Last night, I had a tennis match outside. The weather was supposed to hold out, but it didn’t. We played for about an hour and half in the steady rain. At the crossover, we discussed stopping, but we weren’t the captains, so we remained silent. My opponents boyfriend is a tennis pro and she stated, “When he hears I played in this he’s going to be so mad. It’s dangerous. If we were on a hard court we would have stopped by now!” Very good point, but we played on, ending at 8pm, soaking wet.

My point here is simply how often we don’t use our voice. We remain silent because we don’t want to be “that” person, we don’t want to make waves, we aren’t certain if everyone else feels the same way, we don’t want to look foolish, etc. So we say nothing, often allowing that thought to eat away at us, all the while saying, “I should say something,” but we don’t.

Today I want us all to consider speaking up. If you’ve never spoken up then you don’t know how liberating it can be! You might not get the answer you’re looking for, but simply sharing your thoughts will feel amazing. We overthink about what speaking up means. So be tactful, be respectful, but SPEAK for goodness sake. Remaining silent erodes our sense of self-worth. Silence is also approval (like us last night in the rain). Other people may feel the same way. It also shows we are invested. There’s probably something right now you need to speak up about so…LET’S GO! WE GOT THIS!

Beth