How to come from a place of kindness when all we want to do is yell and scream!!

So one of the things that I am trying to talk to my girls about is making sure that they are able to communicate well. That they are able to communicate their needs and their feelings easily. I want them to be able to share this with those around them when they need to and I sure as hell don’t want them to feel any guilt about this.

I have just been listening to a group of gorgeous ladies who have been talking about how they find it really difficult to communicate their wants and needs with others. How they are always putting others first and how they are always doing everything for everyone else, and when they do express themselves, they feel guilty about it.

Now I know as a female it is part of our make up to have that caring and nurturing role, I know that and I get that… AND I want us to be able to continue to have those amazing feminine qualities (and my male counterparts you have this feminine energy as well!) BUT I no longer want these caring and nurturing gifts to be taken for granted and to be at the expense of our own health.

This is something that I have been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching about for a while now. This is a really common thing that I see in women, that we are putting others first all the time and not ourselves. I get it, I am there with you….. I was lucky enough to hit rock bottom with my health and was forced to put myself first. I was forced to stop doing everything for everyone else and do you know what.. It was a blessing in disguise. Funny how it takes something like that to make a change some times!!! There were plenty of taps on my shoulder to say that I should be doing something else and when my body finally crashed…. it was because I was not listening to the beautiful signs I was being sent!!! I have been forced to listen to my body and to learn what works and what doesn’t, to say no to things when I need to, to take time out for me and to continually learn how I work best and what I need to do to continually improve.

What I have come to see over the last few years, is that a lot of women will not put themselves first, will not talk about their needs or will be very slow in disagreeing with others because we are not ready for the “conflict” that this will cause and that we will do whatever it takes to stay away from this.. But what I have seen now is that doesn’t actually work. Even when you hide behind the face of not wanting to stir up any problems, everything inside you is screaming to get it out. Your body language, the tone of your voice and your mood all lets people know that you are not happy about a situation. So instead of talking it out (because we don’t want to cause a problem) we actually in turn create a bigger issue. We all know that there is a problem but it is not given the space it needs and therefore it is often blown out of proportion or it continues to bottle up until we explode.

And this was me, believe me - I am still working on this one, but I have come to understand that by not facing the issue is definitely not helping it to get solved or to go away, all it does is creates little chips on the shoulder or little cuts into the relationships and friendships that we have and that they just keep piling up on top of each other all the time. And our gorgeous bodies have a memory and it takes everything on board - not dealing with this stuff just ends up creating dis-ease in the body, and at some point in time our body will no longer cope!

Now the amazing thing that I have learnt along the way (haha, yep slow learner) is that talking about something doesn’t mean you have to yell and scream or for it to become a huge argument. The times when I held my tongue was usually because I felt like the discussion needed to be in a conflicting way, that it had to be with raised voices and disagreement. BUT this is just not the case. I do not like conflict and I do not like shouting and yelling, that just makes me uncomfortable. HOWEVER, I do like to be able to talk to people knowing that I am not going to be judged for what I say and knowing that I am free to express my opinion in a loving and caring way. I do not need to yell and shout I just need to communicate in a way that is gentle and kind. So that is how I approach it now. If I want to say something that may be a little uncomfortable then I first look at how can I say this in a kind way. Then I try and figure out how I approach it (and sometimes this takes a bit of thinking!!). I am often surprised about the positive outcome of these conversations, in my head I had dreamt up the worst possible scenario and then in reality it wasn’t an issue at all!!!! Haha, all that pent up stress over nothing.

Now, this is easier with some people than others. It is easier at certain times of the month rather than others etc. etc. BUT it is all about practice. SO… start with someone you trust and let them know that this is something that you are needing help with and needing to get better at. They will be easy for you to run things past and try things out….. Like anything it will feel a little uncomfortable to start with BUT it will get easier the more you practice. AND then you wont be having that horrible feeling you get when you know something is not right but you are just too scared or worried about what others will think, to do anything about it. Try having some of these conversations when you are feeling really good, don’t just leave them to the times when you are feeling stressed, worn out and pissed off, as these are the times when it is harder to have a controlled “polite” conversation!!

I am trying to help my girls with this so that it is something that just comes naturally to them and they wont get to our age and just be fed up with not being able to speak their mind (in the most caring and nicest way) and being sick of doing everything for everyone.

I feel like this is a bit of a rant post today but it just makes me sad when I see women who are not asking for what they need and are just running themselves into the ground to keep everyone around them happy..

Bless us for speaking our truth and bless us for not being judged in the process of learning this new skill, that we have not felt comfortable with doing before!.

AND bless us for listening to our gorgeous friends when they do need to say something, when we need to be there for them and sometimes take a look at how our actions have effected others, when we need to do the listening and the understanding as well. When we need to learn from it to improve ourselves, and sometimes when we need to take a step back and apologise because we didn’t realise that our actions had hurt someone in someway…

Have an amazing day.

BIG LOVE

Mel

xxx