The Person You Think You're Not Allowed To Be.

5 hours ago
4 min read

I'm not musical. I can’t sing. I’m slow to learn, and it's too frustrating, so I shouldn't even try. These are things I've told myself.

I have a memory of being 8 or 9 and my sister is yelling at me through the connecting wall of our bedrooms “shut-uppp my ears are bleeding”, as I belted out the lyrics to Jewel with all my heart. I recorded myself on a cassette tape and realized it sounded pretty bad.

It became clear to me that you should only sing if you sound good.

Years later I sat in circle for my first time in my 30’s learning songs like prayers with other women at YTT in Norway. It wasn't about what we sounded like. It was about bringing our voices together, to tap into our innate power to heal, to connect, and to lift or change a frequency.

I couldn't pin point what it was but singing together felt like church- in the highest form of the word and none of the authoritative associations. The fact that I found myself there at all, signed up for the experience is still a miracle to me when I look back at where I came from. I dared to let my voice grow louder and louder. I began to sway from side to side. My heart warmed and expanded. This felt right. This felt true.

Invisibility Powers

I've been socially anxious for as long as I can remember.

I learned to mask early and adopted a alter ego in my teenage years to try to survive, and she almost became the death of me altogether.

Always too sensitive, in a too harsh environment, I found myself retreating into my head often. Always observing, and overanalyzing my next step or my choice of words. Strategizing how to get out of giving the oral presentation in class, how to get out of taking gym class and how to make myself invisible so the teacher doesn't call on me to answer the question.

My hesitancy to speak turned into others speaking for me,

other speaking over me,

and others speaking at me.

Which worked for a while, until it didn't.

Until it felt like I was disappearing,

and no one else noticed anything was wrong...

They thought that's just who I was.

But who I was actually had ALOT to say. If only I could find my voice.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Learning to Exist Out Loud

I remember my first yoga class where we were instructed to audible exhale. I couldn't.

The teacher told us do it again, and this time actually make sound.

I exhaled so quietly I could've barely fogged up a glass if one were in front of me.

It felt so uncomfortable to take up space in any kind of way. The idea of being heard made my heart race.

Eventually that cleansing breath became familiar and less weird, and I ventured into chant.

It felt like something I wasn't sure was mine to hold. Powerful. Alive. Sacred. I was still scared to let my voice be heard, alone, without the voices of others to surround and camouflage mine.

Later, the same exploration that led me to yoga & mantra, opened up into song. This is where I really began to activate my voice. I found that the more I sang, the more I could express myself verbally and speak my truth. The more I could allow myself to be seen. The words that flooded into my mind and found a current to flow out on, from my throat and into the world.

I found myself wanting to speak more.

When the drum came into my life, I began to connect rhythmically. Now I had a tool to connect me with the heartbeat of the earth, and drop down deeper into meditation. As I sang with the drum an ancestral part of my self was activated and somehow, I was never singing alone.

My chalice singing bowl came into my life next. The chalice, a symbol of the goddess, the womb, the element of water and feminine creative energy. A “push gift” to myself after bringing my first online course into the world. Together, with my tuning forks, I learned to tap into the frequency of sound.

This past Samhain, I led my first circle in song, and I was terrified.

It was one of the most powerful things I think I've ever done.

Not because my voice was a spectacular performance to behold,

but because I didn't think that was something I'd ever be capable of doing.

Enter, the shruti box, my most recent addition. (a smaller, simplified variation of harmonium).

The first time I ever heard a harmonium it sounded like I arrived at the pearly gates of heaven. I needed to know what it was and how to get more of it.

Here I am learning to play, and tune.

This is who I am when I'm not trying to be who I think will win your approval.

This is who I am when I dare to be who I think I'm not allowed to be.

Is my life's purpose to become a master harmonium player, or recording artist on the radio.? No.

My life's purpose is to be everything I tell myself I can't be.