The Arena

You'll find it at the intersection of pissiness and peace

This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited so probably features some stutters and re-starts. If you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it.

---

Thanks so much for your thoughtful emails and comments after Wednesday’s post. Words are an imperfect tool to express complex feelings, but I believe we need to try anyway.

💚💚

Also, I have a question about some upcoming mini-workshops I’d like to run here on The Tortoise during the second half of the year. If you have an extra minute after reading today’s letter, I’d really appreciate your input and have listed a few options at the end of this post.

Image via Kristaps Ungurs on Unsplash

Last week, I had a broom-powered epiphany about the external dissenting voices we all hear — those we listen to and those we don’t — and asked for feedback on how you personally turn down the volume on unhelpful ones.

As expected, you gave me so much to think about. Many of you offered quotes, tools and visualisations that help you navigate this stuff, and many more shared your experiences. We all face criticism, judgement and well-meaning yet unrequested advice. Sometimes, those inputs can be helpful if we’re in a headspace (and actually want) to absorb them, but much more often, they simply become another voice in the chorus; drowning out our intuition.

When it comes to living rebelliously, we need to learn how to access that intuition more often, not less; to turn the volume down on the chorus so the voice of knowing rings out more clearly.

Which is all well and good. But, as many of you asked last week: How can I even tell which voice is mine?

When we lose touch with that sense of knowing, when it’s hard to discern between our own voice and those that are simply regurgitating the advice of others and society's expectations — how do we know which ones to turn down?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a quick answer to that question. I think slowing down, learning to get quiet, practising the art of noticing — especially noticing the physical feeling we get when something resonates — can all help us recognise which voices belong to us and which don’t.

Honestly though? I also think it might help to get a little pissy.

Tap into your inner fire. The steel at your core. You have it. I know you do. We all do.

Find it. Lean on it. Embrace it. Then use it to acknowledge something you already know: that not every voice, comment, piece of advice or scrap of judgemental bullshit tossed your way deserves your time, consideration or energy.

Reclaim some of your peace.

This Brené Brown quote sums it up perfectly:

“If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticising from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.”

I mean. Yowza. I feel simultaneously fired up and more at ease when I read this. So much so that I have part of it stuck on the noticeboard behind my computer.

Of course, I think our mate Brené is talking about specific criticism — people coming for her work, for her character because of her work, for any shortcomings or blind spots they perceive her to have. And while I’ve been on the receiving end of these kinds of judgements and found this mindset super helpful, I think the ‘arena’ idea applies just as well to those of us with rebellious hearts, who sometimes struggle to move forward in ways that feel purposeful and intentional.

It also might help to first define your arena (or arenas — there are likely more than one). Maybe your arena is the season of life you’re in, the current challenges you’re facing, the work you do, a combination of all those or something else entirely. But once you know what it looks like, you get to own that arena. To defend it. To choose which voices carry weight there and which simply float away, unheeded.

Then, if someone comes at you with judgement or criticism, and you can see they’re not right there with you, in that same arena, you know their input is largely irrelevant.

For example, if you’re raising teenagers now (Hi! Hello! What a ride!) in a world filled with sinister tech and rampant misinformation and spiking rates of mental illness and huge global crises that you can’t always protect them from, you are under no obligation to take on board the criticism of someone with a newborn, or no children, or someone who has raised children but not in this set of circumstances.

If you have a set of personal values and you work hard to put those priorities at the centre of your life, day in and day out, you are under no obligation to listen to the judgement of someone with an entirely different set of values.

If you are passionate about a cause, and give your time, effort and energy to it — campaigning, volunteering, advocating, showing up for it in your life — you don’t need to pay attention to the disapproval of someone who does none of those things. 

Refusing to take criticism on board won’t stop it from existing. In fact, when we dare to stand firm in our arena, when we know our values and live accordingly, we will attract cynics and those who want to criticise. And it stings. Believe me, I get it.

But we cannot control what people say, just like we cannot control why they say it. We can, however, control how loudly it plays in our heads and develop ways to turn down the voices that aren’t relevant.

That might mean a shift in mindset, away from people-pleasing and towards this arena mentality. But it also might mean that we choose to ignore it completely (often efficient but not particularly satisfying). We can push back (much more satisfying but potentially quite tiring). Or we can offer a polite smile, a closed ear and make use of one of these very helpful phrases. Let’s call them protection phrases, shall we?

• “Oh, that’s interesting.”

• “Well, that’s another way of looking at it.”

• “That hasn’t been my experience, but I can see how you might think that.”

• “I haven’t heard that theory before.”

• “There’s an idea.”

They won’t necessarily shut down a conversation, and often, the person they’re directed at won’t clock them at all. But they do signal to you, very clearly, that there is a barrier between their words and your heart.

A reminder that you don’t need to adopt their judgement, you don’t need to consider it, you don’t need to take it as anything other than words not meant for you.

But what about advice?

The irony is not lost on me that, after reading my words back, I feel like they’re almost too harsh. (People-pleasing is a spectrum I guess. Ha!)

And for what it’s worth, I believe there’s a big difference between “you should be doing it this way” criticism and genuinely offered advice. But even well-meaning advice, if not actively sought, can feel pointed and deflating.

If, however, we’re open to it, if it’s offered from a place of kindness, if it’s based on past experience and paired with an understanding that circumstances are different, there can be much to learn from those who’ve come before us.  

So, if you have trusted voices, mentors, thinkers, writers or speakers you resonate with, leave yourself open to them and their advice. But also give yourself permission to hold on to the bits that work, letting the rest drop through your fingers.

It’s your arena. You get to decide.

---

What do you think? Do you think this mentality might help you when making your own counter-cultural decisions? As a way to siphon off the noise of criticism and judgment?

Also! Before you go, I have an idea I’d like to run by you. As many of you know, I’ve previously run online retreats and workshops for paying supporters. (You can find them here if you’re curious.)

For the second half of 2024, I’d like to create shorter monthly workshops with a much more specific focus, and I’d love to know which of these ideas resonates:

• SLOW: Mini-workshops based on slow living principles. Workshops would include things like:

  • Legacy

  • Decluttering

  • De-owning

  • Disconnecting

  • Mindfulness

  • Balance

  • What to do when it all falls apart

• CARE: Mini-workshops that cover different (non-commercialised) approaches to self-care:

  • Connection

  • Kindness

  • Awe

  • Nature

  • Creativity

  • Movement

  • Play

  • Rest

• RITUALS: Mini-workshops that focus on tiny, repeated behaviours and how they can impact our lives:

  • Single-tasking

  • Unplugging

  • Three things

  • Morning rhythms

  • Evening rhythms

  • Tilting

  • Noticing

If you’ve read my books, some of these ideas probably sound familiar. I really like the idea of pulling the central ideas off the page and putting them in highly practical, accessible formats, and would love to know your thoughts.

If any of this sounds interesting and you’d like to (and are in a financial position to) become a paying supporter of The Tortoise, you can manage your subscription here:

Beyond that, I hope you have a lovely weekend wherever in the world you may be. Thanks for sticking with me this week with a slightly wonky publishing schedule. I’ll be back in your inboxes on Sunday with a 1% experiment update.

Until then, take very good care.
Brooke xx