The Importance of Saying What Needs to Be Said

Life is hard.  Love is challenging.  Sometimes one may feel as though the pressure of everything is too much to tackle and the easiest thing to do is to simply hide.  But we all know what kind of rough justice hiding can spawn.  Just think what would happen if you didn’t pay your bills, for example.

Let’s take an easier example.  Your child comes up to you and asks, “Where do babies come from?”  You stumble, you choke, you sputter; you give an excuse to talk about it when they’re older.

Think for a moment what effect this can have, what will be the ripples of consequence your reaction to something that needs to be addressed.

1. You sow the seed of mistrust with your child.  This is huge, and it’s real.  You, the parent, the life and breath and the End-All-Be-All to your child, have just disregarded a very important question, a very simple question, a very innocent question and a very natural question from someone who thinks you’re SO great, they want to be just like you.   And you just disrespected that by not stepping up to the plate and being real and respecting the source.
2. You water the seed of your own insecurity.  Another biggie, equally potent.  By sweeping things under the rug, you are reaffirming to yourself that you do not matter enough to say something, or that what you have to say will be construed in a destructive manner.  When you see yourself reacting like this, use this as perspective as a personal guide, a reflection to help yourself get un-stuck and back into fluid confidence and self-respect.  Nip that in the bud, dearie. 

This leads us to start to think about owning up to our thoughts and actions, about how we might not want to take our value from what other people think of us.  Taking our value from others instead of holding it centered within ourselves is pretty darned limiting when you think about it, and it certainly is stifling to your freedom of expression.  

When what we say and how we say it is all with love, there is no reason to worry about what anyone else’s reaction to you may be.  You know in your heart that if someone responds by shutting down, or getting angry at you, that it’s their own reactive, misguided, incompleteness.  (Hey!  You’ve been working on that yourself, now, haven’t you?)  You just happened to bring it to light and often, that crap stinks; it’s hard to hear and it’s hard to say.  But if you don’t say what needs to be said, the consequences are profoundly, exponentially harder to untangle.  So please, trust me, for the sake of your own sanity and everyone else’s, stand up and say what needs to be said.  Say it clearly, and say it always with love.  All shall be well.