Have you ever felt misunderstood? Do you feel choked up when you are trying to communicate your feelings? Do you fumble or become aggressive because you feel you are unheard of? Have you ever felt lost for words or unable to express your emotions calmly? Do you ever feel that you have a lot to say but if you were to speak out no one will understand you?
What if I told you that, you are not alone. Let me ask you this: where did you lose your voice?
As we grow up, we start losing our voice at different junctions of life. Maybe when your father asked you to be strong, when you felt like crying. Or when your sister did not support you when you needed her by your side the most. Maybe you lost another part when your first love crushed your heart. Some more was lost when your mother slapped as you tried to opine in front of her verdicts. Or when you were faced with harsh truths like when you lost when you found out about your partner’s emotional infidelity and you failed to confront non-violently.
Losing your voice may not have been in your control, but I assure you getting your voice back is definitely something you can choose right here, right now.
Finding Your Voice is about knowing who you are, knowing your story. It’s about being comfortable with yourself to such an extent that you don’t have to pretend to be someone else. It’s about knowing what you stand for, what’s important to you, and what you’re willing to fight for. And it’s about discovering how to communicate in a way that carries your “voice” and causes it to resonate in the world around you.
To find our true voices all you need to do is tune into your heart‘s voice, your inner voice. This way you can start aligning yourself to who you truly are. You are certainly not what you have become over the years. You are certainly not a timid, vulnerable, underconfident person, suppressive person. You are definitely not an aggressive, loud, always defensive person that you portray yourself as. You fabricated the little voice to feel wanted, to feel understood and to feel respected.
Invest yourself in learning how to communicate assertively. This is an important leap in your conscious awakening. Learn how to voice your feelings and emotions in ways that protect your sanity, your self-respect and at the same time communicate how you feel.
You can do this without blaming, judging, finding faults, or mistreating others. You do not need to hold the other person responsible for how you feel.
It is your choice, and your responsibility. Setting healthy boundaries in any relationship is vital for the relationship to grow and blossom. Clearly communicating how you feel when someone does something that triggers you is important for you to understand. Getting to that clarity is your responsibility. Working on your thoughts, your belief patterns, and your trigger points is something that can immensely help you in understanding yourself better.
In the book named Non-Violent Communication the author Marshall B. Rosenberg and Deepak Chopra beautifully write:
What is Violent Communication?
If “violent” means acting in ways that result in hurt or harm, then much of how we communicate—judging others, bullying, blaming, finger pointing, discriminating, speaking without listening, criticizing others or ourselves, name-calling, reacting when angry, using political rhetoric, being defensive or judging who’s “good/bad” or what’s “right/wrong” with people—could indeed be called “violent communication.”
What is Nonviolent Communication?
Nonviolent Communication is the integration of four things:
• Consciousness: a set of principles that support living a life of compassion, collaboration, courage, and authenticity
• Language: understanding how words contribute to connection or distance
• Communication: knowing how to ask for what we want, how to hear others even in disagreement, and how to move toward solutions that work for all
• Means of influence: sharing “power with others” rather than using “power over others”
Nonviolent Communication serves our desire to do three things:
• Increase our ability to live with choice, meaning, and connection
• Connect empathically with self and others to have more satisfying relationships
• Sharing of resources so everyone is able to benefit one and all
Being spiritual is not separate from our daily life. When we work towards enhancing spiritual well-being we work on the self, the spirit. The strength of our spirit culminates into our day to day experiences and how we live our life as a whole. Aiming towards having non-violent communications in our daily life and having our voice that is synched with who we truly are is a prime point in setting our foot on our spiritual journey.
Beautifully written
Amazing article Radhika.. stay blessed.
A valuable Doctrine and Precept. A Universal tenet for Humanity.
VERY NICE !!