Speaking Fast And Slow
Are you a fast or slow speaker?
Has the speed of your speech ever been an issue in your life?
I fall into the group of fast speakers.
As a child and teenager I was ridiculed and laughed at repeatedly when I spoke. Often someone amongst the listeners would make a joke at my expense, and ask me through fits of laughter to, “please rewind and play it again.”
I am sure the kids did not mean to be unkind, however the kid at the receiving end, me, felt shamed and hurt. Sometimes even adults in my environment imitated me and made fun of how I spoke.
In time and out of awareness I formed a limiting decision that grew into a limiting belief.
I am not good at public speaking and never will be.
“It is important to see that whatever seems determined in your life has been determined by you unconsciously. You have written your own software. Depending on the way you have written your software, that is the way you think, that is the way you feel, that is the way you act, and that is what you invite into your life.”
- SADHGURU, a yogi, a mystic & founder of Isha Humanitarian Foundation
As I grew older this limiting belief turned into a strong fear of public speaking. I did everything I could to avoid speaking in public like it was the plague.
On the occasions that I managed to avoid it, I felt relief mixed with shame and disappointment. I was disappointed because of the missed opportunity of sharing what I felt was of value. I felt shame at my inability to express my thoughts and opinions.
On the occasions when I could not escape from it, I suffered tremendous anxiety and stress leading up to the main event. During the event itself I would shake like a leaf, have a dry mouth and struggle to concentrate, as all I could focus on was the need to get myself off that visible stage as soon as possible. At the end I would feel relief that it was over plus disappointment and shame with my performance. It was a vicious cycle.
I tried different things to help me overcome my fear of public speaking, like for example joining Toastmasters (an international non-for-profit organisation that helps people develop communication, public speaking, and leadership skills). They helped a little, however my real transformation came when I embarked on my studies about human behaviour, and had therapy. It was only then that I unearthed the real underlying issues behind my fear of public speaking, and became aware of those past limiting decisions and beliefs that I have made as a child. I also became aware of deeper traumatic experiences that added to my fear of speaking publicly, of being centre of attention and of being visible.
For each vow and limiting belief that I reprogram and reframe, I get another layer of freedom.”
- Katische Haberfield, author.
Awareness was key because you can’t change what you are not aware actually exists. Once aware then the healing and recovery can start followed by taking actions to make new empowering decisions and beliefs to replace the old ones.
Today I wouldn’t say that I am totally free of fear surrounding my public speaking, however, because I have had the awareness and healing work, I am able to use that knowledge and awareness to energise me instead of paralyse me. Added to this is my passion at sharing what I have learnt in order to support others.
I am perhaps still a fast speaker but this habit no longer evokes shame in me. I embrace it and take steps to remind myself to slow down so I can communicate effectively the message I want to share with my audience.
Why is it important to uncover limiting beliefs?
Because they navigate our lives and they are essentially errors of judgement. By uncovering them we gain the ability to limit the damage they cause and increase our choices.
How do you uncover the limiting beliefs that are holding you back from reaching your true potential?
By taking time and space to reflect on your life, and discover the areas where you feel you have not gotten the results you want despite your efforts. The areas where you feel out of sync with what you really want to be, do or have.
By paying close attention to what your body is trying to communicate to you.
By engaging the services of a coach, counsellor or therapist because they act as objective observers who are more likely to detect those errors of judgement that you confidently carried within you for so long. So do go ahead and treat yourself to a number of sessions to resolve these issues. You are worth it.
Does this resonate? Is this something you need support with?
Let’s talk.
What Out-dated Story Are You Still Living By Today?
What out-dated story are you still living by today?
Are you aware of it, and it’s impacts on your life?
Would you like to bring it to your awareness?
After all, you can’t change what you are not aware exists in the first place.
“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
- Patrick Rothfuss, American author.
Those who know me might also know that I am mixed. My mum was from Ghana and my dad from Lebanon. I was the intersection between an African and an Arab, a Catholic and a Muslim. I was baptised as a baby then when a toddler was raised in a Muslim household.
My parents divorced before I was two years old. The circumstances then meant that I was shuffled around between carers and homes until I arrived, in the sixties, at the doorsteps of my Lebanese grandmother in Tripoli, Lebanon.
Not many people looked like me in those days. I was one of two black pupils in the whole school. The result was being subjected to discrimination and racism during the most impressionable years of my life. My brown skin became a reason to dislike me, reject me, call me names, poke fun at me, ignore me, or treat me with total inconsideration.
It is no wonder that the combination of the unsettled early years and having to face those biases led me to make the decision that I was not good enough, and that I needed to try hard to earn people’s love.
When you tell yourself a story long enough, you believe it and it impacts all your life choices.
