Welcome to Day 3: Communicate What You Need to Say

How did it go? Did you clean something up? I'm going to assume that if you're here, you did! Or at least you're committed to doing it, even if you haven't done it yet. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be showing up here. 

See, there's a way that when we don't do what we know to do, and we don't take action, our tendency is to want to hide and will stop showing up completely. But when we do what we know to do, we start to gain a sense of wholeness about ourselves, a confidence about ourselves. And that confidence makes us more willing and able to show up and express ourselves in our lives, which is the whole point of what we're doing here. Okay, so now we've conquered. We've cleaned up. 

And the third “C” I want to talk to you about is communicate. So in this practice, the action is to get in communication, in some area or with some person, that you haven't been communicating. So this might be similar to cleaning up, it might be a communication that you haven't delivered, but you know you need to. 

So in my work, we refer to this as a withhold, right? This could be something that you know you need to communicate with somebody, but for whatever reason, maybe you're afraid, maybe you've just been busy and sort of making excuses for not doing it, but you really know you need to, and you're not doing it -- you're withholding information. 

There is a really big impact on us when we withhold. We tell ourselves a story about why we can't say the thing we need to say or why we can't communicate what we need to communicate. We say that they'll get upset with us, they'll lose their temper, they won't understand. When we make up that story about the other, we begin to collect evidence to support it and justify why we're withholding the information. 

So maybe my friend has invited me to a party, and I really don't want to go. But instead of saying I don't want to go, I just say, "Oh, I'm not sure I'll let you know." And then the invitation kind of hangs over us like this thing we're avoiding. And maybe we never even say if we'll go, we just let the party come and go when we skip it. And then we have the experience when that friend calls and we see our phone ringing and it's their name, we kind of want to collapse and hide. Right? That's the impact. 

So getting in communication would be to say to the friend, “I'm not coming to the party.” But typically what happens is the noise says, oh she'll be upset. She won't understand why I don't want to come. Or she'll try to pressure me into coming even though I said no. 

And then we begin to relate to this person, we relate to this friend, like she really is that way, she's the kind of person that would pressure me. And our mind begins to collect evidence to support our story about this person. And in that way, we kind of create a distance or separation from this person. It's an unconscious impact that we're not always present to. 

So there's something really powerful about getting in open, honest communication, would be saying to the friend, "You invited me to the party, and I'm going to pass this time. Thank you." And when we do that, we have a sense of wholeness and confidence about ourselves that we just wouldn't have if we stepped over it or we withhold it. 

So identify one area in your life where you know you need to be in communication and you're not doing it. Then notice the noise that shows up and do it anyways. It’s really powerful to help you ditch doubt and regain a sense of personal power.

All right, I will see you tomorrow as we cover the fourth “C.”