Visibility Class – Sharing your opinion
In this class we’ll explore the barriers women face to speaking up and sharing our opinions.
We’ll explore the fear that blocks us from speaking up and learn tools you can use and strategies you can employ to overcome that fear.
We’ll look at how the barriers to speaking up play out in personal relationships, as a business owner, and in other professional environments.
Finally, we’ll dismantle some of the conditioning that keeps women silent and identify the core narrative that holds you back from expressing yourself.
6/7 DECEMBER – Sharing your opinion
One of the most significant visibility blocks you face as a woman is sharing your opinions. You don’t want to be wrong. You’re afraid of being judged and criticised. You’re nervous that you don’t know enough. Or you’re terrified that we’ll be viewed as a fraud.
More than that, as a woman you’ve been conditioned to minimise your opinions. To view them as less significant than men’s opinions and experiences.
In male dominated work places it’s difficult to ignore the way women’s opinions are minimised while the opinions of men are noticed and praised.
(There’s a reason women have started using the amplification method to get their ideas heard in the workplace. Men don’t hear us. The patriarchy has conditioned them to hear other men first. Most of the time they don’t even know it’s happening. And yet they’re constantly exercising an unconscious bias in favour of other men’s voices – the tone and the sound of those voices – and the opinions expressed by those favourable voices.)
In the domestic sphere, women who live with violent men know all too well the dangers of expressing an opinion that’s contrary to that of their male partner.
In the political sphere, men have made it very clear that they’re not comfortable with women operating in positions of power. ‘Bitch, shrill, hectoring, angry, aggressive’ are common labels we receive for expressing an opinion in that environment.
All of this results in one very specific and constant message being expressed repeatedly to all females; Your experience doesn’t matter. Your opinion is not important. Your ideas are irrelevant. There’ll be negative consequences if you choose to speak up.
Little wonder we choose to swallow our words rather than disagree with friends, colleagues, bosses, loved ones, strangers, and any number of services providers we encounter on a daily basis (be they hairdressers, doctors, shop assistants, or waiters).
The world is not a better place for hearing the voices, opinions and experiences of the few. In fact, it is far worse off.
It’s time to change all of that.
Here’s how we’re going to do that in this space; we’re going to start by removing the muzzles that society has placed over our mouths. We’re going to free ourselves of conditioned expectations. We’re going to see what’s possible then.
NB: There isn’t currently anotherSharing your Opinion class scheduled at this time. Please email us at admin(at)samanthanolansmith(dot)com if you’d like to be notified when the next class is scheduled.
What do we do in the classes?
Our meetings run for 90 minutes. During that time you’ll:
- uncover and clear out some of the common narratives that women collectively internalise about speaking up, and being seen and heard in the world
- be taken through a series of deep healing and energy clearing techniques to release those stories and make way for a new collective experience
- participate in clearing out some of the individual stories and experiences of the women in the room
- learn techniques to use in your own life to continue the clearing and the healing after the call
- anchor into what it would feel and look like to make different decisions, to behave differently, to be fearless in the face of societal conditioning that would otherwise keep you playing small, and
- pave the way for the warrior woman within to come to the fore in your work and in your life.
Wondering what people say about my work?
Your thoughts on the worldwide problem of women and their oppression/lack of power/permission to be visible attracted me to your work. You are honest, spot on, and without gimmick. That’s so refreshing.
— Shalagh, Maryland, USA
I love what you do, and you have without a doubt completely changed my life.
— Samantha, Sydney, Australia
I really like that visibility has been approached from a much deeper, richer, intellectual perspective – the history of women and power which I really connect with and is very motivating… I am really re-thinking and trying to work differently, much more gently and in tune with my body… I feel so much better about being visible.
— Libby, Sydney, Australia
I had the biggest clearing of my life on Monday. Sam you are a wonderful practitioner. You dealt with the cosmic and the pragmatic and the sublime and the (completely) ridiculous, without missing a beat. I am experiencing the world so differently now… and it’s a sweet place to live. So much gratitude. So much love.
— Belinda, Gold Coast, Australia
You can check out more people’s experiences here.
