My life changed when I realized I had a voice and started to use it.
I know I’m not alone with my experience of not using my voice, so I thought I’d toss out some insight into a few of our behaviours that silence our voices and therefore reduce our chance at the best fucking life ever!
You know what I mean by best life, right? It’s the one where you don’t worry about being yourself because you know who you are down to your heels, and you’re working in ways that align to that. You’re operating from your own script, and are confident in what you need to do to get there.
And what woman doesn’t want to stop worrying about being herself?
So dive in! And pullllleeeeezzzze, hit reply and tell me any ways that you’ve experienced that I’ve missed!
- We say “Fine” whenever someone asks how we are. We don’t want anyone to make a fuss.
- We don’t want to speak our opinion in front of a crowd. It’s no one’s business anyway.
- We wonder about what others may think of our Facebook posts, and edit them a little or a lot. I don’t need the stress of an argument on Facebook.
- We curtail our silliness, especially in professional circles. Professional means not being me.
- We hesitate asking for a re-do of our messed up coffee order. It was an honest mistake.
- We adjust our volume to the volume of whoever is speaking to us. Being louder would make us stand out.
- We hesitate to tell the person who butts into the line we’re in where the end actually is. They probably didn’t notice.
- We feel like we could never tell our moms that we don’t want to hear what they are telling us. We would never want to hurt her feelings.
- We don’t ask for help when we need it. Other people need more.
- We try really, really hard to not be different. Different makes us noticeable.
- We struggle with perfectionism and comparison-itis (Yes, that’s a word!) If I can only get this right…
- We blame others for making us feel bad, uncomfortable or wrong. Blaming is way easier than challenging others.
I could go on and on and on with this list!
Before you start kicking yourself for doing one or more things on this list, remember that EVERYTHING STARTS WITH AWARENESS!
And awareness is not just about understanding what’s holding us back, it’s also about how we want to be in relation to other people. Using our voices isn’t about being disrespectful, rude or mean. It means that instead of ignoring our needs from a place of fear or retribution, we consider how we want to manage situations and do what aligns us with the women we are.
Is the issue of using your voice something that resonates with you? When you’ve been silenced by others or by yourself, what are you feeling in your body? Where do you feel it?
Learning to use your voice takes time and plenty of compassion for yourself. After all, we’re not perfect humans. (Do they even exist?) We are full of past scars and beliefs about ourselves that, if followed, take us down paths that have us being someone other than ourselves. A shadow of who we really are.
And we’re not here to be shadows. We’re here to rock this lifetime in ways that only we can.
We’re here to be us.
Dianna xo
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