You See What Happens When You Learn to Speak Your Truth

Image by Dean Moriarty from Pixabay 

I’ve spent a lifetime subscribing to the “feel the fear and do it anyway” mantra, now so ingrained in my psyche after Susan Jeffers’ first published a book by this name back in 1987. I even bought a copy of that book in the 1990’s but, if I read it, I absorbed only what I was able to hear at the time, unable to see certain truths about myself at that point.

Another quote by Susan Jeffers that I read today tells me I definitely missed the deeper meaning. She said “the less you need someone’s approval, the more you are able to love them”. Now I realise it’s a quote about having a healthy sense of self esteem and being able to communicate my boundaries with ease.

Back then I had no clue what a personal boundary was, I’d never been allowed them in the traditional do as I say upbringing. All I would have taken from that quote would have been a further affirmation that I needed to do what I must to ensure I was not reliant upon anyone else’s approval. That meant becoming highly independent, self reliant and extremely resourceful. 

Having decided no one was ever going to intimidate me, I grew into a woman who was fiercely independent and who spoke truth to those in any kind of perceived hierarchical power. Given this, I would not immediately resonate with a fear of speaking my truth.

Yet alongside my speaking truth to power persona, sat a hypersensitivity to how others feel. This resulted in a temperament that was outwardly confident, aggressive if pushed, yet full of internal anxiety.

Being hypersensitive to others’ emotions, I am fully aware of the huge spectrum of emotions felt and expressed, but it was Gary Zukov who first introduced the idea to me that there are only two types of emotion, those based in love and those based in fear.
 
As Kryssie Thomas says in Fear and Love are the Only 2 Emotions You Have to Work With “Love is what we were born knowing, feeling and expressing, fear is what we are taught and learn from outside sources.”
 
This simplification helped me to see that fear was something I have felt in many different ways in my life; I am certainly no stranger to stress, anxiety and tension.
 
Currently I’m learning to calmly and confidently express my thoughts, feelings, needs, desires and ideas with a newfound awareness of the need to speak my truth and express my personal boundaries upstream (rather than downstream when they’ve already been crossed).

Having had a heavy conversation with someone this week in an attempt to practice this, I was aware that my neck was extremely tense and sore afterwards. I sat in silence and closed my eyes to inwardly observe the pain I was feeling, it is the kind of pain caused by the muscles on either side on my neck really tightening up. I was curious to see what it had to teach me.

From an energetic standpoint, the neck sits in the area of the throat chakra, and one of the things that can cause a blockage in that area is a fear of speaking.

The heavy conversation I had just had was with my partner. Over the course of this year, between him being incapacitated for a while after breaking his leg and then having had the COVID19 lockdown, our relationship has had a thorough spring clean and is in pretty good shape.
 
Given this, and my newfound awareness of the need to speak my truth, I felt it was time to tackle a few of the niggly things that come up now and again.
 
This was not an ultimatum type conversation, nor was there anything that was in current contention, so there was nothing obvious that would make this conversation heavy. That was the part that made it curious, why did I experience such a high level of anxiety about speaking my truth?
 
Of course I recognise my own childhood patterns, I know that – like all kids who are literally dependant on others for their survival - this is where it has its roots. But I am no longer that child, I now have the choice to live in ways that continue to suppress me, or to act differently.
 
I’ll put it simply, I felt vulnerable, and – in a way – I did feel as though my life (as I know it) was in danger. It triggered my flight or fight response as I struggled to stay present in the conversation when it was taking place, rather than descending into defense mode.
 
On the face of it, our relationship is one that could be described as healthily interdependent. Our roles and responsibilities allow each of us to contribute our gifts and to fulfil our roles in a mutually satisfying way and to the benefit of our family.

But it’s also kind of scary to a person like me who is fiercely independent. That reliance on another for my survival is what makes anything I or they might perceive as rocking the boat dangers waters for me.
 
Looking at that word survival, I’m not talking about physical life or death in this context, I know I’d survive. In fact, given my belief that everything that happens in my life happens for a reason, I even have faith that all would be well in the longer term.
 
In the short to medium term, however, the whole construct of our day to day life, including that of our children, would turn upside down if the relationship was to hit the rocks.
 
It is this that made the conversation heavy. It wasn’t about the topic at hand, it was the weight of the decision to step outside my lifetime pattern, to take a risk and speak my truth without it being fuelled by the anger and indignation of a boundary long overstepped.
 
Looking back on our conversation, I watched my partner’s body language change from easy and relaxed to the boat being rocked as I delved in and he endeavoured to take in what I was saying. As I replayed the scene in my mind afterward, I became aware of underlying tension in my body the moment I’d finished talking and awaited his reaction.
 
Of course, as I’ve said, this was not a make or break type conversation, and after he had time to process things, it later led to a useful and supportive discussion. This was the reward I was seeking and, as clunky as it might have been speaking my truth, my courage had paid dividends and led to more authenticity in our relationship.
 
But the space in the middle, the one in which I was observing my neck pain and he had gone about the rest of his day, processing what I’d said, I can now see was fraught with anxiety as I reflected on the wisdom of speaking my truth.
 
Now that I can see all of this so clearly, I can also see the many times in the past I’ve failed to speak my truth upfront in a situation and understand why my needs have not been honoured. Instead I’ve hinted at them or gone about expressing them indirectly, hoping the other person would get it, and getting angry when they did not.

The voices in my head that would keep me from expressing myself upfront were not explicitly voices of fear in the sense that I feared that person, but I most definitely feared their reaction. In a subconscious bid to gain their approval and maintain the relationship, I had never learned to assert my feelings, desires or needs in a healthy way.

This would apply in all relationships, personal, professional or transactional. My need to maintain calm on the surface would lead to turmoil beneath and sudden raging storms when it was all too much. In this way the other person could rarely hear me because my anger would trigger their flight or fight response and we would butt heads or they’d run scared.

It is not enough to feel the fear and do it anyway when it comes to speaking my truth, I have to identify what my truth is and cultivate the habit of expressing my views, needs and desires upfront – long before I get so angry that no one can hear me.

If you’ve spent your life putting others first and not wanting to rock the boat, perhaps it’s time to find the courage and figure out how to express what you want, think and need? Once we can each do that, we can live in authentic relationship with the people and world around us, something that creates a win-win for everyone.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, There is Nothing to Fear, Heal Your Past Hurts To Help You Fulfill Your Potential and Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.