Close
Enter your
text here

self-expression

Voice: 5 Ways People Can Turn Your Volume Down Growing Up 150 150 admin

Voice: 5 Ways People Can Turn Your Volume Down Growing Up

Do you have a weak voice or a strong voice?  Is your voice loud or soft?  Do the people around you encourage your voice or discourage it?  Are you able to recognize when someone tries to turn the volume of your voice down?

Expression is a key component in being human, and in humans voice is a key medium through which expression can occur.  It benefits us to exercise our own voice in a way that aligns with the highest good of all.  It’s also beneficial to encourage others to exercise their voice when it is in alignment with the highest good of all, and to discourage their voice when it’s out of alignment.

Think about how you grew up.  Did the authority figures in your life encourage you to exercise your voice?  Did they create a safe space for you to do so?  If you’re not sure, here’s some ways they might have turned the volume of your voice down.

  1.  Blatantly telling you to “shut up” too many times
    • “hush”, “be quiet”, “shhhh” are forms of this.   There are times where kids don’t need to be talking, but it shouldn’t be all the time.  There can be too much “shut up” by the authorities in your life growing up.
  2. Drowning You Out
    • Too much music being played too often?  The TV being on 24/7?   Maybe it’s even a person who talks non-stop and does very little listening.
  3. Deterioration of conversations
    • If there’s a conversation going along that could actually progress somewhere, there can be a person or people who purposely or inadvertently deteriorate the conversation by spewing nonsense / lies / bullshit.  Instead of actually putting in the effort to seek to understand what’s going on in the conversation and attempting to add value or asking to learn more, or finding another conversation more their speed and style to participate in, they take the easy, lazy and destructive way and come in like a bomb and blow the conversation up and diminish whatever you’re talking about with their bullshit.
  4. Endless arguing and debating
    • Maybe there’s a person in authority who likes to argue for no reason.  They see everything you say as an opportunity to spark up a debate.  After a while, it can become exhausting expressing yourself to this person, especially if you see these debates as pointless and circular.  Nobody changes their behavior or reaches a higher level or awareness or learns anything.  It’s almost as if it’s just wasted time.
  5. Creating or allowing harsh consequences for turning your volume up
    • doing things to oppose #1-4 could result in consequences that you might not want to deal with if you .  Speaking anyway after being told a version of shut up could have consequences.  Trying to talk over the things drowning you out could have consequences.  Creating a boundary between the person who blows up conversations with bullshit could have consequences.  Standing on what you know is right with the debater?  consequences.

I’ve been through all of these growing up.  If I asked why they did these things, they’d probably feel attacked and ultimately respond with some version of “you got off light, you should have been around when we were growing up” – and if they were to say that I’d believe them.  Everyone is doing the best they can at their level of awareness, and I believe the volume of their voices was turned down even more than mine was.  This leads me to ask how far does this go back with my family?  When I traced it back, it felt like I got hit with a ton of bricks when I landed at slavery.  When slaves were brought to America, their whole beings were muted and there were some of the severest consequences for turning the volume of their voice up.

As an adult I can establish much firmer boundaries with people who exhibit these behaviors, but it still makes me think about the kid growing up dealing with this.  I think about those kids who are keeping their volume low right now and how their volume will remain low right into adulthood.  I think about the adults now who grew up having to keep the volume of their voice low, and the consequences of that and how much we’re missing out on their expression.

If someone turned down the volume of your voice as a child, you could easily find your self in a job that reinforces that dynamic when you grow older.  You’ll naturally attract a job that puts you in that same position because it’s comfortable for you.  It feels more natural to you because it’s been repeated over and over.   You might also find yourself in relationships with people who do the 5 things mentioned above.

Of course, you’re free to change this.  You do not have to accept your volume being low and you can connect with people who actively bring out your voice and encourage you to express your authentic self fully.  That’s what the world needs more of.

How can you make your voice stronger?  Where do you feel you should amplify your voice?

