How you view yourself impacts how you act. How you act, influences how you are perceived.
If you don’t think much of yourself, it’ll show up in your posture the way you speak and the kinds of things that you say.
And in turn you may be perceived as quiet, shy, uninterested, someone who doesn’t care. But maybe you have low self-esteem and maybe nobody taught you to think good of yourself.
Perhaps, even though you haven’t yet learnt how to say it or even show it, you actually care quite a lot.
I just googled not being able to voice your needs and there were about 1,220,000,000 results.
Being able to voice your needs is an important part of life. If you can’t say what you need, you probably won’t get it.
If you’ve ever been that person you might have been lucky enough to find someone that gets you. Not in any romantic sense but just someone that understands you even when you’re not able to find the words. That kind of person comes into your life through you being open and vulnerable enough to voice your needs.
It could be as simple as letting someone know that you need space, at first the person might be surprised or not take it well. But over time a good friend or someone that cares about you will understand that at certain times you need to be alone. And it won’t become an issue, they won’t try and make you feel bad or tell you that you have to have to talk now. They will listen and respect your needs.
On the flipside, people that aren’t able to voice their needs might end up falling into feeling misunderstood or uncared for and then carrying that feeling around them everywhere they go. But more often than not, that feeling isn’t true at all. It only feels true because you’re not saying what you need.
If you won’t care in a few months time then maybe you shouldn’t care at all.
It’s easy to get swept up what everyone else is doing or whatever the popular thing is at that point in time.
It might even be a great cause, helping people or bringing light to something that matters.
However, I think it’s important to ask yourself why you’re joining in. Is it something you care about or do you just want to be a part of something? Maybe you want to be perceived as someone who cares?
You don’t have to care about everything and you don’t have anything to prove.
You don’t have to jump on the bandwagon.
Something we can consider to be true is that, you don’t really know how hard you can work or how much effort you can put into something until you find what you care about.
You can spend a large chunck of your life thinking that you’ve given your full effort or gone above and beyond. However, when you find something that really matters to you, somehow you’ll find a surplus of energy to do more than you have ever done before.
That might come at a time in your life when you transition from working a traditional 9 to 5, to working for yourself.
Perhaps you find a new hobby that you’re really passionate about. Then all of sudden you’re spending your evenings doing extra research, learning new information and dedicating time you used to spend on less fulfilling past times
There are some cases when, if you don’t know what to say the best thing to say is nothing at all. But that doesn’t apply to every situation.
In fact, in some scenarios saying nothing is one of the worst things that you can do.
Sometimes we hold off from speaking up because we think that less than perfect is not good enough. However, the perfect composition of words shouldn’t always be the aim.
At times it’s better to speak up in the moment, to perhaps let someone know that you care instead of staying quiet. The alternative is to wait until what you have to say is closer to perfect but by then it will be too late.
I wrote about boundaries in a recent post but upon reflection I had more to add.
Sometimes even when you are aware of a persons boundaries and you know it has nothing to do with you, you still try to overstep the mark. A person will do it in small or subtle ways because they are curious whilst also being aware they have to tread carefully.
But when you catch them overstepping in the moment they’re likely to respond by telling you that they didn’t mean it or that they didn’t relaise that it was an issue. perhaps they try to tell you that there is no issue at all.
When it comes to over stepping a boundary it’s really about respect. When you can see a clear boundary you have to decide if it is more important to follow that curiosity or to simply respect what the other person does and doesn’t want
A bunch of things to do for those that are stuck inside for a little while:
Lastly, and I suppose most importantly, take care of yourself and those around you.
So often, we’re afraid to be vulnerable and let people know where we’re at. In doing that you miss out on the opportunity to be supported by people that care.
What often ends up happening is you feel frustrated that there is no one to support you, not realising that you haven’t even given them a chance.
The best way to break this habit is to be more open when talking to the people that you know you can trust. Instead of having those Hey, how’s it going? Yeah, good thanks, you? types of conversations make the effort to be a little more vulnerable.
It might feel strange at first but when you talk to the right people they’ll listen to you and show support which is sometimes all you need. Your act of bravery might have a knock on effect because often you find that the other person will start to open up more too.
A group of people died at the weekend and somehow social media became a sort of Chinese whispers where people were spreading false news.
And so it got me wondering who makes the news and how could they get things so wrong.
I think in these times where fast isn’t quick enough, people put being the first (or one of the first) to break a story over getting all the facts. One broadcasting company even showed a video of the wrong person, who was in fact still alive and not involved in the accident whatsoever.
Or maybe it’s us, reading the headlines and filling in the blanks because that’s easier and sometimes more interesting than the truth. But filling in the blanks and spreading fake news isn’t useful.
Spreading fake news reduces the integrity of journalism and in times of tragedy can cause unnecessary hurt and confusion.
So to the people that make the news and the ones that spread it, think more and handle it with care.
You have the choice to treat people however you like and sometimes that will depend on how much you care.
Small acts of kindness can allow you to escape your own mind for long enough to remember that we’ve all got stuff going on.
Without knowing it, sometimes the kindness of strangers can be enough to change someone’s mood or brighten their day.
It doesn’t have to be something big, it could be as small as making someone a drink or picking something up that you thought they’d like when you’re out shopping.
In order to do those things you have to get out of your head a little and pay attention to what’s around you. In some ways kindness is about not being bare minimum.
You do it because you want to, not because you have to.
