280: Holly Worton ~ How to Let Go of Pessimism & Feel More Optimistic About Everything

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back again, with another solo episode! Inspired by ShePodcasts Live in Atlanta, I’m talking about how to speak up and use your voice. In this episode, I share my story of being super quiet and shy for the vast majority of my life, and how I broke free from my quiet shell and got into using my voice to express myself through public speaking and podcasting. But of course, it’s not all about me! I also discuss how YOU can get started speaking up, finding your voice, and using it.

Listen To This Episode

What You’ll Learn

Signs you might want to speak up more
Reasons why we don’t speak up enough
When it’s okay to not speak up
Why knowing yourself makes it easier to speak up
How to get started speaking up + finding your voice + using it

Quote I Mention

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” ― Marianne Williamson

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 326. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode.

Today I am going to talk about how to find your voice and start speaking up and using it; and this is something that was inspired by my recent trip to Atlanta for the She Podcasts Live conference, where I was speaking with Amanda Cook about how to turn your podcast into a book. So, this was a really great event, I never go to conferences but when Jessica Kupferman launched the Kickstarter earlier this year I knew I needed to go, the dates were really bad, you know that I have been talking about being super-busy for the last month-and-a-half, but I just knew I had to go anyway, I just knew and then when I signed up I was super-excited and I was super-excited to be speaking at it. So the whole thing was just fantastic, it was just a really, really, good conference, it gave me lots of ideas about podcasting, I am really looking forward to re-thinking how I do things and improving this podcast and it was just fantastic. So I am going to be going through my notes in the next couple of weeks and once the recordings go live, I have got to listen to a couple of talks that I didn’t make because there were five different talks every hour, so there were a lot of things that were going on while I was attending things.

So one of the things that I got out of it, was that I need to improve, or I want to improve at storytelling. A lot of times I am aware that I come up with a topic for an episode based on my life, my experiences, what is going on for me, things that I have experienced in the past, and then I just launch straight into the episode. And I don’t always kind of explain to you where I am coming from on this topic and, after some thought on this, I have realised, and this is so ridiculous but I am going to say it anyway, that it has to do with fear of taking up space which is ridiculous because this is my podcast, I speak to you for a half-an-hour plus, every week about the stuff that I want to talk about, telling you my stuff, obviously trying to help you out but I talk about myself on this podcast. But, I still have a fear of taking too much space with my personal story, which is ridiculous, I know, because I know that when I tell my personal stories, when I open up and I share my challenges and my struggles, people really resonate with that. So I know it is a good thing, and yet I still – not censor myself – but still I am aware of not talking about myself too much which is hilarious because I am not the kind of person who tends to talk about herself a lot. I tend to ere on the side of caution, I tend to ere on the side of being too silent, I tend to ere on the side of being quiet and shy and not speaking up enough, despite the fact that I am have been doing this podcast every week for the last six+ years. So, if you resonate with this at all, and if you feel that you ever struggle to speak up and to fully express yourself, know that I still experience that too, despite the fact that I have 325 podcast episodes under my belt, and I do public speaking from time-to-time. I have a real thing about taking up space, taking up space online when I post stuff on social media, and I have gotten better about this over the years, but it still happens. Fears of taking up space when I mention stuff that I am doing, like when I launched my book. Fear of taking up space with my voice and there was a lot of talk about taking up space with your voice and expressing yourself with your voice at this conference, and so it has been on my mind for the last almost week, so that is what we are going to talk about today.

In light of the fact that I have realised that I want to start telling my stories more and taking up space with my own personal stories, lets launch into that. So, I was super-quiet and super-shy for the first probably 35 years of my life {laughing}, things started to change in 2011 and I will get to that in a few minutes. So I was super-quiet and super-shy and if you don’t know this about me, I have high-functioning autism, formerly known as Asperger’s, so I think really contributed to my quietness and my shyness, because I was super-afraid of standing out and people realising that I was different. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 42 years old, so I knew at some level that I was different, I knew as some level that I was socially awkward, I knew that I was a bit weird, in a good way, but I didn’t know why, I had no explanation, I just felt like this weird alien that was dropped on this planet and didn’t fit in with 99% of the population, and I didn’t know anyone else who was awkward like me, although maybe I did but I just didn’t see it because I was feeling too awkward myself.

