Latest / Unlocking The Paradigm Portal / Static Noise: Say What You Mean To Say

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Static Noise: Say What You Mean To Say · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

0:00
Hello everybody, Welcome back to unlocking the Paradigm Portal.
0:03
My name is Sarah. So in case you didn't notice,
0:07
I've been gone for a while, I think over a month at this
0:09
point. And that was not by accident.
0:12
I went quiet on purpose and I went internal and I call it my
0:16
hermit stage. And I frequently go into these
0:19
and I needed to stop recording on here and honestly take a step
0:24
back from a lot of areas of my life and just listen to myself
0:29
and listen to what I need, what I want, and where I want to
0:32
spend my very valuable energy. And something shifted in that
0:37
silence and I got clearer about what I actually want to say and
0:42
who I actually want to say it to, and where I spend my energy
0:46
and what kinds of conversations I'm willing to keep having.
0:50
And I'm back because I'm ready, not because the silence ran out.
0:54
Because Lord knows I love silence, but because something
0:58
worth saying has shown back up. And the first thing I want to
1:01
talk about coming out of that is this.
1:04
Now, just as a preface, this whole episode is going to be
1:07
about communication and conversations and feeling very
1:12
misunderstood. So I'm going to start with
1:15
something that happened to me recently.
1:17
So I was working and I had a conversation with a client of
1:20
mine and we have a very open dialogue.
1:23
Like, that's just how I operate in life in general.
1:26
And the way that I operate is what I say is what I mean,
1:29
period. There's no subtext, there's no
1:31
underlying anything. So I said something to this
1:34
person like very clearly, very directly, without apology, with
1:39
no agenda, and just said it. And it was in the context of the
1:43
conversation. But this person that I said it
1:46
to looked at me like, looked at me with a question mark on their
1:50
face and said, but what do you actually mean?
1:54
And I just stood there because I had said what I meant.
1:57
That was it. That was like the whole thing,
2:00
no subtext, no hidden layers. I don't wrap truth in some kind
2:05
of soft blankets to make it more palatable.
2:08
I meant exactly what I said. And it wasn't any big deal.
2:12
But it was an it was a reminder for me of all the times in my
2:16
life that this has happened where I say something and the
2:18
person questions it. So if you know that feeling and
2:21
if you've ever said something true, like very clearly and
2:25
watch someone search for a meaning that you didn't put
2:28
there, this episode is for you. Because today we're not talking
2:32
about learning to communicate more clearly.
2:34
We're talking about what it actually costs to already be
2:37
clear in a world that has forgotten what a clear signal
2:40
actually sounds like. So here's the image that I want
2:44
you to sit with today. I'm calling it the static.
2:47
So think about a radio like one of those old ones, the kind with
2:52
the dial that you turn slowly as you're hunting for a station.
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All my Gen. Xers out there will understand
2:57
this. And most of what you pass
2:59
through is static, right? White noise, I call it the snow
3:02
channels. And it's signals that almost
3:05
resolve into something and then they dissolve again.
3:08
Or like that occasional voice that kind of starts to come
3:11
through broken and partially like just enough to make you
3:14
think that you got the the station correctly and then it
3:18
disappears again. So that's the communication most
3:21
people have been surrounded by their entire lives.
3:24
So it's things like people that hint instead of just asking, or
3:30
they say I'm fine when they're not fine.
3:33
Or like giving passive agreement to something where they're just
3:36
deferring an argument to a later date.
3:40
Or like compliments that have conditions buried inside of them
3:44
and giving an apology when they don't actually mean it or feel
3:49
it, and there might be a touch of an accusation under that.
3:53
It's all static, all of it. And people have been listening
3:56
to it so long that their ears have adjusted to the sound of
3:59
static and they've learned to interpret it and to read between
4:03
the lines because the lines have never been the point.
4:06
And the point in these people's mind, in most people's mind, is
4:10
to find the real message underneath the one being
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delivered. And then there is you.
4:15
You, my friends, you are out there broadcasting a clear
4:20
signal. I hope you are.
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If you're not, then consider this your reminder to do so.
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You say the thing like the actual thing, with no
4:29
distortion, no encoding, no hidden frequency underneath what
4:34
is audible. And people hear it and they
4:37
don't trust it. Not because you did something
4:39
wrong, because their ears have been trained for static.
