Learning to Share my Voice: A Lifelong Process

Posted By: Maeve Hendrix, LPCA, RYT

Are you ever afraid to share your voice?

I know I am!

Before I completed my first yoga teacher training 9 years ago, I was utterly TERRIFIED of speaking in front of groups, to the point where I fainted a few times while trying to give presentations in high school and college. Knowing I needed to address my fear of speaking in front of groups, I signed up for a three month, 200 hr yoga teacher training with the tiny spark of a hope that my phobia could be cured. Surprisingly, at the end of my three month training I noticed a significant shift had taken place. Learning to teach yoga had helped me feel more connected to my body and breath while speaking and sharing in front of a group, which kept me from spinning out in my head to the point of passing out. Success! This was a great awakening experience for me that boosted my self-confidence and softened my harsh inner critic. However, my fear of speaking in front of groups continued to challenge me in situations where I was not teaching yoga and I yearned to be able to share my voice anytime, anywhere while feeling relaxed and comfortable in my skin.

I remember being in my first semester of graduate school for Expressive Arts Therapy, listening to my beloved mentor, Sally Atkins, share with us the value of ‘Finding your Voice’. As she spoke, her eyes gleamed with a deep, anchored inner knowing, her voice penetrated into my bones with steady, grounded, grandmother earth essence. I was completely spellbound, mesmerized by her words, which were bathed in unwavering clarity and refreshing humor.

Right away I noticed my inner critic voice say, “you’ll never sound like her or be grounded enough to speak with such powerful clarity”. My body shrunk like a raisin in response to this inner criticism, I felt small and helpless. At that moment, Sally beamed her wild, loving gaze at me and I felt seen and acknowledged as a precious human who was undeniably capable, respected, and needed in this world. My insecure inner self was crumpled in a ball hiding in this moment and I slowly opened one eye as I lifted my head to feel this acknowledgement flood in. I could sense that this was a moment of initiation. I was being invited into a new phase of bravery, the vulnerable and terrifying practice of unapologetically claiming my voice. Sally helped me to see that there was a more powerful, resonant depth that I wanted to tap into inside myself and synthesize into genuine, honest expression, verbally, physically, and energetically.

That was five years ago. I have taught hundreds of yoga classes, and dozens of expressive arts and somatic learning workshops, AND I am still deep in the scary challenging place of finding my voice. GULP, I continue to recognize this is a life long cyclical growth process. Sally Atkin’s poem. “Tell Me, She Said” is a grounding poem that has helped me over the years in opening to my own inner magic and serves as a reminder that there is ALWAYS a song singing itself through me and it is always worthy of being shared and heard.

Tell Me, She Said

By Sally Atkins

Tell me, she said:

What is the story you are telling?

What wild song is singing itself through you?

Listen:

In the silence between there is music;

In the spaces between there is story.

It is the song you are living now,

It is the story of the place where you are.

It contains the shapes of these old mountains,

The green of the rhododendron leaves.

It is happening right now in your breath,

In your heart beat still

Drumming the deeper rhythm

Beneath your cracking words.

It matters what you did this morning

And last Saturday night

And last year,

Not because you are important

But because you are in it

And it is still moving.

We are all in this story together.

Listen:

In the silence between there is music;

In the spaces between there is story.

Pay attention:

We are listening each other into being.

Sally Atkins

Sally’s poem encourages me to listen deeply in the quiet moments and take more sacred pauses throughout the day as well as pushing my edges with sharing my voice. I recently attended an illuminating and edge-pushing poetry-as-medicine day retreat with Mary Ellen Lough - honoring the winter solstice. Through simple writing exercises, vivid guided imagining, and sharing within the group, we dove into the waters of our inner being to explore our multifaceted relationship with Light and Dark. My associations with light and dark initially appeared oppositional, but as I continued to sit with my associations, light and dark began to mingle and weave together as a puzzle would, revealing a larger scale perspective. My associations with light and dark became inseparable from one another, dancing and swirling just as shadow and light require each other to exist. The vast chasm I had imagined between joy and pain, loneliness and togetherness, laughing and crying, birth and death began to close and I realized that much of the suffering and fear I endure on a daily basis is the painful and exhausting side effect of maintaining BLACK and WHITE, GOOD or BAD, ALL or NOTHING thinking. What a revelation!

Dancing

in and out

in and out of togetherness

and solitude.

I forget while I’m in it

that solitude

IS an interactive dance.

And there is a togetherness

even when I feel the most

empty, alone, afraid.

The practice of embracing solitude as a very special relationship with self and with my environment has opened a doorway for me to allow my heart to relax into itself, to feel my tissues soften around my bones, and to feel my breath as a dear, supportive companion that is always with me. This does not mean that I don’t experience anxiety, loneliness, worry, discomfort and restlessness. I am learning to acknowledge edgy discomfort as an invitation to look deeper inside and offer a listening ear to the inner parts of me that want to be held, acknowledged, and nurtured. My therapist refers to these moments as VITAL NURTURING moments. It requires me to recruit my, wise, Inner Witness Self to step in and hold space for whatever feelings are present. The Inner Witness self does not categorize, judge or label feelings and thoughts as good or bad, right or wrong. This gives space for my feelings, thoughts, and sensations to exist. I anticipate and hope that this will be a practice I engage in for my entire life. I am realizing that there is no end goal I am trying to reach. Right now, my growth edge is calling me to write and put my words and thoughts into a public forum. Putting my voice out there in an honest, unfiltered way feels uncomfortable, nerve wracking and downright scary. So here I am, letting these words out onto the page while I practice offering a supportive inner voice to the parts of me that feel threatened, insecure and judgmental.

Pablo Neruda’s poem is also a staple that I keep in a visible, place that I can revisit again and again as I continue to bump and fumble along this journey of discovering and sharing my voice.

Poetry

By Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names,

my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I saw

the heavens

unfastened

and open,

planets,

palpitating plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled

with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind.