Getting Your Sh*t Together
Getting Your Sh*t Together
Using Your Voice
What's in this episode:
This episode is short and sweet, since today is Juneteenth, I wanted to talk about using our voices and that they're different ways to use your voice.
Things to realize:
- I often hid in plain sight. Being raised in predominately white environments, where being black was often a sticking point, I quickly withdrew so as not to give to much attention to myself.
- Even when I was around other black people, I didn't know how to relax and be myself because I was so used to putting a facade in order to feel "safe" or make it through the day. This was HUGE as I look back on my drinking and self destructive habits.
- In recovery, after getting in touch with my feelings -- I realized I didn't want to shy away from my voice or patterns. Instead, I went against my usual and decided to embrace all of it.
- But in all honesty, it's still a WIP. We all are. That's what makes life interesting (and at times, painful). The goal is to still keep going.
Stay safe out there, friends! Here is the link to some online AA meetings.
And as always, thank you for listening to my lovely show. If possible, I would love for you to review me on iTunes, Google, Stitcher -- anywhere, really.
If you have comments or suggestions feel free to hit me up via the ways below! And sign up for my mailing list. I do like to do giveaways from time to time.
Hello, my name is Cynthia. Welcome to the latest episode of getting together a podcast where we discuss what it's like to get it all the way together or at least attempt to one day at a time.
Unknown Speaker :Hello, this is Cynthia. Welcome to the latest episode, today's episode or this week's episode rather, it's going to be a little short and sweet. I want to talk about I know for the past couple of weeks, I've discussed anger and kind of went through the gamut for that for the most part, I guess it's kind of hard to really exhaust how one feels about anger because it just comes across. It's such a meaty topic, meaty. That's like one of my favorite adjectives of the moment. Fun fact about Cynthia so I wanted to kind of
Unknown Speaker :have moved forward in a way not say that anger won't come back not saying anger should be wrapped up in a pretty little bone on a shelf by now. No, you know, anger is part of like, probably like a lot of our collective collective mind states right now whether we want it to be or not. And there's a lot of hurt and pain from present in the past and just processing and healing. So I guess my topic today is around people. And I thought it was a comment on one of my posts asking, like if I were to give one tip to podcasters, what would it be? And I think I'm gonna open it up to not just podcaster but just people in general, anyone listening to this, whether you're a podcaster, whether you're a writer, whether you work corporate, whether you work at home, whether you are a student, whether like you know, whatever, whatever, whatever
Unknown Speaker :Whatever. And that's to use your voice. And when I say voice, I'm not necessarily talking about your actual voice where you know where you could use that as well not just your physical voice, but just use you. Like whatever that is, wherever your strengths are and identifying where your strengths are and going for that, you know, I feel like there's so much happening in the world right now. So easy caught off guard and so easy to feel like I should be doing more I should be doing more I should be doing more I feel like that. Especially if you have like an attics mind or a anxious mind or a perfectionistic mind You know, I check a lot of these boxes. I think I check all of them and I don't like boxes. So why did I use that anyway, you see in my mind goes everybody tiring. So you start to like weigh on yourself and guilt and the shame and you know, I always
Unknown Speaker :Talk about guilt, guilt and shame. I should change to be my tagline of this podcast because I'm always about guilt, shame. It's like, but you know, you start wrapping yourself rubbing yourself up and I feel like as an addict, it's so easy to start going down that path that that spiral of like I'm not doing good enough I am an imposter. I am just like everybody whatever whatever this group of people or these people have said about me I am that you know whether you think it's a totally about something else is totally about getting your yourself out there, the world your voice out there, but that type of thinking that disordered or destruct self destructive thinking can kind of tip you in going down that path when it comes to an eventual relapse and I say it's gonna happen, you know, you can circumvent that you can come out of it, but you know, it kind of like starts you going there. And then soon you'll start thinking about like, what other things you're not doing right? And it just piles and piles and piles and piles on top of each other. So I guess I kind of
Unknown Speaker :Want to just address that, like just making sure that you are taking care of yourself that you are doing all that you can what you feel like you're able to give, because I feel especially as people of color, we are made to feel like we have to give and give and give at the expense of ourselves. I was hired, I gave an interview today. And actually I don't even consider it interview was like just a conversation between two lovely people. And it was a good time. I will share it out when it gets posted, of course. And it was just about having to show up in certain spaces as like a black woman and being in predominantly white environments. And I talked about it when it comes to like my recovery and how I kind of felt so isolated and like I don't know if I can share because what set me off today was the fact that I was in a freaking creative client review. I was the only black person there and I was in like people thought I was either supposed to be the note taker, which is not my job. I'm supposed to I was
