03/14/2021
If you don’t have anything nice to say……
Growing up, I always heard my Mom say, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.
It was a veiled command, a societal lie that I integrated into my life and occasionally proclaimed to others, but never really thought too deeply about until now.
When one takes this quote in a literal sense, and the unconscious believes it, it changes you into a people pleaser and shuts down your 5th energy center, The Vishuddha Chakra.
My Mom, bless her soul, was not able to say no to pushy door to door sales people or speak her mind when it counted or effectively stand up for herself or her kids. She was strangled by a belief that to say anything less than nice was unacceptable and for her this never changed throughout her life.
I have realized that this seemingly innocuous statement, and others like them can be crippling. Like boys don’t cry and skinny is healthy.
While the “idea” of being a nice person is certainly valid, and while more patience and kindness is certainly needed in this world, it should not come at the expense of an individual's significant truth, or correcting something very important, shutting down a racist or sexist comment, calling out a lie or simply saying I don’t agree.
I’ve decided that particular phrase - the target of my rant today - needs an update in my psyche and maybe yours too:
If you can’t say anything nice, then pick your battles and fight for the ones that matter.