This is one of the things I have to constantly remind myself and be very intentional about. Finding my voice is a journey I have had to accept. It is something I have to choose especially in a world that is so loud, opinionated and where your voice could easily be suppressed.
Most of us grew up in an era where decisions were made for us and we did not get the chance to choose for ourselves until we got into adulthood and suddenly we are responsible and required to be ready for our first critical life choices. As children the few times we were allowed to choose, there was hardly ever room to pick something that was not in the options. Even as adults we are misled to choose between right and wrong and there is no room for making wrong choices. Choosing outside the options provided is considered an act of rebellion.
A huge fraction of our lives is spent in school and I am not talking about the real school of life where the real-life tests are. We are given choices in school tests and are expected to choose what is right. Choosing anything other than what is deemed right has its consequences. You termed a failure for having a different point of view. We have to choose what careers from a list of limited career paths. Coming to think of it, all the decisions were made for us in school including when we slept, ate or how long we would take breaks.
The shift happens when you are done with school and you now have to make life-defining decisions but since no one trained you on how to independently think, you end up going with what is suggested by others. We find ourselves confined and scared to make certain life choices because we have been trained that a wrong decision means failure and that we should always pick right as there is no room for failure. No one teaches us how to be free thinkers and even as adults we realize that we hid away our voice and never gave it a chance to exist and thrive. We had to silence some of our dreams because they were not in the options offered to us.
The thing about not letting people think and decide for themselves is that you kill their dreams and distance them from being individuals. While those who set the standard of what the choices are might be doing so with good intention (highly unlikely), they make it so hard for people to be liberal in thought and action.
Imagine having trained this young boy or girl that they should not make mistakes because they will fail, then making them choose within a limited number of options. At what point is this child empowered to think freely and even decide without doubting themselves or thinking that they may be termed failures for deciding to take something on?
I earlier mentioned intention and I feel that in order for this generation to start dreaming, thinking and exploring, we have to get rid of this mentality that we are confined to two or three options. We need to actually listen to ourselves and allow ourselves to decide regardless of what the outside noise wants from us.
Finding your voice is that huge step in the right direction. It looks different on everyone. For me, it looks like saying what is on my mind often and using the word NO more. It could look like sharing your feelings and concerns as opposed to bottling them up which is what happens when we shut that inner voice in us for so long. For others, it could look like asking for help instead of overwhelming yourself because society expects you to follow through with your option to the end especially if it was one not accepted by it. I did a post on asking for help which goes into great detail why we find it hard to ask for help and what the benefits of asking for help are.
We have a lot of learning and unlearning to do when it comes to finding our voice and as this is a daily process, we have to take a lot of cliff jumps and allow ourselves to speak our mind and be heard in the spaces we exist in. Furthermore, we have to be intentional about who we seek counsel from and that those people’s opinions are just that, their opinions.
We need to all find our voices because it is only through this that we can lead full lives and inspire others to dare to find theirs as well.
To speaking our truth and being heard!
Love,
Sabali
Please feel free to share on how you are reclaiming your voice with me in the comment section.
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