Last night I was committed to going to an event. As the day progressed I could tell I was not looking forward to it. My inner two year old came out hours before leaving. Grumpy face, dragging body, irritable, all signs said I should have said no.
As women, we are people pleasers. We often forsake our own needs for others. We are busier than ever, juggling many demanding and complicated roles. I have been a therapist, specializing in womens issues, for a little over 20 years. I am considered by my friends to be intentional and insightful. I know myself well and make decisions based on what is important to me… mostly, except when I don’t.
I have a loose set of rules for when I say “yes”. I do not respond immediately, I take a look at both what I need and what I feel I can give. I try to find my voice and then listen. Byron Katie asks her readers to ask four questions as they discover what is true in their life. The first question: Is it true? The second question: Do I know, really, deeply, honestly if it is true?
I call it our foundation. Do you know yours? It comes from asking ourselves who we are and what is important to us. What matters in our lives and who do we desire to be? It comes from our history, our experiences, our genetics and our present circumstances. It does not come from social media, our boss, our husband or our friends and family. We can often get confused.
My husband calls it core values. I know my core values, after 20 years of working on myself and working with other women, I have a strong foundation. I still screw it up. When I do I need to fix it.
Martha Beck helps people discover their authentic voice. She knows first hand how the external messages and our expectations can misguide us. Leading us to make both large and small decisions that can send us in a completely different direction than what is healthy for us.
Martha came from a family of academics, she was an academic, that was all she ever knew. It was a family legacy. She was doing her postdoctoral work, like all good little academic should, and found out she was pregnant. That was bad news in her world and then it got worse. The baby had Down’s Syndrome. Her baby could never be an academic. All around her the voices told her to abort the pregnancy.
She did not. She says it was the best decision of her life. It lead her to years and years of rewarding and valued work helping others to find their own authentic voices. Helping millions of people to create lives that are rewarding because they reflect and validate an authentic self.
We will never feel satisfied, validated, or loved if we are constantly making choices that do not reflect what is really important to us. People will never really know who we are and therefore can never feel truly valued. We need to have the courage to ask ourselves the questions about what is REALLY true. What we are really all about.
Once we know, we need to be able to speak our truth.
A lesson for next time……