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Quiet No More
My truth about family, life and history. No longer quiet about the truth of feeling alone at school, work and home. A place for women (and men) to hear what being open about what shaped their life and purpose is all about.
About Carmen Cauthen:
Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.
Quiet No More
Finding Strength in Silence: Embracing Your Voice for Change and Empowerment
Can the quiet strength of one woman ripple into the lives of countless others?
Join me, Carmen Cauthen, as I share my transformative journey from a lifetime of silence to becoming a vocal advocate for change. Inspired by my mother, who quietly but forcefully challenged racial stereotypes in the 60s, I explore the courage it takes to speak out on critical issues like housing and employment.
Through personal stories of standing up in the office and the PTA, I illustrate how using our voices, even when it's uncomfortable or unpopular, can lead to meaningful change. Recognize your own power and understand the necessity of sometimes being loud and immediate in our actions to make the world a better place.
Discover how embracing your voice and expressing your true self can empower you in every role you play—whether as a mother, wife, daughter, or professional. I delve into the empowerment that comes from being seen, heard, and making a difference for oneself. We'll talk about how reclaiming activities and joys from our past can reconnect us with our authentic selves and why setting boundaries is crucial for personal fulfillment.
Learn how to say "no" to reclaim your time and space, ensuring that your purpose doesn't diminish with age or retirement.
Join me in this episode for a journey of self-discovery and empowerment.
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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.
To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com
Unseen, unheard. We've lived like that far too long. I'm Carmen Coffin and this is Quiet, no More. 50 years, 50 years of being quiet, but I'm not going to be quiet anymore. It takes a conscious decision to speak up, to make a change in your life. It takes a conscious decision to realize that what you settled for, you don't have to settle for it anymore.
Speaker 1:I watched my elders, I watched my mom be quiet, but I also watched her be forceful while she was quiet. The rumor when we moved into the white neighborhood was that there was a black family moving in and they had eight kids and the property values were going straight in the tank. And so the day we moved in, my mother pulled up in her station wagon, her Oldsmobile station wagon, and she had my brother and myself and all six of my cousins, and we all piled out and went in the house, and so one of the things that she taught me was that I could break down those rumors. I didn't have to be loud to do it, and part of that was because it was the 60s and so it was dangerous to be loud, and she had kids and she had a job and she had things to do. But I learned from that that it's possible to make decisions and be forceful and make a difference. So I have made differences all of my life, but most of the time they were quiet. I'm learning to not do that anymore. Sometimes your difference has to be loud. It has to be loud, it has to be instantaneous. It has to be instantaneous, it has to be quick. I'm going to be 65 this year. I got shit to do. I can't wait. I can't wait and figure out every step. Sometimes I have to know in my heart it's time to move. That's also a lesson learned A lot of times, you know, and a lot of my lessons I learned from watching my mom. Not from her necessarily telling me what to do, but watching how she did and how she maneuvered. So even with that moving into that house, she taught me a lesson. She taught me a lesson that I can take a rumor and fulfill it and it not be the truth, but it stretches a point, it teaches something, it teaches a lesson, and so it's important for me to teach lessons.
Speaker 1:I have two daughters. They're young women. They still watch what I do. You probably do too, but I'm learning that it can't be all about them. I'm learning that it has to be about me. I am important.
Speaker 1:I have a voice. I have to use it. Do you use yours? Do you think about using it, or do you just go along with what's been happening or what you've been told to do, or what you were raised up to do?
Speaker 1:Sometimes that's not all that there is. Most of the time, that's not all that there is. As you get older, you recognize you don't have that much time left. That's not a morbid thing, that's just a truth. And so the truth for me is the things that I have been saying quietly. I need to say them out loud. I need to do them out loud. You need to do yours out loud. I don't know what that is. I didn't always know what it was. For me, sometimes in my office that meant that conversations I was overhearing that weren't right, instead of just letting them go, I'd have to speak out. Was it a popular thing? No, did it engender complaints or concerns about my behavior? Yep, but sometimes you have to do what's right. Right's not always being quiet. Right's not always letting the past be the present or the future.
Speaker 1:How often do you think that you need to change something If you stay in the same mindset all the time. You don't go anywhere new, you just stay in the same stuff. Eventually, I had to make some decisions in my life because I wasn't moving further. I wasn't growing and you have to grow. If you don't grow, what happens with a plant when it doesn't grow? It withers and it dies. It has to be watered and it has to be fed. You have to feed yourself. Sometimes feeding yourself means you've got to go learn something new. Sometimes there's a hunger inside you to do something different.
Speaker 1:Do you think I set out to write a book? I didn't. I set out to learn stuff, and then I realized that the things that I was learning were important and I had to share them. And so I was quiet, no more. I shared. I talked about housing, I talked about what youth needed, I talked about all the things that were important to me, all the things that were important to me, and people began to listen Because I would say things that they were afraid to say or that they weren't being heard when they said it.
Speaker 1:I'd say them at home. Some days that went over well and some days it didn't. I'd say them at PTA. You probably you might have had that experience. I'd say them at church, I'd say them in meetings, I'd say them at the hairdresser, and a lot of times I'll. You'll say things and people will agree with you, but they aren't going to say it out loud. They'll say it right there with you and then they'll be silent and you'll be out there by yourself, but you're not by yourself. There are others who think like you think. There are others who have concerns that you have, and your voice matters. Your voice matters to the people who are afraid to say something. So try it. Speak out loud, don't be quiet anymore. If it doesn't serve you, then change it.
