Ep 2: Never Use Your Indoor Voice

Today’s topic covers one of those “Yah, it served everyone well when I was a kid, but not any more!” mindsets and behaviors from yesteryear: using our indoor voice.

In today’s episode, I share two very different stories around this idea of using your indoor-voice: one externally imposed and one internally.

If you see either of these stories in your life and are looking for a way to dig deeper on the topic, I’ve created a beautiful gift just for you over at unsabotage.com/tryit.

Here’s today’s transcript:

Hey, Gorgeous. Ginny Townsend here with UnSabotage, which is beautiful and unique community of women, gathered together to find out what’s been holding them back, move that out of the way, and step into a life they adore. Thank you so much, for joining me today on this Facebook Live.

If you had a chance to read the description before you jumped on, this Facebook Live is about the idea of using your indoor-voice. The idea has been on my mind, it’s been captivating to me for the last almost year. I have two stories for you today that are quite different, but I think they both really illustrate one side of using your indoor-voice, and why I think it’s a disservice to you and to your world.

With these two stories … If you resonate with the first story, I’m going to ask you to type, “One”, in the comments box. If you resonate with the second story, I want you to comment, “Two”, in the comments box. If you resonate with both of them, then type, “Both.”

The first story about the indoor-voice: One of my dear, dear friends, she is known for having the best laughter in the room. When she is happy, or joyful, or something just tickles her funny bone, her laugh… she does not hold back, and it’s really sweet, it’s endearing, and it’s definitely a part of her personality.

About a year ago, she was telling me this story of how one day at work, one of her coworkers said something to make her laugh, and she just was like, “Bah-ha-ha-ha” You know, just really let loose, and enjoyed that moment of complete humor. Then, another coworker looked over to her, and said, “Do you even have an indoor-voice?” My heart hurt for her when she shared that story with me. She felt embarrassed, obviously. Then, she just withdrew for the rest of the day. She just really didn’t want to be around people, and I think her trust of the people went down.

That is one story of the idea of using your indoor-voice. Then, the second story is actually my own story. It has to do with a number of years ago, I was invited to be a part of this strategic meeting, and a lot of really big decisions were going to be made, on the moving forward of this organization I was a part of, all based on that meeting.

We all prepared, we put together some strategies and some models, and then, when we got to that meeting, I presented, or, one of the models was presented that I had come up with, and it was dismissed with laughter, and that’s not really the main point of it. Really, the point of it was, I immediately felt like, “Oh, no. Was I not prepared? Did I miss an email? Obviously I’m not privy to what’s going on. Have they had other conversations?” It was all of these stories going on in my mind, and as a result I withdrew. I didn’t say much for the rest of the meeting.

Then, afterwards, when we were driving back from the meeting, the person I rode with asks, “So, what’d you think of that? What did you think of that conversation?” I was like, “You know what? It was different than I thought it would be, but I still feel like I don’t have this question answered”, and laid it out again. Then, the person that I was driving with looked at me, and was like, “That’s exactly why I asked you to be a part of this meeting.”

It made me stop and think, because, while the first story of using your indoor-voice, was someone else had told her to use her indoor-voice, but in this instance, I had told myself to use my indoor-voice.

I’ve thought a lot about this idea when we were growing up, there’s obviously a place to be polite and courteous and respectful of your surroundings, and use your indoor-voice, but I think it can carry over into what we’re doing as adults, who we want to be, and how we hold ourselves back.

If I were to answer, “So, why is this important? What is the idea of having an indoor-voice, not” or pushing back on the idea of using our indoor-voice. Why is that important? There’s several different ways I can go with this, but one I keep coming back to is, the world can seem huge, and daunting, and like, what can we do to make a difference in it? But something that I’m challenging myself to do, and so, I’m going to challenge you to do, is to take a look at like, “Okay, maybe changing the world is overwhelming and daunting, but what can I do to change my world? What can I offer? What words can I say that are said in love, that are said in healing, that are powerful, that I can actually help to change my world?”

I hope you found those two stories valuable, and I want to also close the loop, and say, “Yeah. Okay, we can make the case for using our indoor-voice is not serving us at our highest good, and our world around us.” We can get that in theory, but what do we do about it?

I went ahead and I created a gift, just for you, and if you go over to unsabotage.com/tryit there is a free printable, just for you. It’s called, “UnClutter.” If you download it, I encourage you to first acknowledge, which story resonated with you the most. Was it the first one, my friend that had the laughter and was told to use her indoor-voice, or the second one, where I told myself to use my own indoor-voice? Which one resonated with you the most? Then, I encourage you to think, and to jot, and to journal about what your voice specifically can offer in changing your world. Because, like I said, your voice is beautiful, it is healing, and loving, and powerful. Your world needs your voice in it.

Again, did story number one resonate with you, or number two resonate with you? Go ahead and write that in the comments, and then hop on over to unsabotage.com/tryit. I hope you have an amazing week. I hope you do not use your indoor-voice, and I will talk to you again next Tuesday. Bye, Gorgeous!