How I Learned to Be More Expressive 150 150 admin

How I Learned to Be More Expressive

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Becoming more expressive was a whole process starting from being a closed off, introverted, quiet child.

Growing up

I was pretty closed off and quiet for a large part of my life because this is how I grew up.  When I was younger I was essentially raised by my mother and grandmother and they would always tell me to be quiet when grown folks are talking.  The problem was they were always talking!  Even when I would somehow find a way to get a word in edgewise, those words would be criticized or argued with or I’d flat out get told something like “don’t say that” or “stop talking back” or “be quiet”.  And also, they didn’t actively put me around other kids very much, so there wasn’t much expression there either.  There weren’t many kids in the neighborhood, and there was a very low level of trust with the few families who did have kids, so I was left quiet much of the time having to listen to a whole lotta adult talk about a whole lotta nothing.

I can remember my mother saying to me…”I’m not going to be ripping and running take you here and there to go play with other kids…you’re going to have to learn to be content alone”.  I’ve asked my mother about this, and she denies saying it to me, but I can remember the moment clearly because it was when I reached a level of acceptance.  I remember that sinking feeling in me when she said it.  At that moment, I internally accepted the fact that as long as I lived with this woman, there wasn’t going to be many kids to play with, and I probably get in trouble if I kept asking about it.  I felt pretty powerless to do anything about it at that point, so…I got really good at video games, reading, writing, listening, playing piano, typing, eating junk food>>>introverted things that didn’t require me to speak up or express myself.  I can actually remember being told to speak up so many times as a kid and as a teenager by other people outside of my family.

I say this not to illicit any type of sorrow or sadness or sympathy or anger.  I just want to highlight where this closed off attitude came from.  I never looked at it as closed off.  I looked at the situation as an ability to be content with myself, but as I grew older, I was overwhelmed with evidence that this line of thinking had a ceiling.  Being alone could only take me so far.

My mother’s behavior and grandmothers behavior didn’t come from thin air.  It came from how they were raised, and it’s a pathology that was passed down from generation to generation.  I also think this is where a dad would have helped.  Someone to counterbalance this and to validate the few things I would verbally express, but there was none.  I know for a fact from talking with him, his absence didn’t come out of thin air either.  Again, a pathology.

When Things Changed

Nothing really changed for me until I found the movie The Secret, which helped me with my emotions which then helped me get back in touch with and become roommates with a friend I initially met in high school who was the complete opposite.  He was very expressive in all ways.  He expressed his self through fashion, words, through actions etc.  A lot of his whole attitude of life rubbed off on me.

When we’d be in conversations with other people, he’d always encourage me to talk.  He’d say “what do you think?” and it usually went well.  So it made me feel like hey…maybe my opinion counted for something.

Then it moved to another level when I watched this video.  Especially when he mentioned Lil Wayne.  I’ve listened to Lil Wayne the rapper, and he always seems to blurt out what I deem as nonsense every now and then in his music.  BUT after watching that video I started speaking nonsense, and it actually worked and people responded well.

One thing I tried that blew my mind was walking up to people and just blurting out words that were on my mind and not sentences or complete thoughts like…fire, water, ice, house, sadness, move, etc.  One woman even told me “I don’t know what this is..but it’s turning me on!” lol.

Then it moved to another level when I went to CLW and met so many people that were more aligned with me.  I met so many of the “right” people.  They were interested in what I was interested in and focused on things I was focused on at the time – heart-centered work and making it sustainable.  It is when I realized I had to put forth the effort to seek out the people who were better fits for who I am.  If I didn’t, I’d have to settle with arguments, debates, excuses, defending my point of view, etc.  That takes a lot of energy that could be used more productively.

Express what’s on your mind.  Start small.  Sit in a reality where you know we want to hear what you have to say.  It’s more about the energy behind what you say.  People and reality as a whole can feel the energy you use to express yourself.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]