Your own voice.
Everyone has it. And yet it can be one of the hardest things to locate in a busy, modern existence. And as a woman who has been trained to listen and attend to everyone else before herself.
Everyone needs it. So we know what we want, what we don’t, what’s good for us and what is not. Without it, we are compass-less, adrift in a sea of everyone else’s opinions.
I had to start with a breakup
so that I could end up
with my own voice.
On a hot fall afternoon in my late 20s, I stared at the hardwood floor of my apartment in Queens, New York.
If I had craned my head out my window far enough, I could have seen the elevated track of the N subway train.
But I didn’t look up. I was in agony. I was about to break up with my boyfriend of three years.
He was the kind of man you take home to meet your family, the kind of man that mothers naturally love, that puppies naturally love, and that children naturally love.
This man had jump-started my spiritual life after a decade of feeling painfully lost. This man was kind, smart, good looking, generous, and funny AF.
Why on earth was I going to break up with this man?
Because I just didn’t know.
I didn’t know if I wanted to be with him. I didn’t know if I wanted to leave him. I didn’t know HOW to know.
The one thing I DID know was that I wanted to know. I wanted to find my own knowing more than anything — more than sparing this man from heartbreak, apparently.
I wanted to know, in my bones, what was true for me, good for me, which way to go when I found myself at a crossroads in my life.
I wanted to own my YES, and I wanted to own my NO. I wanted to feel an unassailable surety deep in the core of my being and to guide my life’s choices by it.
On a hot fall afternoon in my late 20s, I stared at the hardwood floor of my apartment in Queens, New York.
If I had craned my head out my window far enough, I could have seen the elevated track of the N subway train.
But I didn’t look up. I was in agony. I was about to break up with my boyfriend of three years.
I wanted to know my own voice.
So I risked breaking a good man’s heart and set off in search of my own voice.
Our own voice speaks to each of us differently (of course), but it favors using our bodies as its medium of communication.
Our own voice will tell us through emotions (like joy or dread), through sensations (like tingles or heaviness), through chronic illness, clusters of headaches, or persistent stomach aches. Through nudges, instincts, pushes, and pulls.
Our own voice speaks to us through our bodies first, but we live in a culture that has made it safer and easier to live in our minds.
Our own voice speaks to us through our muscles and bones, which are much quieter than life’s bombastic noise.
Our own voice, in order to stay clear, requires things like space, quiet, stillness, pleasure, humour, and trust of ourselves — things that daily life likes to steal.
Our own voice requires us to keep asking it, sensing for it, and noticing it, even when we aren’t getting much back from it that’s clear or intelligible or actionable.
I distilled down
my last two decades of learning
to know my own voice
into a short (free) exercise for you.
I’ll walk you through a simple process so that you can know your own voice, unique and powerful as it is.
And so that you know what is and isn’t right for you & what is and isn’t good for you, so you can make those (small & huge) decisions that shape the rest of your life.
Enjoy! And please share it with anyone you think would benefit from knowing their own voice.
A question you might be asking yourself, which I have asked myself plenty: Couldn’t I have stayed with that great guy and still found my own knowing?
Maybe. I’ll never know.
Of course I wish I wouldn’t hurt or disappoint anyone on the path to my own voice.
But the point of locating and living by your own knowing isn’t actually to “get it right,” create fewer waves, make sure no one gets hurt, or even be happier yourself — although those are often by-products.
The point of locating and living by your own voice is to know in your bones that you are living YOUR life and not squandering your time trying to live someone else’s.
To land squarely in YOUR soul’s journey with all its twists and turns.
To feel nourished from the learning,
the growth, and the truth
of what is only and ever
yours to know.
I’ll see you there,
COACHING / COURSES / COMMUNITY
Moving you through the dark night & into your one wild precious life