underestimation
The Cinderella Wound
Some women are overlooked not because they lack depth, but because their depth is inconvenient.
This piece explores the Underestimation wound and why being overlooked was never about your worth.
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Transcript From The Audio
I remember a conversation with an older acquaintance, someone I respected, someone whose opinion I thought I wanted.
And I remember thinking halfway through the conversation: “I'm not expressing myself here. What I want to say is not coming out properly. I feel unheard, dismissed, even.”
I returned to that conversation again and again, wondering what happened there. Why?
And then I realised I had spoken with the authority of someone decades older than I appear, and that was unsettling for them.
“Suddenly, I was not younger. I was an equal. Or worse, I was someone who saw clearly and they were not ready to be seen”
It threatened their sense of place. It reorganised the hierarchy of the interaction. Suddenly, I was not younger. I was an equal. Or worse, I was someone who saw clearly, and they were not ready to be seen.
To return the dynamic to something more comfortable, dismissal happened. Because dismissal is easier than acknowledging depth that does not match expectation.
This is what underestimation looks like. Being overlooked because you don't match. Because you don't fit the containers others have assigned you. The outer schematics don't match the inner landscape.
It isn't that I was speaking wrong. I was speaking to someone who did not have the capacity or the willingness to see. And so I walked away feeling frustrated, unseen and questioning myself.
“When you have lived your life being dismissed for your age, your appearance, your gender, your softness,
your-whatever it is that makes them underestimate you. This wound runs deep”
In the story of Cinderella, Cinderella is not incapable. She is overlooked. She is kept in a position beneath her actual nature, not because she lacks something, but because the people around her cannot afford to see her clearly.
If they saw her, they would have to recognise their understanding. They would have to acknowledge that she was never less than them. So they don't see her.
“This is the wound: my perception must not matter. ”
And she begins to believe maybe there is something wrong with her. This is the wound: My perception must not matter because if others don't see it, maybe it's not real if others dismiss it. Maybe I'm wrong. If no one reflects my fullness back to me, maybe I'm not worthy
“If no one reflects my fullness back to me, maybe I am not worthy.”
In the body, this wound can look like: held breath, shrinking before even speaking, chronic indecision, because how can you trust your knowing when no one has ever confirmed it. It looks like: waiting for others to validate you before you act, speaking with an upward inflection like a question, even when you're certain. [It looks like:] making yourself smaller so that others don't have to confront what you actually carry.
The good girl who carries this wound learns to be invisible, learns not to threaten, learns to let others arrive at conclusions she reached long ago, and to act surprised when they do.
“She shrinks not because she is small, but because her size is inconvenient, so she waits for permission for recognition, for someone to finally see what has always been there.”
The truth about this wound is that you are never too young, too inexperienced, too soft to whatever they said.
You were too accurate, too clear, and too much of a mirror, and others could not hold it.
“This was never your failure.
It was their limitation.”
This wound taught you to doubt your perception. The healing is learning that your perception was never the problem.
“So what does the return look like? You stop waiting to be seen. Not because you no longer want recognition, but because you are no longer willing to abandon yourself while you wait for it. ”
You let yourself know what you know. You speak without shrinking. You stop making yourself easier to overlook.
And when dismissal happens, because it will, you no longer take it as evidence of inadequacy. You recognise it for what it is, somebody else's inability to hold what you embody.
*Images sourced via Pinterest. All rights belong to the original creators.*