Why I Kept Shrinking Myself and How Midlife Taught Me to Stop

This week, Kim shares her personal journey of finding her voice, overcoming the tendency to shrink herself, and empowering women to take up space and speak their truth. This episode explores the roots of self-silencing and offers practical steps to reclaim confidence.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the episode and theme of finding your voice
00:16 Kim shares her personal journey and the importance of self-awareness
01:02 The roots of self-silencing in childhood and societal expectations
02:17 How relationships influence women to shrink their voices
03:23 Recognizing when your voice is being taken away
04:59 Kim's story of her daughter coming out and its impact on her
12:23 The importance of reclaiming and standing in your power
14:14 Introducing the 'It's Not Just You' workshop for women
15:57 Encouragement to women to take up space and speak their truth

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Transcript

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (00:01.804)

You are listening to Midlife with Courage. This is where women in Midlife come for inspiration, motivation, and sometimes a little education to help them live more boldly. Don't forget to hit that follow or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. Now let's get started.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (00:21.358)

Hello everyone, I am Kim Benoy and I'm doing it solo this week. And I have been thinking a bit about how we of course, as I'm creating this upcoming workshop and some other things, I've just taken some time and really thought about how.

I lost my voice, or how my voice became quieter, or maybe it was always quiet and it is now being brought out into the world. And because I like to one of my one of my favorite phrases is do your own research. So I've been trying to think about how does this start? How do we get to this point where we don't want to

say what we need to say or want to say. We keep ourselves quiet. We shrink. We minimize. And I'm just trying to I'm I'm thinking about how this all started. And I don't know why, but I think it's important to understand not to blame or judge anyone including myself, but just to see I keep using the word just but to

Identify it and be aware of it. So moving forward, because we're always moving forward, right? Making sure that I don't fall back into those old patterns. So thinking about it as I was a kid growing up, oldest of four kids, I was the responsible big sister. I got the good grades. I was very focused on grades. And I think it's because I was rewarded.

for getting the A's and that was one thing I was good at. So I focused on that, which also for some reason meant that I didn't want to make waves. I don't I don't know if that has anything to do with the grades, but I think just the situation of who I was around kept me quiet. I didn't want to I didn't want to be out out there. I didn't want to draw attention to myself.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (02:49.075)

I wanted to put my head down, read my books. I love to read. I still love to read. And I would take a book and read, and that's probably why I got pretty good grades. But I just wanted to be, I didn't want people to really notice, except, you know, those rewards when I did get the good grades, I guess. So that was kind of, I mean, that's one thing. my younger siblings were not like that, I guess I would say.

and I'm not gonna go into stories about all that, but just I think maybe just because I was the oldest and was expected to be responsible and mature, and that's just the role I took, and that's the one I stepped into, and I I carried it throughout my life until not too long ago. And then just thinking about and then thinking again about relationships and

I think we all do this, whether we're male, female, young, older. We want to we want the person that we're interested in to like us, which it sounds very simplistic, but that's when you boil it down to it, that's what it is. And we tend to

We kind of to me we look at the other person and assimilate to them, try to match them a little bit. And I guess it's thinking back, it's more it's an energy. We want to match their energy. So if you're with someone who's very quiet, very calm, doesn't you know, isn't f I don't know what the word is. If it's someone who

Is that calming, that quiet person, you you want to match that, even though maybe inside you're thinking, my goodness, I want to just bust out. I wanna do all these things. But the because of the person you're with, you don't. And not that that's a blaming issue. I'm not blaming anyone for that. I'm not saying that that was me exactly. but I think following a traditional path.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (05:05.471)

this is just going crazy. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I'm just blathering on. All right. Hopefully, I can save some of this for this podcast episode. So let's talk about relationships and how that affects us. And how could relationships quiet us, keep us quiet, or shrink ourselves? Of course, there are the very bad relationships where

you know, people maybe you're in a an abusive relationship ab emotionally or even physically. Those are that's one way that our voices can be quieted if you're with someone who is broken themselves. And I am not saying this is my situation at all. no, I've been in great relationships and I've been married for 38 years, so I'm good there. But when we think about when you're brand new to a relationship

you know, you're trying to discover what the other person likes and what their what they what their thoughts and their what they're they expect their expectations are. You try and there's always a little bit of I'm going to kind of mold myself into what they want kind of situation. And if it I truly believe if it doesn't

If you're if you do that so much, you try and mold yourself into what they want, it's not gonna work out. It can't, because at some point your energy says, Nope, this is not it. However, you can do that to a point. You mold yourself or you do things or ex have experiences that you want to it's it's so simplistic, but you want that person to like you and to eventually love you.