That was the story that I lived by for most of my teen and young adult years and it did negatively impact my personal and professional life. I experienced a crisis in my thirties, had a breakdown, and got myself some much needed help in the form of coaching and counselling. That was the moment when things started to change.
It was only then, in those therapeutic sessions, that I started to bring aspects of this old, out-dated story into my awareness. I started challenging its truth, and questioned its validity. Only then life began to slowly change, and I started first to love myself and then allow the love of others to flow into my life. Only then I began to experience joy and fulfilment, which spread around me and engulfed everyone in my world.
“There is a surrendering to your story and then a knowing that you don’t have to stay in your story.”
- Colette Baron-Reid, Intuitive Counsellor
I observe a similar, yet unique experience, in my clients. I see how many of them are also still living according to an old, out-dated story. I witness how they carry heavily within them the limiting decisions and beliefs that they formed decades ago. The story that brought some comfort years ago is now the cause of so much discomfort because it is thwarting their chances of a happy and successful life.
The out-dated story could be stopping you from going after that promotion, or acing that interview, from speaking up and sharing your ideas during work meetings, or starting a relationship. It could be the reason you focus on the needs of others and neglect your own. The reason you can’t say no and try hard to meet the demands of others. The reason you are afraid to show your emotions and your vulnerability. The reason you strive for perfection and fear making mistakes.
My clients and I work together so they can become fully aware of the old story. This allows them to re-examine those decisions, and choose when and how to let this old story go, make new choices and live according to a changed and more authentic story.
What about you?
Are you still holding on to an out-dated story?
Would you like to bring it to your awareness?
Let’s talk.
To Let Go Of The Past, You Need To Stop Avoiding It.
I remember a particular period in my early thirties when I became a mother often revisiting and talking about unhappy aspects of my childhood.
On one occasion someone close to me said this:
“Why are you talking about the past? It’s done. Just move on.”
Sounds logical, right?
I hear that statement often from many people in both my personal and professional circles. They believe the same. “Why dredge up the past?” They say, “It’s done and dusted.”
Yet I consistently observe in those very people how their avoidance from learning about the past continues to determine their actions in the present.
It is true that the past is done. However simply closing the door on the unintegrated and unresolved past does not mean that it stops impacting your present. Not to mention the loss of access to valuable resources that the past often offers. As long as the past is left unresolved, it will continue to impact your present because the impact is unconscious. You are living in the past without realising it and are continuing to react to past events as if they were in the present.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
- C.G. Jung, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
The past reappears every time:
You go into an inexplicable rage and direct it at someone in the present who ultimately is not responsible for the wrongs you have experienced in your past.
You are terrified from things that terrify no one else because your body is responding to danger messages carried from your past.
You sob uncontrollably for no valid reason because you are grieving for losses you had no opportunity to grieve for in your past.
You laugh in situations that are actually distressing because it is easier to discount their significance instead of acknowledging the pain they carry for you from your past.
Basically anytime when you find that your emotions and actions don’t fit the current situation. In that moment you have unconsciously time travelled to the past.
Moving on, as logical as it sounds, is not that simple. To move on you need to first look back and make peace with the past. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do so.
I invite you to do the same. Take a fresh look at your past, integrate and resolve it, so you can finally stop it from charging or contaminating your present, and affecting your current actions and experiences. This is how you can let it go once and for all. The result is less time travel and more grounding in the present.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift…that’s why they call it present.”
- Kung Fu Panda, animated movie.
By becoming aware of the past and gaining the ability to live with it, you transform yourself from an unaware victim of the past into an empowered individual in the present.
You don’t have to do this alone. You can get the support of a professional if need be, so you can begin to enjoy fully the gift of the present.
What is the most important quality in a leader?
“Is being a leader a choice or a skill set?”
A question posed by Alastair James during the latest Purpose Collective conversation I attended. During the breakout room discussion that followed, someone mentioned how at school some of us were told that you could either be a leader or a follower. It occurred to me in that moment that, as a young person, I never saw myself as a leader because I was way too emotionally reactive and had zero self-confidence.
I grew up in an environment that discriminated against people who look like me. The rejection and the feeling of not belonging chipped at my sense of identity, and self-worth. I did not have the confidence to speak up or share my creative thoughts and ideas for fear of being ridiculed. In addition, my need to belong and feel accepted meant that my focus was on meeting the needs of others and neglecting my own. This environment did not offer me safety to be me or to make mistakes. I bottled up my emotions and tried hard to adapt to the expectations of others around me and in that process I temporarily lost myself.
“Sometimes, it is only in the getting lost that we can find our way back home.”
