Lesson in leavin’
The disappearing act
The mask fully fell off this time. His face twisted into rage and for the first time I really understood what the word “sneer” looks like.
“I heard you have a problem with the way things are done around here.”
I was about to leave the community in Guatemala where I had been living and learning for a few months. I was paying to learn about mushroom cultivation, but for some odd reason, the women seemed to spend a lot of time working in the kitchen while the men were mostly in the lab.
A feeling of exploitation was growing among the residents of the school and the grievances kept bubbling up between us. I decided that before leaving, I would share how I felt exploited as a work exchanger in this community. I thought it might make things a little better for the next batch of women who came through.
But sitting in that meeting with that man glaring a hole through me, I knew I had made a mistake. He wasn’t going to hear a word I had to say.
“You are the only one who seems to have a problem. I have never heard these complaints before.”
He hadn’t heard them because everyone was afraid of him.
“Before I started this school, I was traveling the world and making love with beautiful women on beaches. And I gave it all up to share my knowledge.”
Now I was biting my cheeks to keep from laughing. This was so CHEESY.
I walked away from that meeting learning a lesson for not the first, but also not the last time. It would take several more years before I truly understood:
Your greatest tool is your presence.
Never underestimate the power of disappearing.
When you are undervalued or exploited, it’s likely that your voice is going to fall on deaf ears. The only thing an environment like that might respond to is you removing your presence. If multiple people can walk away at once, that is the most powerful move of all.
There were so many times in my career as a teacher or as a traveler in a bad situation when I felt like I simply had to speak up. I sat in many meetings and said my piece several times before I realized that it was futile.
If something is truly toxic, the only thing to do is to walk away.
A disappearing act does a few things:
👻It sends out the signal that you value yourself. You are not willing to tolerate what is happening and it is so troubling to you that you won’t even engage anymore.
👻 The people who stay might start asking questions. They may not leave, but seeing you do it can start the process of them wondering if they deserve better too.
👻 It builds trust within yourself. You start to trust that you will pull yourself out of situations that are not okay instead of pushing down your discomfort.
Beyond removing your personal presence, the most powerful move that a collective can make is to all disappear together. Like on Women’s Day Off, when an entire country full of women removed their presence and watched an empire crumble.
The most frustrating part of walking away is knowing that the system will probably keep going. As soon as I left the classroom in a toxic school, a teacher fresh out of college filled my place. I’m leaving a community I’m visiting in a couple days knowing that a fresh traveler will replace me in no time at all.
I can only decide what I am and am not willing to tolerate. These days, I remove my presence faster and without explanation. There will be no meeting this time, because I know the lack of my presence is my statement.
Sometimes I imagine what the world would be like if women as a collective started disappearing from places that take them for granted.
The shenanigans from toxic boyfriends would cease to exist if they knew that no woman was going to tolerate it.
Entire systems would crumble if women decided to stop giving their free labor to uphold them.
Every time a person, but especially a woman, raises her standards and walks away sooner, we all benefit from it.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is disappear.