Old school week continues! (Apparently I'm on a kick.)
There's not a sober alcoholic I know who hasn't had some version of this happen to them in their recovery:
There you are, sitting in a meeting, and someone says something -- maybe not the speaker, maybe just in a regular old share, or while they're taking a chip or something -- and it opens you right up. It goes right into your heart -- or your head, or your gut -- with a little >Ping!< and shines a light where a light needed to be shone. Maybe it triggers an insight, or maybe it just lifts your spirit, but regardless of how, it helped you.
And although it did, it felt like a private little thing maybe, or you were too shy to speak to whomever it was that said it, so they don't even know they did that -- that what they had to say was helpful to you.
That's fine. That's totally fine that you didn't speak to them about it. They probably weren't looking for any feedback anyway.
But the thing is, maybe now it's your turn to say something; to smash through your carefully manufactured distance or your studied, defensive aloofness, or your lovingly nurtured low self esteem, or your acute (if somewhat common) fear of speaking up and speaking out.*
If you don't hear what you need to hear in a meeting, for God's sake, raise your hand and say it.
You'll certainly help yourself, and you might even help someone else -- though you may never know it. If you don't hear what you need to hear in a meeting, maybe it's your turn to say it.
*But also, let's not pretend some of us didn't have to develop a stay-under-the-radar thing as a survival mechanism somewhere along the way. I'm not mocking it, I'm just calling it out.