So I spent a lot of years, masking, pretending to be neuro-typical, carefully observing how other people behaved, so that I could act like them, which is exhausting by the way, and I think I was so afraid of being bullied for being the weird kid, and I was really lucky that never happened to me, unlike a lot of people with autism. The way I got out of that was by being invisible and the way I became invisible was by being super-quiet, super-shy, not being seen, not expressing myself, hiding my voice and when I was in a social environment, either as a child, or an adult, I would over-analyse what I wanted to say and I was especially awkward in social gatherings, because I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing, or of saying a weird thing, that I would over-analyse what I would say. Someone would say something, and I would want to respond, and I would analyse it and run it over in my mind and think about it and make sure it was ok, and by the time I was ready to open my mouth to express myself, the conversation had moved on and people were talking about something totally different. And I was socially aware enough to realise that it was no longer appropriate to say something that I had curated in my mind because people were talking about other things and I would be like: oh by the way, let’s return to the previous topic. So I was always really quiet because I was over-analysing things and by the time that I came up with what I wanted to say it was just not timely.

So that was my life for the first 35 years or so, and then in 2011 something changed, and I always say that my life is before and after PSYCH-K®, and it is, but it is also before and after Toastmasters. So if you don’t know what Toastmasters is, it is a public speaking club that started in the United States, but it exists all over the world, and when I trained as a coach in 2011, one of the trainers was really into toastmasters and she was really into public speaking. And I had always kind of, I had heard of Toastmasters years prior and I knew that it was a good thing to learn how to do public speaking and I knew that it was something that would be helpful, but I was always too scared to do it. Then something clicked in the first weekend of my coaching program, as I was sitting there listening to her, and I thought: oh I am going to go online when I get home and I am going to look up a Toastmasters club.

So I did, I ended up joining a Toastmasters clubs that she was in, it was a morning group, and most of them were evening groups, but I really wanted a morning group, I don’t know why because I am not a morning person, I started going to Toastmasters in 2011. Covent Garden has a really nice club, they have two clubs that meet at 7 o’clock in the morning which again is insane, because I am not a morning person, I don’t know what I was thinking… but I loved it. I was instantly terrified but the thing about Toastmasters is that it gives you a really clear structure, so there you do both prepared speeches and you do impromptu speeches which are called “table topics” and any given Toastmasters meeting you could be there, and you are sitting in the audience, and the person who is running the table topics for that week, could pick on you and if you get picked on you have got to stand up and give an impromptu one-to-two minute speech on a random topic that you may or may not know anything about and if you don’t know anything about it, you just make shit up and make it sound like you know what you are talking about — the whole point is to speak on your feet.

To be presented with the topic and speak, that is terrifying, the whole thing was just terrifying for me, but a weird thing happened… I was really good at it, I was really good at the table topics, I was really good at the prepared speeches. I was winning awards because they give out awards for everything, for the best table topic, for the best prepared speech. So you have got awards and you are getting loads of feedback and I found out that I was really good at public speaking which was weird because I was so quiet and shy. I never knew that I was good at public speaking because I had been so quiet and shy my whole life. So it was so strange to have discovered this hidden talent, this hidden skill that I had, that I didn’t know I had because I was so quiet. And it really made me love speaking and so from them on I started looking for speaking engagements, whether it was public speaking at networking events or my coaching school later on, in 2011, had a conference and I was speaking there and then once I got into podcasting, speaking on my own podcast and speaking on other peoples podcasts, I just really, really enjoyed speaking.

And also in 2011, I really kind of upped my game in terms of my personal development because I was getting a lot of coaching as I was training as a coach, and then 2013, I really got into PSYCH-K®, and that was the year that I started this podcast and then it kind of snowballed from there and I started speaking more and knowing myself more and speaking more easily. And it just really marked a huge change in my life to the point where I got up on the main stage, I was on the main stage at She Podcasts and we gave our talk on how to turn your podcast into a book in a big room, with people and they live-streamed it, and it was recorded and that was kind of a big thing, and I think I was nervous, I took my rescue remedy beforehand, but it felt really good, it felt really good to help people with a topic that I know something about. We got such great feedback afterwards, people were coming up to us later that day, the following day, saying thank you so much for your help, thank you for your presentation, it was really good, it gave me a lot of ideas…it was just really great to do.

So, when you speak up, whenever you speak up, you are not only helping yourself, but you are helping other people. You are serving as an example for other people, you know there is that Marianne Williamson quote that I really, really, love which I am going to quote from, and I have quoted it before, but I think it applies here, what she says is:

And I think that when we speak up, when we express ourselves, using our voices, we are helping others by serving as an example. So I think learning how to speak up and using our voice is not just something that we want to do for ourselves but to serve as an example for others, so to serve as an example for friends, for family, if you have children, for your kids. I thin it is really, really, powerful, again not just for us but for others as well. But if you are still listening to this episode you might be one of those people who has a problem speaking up and expressing yourself, maybe this is something that has been really difficult for you, maybe you are one of those people who people say: why are you so quiet? Why are you so shy? Speak up, open your mouth. Because I used to get told that all the time and that just didn’t help, it made it even worse, I would just retreat more into my shell because it was so hard to speak up.

