It's your time to be heard
It's New Years Eve...
There’s so much you want to say, so much you want to share with your family and friends, you’ve a lot of your own thoughts about what they discuss constantly but you say nothing. You’ve got opinions but you’ve learned its best not to say anything and to keep them to yourself. It’s safer that way. Easier.
Your preference is always to opt for the easy life. Only this isn’t the easy life. This is you making it easier for everyone else but not you. Isn’t that true?
This is you prioritising everyone else’s needs ahead of your own. You convince yourself, that it’s better not to make things worse, to say nothing and keep saying it but can’t you see that every time you deny yourself the chance to speak your truth, you’re turning your back on yourself and saying no to who you really are and what you really think.
"Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."
Steve Jobs
Let’s be honest, traditionally this time of year we spend more time than usual with our family and therefore tensions can often be more present. Despite this year being quite different, it doesn’t mean that we can avoid those feelings of just not being heard or seen in our families.
The best example I have of this, is the multiple and conflicting opinions around how we should behave in these 'covid' times with some of us feeling more nervous being in larger groups than others. The varying levels of compliance itself can instantly cause additional stress to an already stressful situation, resulting in you feeling uncomfortable in your surroundings. The pandemic may be an extreme example but you get the point.
Sometimes we find ourselves going along with situations and remaining silent because we are afraid if we do speak up we will be knocked down.
Which brings me to exactly what is it that we are afraid of. Why do we say nothing? Why do we feel our opinion doesn’t matter and why do we choose to stay silent?
Well, mostly, because if we do we think we will be rejected, criticised, judged, laughed at. We are scared that if we do express our true feelings that we will be seen for who we really are and not who we think they want us to be! Does that sound familiar?
We hide behind the notion that this is just how and who we are, that we are 'people pleasers' and that it causes a lot less confrontation for us to be this way! We dismiss it in the interest of keeping the peace. If we are being totally honest we allow ourselves to celebrate our martyrdom!
The biggest thing is to feel free to let your voice be heard, let your story be heard.
Why then is it that some people feel so ready and always able to express their opinions and rarely shy away from the opportunity to do just that regardless of whose company they are in? What makes them capable of expressing how they feel and not immediately be banished to a different kingdom?
Well the answer is simple. It’s because they believe in themselves enough, are confident in who they are, to the point that they feel they have a right to be heard. They feel their voice has as much right to be heard as anyone else’s. Which of course it has!
They don’t go down the path of overthinking what might be the impact of sharing their own personal views and clearly, once they know that they are coming from a good place, then this is where we should all be. Where we all want to get to.
Bravely, be you.
To get there we need to understand where we have come from. When was it we stopped speaking up?
Who told us it was not safe for us to speak our truth and better that we pretend, even to ourselves.
Well, it is possible that, growing up, someone along the way told you it was better to keep silent. It may have been a parent, a teacher, a friend or even a colleague who may have told you directly or unconsciously communicated the message to you that sharing your honest opinion would result in people liking you less. Even as I write this I can feel the heaviness of this sentence.
Too many of us hear this and don’t quite recognise the destruction it can lead to. Being told to be quiet, to be seen not heard, that nobody likes an incessant chatterbox, that silence is golden. It’s such an innocent message yet with quite dangerous undertones.
Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes.
In order for us to make positive changes in our lives we must feel good about ourselves and believe that we deserve change and all that it brings us.
But in order for us to relate to our feelings of self-worth we must always feel able to be ourselves, to express ourselves, to go after what matters to us, to speak our truth.
When we fully connect with this freedom to be who we really are we feel more in alignment and it is there that the magic happens.
When we work on the belief that our opinion doesn’t matter, we deny those close to us getting to know the real us and worse still, it encourages us to be someone that we aren’t.
How many times these last few weeks did you wish you had something or that you felt able to express your view?
How many times did you let how others might react impact on who you showed up as?
Let’s promise therefore to make a concerted effort to work on letting this practice go and to learn how to prioritise ourselves, to find that courage within us to say what we think and how we feel. To be more you.
You deserve to be heard and you most certainly deserve to feel free to be you. How can I be so sure? Because we all do. Every single one of us has a right to be heard.
Identify and understand where this started for you and use this awareness and begin to release the hold that this belief has over you. Then slowly and gently practice offering your true views. Start small, give yourself small achievable goals of things to say and do, then build on them. Piece by piece.
Think of it like a muscle – the more you do it, the easier it will come to you and remember, you have a right to be seen and heard - don't dim just to fit in.