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Because a clear signal sounds wrong to someone who has only
4:47
ever navigated noise. So they keep turning the dial,
4:50
looking for the distortion that isn't there, waiting for the
4:53
other layer to reveal itself. And you, being clear and direct
4:58
and present and honest, stand there watching them search a
5:02
message you already delivered completely.
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And I know this personally. The exhaustion of that is
5:08
something that people don't talk about enough.
5:11
So what does it cost you? So we're going to name it
5:15
because if you've been living this, you know exactly what I'm
5:17
describing, and you may have never heard it named out loud.
5:20
So you repeat yourself, and not because you weren't heard,
5:23
because you weren't believed. So you say it again and again.
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And each time you say it, the words start to feel a little
5:31
less like truth and a little more like performance, which is
5:34
the opposite of everything that you are.
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And you may over explain. You probably over explain, but
5:40
not because The thing is complicated, because you've
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learned through experience, through that look on people's
5:46
faces, through the question. But what do you actually mean
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That your clarity requires footnotes for an audience that
5:53
doesn't trust clean signals. So you pad it, you add layers to
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it. You add context you shouldn't
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have to add, and you build a case for a statement that should
6:03
have stood on its own. And you probably, if you're
6:07
anything like me, get lumped in with people who aren't direct,
6:10
the people who like, say one thing and mean another, or who
6:13
use honesty as a vehicle for something sharper.
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And you have to sit there while someone treats your clear signal
6:21
like static, looking for the thing underneath it, because
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their history has taught them that straight lines don't exist.
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It's frustrating, right? And eventually, and this is the
6:31
one I want you to pay attention to, you start to wonder if it's
6:34
worth it. I know I certainly have.
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And this is part of the reason that I retreat into hermit mode
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periodically. It just becomes exhausting.
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And you start to wonder if it's worth it.
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Not because you've changed, but because trying to broadcast
6:49
clearly into an environment that keeps mishearing you is so
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freaking lonely. And it's not the loneliness of
6:57
being invisible, it's the loneliness of being seen wrong
7:01
or of showing up fully and watching someone respond to a
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version of you that you didn't send.
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That's the cost. And it's real.
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And you are allowed to name it without it meaning that you
7:12
should stop being who you are. So why does the why do these
7:17
people's dials stay on the static parts?
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Right. So here's what I want you to
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understand about the people who can't receive your signal.
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And I don't know why I just stumbled over all of those
7:26
words, but I did. We're going to keep rolling with
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it. I'm not recording again.
7:30
The people that are stuck in the static, they're not broken.
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They're calibrated. So every person who has ever
7:38
managed them instead of talking to them has calibrated them.
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And every relationship where the real conversation happened
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underneath the surface, one created more static.
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And every time someone said I'm not angry and a voice that was
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abso freaking lutely angry, that creates more static.
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And then every apology that comes with a but creates more
8:00
static. And every compliment that was
8:03
actually a setup creates more static.
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So their dial got tuned to static not because they chose
8:09
it, but because static was the only thing broadcasting for so
8:13
long that they probably stopped believing in anything else.
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So then you come in all clear signal, no distortion, meaning
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exactly what you say. And their nervous system doesn't
8:24
register it as clarity, it registers it as unfamiliar and
8:29
unfamiliar to a system trained on noise feels like something is
8:33
missing, like the signal must be incomplete, like there has to be
8:37
more. And we've talked in previous
8:40
episodes quite frequently, I believe, about the return to the
8:44
familiar comfort zone and how things that are different feel
8:47
unfamiliar, so therefore foreign, therefore they get
8:50
rejected. So all of this is not a verdict
8:53
on your communication. It's a map of the other person's
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history. And those are not the same
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thing. So what do you do with this?
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Because the frustration and exasperation is real.
9:05
You don't become static. Please, for the love of God,
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don't become the static. Let me be super clear about
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that. If you can't tell, like, just
9:14
don't. The answer is not to start
9:16
hedging or to soften your signal until it sounds like everyone
9:21
else's. All that does is shrink you into
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a very small box that you, my friends, do not belong in.
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And you do not have to learn the encoded language of the people
9:30
who can't receive you and speak it back to them again, shrinking
9:34
yourself down. There is no shrinking here.
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No, we are expanding because the moment that you do that and you
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shrink down, the moment that you trade your clean signal for
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static so that other people feel more comfortable, a you're
9:48
heading back into people pleasing, but also you lose the
9:50
thing that makes you trustworthy.
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You become one more voice in the noise and then nobody wins and
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you're compromising your own authenticity.
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And please don't do that because we need more authentic people.