So, signs that you might want to speak up more or signs that you might not be speaking up enough, or signs that you are just not opening your mouth and expressing yourself:

You might find it hard to say no, and that was one thing for me, I found it really hard to say no, for a variety of reasons, I was terrible with boundaries. I didn’t want people to not like me and I thought they wouldn’t like me if I said no, so I was really bad at saying no, and that is something that I have improved a lot over the years.

Feeling unsafe: I have kind of hinted, I talk a little bit about it once in a while, about a relationship I was in for a decade, which was abusive, both emotionally and physically. And, I felt really unsafe, so I wasn’t going to speak up for myself, on the contrary, I was walking on eggshells all the time, I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting yelled at, or getting hit, that I wouldn’t speak up. I would speak when spoken to and I would be very careful about what I said when I did speak. So if you are feeling unsafe in the world, and I hope you are not in a situation like that, but if you are get help so that you can get out of it, that is easier said than done, I know, I have been there. But, if you are feeling unsafe in the world for whatever reason, that could be a reason why you are not speaking up and again that’s a big symptom of needing to change things in your life so that you are safe to express yourself.

Being overly apologetic, ‘oh I’m so sorry, oh I’m sorry but…’, if you are always apologising for things and I know that in some cultures that is normal, but if you are in a culture where that is not normal, or if you find yourself apologising for things that you know really aren’t your fault, or you didn’t mess up, if you are apologising too much that’s another sign that perhaps you want to curb that habit and speak up more.

If you are not expressing your needs, and if other people aren’t reading your mind and meeting your needs, that is another sign that you might want to speak up, because people can’t read your mind usually. So, if you have needs that aren’t being met in relationships, with friends, family, whatever you need to learn to speak up and express your needs to get your needs met also by yourself.

Boundaries, I mentioned, if you feel like you have no boundaries, and I used to like this, that is another sign that you need to speak up more. Again, assuming you are in a safe situation. I remember speaking with my homeopath years and years ago and she was like: well it is like a castle and you are a castle and you have got your moat around you and you have got your drawbridge over the moat and she was like: you need to lean when to pull up your drawbridge and when to have your drawbridge down. And I was like: yeah that is not safe! It has always got to be down. So, since I got out of that situation and into a safer situation, or a safe situation, I have found it easier to know when to pull my drawbridge up and give myself permission to pull my drawbridge up and set those boundaries and protect myself.

Expressing opinions, that’s another one I really, really had problems with and that is another sign that you might want to learn how to speak up more and express yourself. I was always afraid of expressing my opinions in case I went against someone else, or maybe people wouldn’t like me in case I expressed my opinion and it went against other people. Like, I was such a people pleaser and that is another sign, if you are people pleasing all the time, that’s a sign that you are probably wanting to learn how to express yourself and speak up for yourself.

So those are some symptoms and if you resonate with any of those keep listening.

So, reasons why I think we don’t speak up enough, and I think I have alluded to this in some of the things that I have just said but low self-esteem, low self-confidence, low self-worth, these are all reasons why we might not speak up enough. My self-esteem, my self-confidence, my self-worth, were just terrible for the first several years of my life, and then got even worse during that relationship so that’s one very valid reason why we don’t speak up enough. We don’t feel like we are worthy if we don’t feel good about ourselves then why would we open up our mouths and express ourselves.

Self-trust is another thing, if we don’t trust ourselves, then how can we trust ourselves to express ourselves. I was always terrified of opening my mouth and saying the wrong thing. So if you don’t trust yourself you are going to want to stay quiet. As I said in the beginning, not wanting to take up space with your voice, not wanting to take up space with your story, with your words. There are a lot of fears that can keep us from keeping speaking up enough. Fears of being wrong, fears of saying the wrong thing. Fears of bullying, fears of criticism, fears of conflict, fears of not being liked. There are a lot of fears that can keep us silent and quiet and stuck in our shell. And this is all why I think that knowing ourselves makes it easier to speak up, because the more we know ourselves, the more we like ourselves, the more we trust ourselves, our self-confidence is boosted, our self-esteem is boosted, our self-worth is boosted, and we can really step into a place of personal power. And, I say this having come from a really dark place, a really low place, and having spent the last ten years of my life in healing and personal development and personal growth and I know that this isn’t something that happens overnight, because it has taken me a decade to get here but it is such a valuable path to be working and I really think that walking this path of personal development and boosting our self-confidence and self-esteem and self-worth and self-love and stepping into a place of self-power really helps us to be happy. I was miserable for those ten years that I couldn’t express myself, and I was walking on eggshells because I was afraid. It is a horrible place to be and there is a way out of it, it takes time, it takes work, but it is not hard. You just need to take steps at you own pace on this journey of personal healing and personal development and personal growth.

