Sounds Like Chaos…

Never underestimate the power of your vocal image.

It may sound weird, because it’s audible rather than visual, but it is more powerful than you may give it credit for. The reason being if someone hears your voice before seeing you, there will automatically be a picturing of what you are like. Just from the tone, accent, annunciation etc.

Depending where we are from, we will have an accent. Not necessarily obvious to ourselves, but when you go somewhere else, it will definitely show. Being from a geographically small country like Northern Ireland, it always amazes me the variations in accents, and in very short distances too. My hometown of Antrim is a prime example of a ‘non-accent’ in terms of the Northern Irish. This is due to an influx of workers to the town in the 1960’s coming from all over Northern Ireland to work in a new yarn production factory ‘British Enkalon’. A Dutch firm who were responsible for the overwhelming growth of the town, as workers came from all over to secure well paid jobs in the factory. This lead to a melting pot of accents and essentially the Antrim ‘accent’ isn’t really an ‘accent’ at all.

However, since moving to England, I stand out as Northern Irish. I’m softly spoken and tend to speak fairly quickly, so I am aware at times when I have to annunciate more, or think of how I say certain words.

One thing that I have maintained is I don’t raise my voice. I have always been a firm believer in when you have an audience who want to listen – they will. If you have to shout to be heard, you’re not being heard.

That said, it is still quite easy to be heard without having to raise your voice. Remember when I said at the start about tone?

Never be afraid to speak out. Never be afraid to say what you need to say. It may feel uncomfortable and it may be hard to do, especially if you kid yourself into thinking that “perhaps I’ll just say nothing”. Don’t ever allow those feelings to take over the desire to say what you need to.

I also am aware that I don’t say a lot, well at times anyway. My reasoning is you can be heard as well in 20 words as you can in 200. The exception to this is story telling; painting a picture with your words.

Our voice is merely the chaos of our minds, reborn as perfection…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Drug of Choice…

I am pretty sure many of us will encounter people at some point in our lives who have a problem that they’d rather not deal with. Most likely there is a denial, and non-acceptance that leads to an almost disbelief that they have a problem at all.

Now, I know we all have our problems. We all have things that we deal with day to day, week by week and we continue to push on to the very best of our abilities. But this is not about dealing with, trying to deal with, or even acknowledging. This is about the outward denial and the inward ostrich – the burying your head in the misguided belief that it will just ‘go away’.

The most common type is through addiction. Most commonly alcoholism, substance abuse, medication or perhaps even gambling. But it is something that will bring an individual down to a shadow of their former self, and one that they will not believe is them; well not outwardly anyway.

I know it can be hard to ask for help, and it would be foolish to think it is as easy and straight forward as that. But the honesty of acceptance is the start. Forget about denial and forget about trying to be the ostrich. Once someone can get past that, and only when they really are honest with themselves before anyone else, then will they enable the facilitation of change. The allowance of betterment, because no matter how bad an addiction is, addressing it through the first stage of accepting responsibility for one’s own actions can bring betterment.

The first step will always be the toughest, because it’s the one that needs total honesty. Everyone who has ever addressed an addiction has been one step closer to beating it. No one who has been the ostrich has ever got their real self back.

Never be afraid to be honest with yourself, to start with it is between you and yourself. Nobody else, not until you’re ready. Then it becomes the moment where help becomes a reality, and the journey starts to gain momentum at whatever pace is required. But it’s a start. Everything needs a start. Addictions need the start of acceptance to enable a stop. But be gentle, as it’s a vulnerability that will never have been felt before. It’s laying yourself bare to yourself.

Until someone acknowledges they have a problem, they will always be the embodiment of the problem…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com