Is Your Silence Costing You Your Life? By Cookie Tuminello

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”- Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King was right on when he said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” It is the beginning of the end.

A major source of stress is caused by unspoken feelings, not getting what we want, and not asking for what we want. This stress can cause headaches, insomnia, emotional eating, avoidance, depression, and laryngitis just to name a few. I, myself, have experienced all of the tell tale signs at one time or another in my life.

So, back to the question, is your silence causing you stress? A good question to ask yourself is your life working or not working for you? A good place to start looking for answers is to take a good long look at your relationship with yourself and others.

• How many times do you say YES when you want to say NO? For fear that they may not like you. You valued the other person more than you valued yourself.
• How many times have you kept quiet because you were afraid to speak up? For fear of what might happen or not sure of yourself. So, you just sucked it up and paid for it on the inside.
• How many times have you spoke your feelings, but did not ask for what you wanted? For fear that you didn’t know how to ask or felt you weren’t worthy enough. So, you came away unfulfilled and sometimes even resentful for not having spoken up and stated what you really wanted.
• How many times have you let others dictate the course of your life because you didn’t think you knew enough? So, you lived the life they wanted, not yours, simply because you wanted to please them.
• How many times have you settled for less when you could have had more? What do you think doing this did to your sense of self worth?

Think about it. When you become silent, don’t express your feelings, and don’t speak up, you give away your power and your soul. Now, if this only happened one time it may not be a problem. You learn from the experience and you take care of better care of yourself next time. However, keeping silent time after time causes a slow demise of the quality of your life, not to mention your integrity, dignity, joy, passion, and prosperity in your life. How long are you going to keep saying ‘Ow!’ before you stop!’

So how do you reclaim your power?

The first step is to be accountable. You are where you are because of the choices you have made in your life. Now don’t go south on me and start beating yourself up more. It’s not bad or wrong, it’s just where you were at the time. Now is the time to make better choices for yourself – stand up for yourself.

The second step is to take a look at the areas of your life where you’ve sabotaged yourself. Determine what it is that you want and start putting in corrections. In other words, start taking different actions than the ones you took before. And every time you take a new empowered action, you begin to reclaim your power little by little.

Being silent does have its place in everyone’s life, but staying silent when you really need to be standing up and showing up for yourself serves nobody well, least of all you.

If you’re really having problems stating what you want, just remember the old saying, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.’ In short, open your mouth and clearly state what you want - one word at a time.

Senator John McCain, the US Republican choice for presidential nominee, has made an ill-advised, highly political choice of vice presidential candidates in Sarah Palin. She is an incredibly under-accomplished, far-right wing, inexperienced woman whose only significant political experience is being the governor of Alaskaa and an Alaskan city of 9,000 people, Wasilla.

One might think that this woman, who only holds an undergraduate degree from Idaho State and whose policies reflect her utter lack of education and grip on reality, foreign policy, economics, defense, environment, etc, might be unelectable. Unfortunately, as the election of George W Bush before her proves, Americans are apt to vote based purely on personality, looks and lifestyle, not on qualifications, education, policy or experience.

Beyond Palin's corrupt political career, abandonment of her own home state in pursuit of national political aims (her lobbying for a $200 million bridge to connect an empty town in Alaska to a local airport, and then voting against her own bridge after it became clear the country was in uproar, as other bridges in other states collapsed and multiple fatalities resulted), her undistinguished careeer as an almost-beauty queen, her support for oil-drilling on the Alaskan coast to support her personal and family oil company financial interests, and anti-environment policies, etc, Sarah Palin is a rabid right winger against women's human rights.

Ironically, her stance against sex education in schools, and her support of abstinence-only until marriage education, has resulted in her own daughter, Bristol, becoming an unmarried pregnant teenager at 17 years old. Her boyfriend Levi vows on his since-erased MySpace page that he "doesn't want kids." Yet this week, Palin has forced her daughter into becoming engaged to her underaged boyfriend still in high school, in order to uphold her political appearance and candidacy for vice president.

Terrifyingly, McCain is the oldest potential incumbent in the United States, at 70 years old. Were McCain to pop off during the presidency, this woman would become President of the United States. Even more ironically, this woman who is the staunchest opponent to women's rights wishes to reverse the slow and painstaking progress made to gender inequality over the past 100 years. She would reverse Roe v. Wade and she opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

Here's some information about how "Sarah Barracuda", a self-termed "hockey mom" and mother of five, feels about people's ability to make their own choices about their sexual and reproductive health:

Source:
[Think Progress]

Palin Is A Member Of Anti-Abortion Group Feminists For Life. Palin is a member of an “anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life.” When running for governor in 2002, she “sent an e-mail to the anti-abortion Alaska Right to Life Board saying she was as ‘pro-life as any candidate can be’ and has ‘adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion.’”

