me longer to get to that point.

Wanna know the answer?

I wasn't able to access or feel anger. It simply wasn't an emotion I had ever really been allowed or allowed myself to have. Women typically aren't.

But healthy anger is an essential leadership skill.

Anger is a boundary defence. Babies have it naturally. Some of us are just taught that it is wrong to feel it.

"Anger is the part of you that loves you most. It knows when you are being mistreated, neglected and disrespected. It’s a sign you have to take a step away from a place that doesn’t do you justice."

I saw this somewhere recently and it hit hard.

Anger is an essential emotion. It causes us to act, to challenge the status quo.

But for a lot of women, when you ask us when we last felt anger, we can't always answer.

If that's you, take a moment to reflect on it. Perhaps it didn't show up as an eruption, perhaps you just felt some type of way about something that didn't make sense.

Get curious.

I love this exercise from Kristin Neff. Think of something that has made you angry recently - that might be hard, because anger is so gross for us, it can be hard to recognise it. Try thinking about where you felt frustration, or less patient, or even resentful.

1. What was the situation?
2. How did the anger express itself?
3. What was the result of the anger?
4. How did you feel after getting angry?
5. What was the anger trying to do for you?
6. Write a letter of thanks to your anger, even if the way it showed up was something you didn’t love or enjoy, the anger itself was showing up to protect and support you.

Anger was just one of the topics that we that is what we covered in one of our weekly Bloom calls this month. Thank you to Gemma Lockhart Natasha Norman Fay van der Westhuizen Vanessa Monsequeira for leaning ALL the way in on the conversation.

Me: Let's take a picture with angry faces ??????????

Us: What's an angry face? ??????????

The result: ??????????

Like me and all the women in Bloom, work to embrace and feel your anger, and welcome it as a healthy emotion.

Your rage will allow for the powerful no's, that give rise to the magical yeses.

Rooting for you always

Ruth x