Standing Behind Your Voice to Change the World

• Awakened Living

Not being in touch with your own Voice—which is your Essential Self expressed in form—is the source of all feelings of alienation, self-doubt, and aloneness.

The voice that sets you free is your own voice.  It is not the voice of the latest online superstar.  

It is the voice of your Essential Self. It is the voice of your spirit, the voice of the light that moves through you, the divine substance that you are in reality. 

You see, when you know that the voice within you is an infinite source of wisdom, love, and direction, your commitment to doing whatever is necessary to cultivate that voice becomes your primary life purpose. All the other goals—the book, the business, the relationship—become secondary, because they emerge from your deep inner awareness—from the deeper reality of your Essential Self and you ability to give it Voice.

From the time we are born, we are more or less encouraged to disconnect from our Essential Self and to follow the rules and beliefs of others. The disconnection from the voice of our Essential Self starts early. A pattern that always emerges from this early disconnection from self is that you keep searching for something outside yourself to fill the empty place of disconnection. The belief that your answers come from outside yourself is also the cause of feeling alone. You block your own connection with Source by believing this.

And, on a more practical level, the result of being disconnected from the voice of your Essential Self is stress. It is stressful to not allow the fullness of your being to be expressed in your life.

No one else’s voice is your voice.

I am in no way saying that other evolved souls cannot help guide you to the doorway of your own inner wisdom. Yes, they can. However, today there is a feeding frenzy happening, where many go from one amazing new teacher to the next and never stop. The search is always external. The Internet makes this possible. The good part of this is that spiritual wisdom is reaching many more people. The downside is that it is tempting to keep looking for the next shiny object rather than to go within.

I want to support you to believe—to truly believe—that what you are looking for is within you. 

The voice of your Essential Self won’t just suddenly emerge. You must give it parentage.

Here are some proven ways to do that.

1. Keep a spiritual journal, where you articulate your experience of your own Spirit—your insights and aspirations.
2. Meditate and contemplate the spirit you are—your eternal, non-physical Self.
3. Be in nature—nature vibrates at the frequency of your Essence.
4. Be alone—learn to feel lonely without adding some story to it.
5. Avoid using the Internet as a distraction from being with yourself.
6. Retrieve the child who went mute. Her energy and her voice are part of your greater Voice.

Freedom is when you express and manifest your soul and spirit. When you allow Spirit to come though you into form. When you find your voice and stand behind it, this sort of freedom becomes a way of life. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Once you create your practice for connecting to the Voice of your Essential Self—the joy, the expression, the wisdom, the passion that is within you—once you express this voice in your life, with yourself in your journal, with your best friend or partner … What then keeps you from being more visible with this voice? What keeps you from taking the steps to allow this voice to be fully expressed in your business, your relationship, in your writing or other creative forms?

In other words, how do you abandon your own Voice? Do you judge it for being “different”? Do you say it’s not as inspired as others you see on the Internet? Do you say that you need to learn more before your voice is worthy of being shared? Do you say it’s “too spiritual” and not logical enough? Do you fear being judged if you share your deepest wisdom and passion?

A personal story: In 1983, I won a prestigious award for my poetry from New York State. Most writers would have put all their energy into getting a book of poems published at that time, given that, with this award, it would not have been too difficult to do that.
 
I, on the other hand, more or less hid. I shared with my local community but I couldn’t go beyond that. I didn’t stand behind my voice. I didn’t try to publish the poems.

That was a long time ago and part of my life’s journey and inquiry has been to deeply explore what is this Voice we all carry and why do we hide it from the world? Thus, my passion all these years later is to guide you to not hide like I did.

Your Voice is why you came here to planet Earth. It’s the flowering of your Being, just like plants have flowers—your Voice is the highest vibration of your expression; it’s the expression of your true self, your Essential Self. 

Conformity is a disease, really. When you conform, your true Voice never blossoms. 

Are you ready to trust in your Self? Can you sense a mystic within you? A part who absolutely knows you are a spiritual being having a human experience and that you are here to express your wisdom and light?

My job is to support you to let go of the conditioned mind that tells you that you are not worthy of expressing your light, and to support you to reconnect to that light.

Find out about upcoming programs with Nancy Swisher at Kripalu.

This article was originally published on Nancy's blog.