[Anchorage Daily News, 8/6/08]

Palin Opposes Abortion Even In Cases Of Rape Or Incest. In 2006, Palin said that even if her daughter were raped, “I would choose life.” She said that she would support abortion only if the mother’s life were in danger.

[Anchorage Daily News, 11/3/06]

Palin Slashed Funding To Help Teenage Mothers. Earlier this year, Palin used a line-item veto “to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.” Funding for Covenant House Alaska, which provides transitional housing for teen mothers, was cut by 20 percent — from $5 million to $3.9 million.

[Washington Post,9/3/08]

Palin Supports Abstinence-Only Policies. In 2006, the Eagle Forum Alaska asked Palin whether she would “support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education.” Palin replied, “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”

[Politico, 9/1/08]

Palin Supports Parental Consent Laws For Minors Seeking Abortions. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin was “disappointed lawmakers let a bill die requiring girls under 17 to get parental consent for an abortion. ‘My belief is parents have the right to know about the health and welfare of their children,’ she said.”

[Anchorage Daily News, 8/14/08]

alberton: Off to a meeting in covent garden.

alberton: We've just launched, Alerts, a new tool that allows you to track and subscribe to content and tags on UnLtdWorld: http://tinyurl.com/4k7hsk

Three months ago, I review Nigeria’s Most Visited Web Startups on Alexa Top 100 Sites and my review generated several reactions from this blog’s readers. Today, I thought I should review Nigeria’s most visited social networking sites on the Alexa Top 100. (Alexa is the leading Web Ranking & Information Company).

From my research, I found that two popular sites that where not included in my first analysis have made it into the most visited Alexa Top 100 sites in Nigeria.

Naijapals.com (Ranked 43 out of 100) - A growing social networking site in Nigeria that offers several interesting features that reflects what a real social networking site should be. I have reviewed Naijapals on StartupsNigeria here and here. Current Alexa ranking - 27, 227

Salut Eric,
Un grand salut à toute la communauté TIG !

Ce message était une réponse à un article de Éric Dombou, mais je pense qu'il peut être applicable à tous mes amis et membres de cette formidable communauté de jeunes leaders qui n'est autre que TakingITGlobal.

À Éric,

J'ai véritablement apprécié tes commentaires à propos de la communauté TIG, une communauté qui s'épanouit et se développe, jour après jour, grâce à son équipe de personnel dynamique et enthousiaste certes (que j'ai eu la chance de connaître depuis janvier 2008 grâce à mon travail comme Coordinateur de l'engagement des jeunes de Montréal au Canada), mais aussi et surtout grâce à ses membres qui sont tout aussi actifs, engagés dans leurs communautés pour bâtir un monde meilleur où les jeunes occupent une place prépondérante dans la société.

J'ai participé aussi au Congrès Mondial des Jeunes qui s'est déroulé en Août dernier à l'Université Laval à Québec, qui fêtait son 400e anniversaire. Mon expérience au congrès était fantastique: d'une part, j'ai eu la chance de rencontrer les membres du personnel de TIG physiquement, j'en avais rencontré plusieurs avant le congrès, mais c'était la première fois que je rencontrais Jennifer, Mike, Nick, Justine, Incia et Kirsten entre autres et que je réalisais leur passion pour la jeunesse et son épanouissement. D'autre part, j'ai rencontré physiquement toujours des membres de TIG que je connaissais virtuellement tels Adama Diop, Kabiné Doumbia et compagnie.

J'espère que j'aurais la chance de rencontrer un plus grand nombre de membres de TIG dans les prochaines années que ce soit dans des événements internationaux comme le Congrès Mondial des Jeunes en Turquie en 2010 ou lors d'événements en ligne comme notre Chat sur les Changements climatiques qui s'est déroulé en 2008 !

Bonne continuation dans vos projets !
AU plaisir de vous rencontrer en ligne ou physiquement

Photo collective des participants à la Table de la Francophonie en compagnie de Jennifer Corriero, Fondatrice et Directrice Exécutive de TakingITGlobal - Dans le cadre du 4e Congrès Mondial des Jeunes 2008: www.wyc2008.qc.ca

MORE here: http://ABC4All.net/itinerary.htm