Safety is not something the room gives you. Safety is something you create from the inside.

Hello beautiful soul

I heard a story recently that made me weep.

And I don't just mean a little glassy eyed darling. I am talking ACTUAL tears. Running. Down. My. Face. 

It was a Selkie story.

A Selkie — for those who have not met one yet — is a mythical creature from Scottish and Irish folklore. In the sea she is a seal. Free. Powerful. Fully herself. When she comes ashore she sheds her seal skin and becomes a woman.

Here is what happens next.

He finds her coat and hides it. She asks for it back, he says no. He asks her to marry him. She is not sure. He says give me seven years and if you do not like it you can leave. So she agrees. 

She builds a whole life on land. Has a child. Tries to be happy.

But gradually her sparkle fades. The opposite of the glow up. The glow down.

She yearns to feel alive again. She asks her husband for the coat. He says no. So she has to go on a whole hero's journey just to get back what was always hers.

And the moment she puts it back on — something in her remembers exactly who she is.

She goes back to the water. Not out of cruelty. Out of necessity.

I wept because I know this woman.

I have been this woman. More than once. 

The first time I had my "coat" taken I was nineteen years old. I walked into my first marriage and I did not walk back out as myself until I was thirty. Eleven years. And by the time I left I was so far from the woman I had started as that I genuinely could not have told you who she was anymore.

The man painted himself one way, talked his way into my heart with a serious of untruths. The coat didn't come off all at once, but in tiny moments that unfolded in the direction of him being in full coercive control over me, who I saw and what I did. 

I called it the invisible cage in my TEDx recently. And that name is appropriate, because you are in a cage that really isn't there, and actually, has the door wide open, but you become primed to stay and serve. 

I didn't just lose my sparkle in that marriage, I actively rotted in it. 

The second time was more subtle. More insidious. Because by then I knew what losing myself felt like — I had done it more than once already. And yet.

In my second marriage I started to feel it again. Not all at once. In microscopic ways. My husband using his emotions to steer what I did, where I went, who I was allowed to be. Small things: "Are you wearing that tonight?" "Ahhhh but I just want to be at home with you, not go out.". But I know what this is now. I could feel the cage forming around me like an allergic reaction. My body knew before my mind was ready to admit it.

And when I look at pictures of myself towards the end of that marriage — I look different. My hair was falling out. My skin was grey and dry. My digestion had stopped working properly. My body was screaming what my brain did not want to hear.

That is the thing about losing your coat. It does not always announce itself.

Sometimes somebody hides it and calls it love.

Sometimes an organisation slowly asks you to be less of yourself and calls it professionalism.

Sometimes a leadership role that looks incredible on paper starts to require you to do things that feel wrong in your gut and you push the feeling down because the job is too good to walk away from.

I have felt that pull in corporate life too. Sitting in rooms where things were happening around me that were not in alignment with who I am. Being asked — not always in words — to leave parts of myself at the door. To be a more palatable, more manageable, more convenient version of Ruth.

And here is what I have learned from all of it.

You cannot always control the environment. You cannot make other people behave well. You cannot guarantee that the room is safe — it is full of humans, and humans are going to keep doing what humans do.

But you CAN always come back to this question.

Am I in integrity with myself right now?

Not — is the room safe. Not — will they react well. Not — is this the right moment.

Am. I. In. Integrity. With. Myself?

This came up in a coaching session recently with a client who is a formidable leader. Genuinely extraordinary. And she was still catching herself holding back in meetings. Apologising before she had even said the thing. Softening the message so it would not fully land.

And we landed on something together that I want to offer you now.

Safety is not something the room gives you. Safety is something you create from the inside.

I am safe when I am in integrity with myself. I am safe when I do not leave myself behind.

And here is the part that people miss. Being in integrity does not always mean you say the exact right thing in the moment. Sometimes you do not. But then you come back and you say — actually, I was not fully honest there. There is something else I need to say.

That is still integrity. Maybe more so.

I cannot say I have always lived this. I have not. But what I can say is that these days I know the moment I am stepping out of integrity. It feels jarring now. Physical. Like a wrong note in a piece of music I know by heart. My body flags it before my brain has even processed it.

And that is the whole point.

Your body is the thing. Your body is everything.

Not your CV. Not your performance review. Not what your manager thinks or what the org chart says or what your brain is telling you about how good this job looks from the outside.

Your body.

Because your brain — clever, ambitious, achingly hopeful brain — will talk you into things your body already knows are wrong. It will tell you this is fine, this is manageable, this is worth it, this will get better. It will do that especially when it wants something badly. The big job. The sexy company. The husband you love soooooooooo very much.

Your brain does not want to see that the thing it wants is the thing that is costing you your coat.

Your body ALWAYS knows.

The hair falling out knows. Your skin knows. The digestion that stops working knows. The sparkle that quietly leaves your eyes knows.

So here is what I want to ask you today.

Where is your coat right now...?

Not metaphorically. Specifically. What have you been asked to leave behind — in your career, your relationships, your leadership — in order to belong somewhere? What parts of yourself have you been hiding so long that you have almost forgotten they are there?

Because the moment you put the coat back on — something in you will remember exactly who you are.

That is the work we do inside Women Who Lead. Not just strategy. The return to yourself. The reclamation of the parts of you that got hidden somewhere along the way.

And if you want to start finding out where your coat has been hiding — try my free Career Freedom Assessment here: careerfreedom.ruthpenfold.com

Ten minutes. It will tell you something true. Pinky swear. 

You were never the problem.

Rooting for you always

Ruth x