-Jeanette LeBlanc, speaker, coach & mentor
When you grow up in a challenging environment you instinctively develop patterns of thinking and behaving to survive that harsh environment. You carry those behaviours unconsciously into adulthood and they become part of your skill set and character traits. However what served you so well as a child can become an obstacle in your adult life. For example in my case, caring for others is great, however not so great when it is at the expense of neglecting my own self-care.
To be able to meet the needs of others I developed great powers of observation and an ability to read people and anticipate what they might do next. That ensured my safety and protection in the past. By being discriminated against and ‘othered' , I became someone who can empathise, show compassion and understanding towards people who have been viewed or treated as intrinsically different. Instead of being angry and bitter, I was curious about people’s behaviours including my own. In my curiosity I often asked myself the question “How” instead of “Why”. How do we become the way we are? How do we develop certain ways of thinking, feeling and behaving? What are the factors in our environment that influence this? More importantly, is it possible for people to change, if so, then how? The fact that I survived childhood traumas also demonstrates a degree of resilience and perseverance. I was not fully aware that those qualities were my signature strengths when it comes to leadership. As a coach I observe a similar lack of awareness in some of the clients I work with. I make sure that our work together re-connects them with those forgotten inner strengths.
Many years later when I started my career as a pharmacist, my hard work paid off and I got promoted. Promotion thrust me in leadership positions and my emotional and mental struggles made this role difficult. I inevitably made mistakes along the way, which, in some cases, deepened the wounds from childhood.
In my thirties I finally got the coaching and counselling I so needed and desired, and that brought about a wonderful transformation within me and outside of me. The counselling addressed a lot of the distorted decisions I made about myself and others as a result of childhood trauma, and that positively impacted my role as a leader.
✨ My self-esteem and confidence grew.
✨ I became more responsive instead of being reactive.
✨ The care I gave to my emotional and mental well-being meant, that as a leader, I am also able to convey to members of the team this same important message.
✨ It meant caring for others without neglecting my own self-care.
✨ It meant being open and curious about what I can learn when mistakes are made, instead of being hard and unforgiving of myself.
✨ It meant having the ability to be honest without being hurtful, to listen to feedback without feeling shame and rejection, and to create a safe environment where we can all enjoy together the journey of learning and discovery.
Most importantly I found my voice and dared to speak up and share my thoughts and ideas especially on the subject of emotional and mental health. My vulnerability became my strength. We can’t shine bright without acknowledging that we all do have a dark side that is in need of change.
“I raise up my voice-not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”
―Malala Yousafzai, an activist for female education and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Taking care of my mental and emotional health was a game changer for me on the personal and professional front. Nowadays I find myself again in a leadership role in my work with ACCESS, alongside my coaching practice, at The Hague International Centre, where I lead a team of amazing, talented and skilled individuals, navigating their own personal challenges as well as supporting internationals to have a smooth transition into the Netherlands. We work well together as a team despite our cultural, religious, gender, and age differences. Perhaps that is what makes us so suited at providing a service to a similar diverse audience.
I think that we always have a choice when it comes to leadership. We can choose what kind of leader we want to be and, with that in mind, take the necessary steps to acquire the skills needed to be that leader.
I believe that there is a leader in every one of us. We are influencing someone somewhere all of the time. This is not the case only at work but at home too. As a parent you are the shining example for your kids. What you say and do will form a big part of their life values. Therefore we all have the responsibility to personally develop ourselves so we become a healthy example to be followed. This may mean doing the work necessary to heal our wounds, understand how the past has impacted our personality and behaviour and learn the tools necessary to grow ourselves up again into leaders that can demonstrate the qualities that Alastair shared with us: care, courage, curiosity, collaboration, candour and consistency. To lead effectively it is paramount that you first take care of your emotional and mental health so you are leading through responding to the current reality and not to wounds and triggers from your past.
To lead when thrust in a leadership position might not be a conscious choice but how to lead is!
Burnout, a blessing or a curse?
I have worked with a few clients who have shared with me that they have experienced burnout several times in their lives, and they are afraid of experiencing it yet again.
As always I do all that I can to fully understand my clients’ experience, be it taking on more courses, attending workshops, reading a book or tapping into my own personal experience. In this quest I came across a book written by Dr Dina Glouberman, entitled The Joy of Burnout. Yes you read correctly, Joy! As I read it and reflected, I was reminded of a very challenging time I went through just prior to starting my coaching practice.
