The Pivot: Say It Out Loud
The Pivot: Stepping Out on Faith: A Note from One SisterFriend to Another
This April series is about The Pivot, those moments when life nudges you toward a new direction. Not always a dramatic reinvention.
Sometimes it looks like curiosity and courage. Sometimes it’s trying in the face of fear. Sometimes it's simply deciding to stop letting “I’ve always done it this way” make all the choices for you.
This week, the Pivot turns toward voice–your voice. What changes when we stop holding back the sentence that’s been living in us?
If something has been pressing on your heart, let it have a little air this week.
Say it out loud.
I hope you surprise yourself with what comes out.
With love,
Belinda
SisterFriend Reflection: The Pivot: Say It Out Loud
”Hope is a song in a weary throat.”
—Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray
Recently, I visited the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to attend a symposium on Audre Lorde. At one point, the room was invited into a small practice: each of us was asked to write a haiku about someone significant to us. Then we were invited not only to write, but to share. One by one, women stood up and offered their words–some confident, some trembling, all of them brave.
I almost opted out.
I’ve never written poetry. I’ve always told myself it wasn’t my skill set. My first haiku wasn’t very good, and for a second, I wanted to stop right there. Instead, I stayed with it. I tried again.
And then came the moment that mattered most: the invitation to share. Because writing something privately is one kind of courage, saying it out loud is another.
So here is what I wrote. Three small lines, offered without perfection:
Curiosity–
a quiet door left ajar,
feet follow the light.
There’s something that happens when you speak your words into a room. They stop circling only inside you. They take up space. They become real. And in that moment, something shakes loose: shame, fear, the habit of shrinking. Something opens up, freedom.
That’s the Pivot.
Letting the sentence you’ve been holding finally breathe.
For so many of us, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous women, “out loud” can be complicated. Speaking our truth out loud can be risky. Sometimes costly. Sometimes misunderstood. As Audre Lorde reminds us: “What is most important to me must be spoken…even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
The Schomburg reminded me: there are rooms where your voice belongs. There are moments when your words are not too much. You must not silence yourself. Your words matter too much! There are circles where speaking is part of the healing process. The women who stood up to share their words began that process.
And if hope is a song in a weary throat, sometimes the pivot is simply letting the song be heard.
Purpose Meets Strategy (Take 10 Minutes)
Think about something you’ve been holding in (a truth, a desire, a question).
Say it out loud to yourself. Keep it raw. Don’t make it sound pretty.
Honor it by writing a simple haiku: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
Notice how you feel when you write the haiku or say out loud what you’ve been holding in.
Come back to this as often as you need.
May you remember that your words have the power to change your reality.
May your words bring you to spaces and places unknown.
May your life’s poetry be shared with the rest of the world.
If this reflection resonates with you, share it with a SisterFriend who might need it today.