Shady Bitch Lesson 4: Unhelpful Suggestions

Coach MK Fleming is the founder of Fitness Protection, LLC and advises her clients on living their best lives. 'Shady Bitch Lessons' is a special holiday series offered on her daily micropodcast, The Morning Mantra, available on Apple Podcasts, Castbox, and your favorite podcast player. Email mk@coachedandloved.com if you need a mantra or could use some coaching in Verbal Tennis!

Today's mantra is: ME NEXT ME NEXT!

Coach MK is here to make spirits BRIGHT and get you EXCITED to roll around in the verbal excrement toxic people will send your way this holiday season with some SHADY BITCH LESSONS.

Remember, I’m not encouraging you to be anything other than yourself: the goal here is to plant some seeds in your brain that can grow into trees, and when the moment is right you can pick off a nice switch and beat someone’s ego back into submission. Southern women have been doing it for centuries. Everyone else is a weak imitation- they were too good for charm school. No joke, this is where we learned this shit. I can cut without knives when I have to, and people aren't totally sure what's happening in the moment.

The golden rule for all Shady Bitches is the first rule of Improv: just go with it. You respond to WHATEVER is said to you. Respond to their words, not to your feelings. They KNOW they are hurting your feelings, that’s the whole point. That’s the source of their power. You can take that power back.

In lesson 1: we respond to phrases like, “I don’t understand…” with, “I know you don’t”

In lesson 2: we learned to meet TMI questions with TMI answers.

In lesson 3: we learned to receive a backhanded compliment.

Today, in lesson 4, we face Helpful Suggestions that do not help ANYONE.

Some of these suggestions are downright rude:

• Have you heard of those teeth whitening strips?

• Have you considered a haircut?

• Manicures are self-care, you know.

• They just opened a weight watchers down the street!

• You don’t HAVE to eat everything on your plate.

Others are packaged with a backhanded compliment, I mentioned these yesterday, we call those JESUS CHRIST!

Examples of the JESUS CHRIST! Include:

• You could be so much prettier if you’d just lose some weight.

• You will be an AMAZING mom, even if you never have kids of your own.

• Your kids would behave better if you’d spend more time with them.

If you’ve found yourself a deer in headlights in the wake of one of these comments, don’t be ashamed. It takes a minute to register that someone just said something terrible to you in front of other people, and by then your abuser has moved on. If you respond with hurt or anger you are unlikely to have support because what they said is only INDIRECTLY terrible. Why are you making a big deal about it/making me get involved? Just don’t listen to it!

“You’d be so much prettier if you’d cover up that gray”

My son is on the spectrum, and we spent a LOT of time in therapy practicing ‘responsive speech’, which is a fancy way of saying, “matching your response to what is said.” In this case, we would remind him to match the sentence structure: compliment plus helpful suggestion, and match the tone of the speaker.

“You’d be more popular if you kept those comments to yourself.”

Make sure you whisper or mumble this. You want to invite that indignant response, ‘WHAT?” Then, you say, a little too loudly, “I SAID THANK YOU! I LIKE YOUR HAIR, TOO!”

Executed correctly, you have everyone’s attention. The room will go a little quiet, people will start listening. They know what’s happening, and they won’t want to get involved. If they won’t take your side, you gotta do that for yourself.

Unless we are related. I’d be yelling across the table, “OH HELL YEAH! ME NEXT ME NEXT AUNT MICHELLE YOU NEED TO WAX YOUR CHIN!”

You handled that moment like a Shady Bitch, and your coach is VERY very proud. Maybe you can’t tell everyone to fuck off, but you don’t have to take it, either. No one has the right to ruin your holiday, and ANYONE who wants to learn can throw shade like a classy, sassy Southern Bitch.

Next, we take on: Fake cheerleading from bitches who never made the squad, ‘Now, don’t let ANYONE TELL YOU that you are a bad mother just because your kids pick their noses.”

Coach MK Fleming is the founder of Fitness Protection, LLC and advises her clients on living their best lives. 'Shady Bitch Lessons' is a special holiday series offered on her daily micropodcast, The Morning Mantra, available on Apple Podcasts, Castbox, and your favorite podcast player. Email mk@coachedandloved.com if you need a mantra or could use some coaching in Verbal Tennis!