Many of us have difficulties speaking our truth and don’t feel heard. Our voice is often timid and without the conviction that we actually have something important to say. When people interrupt us, and assert their loudness, we retreat even further into ourselves and doubt ourselves, feeling ignored and shamed. While we have gotten used to being overlooked and overheard, it is now time to find within ourselves the strength to overcome this and rebuild our self-respect. When we have awareness that we have difficulty speaking our truth, we can take steps to heal our lack of confidence and trust in ourselves.
This is one of the terrible effects of patriarchal dominance that stifled the voices of ethnic minorities, girls and women, but also of boys and men. Many of us grew up with bullies or narcissists, and are used to being shut up by others. The generations of our parents and grandparents for the most part treated children, just like they were treated, as if they were stupid and inferior. Children were to seen, but not heard, and were not allowed to have a voice of their own. The natural expression of the child’s free spirit and voice was stomped out in favor of having well-formed, quiet, obedient children.
It is no wonder that so many people have trouble expressing themselves, and carry a devastating lack of self-worth that has shaped their lives. Some stayed with the victim role, feeding their inferior complex, while others took the same conditioning and turned the tables, becoming bullies themselves, acting superior to others. But the underlying issue is nonetheless our wounded ego, and this is what has to be healed in all of us.
We can observe ourselves in social situations to see what we need to heal. Are we competitive, feeling that in order to measure up, we have to go over ourselves and make jokes, and steer and control the conversation? Or are we quiet, and when we speak, people interrupt us, and push us out of their way? How do we feel when we are around certain people? Who of our friends and family circle pauses to hear us out, and encourages us by asking for our opinion, and who doesn’t let us get a word in edgewise? Where do we feel that we don’t count, and where do we feel seen and heard?
We cannot change other people, but we can learn to say what we need to say. We can state that we don’t want to be interrupted, and request respect. But often people don’t fully respect us because we do not respect ourselves. We do not believe in the validity of what we are saying. We don’t like the sound of our voice, and speak without conviction. And so we have to dig a lot deeper than to just asking others to give us a chance to speak. We have to find when we stopped believing in ourselves, and when our freedom of expression was so stifled that we were choked into silence. We have to peel away the layers of trauma and abuse, and the projections of others, that made us hate ourselves and feel ashamed of ourselves at a cellular level.
With compassion and acceptance for ourselves, for who we were then, and for who we have become, and with deep honesty, we have to heal all that took away pieces of our soul, and left us so uncertain, and void of self-worth, and without trust in ourselves. We have to do the messy work of excavating the beautiful being that we are underneath the heaps of other people’s projections. And we have to start giving ourselves the love that we need, the ear to listen, and the approval and acceptance we deserve. We have to find our wounded inner child, and start being the parent to ourselves that we needed growing up.
When we have awareness of the patterns and behaviors that we grew up with and are habitually reacting from, we can learn to change them – one moment at a time. We can be there for ourselves, regardless of that other people do or say. We can let go of being goodie-two-shoes, and find our will. We can rebuild trust in ourselves, and learn to have our own back. And when we speak, we can practice to speak up, and hold our heads high, giving ourselves the validation we never received. It’s okay to shake during an important conversation or confrontation, and to be scared of coming out of our comfort zone.
If we want to be heard by others, we have to do the inner healing work, and learn to be authentic. We will know where we need to stand up for ourselves, or set healthy boundaries. But if that is all we are doing, and we are avoiding doing the work within ourselves, nothing will change, and we will continue attracting the same type of bullying, overbearing, loud people into our lives. As we find our voice and expression of self, we may find that we prefer our own sacred company to being around people who have the need to prove something. We may find that we still feel awkward in crowds, but that we don’t have to hide anymore. And we may find that we don’t need to say a lot, but when we speak, we speak with authority and self-respect, and because of that people listen…
Neha