Finding Your Voice as a Woman of Color

On today’s episode, Kavita Melwani continues her exploration of multicultural women seeking leadership positions but struggling to make their desires known. She discusses the three reasons BIPOC women shut down in the work environment and identifies the one element that every leader must have to succeed: a voice.

Kavita explains that BIPOC women are conditioned to respect authority, which often prevents them from speaking up in the workplace out of fear of seeming disrespectful. Many women have also faced prior trauma when voicing their ideas, which initiates a pattern of fawning and people-pleasing. Finally, multicultural women can feel intense pressure to succeed, which shuts them down mentally. Kavita dives deep into all of these areas to provide women with the tools needed to speak their minds.

Tune into this week’s episode of Aligned & Soulful Leadership to hear more about host Kavita Melwani’s advice to BIPOC women on conquering their fears to find their voice.

Quotes
• “If you're working on showing up more and finding your voice when you're in levels of high anxiety, high stress, you're more likely to go to your default ways of functioning. It takes some more practice, it takes some accountability and even some awareness of what's happening. When you're starting to shed light on what is happening, then you can start that process of shifting.” (3:54-4:21)
 
• “In my cultural background, being respectful means that you don't second guess authority. And, unfortunately, a lot of women of color come from cultures where they are conditioned to respect authority in the same way, where they're meant to not question and they listen.” (7:30-7:52)

• “It's time to take a look at what you're saying yes to, and where that internal desire to say ‘yes and please’ is coming from. And oftentimes it is from that conditioning.” (14:07-14:18)

• “If you're going to be in a position of leadership, you're going to have to learn how to set boundaries, you're going to have to learn how to say no as a complete sentence without an explanation. You're going to have to speak out the truth, you're going to have to contribute your ideas.” (15:25-15:39)

• “Once you're aware, then you can start to pick one thing and one way that you can show up differently. Choose a thing to do differently, one way to express yourself despite the fear.” (22:41-22:52)

Links
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-and-recovery/202008/understanding-fight-flight-freeze-and-the-fawn-response
• https://theenlightenedheart.pro/
• Free Abundance Meditation and Exercise:  https://theenlightenedheart.pro/abundance-now/
• Receive Your Free Guide: "5 Ways to Feed Your Soul and Rise Into Your Leadership as an Empath"   https://theenlightenedheart.pro/free-gift
• Connect for a complimentary 30-minute clarity session explore how you can rise up into your leadership: https://theenlightenedheart.as.me/leadershipstrategy

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