As I hear myself saying this I know it sounds very kind of life-coach-y, ‘just step on this path of personal growth’, it is work, again, I don’t think it is hard but you do need to put in the time and the work and you can do this by, as I always say, by working with someone else, by working with yourself, get personal development books and read them and do the work. It is absolutely possible so no matter how dark of a place you are in, you can start taking taking steps to get out of there. If you are in an unsafe place obviously that starts with you making yourself safe, don’t make yourself even more unsafe by speaking up.

So how to get started speaking up, finding your voice and using it? For me it was Toastmasters, not everyone resonates with Toastmasters, but you can usually go to, I think, two meetings before you have to commit to signing up or not. You can go to two meetings for free, I think it is. So go online, toastmaster, I think it is http://toastmasters.org, I will link to that in the show notes but there are clubs all over the world. If you don’t like Toastmasters, if you don’t resonate with them for whatever reason, there are other public speaking clubs you can join, you could take a public speaking course and you could learn how to speak. Singing is another way of using your voice and that’s not a thing that I do, because I am tone deaf and I have no concept of musical notes, but I was in the chorus in elementary school, that probably wasn’t a good thing! Singing is another way, because it is using your voice and it involves performing, so that is another way that you could use your voice, practice performance, practice singing in front of other people. I think it is a really, really, good way if you are not drawn to public speaking. Podcasting, I think it is another great way.

So think of how you can use your voice whether it is doing a podcast with a friend, or doing a podcast on your own, or just finding ways of using your voice: spoken word poetry, reciting poetry that other people have written. Any kind of performance that involves using your voice: acting, there are so many things that you can do and I am aware that all of these suggestions if you are still resonating with that quiet, shy, persona that all really sounds probably terrifying and all I have to say is that when you go to things like this, whether it is acting, singing, public speaking, whatever, as a newcomer, people are largely supportive, especially toastmasters, they are super supportive because a lot of people that do it started out as being super quiet and shy and awkward and nervous and so they want to help you and support you.

So, try different things until you find what is right for you, for me it was toastmasters, I would say start with that because the first two sessions are free, you don’t have to go on to use your public speaking skill but just getting up in front of a group and speaking, doing your table topics, doing your prepared speeches, that can be life-changing, exhilarating that adrenalin rush of being on stage and people watching you and listening to you, it is super, super, powerful because they are there to listen to whomever is on stage and if you are the kind of person who has always been quiet and shy and invisible and unseen it can feel really terrifying but also great to have a roomful of people watching you, listening to you and in Toastmasters they are listening they are not like thinking about other things or looking at their phones, certainly not looking at their phones, they are actively listening to you and it is really, really, powerful. So I hope that telling you my story and giving you seem ideas about how you can use your voice to speak up and be heard will inspire you to try new things and give that a try because also doing things like this whether it is public speaking or singing or acting or any kind of performance, that will help you to speak up in your day-to-day life, that will give you the confidence and the clarity and the ability to speak up in your day-to-day life. As always, I was googling: how to speak up, how to use you voice, before I made up my bullet points for this episode and a lot of the, pretty much all of the articles on this topic, were about speaking up in the workplace and that is a big problem for a lot of people and I guarantee that any time that you speak up and you start using your voice in this way, it will have a ripple effect in all areas of your life. It is like any time you step up outside of your comfort zone, your comfort zone expands in all directions not just in that little place where you stepped out of.

So I think that making a commitment to yourself, giving yourself permission to speak up and use your voice in new ways, step out of your comfort zone and use your voice and speak and tell your story and share your story and express yourself with your voice that’s going to have ripple effects in all areas of your life and I encourage you to do it. Just take one step, you don’t have to commit to doing the whole toastmasters 10-speech program, I never did my ten speeches, I did three and then I moved and then I didn’t really resonate with my new Toastmasters club so then I quit and that’s fine it was enough for me, it changed my life, so do something. Before I finish here I am going to encourage you to write down one thing that you can do this week to use your voice and to speak up and express yourself and maybe that is going online and finding your local toastmasters club. Maybe that is expressing your opinion somewhere, whatever, find one thing and do it this week, I encourage you.

So, that is all for this week. I am going to wrap it up. So please drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this week’s episode: are you super quiet and shy, did you used to be quiet and shy? Do you resonate with this at all? Are you struggling with this? Please drop me a line and let me know? Email me at: [email protected] and get in touch or find me online and get in touch there.

Thank you so much for listening as always if you enjoyed this episode please review it on Apple podcasts or iTunes it would mean the world to me.

And that is all for now, please remember to visit http://HollyWorton.com/326 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.

326 Holly Worton ~ How to Speak Up, Find Your Voice, & Use It