10:03
And So what you do is you protect the signal.
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You protect it by remembering that being misread is not the
10:10
same as being wrong, and that having to repeat yourself is not
10:14
evidence that you were unclear. And that someone searching your
10:18
words for a meaning you didn't put there is a story about their
10:22
calibration. It's a story about them, and it
10:25
gives you very useful data about them as a person.
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No judgement, and it's not a correction of yours.
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And you protect it by choosing where you broadcast.
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Because not everyone deserves the full signal.
10:40
Not everyone can hold that space, not every conversation is
10:44
worth the cost of delivering clarity into an environment that
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will convert it to noise regardless.
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And you protect it by finding the people whose ears still
10:52
work. And they are few and far
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between, but they do exist. Or the people who are doing the
10:58
work of recalibrating, like actively going through learning
11:02
how to hear people clearly. And the ones who can receive a
11:06
clean signal and recognize it for what it is.
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Not because they've never been lied to or gone through hard
11:12
things, but because they've decided they're done
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interpreting static. And they are learning, maybe
11:17
slowly, what truth actually sounds like when it arrives.
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And let me tell you, these people exist and when your
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signal reaches them, when you say the thing and they receive
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it exactly as you sent it with no translation required, that's
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not just communication. That's one of the most profound
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forms of being known. So with that, if you have not
11:42
come across someone that just receives your signal clearly, I
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only recently have come across people that that are able to do
11:50
that. But there is something that
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happens in your body when your signal lands cleanly in another
11:55
person. And I'm going to describe how it
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feels for me. The lights come on.
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It feels like having kind of been wandering in the darkness
12:04
and suddenly the lights turn on in the most beautiful way.
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And it's like something that was braced just releases and it it
12:12
isn't excitement exactly. It's more like expanding.
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It's just expansiveness, like a deep exhale that you didn't know
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that you were holding, and ease where effort used to live.
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And the nervous system recognizes it before the mind
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does. This is what it feels like to be
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received. So if you aren't sure what it
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feels like, take those little hints and notice them next time.
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So here's the last thing, and it's the part I think you
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actually need to hear today. You are not responsible for
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tuning everyone else's dial. I know, that's crazy, right?
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You probably have felt responsible for it.
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You're not. You are not responsible for
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being so patient and so consistent and so endlessly
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clear that eventually the people around you learn to receive you
13:02
correctly. That is not your job.
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That is their work. Stop doing their work for them
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and stop wasting your energy where it's just not going to be
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received. Your job is just to keep
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broadcasting, like keep being clear and decisive and direct
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and to keep saying what you mean and keep meaning what you say,
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and to keep advocating for yourself and for others even
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when it's uncomfortable. Especially when it's
13:28
uncomfortable and even when someone looks at your clean
13:32
truth and says but what do you actually mean?
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Hold to it. Don't bend because somewhere out
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there in the conversations that you haven't had yet with the
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people you haven't met yet in the relationships still forming,
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someone is going to hear your signal come through clean.
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And instead of tuning the dial looking for the static
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underneath it, they are going to exhale because they have been
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listening to noise for so long. And you will sound like finally.
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So don't become the static so other people feel comfortable.
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The world does not need more noise.
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It needs more people brave enough to broadcast clearly even
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when the room isn't ready to receive them.
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So you are not too direct, you are not too honest.
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You are not the problem for saying the true thing in a world
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that has learned to speak in everything.
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But you are a clean signal in a room full of static.
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And that is not a flaw to be managed.
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That is a fire worth keeping lit.
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So I don't know when I'll be back.
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We'll see what comes up. I don't have a set schedule
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right now. I'm kind of rolling with it and
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I happen to have a little bit of time and felt like recording
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today. So remember to be real, not
14:51
nice. Like just keep showing up
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authentically. Keep saying what you mean to
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say. And now I have that song in my
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head. I can't remember who it is.
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Say what you mean to say. I got completely derailed there
15:03
for a minute. So I'm going to try to be back.
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Maybe Monday night, I don't know.
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We'll see. And leave me some comments like
15:10
share, subscribe, whatever, all the stuff.
15:12
I don't care. Just keep coming back, keep
15:13
growing, keep expanding. Get out of the little box and
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start allowing yourself to pause and notice.
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Where have you put yourself into little boxes or where have other
15:24
people tried to put you in boxes and you've walked in willingly
15:27
and break the hell out of those. OK.
15:29
All right. I'll be back another time.