I have a strong voice. When I was singing professionally, it was a gift—to be able to be creative and express myself in music–with strength, connection and volume.
I was never dinner music/background music. That’s just the way it was. My voice was a little more of a wake up call then a lullaby.
Many times in my life I have not experienced my voice as a gift.
I have wished I could have been a little more diplomatic, or a little softer in a response or a social situation. And in many of these uncomfortable situations, I have felt the need to apologize, to make things “okay”.
Now, I’m very aware that this may very well be a gender issue in our culture; as a woman I am not unusual in not wanting to be “too much”.
What I’m most interested in are the ways in which we women and men stay connected to our vital, undomesticated selves and the ways in which we succumb to self-evaluation and playing small.
It’s so easy to get lost in trying to make yourself socially correct or thinking you can make something okay for another. For the sake of staying connected to your playful, essential vitality, what if you let your voice be as it is?
What might happen if you let yourself be a little too much for some situations without apology? And, hey, what’s “too much” anyway? Too much for whom? And where did all this self-evaluation come from?
You want to be yourself. You want to be sensitive. You want to be kind. But what happens when your being kind is not actually what you’re being—what you’re really being is overly concerned with what others might be thinking of you? What if your self-monitoring is actually preventing you from speaking up and into the world, and is instead separating you from the flow of life?
What if you are spending way too much time looking in the rear view mirror?
Why not check in and see?
- How often do you apologize for what you have said or done?
- What do you feel like when you apologize—more yourself or diminished?
- How do you respond when someone is challenged by your words/actions?
Becoming aware of how we move in the world is 80 percent of the work needed to change. From there we can begin to find new ways of responding and moving forward. From awareness, we have choice.
I truly believe that when we open ourselves to this kind of change, life does everything it can to help us on our way.
This territory of unleashing your courage and your ability to show up and speak up in the world, not letting fear stop you from acting and responding to life naturally with your own inner authority intact—this is the transformation some of my coaching clients are experiencing.