Voice.

You all know that feeling. It isn’t real. You know it’s not real… and yet… the fear. See, most of us suffered this fear to some extent.

The fear of The Dark.

Even if we weren’t scared of The Dark in general, most of us were convinced there was Something under the bed. The Dark was never filled with Jumping castles, jelly beans or balloons. The Dark was full of scary, dreadful, menacing Monsters.

Back when I was a kid, we didn’t have nightlights or bedside lamps, so after switching off my light, I did the three-step-run-and-jump-into-bed-before-the-THING-under-the-bed-grabs-me.

Did you do that? Haha, the horror!

But, those monsters under the bed were very easy to battle. Switch on the light and, BOOM, safe.

It solved everything.

Happily, as an adult, logical tends to trump the irrational fear of The Dark. Many of us find comfort in the knowledge that all that lies under our beds is dust, that second sock we can never seem find, and storage boxes.

Yet, in my curious crusade to better understand people, I’ve started to notice something among my friends, family, colleagues and even people senior to me.

Many of us are still scared.

But not of The Dark (unless we’ve watched a really good Horror film). The unreasonable, illogical, and often paralysing fear of The Dark has moved on. It’s evolved. It’s transformed. Kind of like a really-not-cute-pokemon…

The thing that keeps us frozen, hoping (as our pulse races) that it just will go away, is…

Silence.

Now don’t get me wrong. Silence is glorious, golden and rejuvenating when you CHOOSE to have it. Meditation, a quiet walk in a forest, a trek through the mountains, relaxing on a beach – take me there!

However, when the Silence is there, and you have a question. You have an observation to share. You have concerns to raise. You have a challenge… That Silence is scary.

Unlike when you were a child, where Mum and Dad could simply flick a switch for the ‘scary’ to be gone, it’s rare indeed that someone can break Silence for us. Furthermore, unlike the dark (which tended to be a irrational fear), we often feel that Silence is scary for many well justified (and regularly corroborated) reasons. It could be that someone told us we’re too loud, too open, too closed, too quick, too slow, too soft, too honest, or maybe that you didn’t know ‘all the things’ before you contributed.

It drives me nuts to see this kind of scrutiny on conversation, debate, challenge and feedback. And it’s causing widespread issues, where only certain people speak – and frankly, that isn’t improving things.
Through my observations I have noticed that people are so concerned by ‘waiting’ for the right moment to speak, they often don’t speak it all.

It’s a fear driven by waiting for the right Timing, Audience and Tone. A perfect combination, that will supposedly help us say things in ‘a way it helps others hear us’. This crafting of conversations is giving life to an irrational, illogical and alarmingly common situation. Silent Paralysis.

Thousands of us, frozen still, waiting for the right Time, Audience, Tone to simply share a thought… It’s just like when we were children, with our knees hugged to our chests, hearts racing, hoping there aren’t Monsters under the bed.

With much relief, just as The Dark was beaten by the flick of a light switch, Silence too can be easily thwarted.

With your voice.

The only thing that will beat this fear of Silence is you. You don’t need to be a rabid extrovert either – you just have to care enough about yourself and those around you, to share what you’re thinking, seeing, or wanting done.

You need to grab that microphone, raise your hand, clear your throat and lean into conversation, challenge, debate, and feedback – all with the calm knowledge that: