That Sasha Fierce in All of Us –Yep, I Went There!

I know Sasha Fierce is so three years ago, but I’ll use her anyway. This is a tribute to the celebration of International Women’s Day. Ladies put your hands up!

I was led to write this blog entry following, what I would say, is a healthy obsession over books written by strong and empowered women. Okay, there was Keith Ferrazzi (a male author) sandwiched in between Amy Poehler and Arianna Huffington. But you get it, I was on a pretty good streak of books screaming Girl Power.

And perhaps it is by sheer coincidence that today, while we are celebrating International Women’s Day, I pour out thoughts that have been running through my head for a couple of weeks now.

Women have gone a long way in fighting for their rights to become equals of men. I like to think that the battle has been won and that now, we are all facing the challenge of living up to the roles we once fought for. With everything happening so fast, and everyone (not just women), struggling to keep up, we tend to get caught in the blur of things.

While the battle to make women equals of men is mostly over, I feel the biggest challenge we are all facing today is the struggle to make women equals of themselves.

You read that right, are you and you, equal?

Women naturally hold a high standard for everything. I know for one, that when I find something I want, I turn into my worst, crazy-ass beast of a critic.

And because we know there is no shortcut to whatever is worth having, we take the long road. Without realizing it, we make a few unnecessary side trips in the process–worrying too much, putting in extra hours, doing way more than what is necessary and finally leaving our own well-being right at the bottom of our most-valued list of priorities.

You may or may not notice, but most of us have two sides to us. No, not the Dissociative Identity Disorder type, but more like how Beyonce and Sasha Fierce are one and the same person.

I mean, Beyonce herself is already QUEEN but Sasha Fierce? That girl is Queen B on steroids running on Adrenaline up onstage. The keyword here is onstage. And you see, on a daily basis, the demands of Sasha’s performance  will probably exhaust the regular Beyonce.

Below are a few different versions of the Sasha Fierce in us. Find anything that resonates with you?

CORPORATE FIERCE

Work 60 hours a week. The longer you work, the faster you  climb up that ladder. Bring laptop with you on vacation and write emails while on the beach. In fact, skip the vacation–you love your job! Have lunch on your desk. Wait ’til everyone’s left the office before you go home. Make work-related phone calls on the drive home. Send out short emails right before you hit the covers. Check your email on your mobile device again at 2am. Hit the shower before heading to work–oh snap. If only your work phone was waterproof.

SUPERMOM FIERCE

You don’t feel the need to lift weights at the gym because you can carry your entire household pretty damn well. You make breakfast, lunch and dinner. Drive the kids to school. Do the laundry WHILE looking after the baby. You pick the kids up from school. Help the kids with their homework. Shop for groceries. Do the dishes. Bathe the dog. Run your online business. Run everyone else’s lives. Skip yoga. Skip brunch with the girls. Skip that mani-pedi. Skip the shower–no, you don’t go that far. Or do you?

FIT GIRL FIERCE

30 minutes at the gym? What, did you just warm up and leave? Until your legs and arms do not feel like jelly, you are not stopping. Drop those carbs! Is your lunch high in protein? You do burpees for recovery and slam ropes in between sets. Heck, you do crunches in your sleep. Because until those damn abs do not show up, you are not fit. You are not strong and you are not working hard enough. Now drop and give me 10 pushups…and jump squats, pull-ups plus run 5K. After that, you’re not yet done.

Those three right there, are all present in me. I may not be a mom but I fend for myself most of the time so I could just imagine what real moms actually go through. The fierce roles are endless and I could go on all day–or you could help build this list through the comments section below. Come on, it’ll be fun. 😉

Anyway, in a struggle to keep up with our inner Sasha Fierce, we forget that Beyonce is also human who needs to get off the spotlight too.  Alright, I’m quitting the Sasha Fierce-Beyonce analogy already!

Lately, I find myself asking why we keep hammering ourselves. We get so carried away by the pace of how things around us run. And we all know that in this day and age, everything goes at a minimum speed of 100MBPS.

So slow down and celebrate who you are and what you have achieved. The only way we can be at par with the standards we set for ourselves is to make a compromise, to hit a balance between pushing to the limit and accepting that what we’re doing, who we are and what we’re giving out is ENOUGH.

YOU ARE ENOUGH. And ENOUGH is just as beautiful as PERFECT.

Happy International Women’s Day.

There is still much more work to be done when it comes to fighting for gender parity. While we celebrate all that women around the globe have achieved, see how else we can do more through http://www.internationalwomensday.com

Featured Image: femmeandfortune.com