“To be human is to have a story to tell.” Isak Dinesen
So here is my story… and by way of it I may shine some light as to why we are so uncomfortable at best and terrified at worst of expressing ourselves in front of people and particularly in front of a captive audience. Story in chapters!
As far as I remember, I have always felt that I was not heard… by my parents, by my teachers and by the people surrounding me.
It wasn’t necessarily their fault … nor mine… I would use words that seemed simple at the time, as a child I would say: “I am not hungry, I am not sleepy, this food makes me sick”…but the words never seemed to reach them in the way I expected. It was the illusion of communication. What would get back to me was: “no, you are hungry and therefore must eat”, “no, you are sleepy therefore must sleep”, “no, this food is good for you therefore eat it.”
It could all very well be put into the bag of ‘Parents know better what is good for their children’ and soon be forgotten except it wasn’t, especially not by me.
And maybe I am not the only one, maybe it all starts there without meaning to… our distrust of communication, our deep-seated belief that we can speak but nobody will truly listen. For quite a few of us it starts with our parents and continues with our teachers.
To be continued…
