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![]() Posted: Post subject: wHY WE ARE AFRAID TO SPEAK! |
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Why We're Afraid to Speak Up
By Peter Vajda, Ph.D.
For many, in childhood, very early on, when some children wanted to, or attempted to, express their aliveness, their thoughts, their juiciness, their "wisdom", their self, they were often met with resistance, first, from their parents or immediate care givers, then from extended family, then from their teachers, perhaps from clergy and others.
This reactivity may have taken the form of:
"You think you're so smart!" (with a negative edge)
"Little boys/girls should be seen and not heard"
"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard"
"What do you know!!" (with a negative dismissal)
"Not now, I'm busy (i.e., what you have to say isn't important)
"Who told you that?!" (skepticism)
"Don't say such a thing" (how can you say such a thing!)
"I don't believe you."
"You better not talk like that"
"God will punish you for saying/thinking that"
"That's not a nice/good/ thing to say."
"That's not true; you're stupid"
"What a crazy idea!"
"You don't make any sense"
"You think youre so smart!(sarcastically)
"You don't think straight"
"You're crazy!"
"What makes you think that way!"
"You don't have half a brain"
"For someone so smart, you're really stupid!"
"you're an idiot!"
etc.
¦and so we form this belief that what we have to offer is not "good enough", or that we are "bad", or that we are "wrong."
This belief becomes an imprint, hard-wired on our brain, in our unconscious, and we carry this belief into adolescence and eventually into adulthood, like so many other self-defeating and self-sabotaging beliefs we form at this age.
So, for many people, this belief is translated the into, "What I have to say isn't important (read: I'm not important.").
What we have done, unconsciously, is to create a self-representation, a self image, a self-concept, really, an identity, that I am not credible, or I'm not smart, or intelligent.
Our belief is, "I'm the stupid one.", or (fill in the blank). So, in order to be heard, seen, recognized, "met", accepted, acknowledged or approved, many of us feel that having our own voice is not enough, that we are inadequate.
So, to compensate for our sense of deficiency, we feel we have to bolster what we say and support our thoughts with other "experts' information so we can be seen as "somebody" as opposed to being a "nobody", stupid, someone who knows nothing, someone who is not very intelligent, wise, or smart.
Thus, many of us go through life silently, for example, remaining quiet at meetings, never writing our book, our poetry, our play, our music, deferring to others (the “experts"), and we remain fear-based, feeling insignificant, stupid, and frustrated, silently or overtly angry because we dont feel "heard", because we feel we don't "know enough" or "have the right information."
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