embrace your genuine voice
Do you often:
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Struggle to speak up?
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Pretend to believe differently than you do?
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Hide your true self in the way you communicate?
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Speak in a way that twists, exaggerates, or avoids the truth?
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Leave communicates feeling the weight of dishonesty or insincerity?
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If any of these describe you, give the steps below a try. You'll learn to Communicate Effectively and Know Yourself better.
Let's Get to It! | Here's What to Do:
1 - Do This Meditation
2 - Make a Maintenance Plan
We prepared a guided meditation to help you discover the emotional wounds that stand between and your genuine voice.
If you're a patron of 13 Seasons on Patreon, you can access a recording of the meditation. If you aren't a patron, you can access the written script of the meditation and have someone read it to you (or you could record yourself reading it and play it back to yourself).
Do the meditation. Take notes on your experience.
Make a plan for yourself to maintain and build on what you experienced during the meditation. Write in your plan what you will do each day and each week. Here are some ideas:
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Repeat the meditation from step 1.
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Listen to the Daily Script for Communicate Effectively.
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Write affirmations like, "I speak my truth", "I honor my voice", "I say what is true", etc. Use the Breath of Life with your affirmations.
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Read our page on Changing a Habit. Borrow ideas from that page to make part of your plan. For example, you might do the five minute maintenance meditation from that page each day to help yourself speak up genuinely.
What If My Voice Surprises People?
If you haven't been representing your true beliefs or personality to people, you may be afraid your truth will surprise, offend, or alienate people.
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That may be true but it also isn't virtuous or helpful for you to be trapped in a fake personae in order to accommodate others. Try going to one or two of the people you are worried will react badly to your voice and talk with them about your concern.
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Ask them to listen to you without giving you any advice until you ask for it. Describe to them how you've been representing yourself falsely and why you've been doing it. Tell them why you want to start representing yourself and your beliefs more genuinely. Help them understand your fears about how people will react if you do this. Then, finally, once you feel confident that they understand you correctly, ask for their reaction and any pointers they have for how you can proceed.
