Speak

When we speak we are afraid we will not be heard or welcomed. When we are silent, we are still afraid. So its better to speak. – Audre Lorde

We're probably all familiar with the quote "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." God forbid that we should look like a fool, that we should not know everything. Most of us are terrified at the thought of saying something that turns out to be embarrassing or something that we will regret later. So we don't speak up for ourselves in the right way at the right time.

But when we are silent, we are still afraid. We are afraid that other people will never get to know us, never understand us, never meet our needs because they just don't know what those needs are. We are afraid of not connecting, of feeling like a stranger. We are even afraid of being not interesting enough to hold their attention. When it comes down to it, what we are really afraid of is whether they will find us, our beleifs and feelings, interesting and/or attractive.

As long as we are silent, we will never find out the answer. So it will always remain a possibility that they don't like us or what we're saying. And we will always be afraid. Like anything else the way to get over fear is to simply do the thing that we are afraid of. It is indeed better to speak. After all it is also possible that we can open our mouths and prove that we are not fools at all, and that we are not just heard but very much welcomed.