Speaking your mind matters. Your voice, matters. The power of your voice is not to be underestimated. I should know, I use mine a lot. I speak a lot, but not always on what is important to me. As much as I speak 100 miles a minute, too often I don’t speak up about the matters which mean the most to me. Maybe for fear of it falling on dead ears. Or fear of it being misunderstood and taken out of context. Even over the fear of it being the catalyst of something much bigger than I’m ready to give it time. Like life is packed as it is, if I make a stand out loud about something, then = time. Whatever the reason, too often I don’t speak.
Recently, there’s been something bugging me. Niggling at me at such a slow pace you could easily let it go unnoticed. But niggle it did. I spoke about it with people I trusted but still didn’t both confront the bigger picture. But today I did. It flowed out of me with much more ferocity and passion than I knew I’d stored up. It touched on vulnerabilities I didn’t know I felt until they left my mouth. It was liberating, cathartic and tiring, yet I’m glad I did it.
I’m in the December issue of PRIDE Magazine. I haven’t read the article yet, but I remember feeling a similar sense of verbal and emotional outpouring when being interviewed for the article. They probably used all of a paragraph of my speaking out on infertility, but I spewed thousands of words, some of them I had no recollection of ever thinking about until that time. I was speaking my mind on something close to my heart. On a subject that too often, maybe more so in the black community, isn’t done. It felt slightly taboo even in the conversation but we all know that I’ve spoken on my frustrations over trying to get pregnant this year and the lack of help from the NHS consultants. Why is having it in a print magazine aimed at black women any different than me sharing it on here?
There are times when even the most confident of us feel that what we say won’t be seen as important enough. Or that people will judge us for our opinions. I suffer this sometimes, its natural. That being said, speaking your mind matters. Because there is only one you and we need to make sure that a diverse range of opinions, ideas and thoughts are shared so that no one homogenous voice takes over. If it scares you a little, it’s probably worth talking about. Remember that.
