Since this is about Voice, I thought it would be fun to speak it: [audio:https://unabashedlyfemale.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/YourVoiceIsCalling1.mp3|titles=Your Voice is Calling]
“Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever.†~ Nancy Lopez
Listen to the sound of your own voice.
When I first read these words from Nancy Lopez, I read them literally… Listen to the sound of your own voice.
I thought of the moment when I first really heard my voice – when I felt the vibration of my own voice reverberating through my body. It was on a day when I’d done some really deep, intensive emotional healing work. I’d released a great deal of old emotional ‘stuff’ that I’d held in my body for most of my life, and as I heard my voice, I felt resonance, alignment, and the truth of what I was speaking. It felt as if there was no separation between what I was saying, the vibration of my voice, and who I really am.
There was a settled quality to it, and a really straight up and down sense of voice…I guess that would be like a linearity to it. And it reverberated throughout my body. I could feel it. There was a flow to it.
I’m trying to find words to describe an experience, which can be hard.
I’ve noticed that as my practice of dance now heads into an eleventh year, I am beginning to spontaneously sing to the music. While the dance practice is silent, meaning you can’t talk, sometimes we vocalize in the dance. Sometimes, it isn’t singing that comes but grunting, crying, or even clucking…what I call voice-making.
Embodiment is what happens when more and more of the energy of your soul inhabits the cells of your physical body. (That’s how I describe it right now. I don’t know how spiritual masters would define it, but that’s what it feels like to me.) As we become more embodied, we become more awake, more full of light, more vibrant with the Goddess in each cell of our being.
Voice and the throat area are closely tied to creativity and the womb area. I’ve found that when we are immersed in the creative process of different creative outlets, we can spontaneously sing and vocalize. And this is important, because as Nancy shares, as we listen to our own voices, we rise above the Voice of Judgment, we begin to see clearly what we are here to create.
I know that the fear of judgment and criticism has been one of my biggest blocks to sharing my voice in the world. Perhaps that’s why Nancy’s words speak so deeply to me.
What is it to really listen to our own voice? Not just the physical voice, but the words, the resonance, the heart in it, and the love in it?
Yes, love. Your voice has love in it, love for you. It is speaking to you, calling you back into your own heart, back into your womb, back into your own soul. Listen. Listen deeply. Drink it up. Drink it in. Drink in the medicine of your own voice so it can heal and bring light back into your cells.
As Thich Nat Hanh shares, “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.â€
Your voice is calling, calling you home to you.
What a beautiful experience Julie. Thank you and to Nancy Lopez for writing the statement. I had a surgical procedure on my womb – ovarian veins – a week ago and I have now lost my voice!!! The left ovarian vein needed to be embolised as there was so much blood going nowhere and not connecting to the renal vein and spilling back down into the pelvis…pooling blood…life force…going nowwhere…choking my voice. I felt such gratitude and joy after the procedure and to have my voice literally out of commission (laryngitis!) as a part of a head cold is apropos. I have the sense a new voice, wider, fuller and more me is being borne. Thans for the post.
Oh my. This is so beautiful.
“I know that the fear of judgment and criticism has been one of my biggest blocks to sharing my voice in the world. ”
Yes, I have this too and your writing and speaking allows me to so gently look at that and move a bit towards accepting that….gently, gently and without pain there’s an imperceptible surrender, more like breathing out
Thank you for your surrender inducing words
Beautifully put, Julie. I’ve had that experience with my dance practice as well, and also found that when I’m doing something creative of the everyday sort (such as preparing a meal for my family), I often sing as I work just for the pleasure of it. It just seems to fit, to feel right, to do these things together.
I love the idea–the image–of drinking in the medicine of our own voices, and will carry that with me. Thanks, as always.
Wow. Julie this is beautiful and expresses something I have felt several times in my life. It is as if I am overcome by the desire to say enough. Usually, in these moments my inner voice says “you can’t do this anymore”. Or you need to do something because there is a need. I have learned to trust this voice which I call my heart voice to guide me in times of loss, stress and trials of all sorts. I find if I trust my heart my head will quiet down and I am pushed or pulled in the correct direction for the situation.
Thank you for sharing Your voice with us… I find it interesting that my voice sounds different when I speak English as opposed to speaking Swedish, not just the use of language but the vibrations of it. Same thing when I sing or chant, it automatically takes on a clarity which I seem to lack when I speak except when I am angry. I wonder why that is.
Aloha,
Alexandra
Oh, this is beautiful. Honest and clear, you are what you write!
This article really speaks to me, as I am in the process of starting to recognise and appreciate my femininity and to voice my own thoughts and share them. One of my current outlets is my newly founded blog and the first article talks about grounding things in reality when you start them — essentially that would be the same thing as becoming embodied! It’s the ideas on the energy level coming down to inhabit the tangible level. Oh, how everything resonates.
Thank you for your wonderful article. I just had to say something. 🙂
Two wonderful quotes. Thank you for this.
~ Wendy
I love this post! I have been thinking and writing about self love on my blog , about how everything that happens to us is Love calling us back to ourselves. The other day a memory emerged of being 23 and deciding not to go to an audition for a place in a professional opera company. I was not brave enough to own my voice and that decision has had such implications for my life. Your post has given me more food for thought – thank you.
Susan, I understand. Not owning our voices can have big implications. Sounds like you are owning yours now. Where are you singing?