Inspiration for Your New Year
#3. Speak Your Truth
I said previously that showing up may be the hardest part, but so is speaking your truth! Like with “simply” showing up and being present, speaking your truth really requires being seen. When we say what we’re feeling, and what we really want or need, we make ourselves vulnerable. And that’s scary for a lot of us. (And if you aren’t scared of that you’re probably not telling the truth!)
We aren’t taught in this culture to be vulnerable – in fact we’re taught the opposite. Suck it up. Soldier on. Gitter done. Does that sound familiar to you? I’ve written elsewhere about Brene Brown and her work on vulnerability. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to visit her website at brenebrown.com or read one of her books.
To handle the discomfort of speaking our truth – and therefore being vulnerable – many of us develop ways to get around speaking our truth. So we contain it. If we’re not speaking it, we’re containing it. But containing – to the degree that many of us do – is really hard work. This means that often it’s coming out somehow. We may become passive aggressive. We may imbibe in alcohol or substances to numb ourselves to the pain of containing our truth. We may contain so much that eventually our truth has to come out – and when it does hold on! We explode all over the place.
Instead, it can be helpful to ask, what are we avoiding when we avoid speaking our truth? Are we successfully avoiding it or just putting it off? What would my future self want me to do or say right now?
What truth are you holding on to? How can you get help in learning how to speak it?
If you’d like to get more help, call me.
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