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You whisper a suggestion, and the person besides you parrots what you’ve said to great applause. You want to scream out and say “that was my idea” but your throat is dry, you feel clammy and sweaty and just want the moment to end. Your heart is beating so fast you are sure it is noticeable. At least the focus is off you for now but then suddenly it’s your turn to offer something, to say anything and you can’t. You are frozen in fear. Business moves on and you want to say something, to say anything so your superiors know that you have something to contribute. The stress response has three options for you, fight or flight, which we are familiar with and then the third, freeze. You cannot move. It’s as though you have become disconnected from your body.
You are sick and tired of seeing those less qualified promoted above you, people you’ve even trained! Why doesn’t anyone just notice you and sing your praises? You do all the work and do it well but it goes unnoticed. You’ve fallen into the rut of being dependable, you never say no to extra work but when favors are being dished out, no one notices your existence.
Was it always like this you ask yourself? You used to have ambition and drive but you’re stuck. Your bosses are becoming younger and younger and see you more as a relic from a time gone by, no longer interested in the detail that you pride yourself on.
You find yourself feeling unwell, you may have IBS or other stomach related anxiety. Every day is nerve wrenching as you try to find a way to be noticed for the right reasons. You are competent when left to work alone but as soon as someone in authority is around, you freeze, just like what used to happen at school.
Why?
Because your mind associates authority and your “superiors” as somehow having power over you and you become the “little girl”. This is who is reacting in any situation where the focus is upon you. You want attention but you don’t and your mind becomes conflicted. You feel unworthy of attention as that inner critic seeks to silence you. How many times have you told yourself, no one is interested in what I have to say, what would I know, they’ll laugh at me.
Communication has very little to do with the words that are spoken. It is tone and your body language. This is why bullying claims are very hard to prove, the words of he said/she said are anemic on paper.
Whispering won’t get you noticed, you have to learn to speak up in such a way that others listen. They hear you. But you have to believe in yourself before others and believe in you.
Who is someone that is always heard? Do they whisper and cower or do they take up the space they occupy without any hesitancy or apology for being around?
You can use them as a model, a way to understand the relationship between confidence and body language. Improve one, you improve the other. Let’s start with these 4 steps. Stand in front of your mirror to notice like a before and after image. Look at how you are standing and your expression, not fun for you, I bet. Now step away and do the following:
4 steps to learn how to speak up:
1. Lower your voice. That’s right, lower your pitch. Little girls are high-pitched and so are women and men who lack confidence. Practice it in a store buying a coffee, practice at home.
2. Play your favorite tune in your mind. This must be a song from when you felt alive and confident, an anthem from your teenage years. Singing activates both parts of the brain, the left (logic) for the words and right for the melody. It immediately relaxes the body to prevent your shoulders rolling forward to try to disappear. Singing will encourage you to open your chest.
3. Learn to say “no”. Whether or not, you have the time and energy, just start saying no. Don’t add an excuse. Just say no. Practice this in the mirror, in a lower timbre and loosen the body with your favorite song, and say, no. Picture the person who prevails upon you the most, the person you carry and say no. Have a giggle to yourself at the sense of power this gives you. You are not a little girl/boy but an adult.
4. Whose confidence do you admire? It can be someone you know, or an actor or a character from a story or movie. See them in your mind’s eye, what is it you admire? Drift into their bodies, like trying on clothes, and see what it feels like.
Now go back to your mirror, what are the differences you can see, I bet your face is more relaxed and your body more at ease!
These are little steps that you can adapt and use immediately. It is important to clear the past and choose a therapy modal that suits you. Hypnotherapy and NLP are ideal modalities to raise self esteem as they go to the core of your inner self, your subconscious mind and to heal your inner child self who never learned to speak up because she/he thought what they had to say was not worthy of being heard.
You don’t need to be defined by your past. Let these 4 steps act as a catalyst to help you be heard.
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Source by Zita Stanley
