01.10.10
Finding your voice
This is a bit of ancient writing of mine you might be interested in…
Finding Your Voice
As I sit down to write, I am daunted by how frozen I am in uncertainty about what I want to write, share, and talk about. Its not that I don’t have a lot to say. It is the consideration or fear that I don’t know enough about anything to presume that I am qualified to put it out in a public forum.
It’s not that I don’t have a voice, but that I allow my fears to keep me from speaking. Who is to say, though, that I don’t have exactly the right thing to say, in a way that you might very much need to hear just now? And who’s to say that you don’t have, on the tip of your pen, what I need to hear?
So I must trust and move through the fear that “I’m not enough.” I’ve been alive and learning for more than forty years. I’ve made a lot of mistakes during that time and those mistakes have taught me a lot. For as long as I can remember I’ve been self-reflective, wondering about the “Whys?” and “What ifs?” “What is true?” “Where do I fit in?” “Who am I?”
What if I were to just trust that I too am an essential part of the plan? Fully vested in ownership of my little shard of this infinitely faceted reflecting mirror that we call the universe. What if I trusted that my voice matters? Even though it is different from the dominant voices. Even if the timing, content and sound of others’ words are different. Instead, I am frozen in a sea of doubts instead of believing that what I have to say has value and meaning, by virtue of having a unique perspective on reality as an individual.
Not many of us receive respect for our unique perspectives as children. On the contrary, we are usually told “be quiet.” So we spend our lives trying to prove we have something worthwhile to say, trying to prove that we, ourselves, are worthwhile. We struggle to “succeed,” hoarding degrees and lists of accomplishments or woes as our credentials, for which we hope to be finally listened to. Is it any wonder that we become afraid to speak our hearts and trust our voices?
The most prevalent phobia in our society is the fear of public speaking. More so than the fear of the dark, heights, flying, or even dying. Fear of speaking ranks right up there with the fear of intimacy!
As children, many of us were shamed, made fun of or embarrassed by our parents, older siblings and classmates for speaking out of turn, making mistakes, or sometimes, for just being so brazen as to open our mouths at all. Yet I, for one, still want to believe that what I think might matter. I know that when I hear someone speaking their truth, I respect them if I feel they are speaking their own considered truth, and not just an attitude that they took from their parents or the media.
The human body must be one of the finest sensing and processing systems ever created. Every cell in our bodies senses and communicates information to the rest of our organism. We have access to the wisdom and experience of the collective unconscious. Our body/mind processes and stores every shred of our experience. We ride this constantly changing net of energy and information through our entire lifetime. We reflect, we build, and we plan. Of course we have something to say!
Modern physicists explain now, as the Hindus have said for thousands of years that we exist within a web – matrix. We live in a universe whose elements are completely interconnected through space and time. My actions and my words matter outside of me. So do yours. The threads of our lives are joined and affect each other. We are all connected, woven into the same fabric.
Who we are is miraculous – each one of us – every bit of us. If, out of this Wonder comes the urge to speak, perhaps I should give myself a little air time, and listen more closely when you do.
By Bob Drake
March 3, 1996
