The natural professional video today is on speaking up. If you’d prefer to read instead of watch the video, the transcript is below.
[Transcript]
Right now I’m working on a few projects: one is the podcast (that’s now up iTunes! It’s an interview with Tami Simon, the founder of Sounds True).
The other thing I’m working on right now is the Natural Professional Manifesto. It’s something that’s been in the works for a long time—I’ve been wanting to write it, I’ve been wanting to put it out in the world for quite a while, and it’s a big thing.
It represents my philosophy, my approach to all this, and why I’m doing it. Then it turns around and speaks to how it’s going to help make the world a better place. How it’s going to make your life better and all that kind of good stuff.
What these two projects have in common right now is that 1) they’re both really big and 2) there are a lot of questions around them.
For example, is anyone going to read it, is anyone going to listen to the podcast, is anyone going to care about what I have to say, am I going to get my point across, is anyone going to be interested, is it going to be compelling.
There are a lot of reasons, in other words, to not do them. But that’s not just going to fly.
A friend of mine told me about something that she had recently heard and it has stuck with me all week long. It speaks to Pema Chodron’s unconditional confidence.
Unconditional confidence in your goodness as a human being. Wow.
An awesome reminder to come back to your core, what’s important. It doesn’t matter how many people read or listen to my stuff. It doesn’t matter how “successful” it is out there in the world.
All these things are great but fundamentally what’s important is this strength of being that comes from unconditional confidence. I’m capable of handling anything that comes my way.
And of course she’s talking about it from the perspective of mindfulness. When you’re present in the situation you can handle anything. Anxiety and stress kind of scoot out the back door when you are present and knowing that you can handle anything that comes your way.
As I was looking around online I came across the Science and Nonduality Conference, which is a conference I hadn’t heard of before. It takes place in October in San Raphael, California.
The mission of the conference is to heal the schism between science and spirituality while defining a new understanding of what it means to be human, inspired by the mystics and grounded in modern Science. Very cool.
What I also saw on the website, on the speakers page, is that 10 out of 38 speakers are women. (That’s only 26%.)
Now if what we’re talking about here is shifting paradigm… about learning how to—well, this is my take on what the new paradigm is about—learning how to tap back into the wisdom and to the heart knowledge, and that is more in the realm of the feminine energy, why aren’t there more women speakers?!
Why aren’t we out there speaking and sharing what we know to be true? Why is it still the majority that men are the ones who are explaining, describing, and setting the parameters of what the new paradigm is going to be about?
Now, men can be super in touch with their feminine side. Awesome. But minimally, I would like to see a 50-50 split. Call me crazy. Where are the women? Why aren’t we speaking up? Why aren’t we in these places of leadership and authority that we’re being asked to speak at these conferences?
Which brings me back to looking at the things I’m working on and the experience that I’m having which involves a lot of self-doubt. Working on the manifesto and the interviews, it’s easy to get pulled back by the questions.
By the self-doubt. By the lack of confidence.
However it is that you need to dig in and find that unconditional confidence in yourself so that you can speak up and share your truth and say what you know needs to be said to the people who need to hear it.
That’s your job. That’s your charge in this life. This is the time to be speaking up loudly, gloriously, and with great passion!
So take your time to get quiet, to come back to center to allow for the possibility of unconditional confidence.
Because you have something to say. And we want to hear it.