Make Some Noise: Speak Your Mind and Own Your Strength - Hardcover

Owen, Andrea

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593328744 ISBN 13: 9780593328743

Verlag: TarcherPerigee, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

A bold and unabashed guide to finding your voice, harnessing your true desires, and leading the life you really want.

Women are tired of worrying that they are being "too loud" if they speak up and say what they believe, want, or need, and are ready to feel their power and make themselves heard. A certified life coach and author of the bestseller How to Stop Feeling Like Shit, Andrea Owen knows that this is absolutely attainable if women can channel their righteous anger and desire. But she also knows that they'll need to disrupt a status quo in which women have been conditioned and socialized to remain on the sidelines and to put others before themselves. With all of the expertise of a veteran feminist and hell-raiser, and the relatability of a dear friend, Make Some Noise will push women to step outside of rigid societal expectations and show them how to take back control of their lives, and make them all their own.

In Make Some Noise, Owen deconstructs common behavior patterns that sabotage our power as women, and instead suggests new behaviors for creating a life that truly serves our desires and needs. From unlearning the notion that women should stay quiet and take up little space to trusting your inner wisdom, Make Some Noise is a raw and honest guidebook, and, ultimately, a call to arms.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Andrea Owen is an author, mentor, and certified life coach who helps high-achieving women let go of perfectionism, control, and isolation and choose courage and confidence instead. Owen lives in Stokesdale, North Carolina. When she's not writing, coaching her clients, speaking on stages, or on her Peloton bike, you can find her hanging out with her patient husband, Jason, and her two school-aged children, Colton and Sydney.

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1

Start Taking Up Some Damn Space

In 2009, while very pregnant with my second child, I was finishing up my bachelor's degree at California State University San Marcos.

In one particular class, there was a formula that most of the class wasn't understanding. We were let loose to figure out the assignment in groups, and I started asking my peers if they understood the formula and couldn't find anyone that did. The consensus was that we all needed more help, but no one wanted to ask for it. Our professor had explained it more than once, and apparently no one was willing to speak up on behalf of the class or even for themselves.

When our professor announced we'd have a test the following day on this topic, I raised my hand. "Professor," I said, "this formula is still unclear for us, and from what I can tell, none of us have a grasp on this material yet. Can we go over it again?"

"We've gone over it twice, Andrea," he replied.

Now, I don't know what made me feel like I needed to stand up in that moment, maybe it was because I was speaking on behalf of the class, maybe it was because my ankles were swelling, but I hauled my big, pregnant belly up out of my chair, took a deep breath, and said, "Sir, for the last twenty minutes I've been trying to find someone in this class who understands the material so they can help me. No one does. To me, that says the material hasn't been taught to us adequately, and obviously I am not alone in not comprehending. I'm asking, on behalf of the class, if we can review it again."

I'll never forget the hushed silence that followed my request. I saw many heads look down at their desks as if they couldn't bear to make eye contact with me or with him. The discomfort was palpable. He stared at me for several seconds and I had no idea what was coming. I was starting to regret my choice of speaking up.

Right before I waddled myself out of the class to never come back to finish my degree, he said, "You're a tough lady. All right, we'll review next class and the test will be pushed back."

I highly doubt that if one of the young men had asked that same question he would have said, "You're a tough man." Who knows, maybe he would, but what I felt in our exchange is that my professor was not expecting me to call out what I was feeling as a student, as well as make such a bold request.

I was not fearless in this endeavor. I knew it was a risk to take up this kind of space with my voice, and with my request.

Maybe you've been in that situation before, wanting to speak up and actually doing it like I did that day. Or maybe you've wanted to speak up, to make some noise, but didn't. Either way, I can almost guarantee there's been a moment in your life in which you squashed your own form of bigness.

Maybe you get a promotion at work and contemplated posting about it on social media but stop yourself because you're worried people will think you're bragging. Perhaps someone at work tells a sexist joke and you can feel the response (and bile) in your throat but decide to say nothing. Maybe your father-in-law interrupts you on the regular and you let it slide every time.

There also may very well be things you're doing that you don't even know you are playing small and giving your power away. They've become so habitual and woven into your daily life that you do them as blindly as making your own coffee in the morning. Whatever the manifestation of your playing small is, let's dig in and take a closer look.

What Does It Mean to "Take Up Space"?

From an early age, many of us have been told we're "too much." Too loud, too opinionated, too sensitive or emotional, too talkative, too fat, wearing too much makeup, too something. In some way or another, whether it's explicitly said or we just catch the subtle message-we're essentially told we're wrong for daring to be ourselves. Everything from the big stress on the importance of "being a lady" or making sure we treat our virginity as the most revered possession we can ever have, to occupying as little space as possible, it's all part of the list of unspoken rules for women that we begin to learn at an early age.

Whether it's a raised eyebrow, a snarky comment online, or someone blatantly telling us to shut up, the vast majority of women have more than one example of being told to tone it down, or at the very least understand how we've learned to take up the least amount of space possible.

An obvious example is taking up space with our bodies. It's no secret that we live in a fat-phobic culture, naming thinness as the only body type that is valuable. That feminine achievement is won if we attain and keep a slender body.

Women are also more likely to get out of the way when walking down the street and a man approaches, as if it's a traffic law where one gender always has the right-of-way. There are countless memes about manspreading, and if there were an Olympics for apologizing for bumping into people, animals, and even inanimate objects, women would get the gold, hands down.

When it comes to our appearance, culturally we have a narrow view of what is widely acceptable and what is beautiful. For a woman to unabashedly express herself in terms of her image is an act of rebellion. Aging is another way women struggle to take up space. Once we hit forty, by society's standards we are deemed not as valuable as we used to be and begin to feel more invisible. To be an older woman and take up space with our voice, appearance, and opinions is in effect an act of defiance in a culture that tells us our time of relevance is over.

Race can add another obstacle around taking up space for women of color. Jessica Sharp, thirty-one, says, "As a millennial Black woman, I feel like I have to think about how I show up with a particular organization. I have to decide if I should show up as my full self. I know that there may be feedback that I am intimidating or 'a lot' and assume that if I were a white woman that feedback would be less likely to be received. I have to balance being myself with not being too much, because I am often fearful that I'll be perceived as an 'angry Black woman.' My age does not help-I sometimes feel like the room expects me to be more passive and quieter because I'm often the youngest in the room, although I'm equally as qualified as everyone else."

Expressing emotions is another way we, as women, allow society to tell us what's acceptable and unacceptable. I've talked to many women who've told me they don't know how to do something remarkably instinctive-feel their feelings. They've mastered numbing them out or dissociating. That, or they do feel their feelings, but either can't or won't express them. They've successfully let the world tell them they're too emotional and/or sensitive. Therefore, they shove their feelings into a box, and generally shut out this innate expression that is crucial to their well-being, and also to their power.

Last, the best way we can take up space is to use our voices. Recent studies show that schoolgirls are more prone to do things like laugh off sexist jokes by their friends and not appear too smart (i.e., not raise their hand too much in class) in order to "not scare off boys, not appear bitchy or unsexy." This mentality and behavior continues into adulthood until we've created the proverbial box for ourselves. The box that contorts us into who we think we're supposed to be: compliant, malleable, and never taking up our share of space.

I worked with a client who told me she typically had ideas and opinions she wanted to share at weekly work meetings, but never elbowed her way into the conversation. When the meetings were over, she would spend hours rehashing the meeting, imagining what she would have said and how she would have said it, as well as beating herself up for staying...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: TarcherPerigee
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593328744
• ISBN 13: 9780593328743
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland