Speak Your Truth
By Ferne Cotton
Do you know what is most important to you in life?
Ferne Cotton is my all-time favourite podcast host. As well as being the voice of the Happy Place podcast, she is a well-known author and popular TV & radio producer of various shows such as the Radio 1 Chart Show and Top of the Pops. Ferne’s familiar voice is her career, so being told that she would have to endure a throat operation and two weeks of not speaking was a pivotal moment for her. Speak Your Truth is her contemplation on what silence means to her.
Despite the fact that she lives her life in the spotlight, Ferne honestly shares her own experiences and she contemplates at what point we internalise the messages we pick up from society and start silencing ourselves. The book travels through various times in Ferne’s life when her voice went unheard: from a young woman when she was viewed as ‘just the talent’, to a mother of two of her own children and step-mother of two more. In her easy writing style, Ferne shares her own deeply personal story and explains how she balances her need for human connection with the importance of having her own space.
If you struggle to say ‘no’ and you hold back your words when you are wronged then this is a book for you. Through her considerations about when we become pleasers and compromisers at the cost of our own happiness and wellbeing, Ferne reconnects with her authentic voice and shows the reader the power of living in our truth. She believes that when someone is struggling it may be because they are not speaking their truth and they are denying a part of themselves. Speak Your Truth looks at all the ways we learn to stay quiet for the wrong reasons. Instead of pushing for change, it considers whether the answer is more of a personal revelation.
What I wanted:
I felt that the book was in places a bit drawn out, but I wonder whether that is an indication that I need to slow down a bit!
What I liked:
Each chapter ends with mini self-reflection exercises to help the reader to explore their own truths so that we can better speak out with confidence.
“I believe if we can find small, safe spaces to slow down and embrace simplicity, the answers will be there for us”
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