Who do we listen to?

Turning down the volume on unhelpful voices

This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited so probably features some stutters and re-starts (not to mention today’s snoring dog). If you like/need to listen to these posts I hope you enjoy it.

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Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash

I’m an incredibly slow thinker. So slow that it will often be days or weeks (or longer!) after a conversation that I realise what was really going on, why I felt a certain way or how I should have replied.

Take this morning for instance*. I was sweeping the floor and found myself thinking about a guest I had on The Slow Home Pod many moons ago. He was an author who wrote about the anti-consumption movement, and we had a great chat.

He made a comment halfway through the conversation that has rattled around in my head for literal years because it struck me as off somehow. It felt like judgment, even though I’m sure that wasn’t his intention.

I’d asked him how to avoid the sense of overwhelm I felt when I was in a shopping centre, where all the ads, signs, sounds, lighting, and displays were designed to get me to, if not buy things, then at least think I should want to.

He scoffed and said, “Just stop going to shopping centres.”

As I let his answer sink in, I remember feeling silly and small, as though I’d revealed something embarrassing. I felt like his comment didn’t quite fit, but couldn’t work out why.

So, to cover up my discomfort, I laughed in an embarrassed kind of way, said something self-deprecating and spent the next however many years telling myself I was a bit stupid for asking that question when of course the simple solution was staring me right in the face.

Just stop going to the shops.

It’s not as though my kids needed clothes at any point. Or art supplies. Or books. It’s not like I’d ever need to buy a new pair of runners or, heaven forbid, a pair of jeans. Never a gift to be purchased either, no siree. Just avoid those shops entirely. Got it.

And look, I know I sound a little salty but I’m not. I asked the question, and he gave me an answer. I know there was no ill intent in it, but that didn’t stop me from carrying it around needlessly, adding it to the voices in my head telling me all the ways I’m not quite good enough.

Then, this morning, as I swept, I realised something.

His answer was irrelevant to me.

And the judgment attached to it (real or imagined) was just as irrelevant. Not because he and his experiences were invalid, but because our lives were different.

At that time, my life looked like two little kids at home, a hectic work schedule and running a house. Among other things, I was responsible for buying our kids’ clothes, replacing the shoes they outgrew at a rate of knots, stocking their little art corner, finding gifts for family and friends, and I was already trying to do all of them while lugging around the weight of a specific set of expectations.

I didn’t need to feel small or stupid; I just needed to recognise that his words weren’t meant for me.

So, very belatedly, that’s what I did. I recognised that his pressures, expectations, responsibilities, and values were different to mine, and as a result, that piece of advice? Not relevant.

I’m halfway through writing a letter for next week where I try to come up with some practical ways to turn down the volume on unhelpful voices, but first wanted to get your input.

Many of us, myself included, find the idea of rebelling exhausting. I wonder if that’s in part because we carry around voices that aren’t relevant, that make us second-guess ourselves, that set expectations and standards that keep us weighed down.

Do you struggle with tuning out critical or even well-intentioned advice-giving voices? What about when making counter-cultural choices? And do you think learning to turn the volume down on those voices might lighten the load?

As a reformed people-pleaser, I know I struggle, but I also think there might be something powerful simmering away underneath this broom-powered epiphany. I just have to sit with it for a bit longer.

Until next week, take very good care.
Brooke xx

*Okay, it wasn’t this morning. Ironically, this letter has taken me weeks to write because I kept listening to the critical voice in my head and worrying about how it would be received. The seam of life’s humour is thick and rich, my friends.

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