There’s a line in a song that I have always remembered—it goes, “Mother, I’m cut at the root like a weed ‘cause there’s no-one to hear my small story.” For me, that sums up a feeling that’s haunted me for years, of being small and of needing to shout in order to make myself heard in a world that feels big and cold.
Being small meant that I kept myself dreaming in my mind about all the great things I’d do, but left me cowering in fear that I wasn’t worthy of doing them. I’d compare myself to the rest of the world and find myriad ways that I came up short. I’d tell myself all the ways that I’m not perfect, measure myself again an impossible yardstick and let other people tell me who I am and shape my value.
This past week, I faced those feelings again and again head-on. My boss told me more than once that I’m not speaking up for myself enough and that I need to grow a backbone and stop letting others walk all over me. I heard her out, listened, and I can recognize that I have been trying to be nice at the expense of saying what I feel. And I can see that that has been in service of seeking validation because I have allowed others to name my worth. Moreover, I can see that I invited this experience in at just this time to help me get over the mountain of self-doubt that I have been scaling much of my life.
This co-worker even gave me words to use to speak up for myself. And at another time in my life, I might have parroted them, felt them foreign on my tongue and used them because another person had given me well-meaning advice. But they are not my words. They are not my experience, and they are not me. One size does not fit all.
That’s not to say that doing something unfamiliar to me isn’t the correct course of action, but that I know and I KNOW I know what jibes with who I truly am. And as well-meaning as others may be, only I get to say who that is and speak for my experience. A few weeks ago, I went to a conference about disabilities. There were over 1,200 people there from all over the world, and they represented a massive array of communities and backgrounds. But the one thing I kept hearing time and again over those two days I was there was, “Don’t speak for us. Don’t negate our experience by assuming that you know what is best or that you speak for what we feel.” And although I do not live in their bodies or experiences, I can totally understand that feeling because I have felt it all my life.
Something has changed for me in the last several weeks, possibly through confronting this head-on or after experiencing being in that space with so many others (which I know is no coincidence at this point in my life journey). I am tired of the same-old same-old. And now I am starting to say, “Who cares?”
Who cares whether I am worthy or whether anyone else may have something to say? Who cares whether other people may be smarter, prettier, better educated or richer? Who cares if other people have published books or acted on their passions? Who cares if there is talent in the world—is there a shortage of it to go around?
And I am starting to confront that scarcity right in its face. I am looking at it and asking it why it thinks it is real, any more real than the fact that every person I have ever met has taught me something and has gifts. Asking it why I should need to remain small in order to help another person, when I know that being small has never served me anything but another helping of dissatisfaction. Asking it why I should live in a world where I silence myself and deny my passions, my talents and the things that bring me the greatest joy.
And guess what? There are no good answers in response to those questions. There IS no reason for me to tamp down my creativity and serve others blindly day in and day out, letting them speak while I sit in silence in the shadows. Forget it. I’m done. I’m throwing in the towel and the whole darn linen closet. Enough is enough.
If only five people see these words and gain something from them, I have succeeded. Even if no-one bothers to read them, I have expressed them. These feelings are mine, and I claim them.
And rather than needing to shout above the din of the world in an effort to be heard. I will simply turn on my own light and stoke my own fire. And if others come and join me here, I welcome them. But if not, I have plenty to warm myself and to light my way. For I am burning from the inside, and this fire is no longer burning in secret. I claim it and I claim myself. I claim my voice and all its utterances. I live in shadows no longer.
Author: mprovorny
Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-photography-of-turtle-on-bench-789141/
Honest Spirituality. 