To Speak and Be Heard... the struggle of putting yourself out there

Writing has always been an emotional outlet for me.

I use it to work through my personal issues, relationship problems and even things I see going on in the world. Most of the time it's much easier for me to write my feelings than to speak about them. This is another area I desperately need to work on.

It strikes my curiosity though; why is it easier to write something down and share it than it is to just speak it out loud?

I've talked with many people who feel the same, even people who don't consider themselves to be "writers" per se.

You see it constantly now with the rise of the internet - people feel some kind of safety behind a keyboard and can unleash whatever is rushing through their mind at a particular moment.

Clearly this has its pros and cons.

If you want to know how someone really feels give them an anonymous social media account and see how they act.

So how can speaking face to face ever compete with hiding behind a screen, an anonymous account or a pen-name? There is so much risk involved with speaking, or at least we as society perceive there is much more risk involved... But I'd like to flip the idea and play devil's advocate for a moment:

Writing out something should weigh more heavily because it takes time to write or type something. You have the clarity to visually see what idea, comment or wording you choose to implement. You can backspace and erase and no one would be any wiser. What you write is immortalized on paper or recorded forever on the internet.. shouldn't that fact alone be cause to pause and rethink before you share?

For me I've always feared speaking because there is no backspace key.. no eraser to scratch out a misplaced word or a faulty idea. You have to stand by what you speak because although you can apologize or excuse your mistake you can never erase what your audience heard.

The fear of being misunderstood has left my voice dry for many years.

My throat chakra has been blocked up and causing so many problems in my life. Finally I am attempting to bust out of my silent cave and speak my mind. I'm learning to trust my judgments, my intuition and my voice. I've found that just talking about my problems or ideas lifts a huge weight off my shoulders.

In fact, sometimes I feel a greater release when I just speak the truth I'm feeling at the moment rather than stuff it down to record in my notepad later on.

Writing and reflection are important pieces of me and I believe they are important for every person, but to be able to just speak your mind at the moment, unafraid that it may not be 'perfectly worded' is ultimate freedom.

I just want to put one word of caution in here at the end. I am not advocating for speaking out of anger.

In fact when you're angry or scared it is much better to keep your mouth shut and write it out! Mull over those feelings and look at them in black and white so that when you do speak, you can do so rationally.

Words are powerful - how you speak to yourself and others matters greatly and the more I break out of my silent shell and voice my thoughts I realize how important words truly are. I plan to do a post to further examine the amazing power of words :) Like one of my new "old" favorite writers - Florence Scovel Shinn - says "Your Word is Your Wand."

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(Original images used within this post are sourced from pixabay.com)

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