And we do tend to quiet what we really want to say sometimes, especially in the beginning. And that makes us not quite who we really are. And if we keep doing that, if we don't learn to

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (07:15.723)

Realize if it we if we don't learn to let our true self, our true energy, our true personalities come through, it's going to weigh you down and it's going to cause problems and you are not going to be happy. And then that other person is not going to be happy. So I probably repeated myself there, but just know that maybe look at the relationships you've been in or that you currently are in.

Are you quieting yourself because of that person or for that person? That might be the better way to say it. There's, I really truly believe there's a little bit of that that happens. And hopefully as you grow and learn to bring yourself, your true self out, you're you're still going to be okay with each other and more than okay with each other. I know I'm more than okay with my husband. We are good.

And we are not the same people we were when we got married. So there's there's that. So the relationships. and it could be relate friend relationships too. Maybe you have a a friend group where you are the quiet one. You don't voice your opinion when you're maybe you're deciding to do activities and you are the one who doesn't put out the information. Maybe you're the one who doesn't want to say, Hey, I want to go to that concert and

Because you're afraid the others aren't going to want to. Or maybe some other people in the group have really strong personalities and you don't want to compete with that. So you protect yourself by being quiet. There's that that situation as well. We all know people like that. We all really do. Another way that maybe I learned to quiet my voice is in my nursing career. And as you

As became a nurse and was learning how to be a nurse, I was very task oriented. I actually started with a technical degree, which eventually I got my bachelor's in it. But the technical degree is basically you learn the skills. And there's a little bit of why you're doing the skills, of course, you need to know that. But it's very task oriented. You know how to care for your patients, you know how to give your meds, you know how to you know.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (09:41.622)

All the all the physical things that that you need to do, a little bit of psychological stuff, therapeutic communication sticks out to me. But it was very you're so focused on learning how to take care of p patients because it's an important job. It's a very important career, as of course all careers are. But if you make a mistake, someone could die. And that's a big responsibility. So trying to to keep

That in mind and learning something new, of course, my priority is not going to be on being loud and standing up for myself, you know, focusing on myself. I'm focusing on caring for other people. And I suspect maybe teachers would be kind of similar to this because you are caring for these children and bringing them up, and maybe they're older children, maybe you're a high school teacher.

Any of these helping professions, it's it's you're not focusing on yourself is pretty normal, I would say, I would believe. And if you don't, if you disagree with me, send me a text. You can in the talk to Kim in the show notes. I'd love to have a conversation about that. So learning how to take care of people as a nurse at first was not very, you know, I didn't question a lot.

I I did what I was supposed to do because I had, you know, the hospitals that I worked in, the doctors that I worked with. there was a hierarchy for sure. And so that kind of kept me quiet. There was no there was no focus on me, which is as it should be at that point.

Except for that one patient who started this whole it's not just you journey. And you've heard me talk about that before, so I won't go into that, but that actually happened early in my career and it and it just it just didn't resonate with me until recently. And I've talked about that before and we can well we won't go deeper into that now, but and then something else that has happened and with my kids I you

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (12:04.173)

probably all know I have twin daughters and one of them came out of the closet in 2017. And this is a story I've only shared maybe once or twice with people. And I just recently realized what happened in the situation. But you'll hear more about this coming up. This is going to be something I do talk about more because it so relates to what I'm doing now.

But when she came out, I told, you know, of course you tell your friends and friends and family, of course, and a couple people before I could even before I could even tell one of them what I was going to say, she said something along the lines of, I know what you're gonna say. I know what you're gonna tell me. And that just that made me mad.

First of all. And I'll come back to that. So so another person said, I knew it all along. I knew it a long time ago.

