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Giulietta
Helping others find their true genius.
Challenger of assumptions. A believer in speaking one's truth. Karaoke queen. Essayist. Pianist. Painter. Explorette. Lover of animals, trees, travel, dark chocolate, Torch music and lending others a helping hand or two ... ...
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Speaking Your Truth

Giulietta

Monday, March, 17, 2008
Cool Hand Luke contains one of my favorites movie lines, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” It’s classic doublespeak. The brutal prison “Boss” says it to warn Paul Newman, George Kennedy and the other men tethered to balls and chains that speaking their truths will get them a nice whippin’ or a month in the hot, wooden shed.

It seems to me that many of life’s stressful situations boil down to a “failure to communicate.” We don’t feel comfortable speaking our truths. Instead, we blame, repress, gossip, depress, shrink, medicate, sicken and suffer. Imagine a whole nation of people racing around unable to speak their truths and you can see the magnitude of the problem.

Why then don’t we say what’s in our hearts, what could clear the air of misunderstanding, what could set us free from inner pain?

Because we’ve been taught by word or example along the way to adulthood that speaking the truth will get us in trouble. The person we utter our words of truth to will either crumble before our eyes, never speak to us again or, worse, take financial, political or physical revenge.

Is this true?

How can it be less hurtful to say your truth behind someone’s back, lay in bed tossing & turning over a scene where you choked up before speaking, or drive up your blood pressure stewing in an itty bitty cubicle because your boss asked you to do something impossible in the time frame or just plain stupid?

I’ve spent way too many years of my precious life suffering because I didn’t speak the truth and I didn’t let others speak their truths to me. It was a “failure to communicate” in every direction.

It’s still really hard at times, but I try to get phone or face time with the person (email often makes it worse) and say what I need to say with grace, humor and compassion. Sometimes the other person cannot hear my truth and I do lose the friendship or the job or the fill-in-the-blank connection. But that’s been rare and, frankly, worth it is to gain inner calm and free myself up to be with people who want to hear my truth and who want me to hear theirs.

Are you speaking your truth?

Muse thx

Giulietta

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penniej
penniej
Speaking Your Truth
Posted Thu, 03/20/2008 - 13:26
Failure to communicate. As you stated so well, it happens all the time. On a smaller, personal scale, it can aggravate situations, and ruin relationships and even lives. The problem is fear - fear of losing face, of being the only one to take a stand or stand out, of being too blunt and hurtful, of being disliked, misinterpreted, or tactless. I run this gauntlet often, whether to open my mouth or remain silent and therefore, be insincere, a hypocrite, or betray my beliefs or instincts. I get so annoyed at myself for being such a coward or a fool, but too late. Words unsaid are tantamount to agreement. But on a larger scale, failure to communicate can lead to major disasters, political blunders, ill-advised decisions affecting thousands or millions of people, and often to conflicts and wars. It can also change the course of history: If Obama had not come out against the Iraq War, he might not be running for president today. Keep up the good work. Enjoy hearing your views and exploring the many possibilities for thought they open.
Giulietta
Giulietta
Fear of Losing Face
Posted Fri, 03/21/2008 - 08:47
Hi Pennie, Great post! Gave me even more ideas for blogging posts down the cyber road. You're right. It's absolutely about losing face in front of others. yet, we often don't realize that by not speaking our truths we lose face with ourselves and how damaging that is. (reminds me of Erving Goffman's studies on self.) thx for stopping by again! G.