Speaker 1:A lot of things that I have to talk about are things that other people don't want to hear. It's important for me to talk about people who don't have anywhere to live. It's important for me to talk about people who need jobs. I've been fortunate, and perhaps you have too. I've had jobs and I've been able to pay the bills. But there have been times when I haven't been able to pay the bills and I was afraid to tell anybody that, and it doesn't make it any better when I don't tell it or when I don't talk about it. So I can't hide in that silence anymore. I couldn't hide in that silence anymore. I needed to speak out loud. I needed to say I'm not making enough money to pay my bills. I needed to say the other adult who lives in the house with me also needs to help pay the bills.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't be expected to carry it all by yourself, and if you've got to carry it all by yourself, then you shouldn't have to carry it for everybody else if they're able and old enough to help take care of it too. What are the things that you're keeping quiet about? Do they gnaw at you? Do they keep you from sleeping at night? Do they make you want to scream? Because there are other people out there? There are other women out there who are opening their mouths, and you need to do that for yourself. It took me 50 years of being unseen and unheard. It took me learning that it's okay to not have support. I can support myself until I can find others who are in community with me. One of the other things that I saw growing up was a mother who was a community activist. She ran for school board and won, but I remember her telling me later that the men in the community came to her and told her not to run because she would be running in a field with another black person, a black man, and they were afraid that if she ran then she would take support away from him. That still happens today.
Speaker 1:If you've got a voice and you're using it and somebody doesn't want to hear it, that doesn't mean for you to sit down. Sometimes you just need to speak louder. We're not going to be quiet anymore. We're not going to be quiet anymore If you've got children, if you've got girls especially. They need to know that it's important to be able to use your voice. They need to know. They need to know not by you telling them to do it, but by actively seeing you speak up and speak out, and they need to know that that's appreciated by other people. So share it, talk about it.
Speaker 1:One of the things I always encouraged, especially during PTA parents would say especially women who were trying to climb the ladder would say I don't have time. I don't have time to be on the PTA board. I don't have time to work on the PTA board. I don't have time to work on a community activity or a committee. You know, you can take a lunch hour and speak out. You can take a lunch hour and help a teacher. You can take a lunch hour and make a difference in your child's life. It helps prepare you sometimes to do the things that you're going to need to do when you're on the other side of having somebody else at home to take care of. It certainly did for me. If I hadn't learned to speak out prior to retirement, prior to retirement, I wouldn't know how to speak out today. I'd be afraid I would practice, just practice. You know, we talk about things all the time with our friends, but it's important to give yourself a voice where it will begin to make a difference and where it will begin to make a difference in your life.
Speaker 1:I'm learning how to wear lipstick because when I got married, my husband said his mother didn't wear it and he didn't see any need for me to wear it. And I was quiet and I stopped wearing lipstick. Mind you, I used to have a boutique. I used to sell makeup. I knew how to apply it and apply it well, but I was quiet because a man wanted me to be quiet. I don't do that anymore. I don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm finding me and you can find you, find your voice. Don't be unseen. Too many people are. You don't need to be one of them, and I'm not saying you have to be seen in a huge way, but be seen, be heard, be felt. Your voice is important and you make a difference. I make a difference and I'm making a difference for me, and that's empowering. It's not just about being in control although I like being in control too but it's important that I don't lose who I am. I am more than somebody's mother and more than somebody's wife and more than somebody's daughter or granddaughter, but I notice that that's how I'm acknowledged. Most of the time, that's so-and-so's daughter. People will call me by my maiden name because they can't remember my married name. But I am myself and I'm proud of who I am and you need to be proud of who you are.
Speaker 1:You were made specifically for a purpose, and are you fulfilling all of that purpose? You know, sometimes when we retire or we are getting closer to retirement, we begin to think we don't have purpose anymore. That's so not true. We have things to do. Your thing doesn't have to be writing a book. Your thing doesn't have to be speaking on stage. Your thing might be making a change in your community. Your thing might be making a change in you, the parts that you kind of push back to make sure that everybody else got taken care of.
Speaker 1:Maybe you need to start pulling some of that person back out, some of the things that you did when you were a kid that you loved to do. You did when you were a kid that you loved to do, but they were looked at as not important or not fulfilling your potential. It might just be things like creative things, like painting or sewing or writing journals or reading poetry or going to the theater by yourself because nobody else wants to go. Start doing for you. I'm loving doing for me. I am finding so much energy in returning to who I was meant to be and speaking out.
Speaker 1:And sometimes speaking out just means saying that one word. That's hard, hard, hard to say. It's a two-letter word, it's no, no, I won't do this for you. No, I won't be this for you. No, I'm taking that time for myself, even if taking that time for myself is nothing but going to the hairdresser or getting massage, things that I put off doing before because I was being quiet. But I'm being quiet no more You've been listening to. Quiet no More where I share my journey. So you can be quiet, let's connect at wwwcarmencawthoncom.