And it took me a it took me almost, well, probably took me nine years to figure out why that made me so upset and why I was angry about it. I never said anything to those two people. I didn't you know, go stomping my feet off or anything. It I because I couldn't figure out why it made me so upset. Why was I angry about that? I at first I chucked it off too, well, I

They must think that I didn't know and and and I did. So maybe I you know I was upset that they thought they knew something that I didn't, which was not the case. But I just thought, okay, well then maybe that's it. Anyway, what it boils down to is I needed to say those words, and I didn't get to say them in those two instances. Now I got you would think, well, I had to say it to a lot of other people. I you know, I've said it many times since.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (14:12.247)

But those two times just gnawed at me and I finally figured it out earlier this year. The things that were said when I was trying to tell what I need what when I was trying to say what I needed to say, I didn't get to say it. I needed to say it. My voice was taken away.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (14:37.985)

They didn't mean to. They didn't mean to make me upset or hurt me.

But I lost my voice. I did not get to say the words that I needed to say. And now that I know that, first of all, there's a big weight that's been lifted off, like, I finally figured it out. And now, moving forward, I will never let that happen again. That will never happen again. I will not let my voice be taken away by anyone.

Saying those words makes me feel so free and determined. And it helps me realize that that is one of my purposes here on this earth: is to help other women in that same way. To help them when they are in a situation where someone or something, maybe even themselves.

Are trying to take their voice away, trying to make them smaller, trying to shrink them, minimize them. They're not gonna do it. They're not gonna let that happen. They're gonna stand in their own power. They're going to say what they need to say and be strong and take up their space and say, heck no, you're not taking that away from me. I'm here and I have something to tell you. And I

I have great things to tell you and I'm gonna keep telling you.

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (16:22.444)

So that is the core of what I'm doing right now. I have I feel like I still have a little ways to go. You know, there are still times where depending on who I'm with and what I'm doing, I still feel a little bit like I need to shrink back a little bit. But very few times, very few, it's becoming much easier for me to take up my space.

And say what I need to say. And don't you want that too? Can you hear it in my voice? Can you feel that passion that I have? I want you to have that too. And that's why I created my it's not just you workshop that's coming up in a couple weeks. We are going to follow our little J-U-S-T. We're going to just notice those words and things we do to make ourselves smaller. We're going to understand why without blaming anyone.

Or judging anyone. And then we're gonna shift our stories that we tell ourselves. And then the last week, we're going to take up space. We're going to use tools and things that we you're gonna walk away with things that you can do to arm yourself. I don't want to say arm, maybe arm yourself isn't the best word, but to prepare yourself. So when those situations do come up where you are trying, you're gonna kind of shrink back and protect yourself. Nope, hey.

I'm here. I'm gonna do this and I'm taking up my space. It's going to be amazing and I cannot wait for you to join me. This is in person right now, but I will be working on an online version of it, and that will be out very soon. So if you're listening to this from California or Florida or England or somewhere else, hang tight. I will be creating a version that you can also do from your from your own home if you would like to.

So I'm just really excited about this. And it's, I think it's the, I know it's the first step in a really big framework, movement, identity for midlife women. So I hope that you will find the show notes, find the link to register, do it soon because it is coming up very quickly. And I want you to have

Kim-Midlife with Courage™ (18:47.202)

I just want you to have what I'm feeling. I want you to have this this passion and this purpose and the confidence and the courage to take up your space because you deserve it. You are worth it. And I don't want anyone else to take your voice ever again.

Alright, ladies, I am going to close this out. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who you think could use the messages. And if you haven't yet, I would love to have you leave me a review on Apple or Spotify. I really appreciate that. And it helps other people see the podcast. So it is not something I just say for fun. It's something that actually will help. If you have any comments or questions,

Go down to the show notes where it says talk to Kim and just click on that and you can send me a text message. actually it's a message, I don't know why they call it a text message, because it goes to my little website where my podcast lives on BuzzSprout. So I can see the message. So yeah, I would appreciate it if you would do that. I I just that would really help me out. All right. I hope you all have a beautiful week and I hope you all take care of your beautiful selves.

Until next time, take care of your beautiful self.