Thursday Murmurings

Boredom, misogyny and advocating for yourself.

Kicking it off today with a shout out to Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the French Open this week to focus on her mental health. She released a statement before the tournament began saying she would not be doing press during the championship as she finds it stressful and it effects her mindset going into games. After her first match, she didn’t speak to the press and the tournament fined her $15,000, so she made the decision to step away.

While there is absolutely a debate to be had here about engaging with the press being part of an athlete’s job, I applaud any young woman who exercises her agency and advocates for herself and her needs. It cannot have been an easy decision for her to make, especially on the world stage. Hopefully her stance will get sports organisations to take a closer look at how they can prioritise athletes’ wellbeing.

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Some reads that caught my eye this week:

• The debate about the toxicity of social media seems endless. This piece about people’s social media habits changing during the pandemic is really interesting. I don’t know if it’s the result of the pandemic but my own online habits have definitely changed over the last couple of years. I find I’m not sharing nearly as much as I used to, preferring to keep certain elements of my life completely private. And there are select platforms I’m considering deleting my accounts from altogether - definitely couldn’t have seen myself saying that five years ago.

• Vox is doing a series of articles about ‘the bubblegum misogyny of 2000s pop culture’ and WHEW! Yes, this absolutely is worthy of dissection.

• Did you watch the Friends reunion? I’m not the only one who found it surprisingly emotional, right?

• This article about boredom was a timely read and necessary read for me.

  “There is this notion that we have to be in a constant state of doing, that doing things actually coincides with our worth.”

  *sticks hand in air* Yup, consider me guilty of that. Though I am slowly learning to lean into the quiet moments and appreciate stillness, presence, nothingness.

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On Monday’s paid edition of The Murmuration, I’m talking about managing your ego while you learn new things:

“Before we get good at anything, we have to suck at it. That’s just the way it goes. We must harness and embrace the sucky-ness.

The ego does not allow us patience. It resents the learning process. It wants to jump straight to mastery.”

The Monday edition of the newsletter is $5 per month/$50 for the year. Come join this growing private community - we want to murmur with you!

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Speaking of the Monday editions of The Murmuration, I want to do a multi-part deep-dive series on having children, looking at this from multiple perspectives:

• Those who have kids

• Those who are undecided about having kids

• Those who are happily child-free

• Those who want children but have fertility issues

• Those who are step parents

• Those who have adopted

I want this to be a super honest look at our experiences. My goal with The Murmuration is for it to be a safe space, an intimate community, where we can have these deeper conversations, free of judgement. If you fall into one of the above categories and would be happy to talk to me about your experience, please do drop me a line at bangs@bangsandabun.com. I’m happy to keep you anonymous, if it makes you more comfortable. Having these conversations helps us all learn and be better able to support each other and those in our lives who may be struggling with these issues.

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I was a guest recently on the Guards of Eden podcast - had a really great chat about my origin story and the weird twists and turns of my career.

You can have a listen here.

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Until next week, smile at strangers, spread good vibes, be nice to people.

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