*NEW* Opinions Muted | Your Voice is the ONLY One That Matters

Opinions Muted | discusses the pain and heartbreak of gossip and negative criticisms from people who claim to love us.

It talks about the importance of disconnecting from these influences and not allowing other people’s opinions to influence your self-worth or life choices.

Join me as we re-discover our power through self-love.

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*All Poetry featured are original works by Lauren McNeil, not to be duplicated or re-purposed without prior consent.*

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Transcript

Lauren M

Negative comments, you don't respond to that. Why? Because would a lion respond to sheep? Would a queen come down off her throne to address the musings of peasants? Absolutely not.

And that's exactly how you have to start to reframe your life.

To all the new listeners, welcome to So Real Poetry. I am the poet known as Lauren. And to all our returning listeners, welcome back fam! Let's hop into this week's poem. 

No one understands

what it took to stand this tall.

No one understands

how you took that punch 

during the craziest brawl.  

People think you're nice 

cause you smile and laugh and joke. 

Those same people think it's right. 

To gossip, prod, and poke.  

They think, well, they're so great, 

they could stand to walk on their knees.

What they don't see is 

you've been running this race,

carrying a monkey, four elephants, 

while fighting off disease.  

They just assume you were born strong,

so you can handle it all.  

Simply dismissing this gaping wound 

that almost consumed you before the fall.  

Dark Knight of the Soul doesn't describe

the negativity you transmuted. 

Generations of shit on your back, 

theirs also included.  

A goddess indeed? 

No, they have no idea. 

They're clueless. 

They better be glad you work for the light 

and you're true to this.  

Down with the dark too? 

Nah, they have no idea what your truth is.  

I'll let them think what they want, 

cause in the end, 

their perception matters not.

Opinions muted. 

So, this poem I wrote at a time in my life when there was a lot of gossip about me. I got to a point recently within this last breakup where I cut off everything. I, I quit my previous podcast. I cut all ties to any outside influences because I can feel energies and I, I kept feeling like I could hear people, my name in people's mouths, and not in a positive way.

And so this poem is really a reflection and I'm not just talking about my ex or friends, like this is family. This is a lot of people who were judging my actions, judging my, why’d she do this, she did this cause of this, and you know what I mean, listening to things that may or may not have been true about me.

And I just had to unplug. So the title of this poem is Opinions Muted because I realized in my alone time that none of these people's opinions matter. Like, none of them matter.  Nobody's opinion matters about what I think about myself. And no matter what it looks like on the outside, every move that I've made has been very meticulously calculated.

And every move that I've made has been divinely inspired. And I don't owe anyone an explanation for my life and the choices that I've made. And the interesting thing that I've learned about people is, You know, hindsight is 20/ 20. Even as I talk and write this now, there's going to be somebody judging what I'm saying, and that's fine.

There's a quote that says, other people's opinions of you is none of your business. And I finally realized that that really Is the truth and it resonates the more we focus on what other people think of us and if other people approve of what we are or what we're what we aren't doing. We slow ourselves down from our purpose here.

Your purpose is to live. Your purpose is not to live based on if anybody else agrees with your decisions. That is how you live a life. That belongs to other people and makes you miserable because at the end of the day, the same people that you're worried about, what, whether they think you're crazy or whether they think you've lost it or what, whatever, whatever people have to say at the end of the day, your life is your own and you'll save more of your energy by muting other people's opinions about you and recognizing that no matter what you do, you can make every right decision in your own mind.

Someone will always be displeased with what you did. That's the nature of this reality. Sometimes people just want to get you riled up. They might actually agree with everything you did, everything you said, and everything, but they are determined to misunderstand you. Stop giving these people your energy.

I had to really learn that the hard way. And the way that you stop giving them your energy, Is you don't give them your energy. Negative comments, you don't respond to that. Why? Because would a lion respond to sheep? Would a queen come down off her throne to address the musings of peasants? Absolutely not.

And that's exactly how you have to start to reframe your life. And I'm not saying that these people are peasants. What I'm saying is walk in your royalty.  That is what I am saying. As a royal being, Would you pay anybody else's opinion, any mind, that does not matter to you? If you don't want to be these people, then their opinion shouldn't matter to you.

So the other part of this poem is where I talk about how no one understands what it took. Because it seems like, in my life, when you're viewed as the strong one, no one ever has empathy or sympathy for you. for what it took for you to become that. They just assume, well, you're strong so you can handle it.

And in worst-case scenarios, when you're surrounded by extremely toxic people or energy vampires, and they do exist. They will actually try to humble you because they feel like, oh, well, you're so strong, you can handle this. And that's a very, that's when you're in a really toxic dynamic. That's when you're surrounded by snakes and you need to run, not walk, to the nearest exit.

So this is the other part of that poem. That is me speaking from my soul because I've experienced the things in my poems. Every poem I write is based off my experience or my beliefs, and they were hard won. So, I talk about carrying generations of other people's shit on your back, and I have done that.

And I'm talking about toxic generational patterns, and if you've ever I've been in a toxic family dynamic and completely changed everything about how you parent yourself or how you parent your kids. You know how difficult that is and to go through all of that and still have to listen to other people's judgments of how you raise your kids or how you're changing things or why you're not doing this or What they would have done when they already had their shot is wild.

So this also goes into the opinions muted. I realized I cannot be worried about what everybody else thinks I should be doing. I have to have faith in what I'm being called to do and the changes that I'm being called to make in my own family line for my future generations. And so opinions muted really just says like their perceptions matter not.

Put that on mute and live your life because this is your life at the end of the day. They have theirs and if they would focus on their life, maybe they wouldn't have time to talk about yours.  That's some food for thought.  As far as the creation of this poem, I also created this one like the other ones in the middle of the night having about two hours of sleep in and out of sleep and just waking up and just spewing this on the page.

You're going to hear me say this a lot now. I didn't create every poem like this. Some of them were a different creative process, but I'd probably say about 80 percent of my poems, that's the creative process where I'm either coming out of a meditation and just spewing out a poem or in the shower. That is the other process.

So this one was actually created the same way as the others where I came out of sleep. Which is highly recommended. The one thing that I know about creating a poem or creating any sort of art is that the prerequisite that I've found for being in the flow state to create your art, is a relaxed mind.

Which is why my poetry usually comes to me after a shower, or after I've come out of meditation, or after I've woken up from sleep because these three states are when my mind is very relaxed. And so, if you're an artist and you're having a hard time creating, try to find some ways to actually relax your mind.

Okay, however that is for you, don't judge your process. Because my process didn't always look like this. When I was a huge pothead, I would smoke and create a poem. Okay, and, and it didn't always go that way either. Okay, so don't judge your process. Show yourself grace.  Life is already difficult enough and there's already enough people judging you.

You do not need to judge yourself. So, let's segue into this week's journal prompt.  Alright, in what ways have you allowed other people's opinions to shape your view of yourself?  Why do you think you did that?  How can you begin to mute other people's opinions? 

Thank you so much for vibing out with me this week. It has truly been my pleasure. If this poem resonated with you and you want to tell me how you feel, please drop me a comment. I love your comments. And if you just need more So Real Poetry in your life, you can find me on Instagram or YouTube at So _Real_ Poetry. 

As always, take care of yourselves, and I'll see you next Sunday for more Poetry Gold because it's So Real Poetry.

*All Poetry featured are original works by Lauren McNeil, not to be duplicated or re-purposed without prior consent.*