Unknown Speaker :The Secretary, which I'm not, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's sort of just like, not feeling like but why do you come at me? Like, I'm the secretary, when you didn't do it to my colleague who's sitting next to me, we were having a conversation, why don't you assume I was one. And it's always like these types of dynamics. And they're all these types of dynamics and you know, having to come into a room and be like the only again, the only black person there when you know logically that it's not the person, like the person that really offended you or upset you is not in the room, or they may be but whatever. But for this example, they were not in the room, but it's like that emotional stuff like that underlying that residual stuff, that trauma and the stuff that like, you know, you're buried deep, it's from your childhood, it's from how you're raised is from a traumatic experience, and it's like, you never know when it's gonna come up. Right. And I feel as a person of color as a woman of color as a black woman, a black queer woman, that
Unknown Speaker :I had to learn to dial it down and conform and speak up and not use my voice not talk about what I was, after what I wanted, in some kind of way with my friends, you know, even my other black friends but at the same time still kind of removed from it kind of just like witnessing it from sidelines even though it didn't imp like acting like it didn't impact me when I did because I just wouldn't allow myself to feel a lot of these things because I wasn't sure what I would do. And I was like that for a long time. So I kind of just pushed down my voice and I think pushing down my voice actually elevated my drinking. Because I didn't feel confident I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel secure in my own self in order to express myself. And it was like verbally. It was through my art and my writing and my photography. It was through my dancing and my movement, you know, in verbally I don't know if I said
Unknown Speaker :Really, but I was would not allow myself I just had to be so shut down just to function in so many environments that I had to coexist in because that was my job, or that's who I knew, or that's where I lived, you know, and that can wear on you. And then when I got sober, I kind of had to re jigger all that, and I couldn't hide from that, and I couldn't hide from my feelings, and I couldn't hide from feeling so oppressed, and I couldn't, I couldn't run away from it. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to run away from it. I didn't want to shy from it shy away from it. I wanted to just embrace it. Finally, even with the pain and the frustration and the hurt, and I still have a lot of those moments. This whole like the past three weeks has been just like, oh my god, you know, really, you know what the fuck and working in the environments that I work and then trying to like navigate that with my anger and frustration and keep an open mind and be safe for myself.
Unknown Speaker :keep it in perspective, but it's also irritating because I feel like as black people or as people of color, we have to keep it in perspective, you know, and there's some irritation there. And I'm trying to work through it, I'll be honest, like, it's a work in progress. But even with all that, I'm being very cognizant of the fact that I don't want to lose my voice, and I want to speak and I want to show up. However, if it's not verbally, then it's like through my art through through my writing, the types of things that I choose to write about the types of things that I come to this podcast and talk about, when it comes to being black when it comes to being queer when it comes to being in recovery, you know, owning all of my story because for so long, I allowed myself to feel like I should suppress all of it. And we only have one life here, you know, that we know of. I think there is great freedom and being feeling safe to do it and speak
Unknown Speaker :And use your voice and I understand that sometimes you won't get that, you know, you won't get feel that safety. I know when I started this podcast, I didn't feel safe. I was like, I'm very private person putting my business out there is something that I don't do. That's not what my family taught me. But I did it because I was like, why the hell not, you know, let's try something new because what you were doing was is serving you. So I guess to come kind of come full circle, use your voice beeth use it at what you feel capable of doing or giving, making sure that you take that time for you and take a step back. If that's what you need to do. You can't offer you can't feel someone else's cup when something when your cup is half full or empty. And I used to be like, that's just like a shishi cliche statement that's so old. But now it's really true. You can give 100% or 50% or 75% of yourself to anything or to a cause if you're not taking care of you. I hope
Unknown Speaker :This gives you some food for thought. I hope you get out there and use your voice and whatever medium applies to you that you feel like you can express yourself. And then when you maybe take that pause or take that moment, you take that pause and you take that moment and don't move until you feel like that's what you should do, because that is your right and no one else can dictate our move up that timeframe for you. With that being said, friends, friends, friends, friends, I hope you keep it safe out there. I hope I hope that you do what serves you this week, and in all the following weeks. Until next time, talk soon take care. Bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai