You can say whatever you need to say so long as you say it with respect. And so if it’s with your intimate partner and there’s something that’s bothering you, but you want to say it, first of all, when you say it, it’s like you release a pressure valve. What most people do in any relationship, they swallow what they need to say, even though it’s incredibly important to them. And here’s what that does in your professional relationships and in your personal relationships. Every time you swallow something, you know you needed to say, so that you’re clear, it builds up, it builds up emotionally. It builds up psychically and eventually that pressure builds up and eventually it will come out in conflict. It happens at the office. There’s a teammate and you don’t say something like, “here’s what bothers me or here’s what I need to say or here’s my opinion”.
Over time, the wound will fester and it will damage the relationship. And I’ve seen it so often in home relationships, in personal relationships, a little thing that could have been handled, like,” I didn’t like the way that you said that to me.” Or, “I wanted to go to do this on the weekend, but you wanted to do that. And I really didn’t feel heard.” And rather than just saying it, because most of us don’t know how to say it, they don’t teach us how to communicate at world-class in school, we swallow it. Because human beings don’t like conflict, because we’re tribal. And I don’t want to get into the neuroscience and
the psychology of tribalism, but we’re tribal. That’s how we survived thousands of years ago.
And so now we do have an instinct hardwired into us, not to have conflict because we want to fit into the tribe to survive. But if you don’t speak your truth, when you know you need to share your opinion, well, you swallow the words, you swallow the emotions and here’s what it does. It not only then damages the work relationship or the personal relationship. Here’s the powerful insight. It damages your relationship with yourself. And I think in many ways, all lack of success and creativity and productivity in someone’s life comes down to a lack of self-worth. One of the best things you can learn how to do is learn how to honor yourself, learn how to build self-worth, learn how to build self-respect, learn how to build self-love. And one of the best ways to do that is to speak your truth even when the fire is on.