Hey friend,

I caught the meanest voice in my house this week. Again.

And it wasn't another person. It was me.

I first caught the voice about a year and a half ago. Standing at the bathroom mirror at 7am, running my eyes over my own reflection like a building inspector who'd already decided to condemn the place. Picking it apart for what was structurally failing ;)

I'd worn that face for about forty years. The scanning, assessing, well-that's-unfortunate look. I could teach a masterclass in it.

And I'd have told you, completely sincerely, that I was just being realistic. Just noticing. Just a woman who keeps it real with herself, thank you very much.

But that morning, I slowed down enough to actually hear what I was saying to the woman in the mirror. (I don't know why it was that morning and not the ten thousand before it.) And friends. The words. The tone. The judgement.

I would never say those things to my daughters — real talk, I'd go full Mama Bear on anyone who tried. I wouldn't say those things to a friend. I wouldn't even say them to a stranger in traffic, and we all know that traffic tests my religion. But to her? Every single morning. Before the day had even started. Before she'd had a chance.

So why was that the first language I reached for, for me?

Here's the part that stopped me cold: that voice wasn't even mine. It was old. It had a tone I recognized from a long way back. I wasn't talking to myself as the woman I am today. I was talking to myself as the little girl who learned, somewhere, that love had to be earned by getting it right — that messing up was the kind of thing that got you noticed in all the wrong ways. Belonging meant being pleasing—to the eyes, ears, nose...and I guess we'll keep it PG and leave out mouth (*grin*). But young Rachel internalized that message.

I get into all of it on the new episode this week.

But friends...even though I've now done the hard work these last two years, and I'm so much more compassionate to myself, I still found that little girl taking back the microphone when perimenopause had a dress that fit great just last week now looking like a sausage casing. I'm a work in progress. We all are.

My choice? A loose, flowy, very comfortable dress that also managed to also look cute and not to look like a formless sack. Win win!

This Week's Rebel Minute: The Meanest Room You Live In

We talk a lot around here about the small, invisible moments where we abandon ourselves — the burnt corner of the casserole, the automatic "I'm fine," the apology that leaks out when your body has already said it's aggressively not. The bra you don't whip off because someone might stop by.

But the sneakiest one of all is the one nobody sees: the way we talk to ourselves when no one's listening. It's the most common self-abandonment there is. No audience. No conflict. Just you, a mirror, and a voice that betrays you faster than any room full of people ever could.

That one doesn't only belong to the big stuff, the boundary, the hard conversation. It belongs to the words in your own head. Speaking to yourself with contempt is a betrayal. Speaking to yourself with the same warmth you hand everyone else is self-respect. That's the practice.

You don't have to love the reflection. You just have to stop talking to her like she's the problem.

Three questions to take with you:

• Whose voice is it when you catch yourself being cruel to you?
• Would you say it, in that tone, to someone you love?
• What would change if you offered yourself the compassion and kindness you'd offer your loved one?

Your Permission Slips This Week

• You're allowed to get it wrong and still be a competent, capable woman.
• You're allowed to talk to yourself like someone you actually like.
• You're allowed to notice the old voice and decline to hand it the microphone.
• You're allowed to do the work, make the progress, and still slip up sometimes.
• You're allowed to make a mistake without holding a trial.
• You're allowed to be the grown woman in the room, not the little girl bracing to be found unworthy.

🎧 This Week on The Joyful Rebel

I get into exactly this on the new episode — the voice we'd never use on anyone we love, and how to start catching it in real time. → Listen Here → Or watch Here on YouTube.

On Goodbye, Good Girl

I went deeper on the little-girl-in-the-mirror piece over on Substack this week — the part underneath the funny story, the one I'm still untangling myself. I also renamed myself over there. You can find me at Goodbye, Good Girl, and that's where the slower, rawer excavation lives.

Favorite Find This Week

I'm reading the Your Big Leap Year, a devotional-style daily companion to Gay Hendricks' The Big Leap, and it contains bite-sized pieces on what he calls the "Upper Limit Problem" — the idea that we're quietly convinced we're only allowed so much good before we sabotage something to get back to our familiar amount of misery.

Friends. It is calling me out on a personal level I did not consent to. More on this soon, because I think it's a missing piece in the whole "why do we shrink right when life gets good" question. But let's just say, it has me highlighting and dog-earing like crazy. And yes, gasp! an author who dogears! But y'all, it's because I'm old and can't always remember things easily, so I'm all about giving future Rachel a hand-up.

So until next time...

Be kind to the woman in the mirror. She's doing better than that voice gives her credit for.

With Joy, Rachel

P.S. When the cruel voice shows up and you go blank — not sure what to even say instead — that's exactly what I built the $7 Rebel Response™ Mini Kit for. It's the exact scripts and strategies for the moment, the smallest first-step onto The Rebel Path™. Grab it here → rachelharrisonline.com/kit​

If someone forwarded this to you and you want your own, come find me at RachelHarrisOnline. Be a Rebel!