I set up my coaching practice, Recipes4change, almost 10 years ago. What I did not realise then, but fully comprehend now, was that the symptoms I have experienced just prior to setting it up were in fact burnout. I worked for many years as a pharmacist and enjoyed it. However what I really enjoyed about the job had nothing to do with pharmaceuticals and more to do with human connection and a desire to make a difference. In those times I remember that patients often talked to me about issues that were not directly related to their medicines. They felt comfortable, safe and had enough trust in me to share their troubles. What I observed was that often the fact that I took time to listen and acknowledge their issues was sometimes enough to make them feel better. I in turn also felt good after those interactions and wanted to give more of my time to this kind of work. It took some more years for me to become aware of my true passion and even more years to envision it. Yet fear stood in the way. Burnout finally got me to face my fears, and was the final catalyst that spurred me into taking a series of actions that led to the work that I do today. I quit pharmacy work for good and put my focus on my coaching and counselling training and practice. In doing so I reaped the joys of my burnout. The book has many such personal stories.
Dr Glouberman, a psychotherapist and formerly a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, and someone who experienced burnout herself, says, “when we burnout, it is our old personality that burns itself out. Then our soul fire begins to light our way and to bring us joy.”
Her words resonate with me and seem in sync with an article I came across during my Transactional Analysis (TA) training. The article explores further, and from a TA perspective, a research carried out in 1975 by German- born American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger, who classified different personality types that are vulnerable to burnout. He found a link between the phenomenon of burnout and a person’s identity as a professional. He classified three personality types:
1-The Dedicated & Committed:
Who work hard to meet the increasing demands made upon them and do not question those that make such demands. This person is not able to say no because of a belief system that the needs of others are more worthy than their own needs. They tend to feel good about themselves through the service to others. When their efforts meet with less success, they work even harder and get caught in a vicious cycle of hard work, frustration and become less efficient and ineffective. This compounds feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Such personality types over- identify with the people they serve.
2- The Overcommitted & Work Enmeshed:
Who indeed are overcommitted with an unsatisfactory private life and work becomes their only source of meaning and worth. They have no real boundaries between their professional and personal lives. They become over involved in their work environment and spend more and more time at work.
3-The Authoritarian & Patronising:
Who need to be in control and believe that no one else can do the job as well they can. They believe that others are inadequate and incompetent and need micromanaging and controlling.
Do you see aspects of yourself in any of those personality types? I recognise behaviours that I used to exhibit in the past that fit in with the first type, the dedicated & committed. I used to always put others’ needs above my own and certainly struggled to say no.
Dr Glouberman outlines also a typical burnout profile that shows some similarity to the above personality types. In her book she writes that those prone to burnout tend to be:
- Ambitious, high achievers with high energy
- Enthusiastic, work hard and do whatever is needed and at any cost
- Perceive themselves as holding together situations that they perceive would fall apart without them
- Think that they are unlimited in energy, superwomen or supermen
- Generally driven and have a high need to be needed or approved of
- Have a pattern of overdoing and over-giving without a regard for themselves
She says that all of these are patterns that may have begun way back in childhood when in our families we felt loved for what we achieved or gave, rather than for being who we are.
If we read those above profiles and classifications, it is no surprise that when we give so much of ourselves, coupled with an environment that is not supportive, understanding or appreciative, we can sometimes burn out. My clients’ fears of re- experiencing burnout again is valid, because often it is not a one off event, and can recur again in different forms and different areas of our lives, including within intimate relationships, until we do the work necessary to address the underlying issues and process the messages that burnout is trying to convey to us. In this way burnout can lead to powerful transformations and challenge us to create a new way of life.
We tend to experience burnout in the areas that are close to our heart and soul and where we invest our creativity. They are also the very same areas from which we draw our sense of identity and belonging. When things are going well and our efforts are met with appreciation or reward, we feel energised and vibrant and life seems positive and successful. It is when something upsets this picture that we become candidates to burnout. That was exactly my personal experience almost a decade ago.
The general message of the book is that burnout, although a painful experience, can ultimately lead to positive results if we are open to its message of examining our personal and professional life and see if we are living the life we want and that our work reflects who we truly are.
Burnout is simply the body’s way to let us know that we have reached the end of a particular path, yet we are refusing to acknowledge this fact. By having burnout we are forced to slow down, sometimes, even stop for a while, reflect and re-assess. This can allow us to connect again to our true self and acknowledge that the way we have been leading our lives before is not working and we need to make a change going forward.
I am glad that I had courage to do the work necessary, with the support of a professional, to understand my patterns and my needs, to gain awareness of how my personal history impacted my beliefs and behaviours and to work on my fears and to re- connect with my true self. The awareness I gained coupled with my willingness to change and follow a new path meant that I was finally able to be who I want to be and do what I want to do.
I wish that too for all my clients and I will share what I know to support their growth.
This book, alongside working with a professional, can be helpful to those who have experienced burnout, those going through it right now and to those who would like to learn how to recognise the signs early in order to prevent burnout.