Mindfully standing up for yourself
I recently went to an event. It wasn’t huge - there was a MC, a presenter and perhaps 200 guests. It was scheduled for 3.5 hours. One family had decided to bring their two young children. And no, this is not a rant about bringing children. I am all for being inclusive, but there is a time and space for that too. And for parenting. This wasn’t. And that is not what this post is about. It is about what it feels like to stand up for yourself and your values.
Even before the MC started talking, the children were running around, playing catch-me-if-you-can and hide-and-go-seek in the auditorium. Like most, I thought once the event started, they would go to their seats and calm down. They didn’t. Then the presenter came on stage, an elderly gentleman. The two were still running around but with the lights dimmed, they bumped against seats and people, there were squeals of laughter and crying when they fell. People around me were getting obviously annoyed and distracted. Not one stood up. We had all paid to be at the event.
About 15 minutes into the presentation, I finally stood up. I politely interrupted the speaker and asked if it was possible to quiet the children who by now had both started crying as they had bumped into things. There were some boo-calls, as expected. But most people didn’t say anything. In fact, there was an eery silence.
I noticed my heart pumping, chest constricting, sweaty palms, dry mouth. Had I overstepped a line? And why was I feeling so bad about standing up and voicing discomfort at the situation? After all, that is what I teach my clients as a coach.
Checking in with myself, I noticed it was the fear of being criticised for asking the parents to step up and quiet the children. It was the fear of being judged as not being tolerant of the behaviour of children. It was the fear of being deemed impolite by interrupting the presenter.
All external drivers and factors. And I noticed a small part of me was wanting to accept the noise and disruption. Because I didn’t want to be “the one” and stand out. I was willing to put my expectations, my enjoyment and in a way my right to the full experience of the presentation on the back-burner because I didn’t want to stand up for myself. And what about the presenter? Sucker, Sonja, I said to myself.
Anyway, I did speak up. Politely, quietly. Not angry or annoyed. I asked that if out of respect to the presenter and the audience, the children could be quieted. The mother shot me glance that could’ve killed as she left the auditorium with her children and her partner. Funny thing, I hadn’t asked them to leave, I had ‘only’ asked for the children to be quiet.
During intermission, a young man came up to me. He said “Thank you for speaking up. The presenter is my dad and I didn’t know how to manage the situation. I thought people would think I am biased.” A lady came up as well and said “Thank you for having the balls to say something. I think we all wanted to say something but were too scared.” And a gentleman in his fifties say “Good on you, I couldn’t hear a thing over the kids. I would have found different words for the parents.”
So why all this fear on my part if, in the end, all the ‘feedback’ I got was good, excellent actually?
When did we learn to not stand up for what we want?