Speaking Up – Part 2
One of the lessons that has been difficult for me to integrate is to ask for what I want – especially if I feel tender or vulnerable about what I want, or if I am concerned that my want will be ignored. The difficulty with this one was learning to separate the act of 'asking' from the act of 'getting.'
When I was about 17 years old, I told my dad I wanted to be a stewardess – I wanted to travel, and I asked him for his input about how to make that happen. He snorted his derision and proceeded to bash the profession. At the time, I confused his "no" to my want as a deal-breaker, and I dropped the subject and dropped the want … which turned out fine in the long run. I eventually got my wish to travel!
These days, I see two possibilities regarding asking for what I want. Some wants are non-negotiable, I will speak up and say what they are. If there is a 'no' to my wants, I move on. My experience is that if I stay, my wants turn into demands, which still don't get honored, and my respect for myself diminishes. That kind of speaking up is an affirming Reality Check. This is who I am! Who are you? (Boundaries)
Other wants are part of speaking up in a relationship or a group/team – adding my voice to the mix, playing my part fully. If there is a 'no' to my wants, I watch it morph into
something that is a culmination of all other players speaking up about their wants. The nut I had to crack on that one was to let go of the conviction that, if what I said wasn't immediately lauded as, "Oh, Yeah, What SHE said!", then my contribution wasn't worth anything. I learned that the cumulative wisdom of the group really was cumulative wisdom (in most cases). This kind of speaking up has a sense of ping-ponging, changing form in real time. This is who I am! Who are we? And now this is who I am! And Now, who are We? (Evolution)
