Hi Reader,
My son Casimir loves to dress up.
Any excuse, any holiday, he’s all in.
Right now it’s coming up to Easter. Which means he’s been waiting weeks to wear his Easter ears to school.
Asking me every day "Is it time yet?"
Yesterday I finally said yes.
Off he went, so bloody excited.
Then he came home.
No ears. Trembly cheeks. That just-about-to-cry expression on his face.
I asked what happened. There’s one kid, he said, who teased him the whole walk to school.
So he took them off and now he won't wear them anymore.
I asked him, “Do you still want to?”
He said yes.
But he doesn’t want to be bullied.
Fair.
Also… absolutely not the deal.
So this morning, I walked him to school. Wearing my own pair of Easter ears.
Because I need him to learn this early, not after decades of self-abandonment like most of us:
You don't shrink who you are to make other people more comfortable.
Never edit your joy because someone else is insecure, bored, or looking for someone to take it out on.
You wear the damn ears.
If someone’s got a problem with how brightly you’re showing up, that’s a them problem. It's not yours to accommodate.
Obviously, this isn’t about bunny ears. It's about every time you’ve dimmed yourself down.
Every time you’ve softened your voice, shrunk your personality, or second-guessed something you loved because of how it might land.
Every time you’ve thought, “It’s just easier if I don’t.”
You’re not too much.
You’ve just been surrounded by people who benefit from you being less.
I get it.
Truly.
I spent years doing this.
Softening my edges.
Choosing my words very carefully so I didn't accidently offend.
Making myself more digestible.
You know what behaviour that gets you?
Resentful, exhausted and disconnected from yourself.
Hard pass.
These days?
I'm not interested.
If I’m shining too bright for someone, they can put on sunglasses, squint, or leave. Either way, I’m not dimming.
I’m not interested in shrinking to fit into spaces that were never built for me in the first place and I’m sure as hell not teaching my kid to do that either.
So if I need to rock up to school in Easter ears to make that point?
Done.
Your turn:
Where are you taking off your ears? and what would it look like to put them back on?
Much love,
Suzanne
P.S. If this hit a nerve, this is the work we do inside The Done Era.
Learning to stop abandoning yourself, stop over-accommodating everyone else, and actually back yourself in real life.
You can keep taking off your ears to keep the peace…or you can hang out with peeps who are done with that shit!
Your call.
P.P.S. Also, we got stopped by heaps of people telling us how great the ears were.
Same ears. Different reactions.
Almost like other people’s opinions aren’t the thing you should be building your life around 🤷♀️
