Discovering Your True Voice
My experience of growing up didn’t include anything about authenticity; it simply wasn’t on anyone’s agenda.
The people in my world undoubtedly provided the best guidance they could at the time and I’m grateful for all of it.
Yet I was definitely taught how I “should” be and what a successful life “should” look like despite the fact that those versions of reality had little to do with who I truly am.
Ruffling Feathers
I was also actively discouraged from speaking up as my inquisitive nature and tendency to tell the truth ruffled far too many feathers!
So I did my best to fit in and that strategy worked up to a point.
But the inner search for Truth and Freedom became too strong for me to ignore and I was compelled to find a new way forwards.
Finding the Essence
Since then I’ve been journeying ever more deeply into my core and finding the essence of my true voice in the process.
For me this includes all that I’m here to be and do including creating, writing and sharing through the multitude of forms that are increasingly authentic reflections of my heart and soul.
All of this has led me to discover a whole new level of meaning and purpose in my life that was just a dream all those years ago.
Evolving Forms
Given my early conditioning, it’s hardly surprising that I’ve encountered numerous challenges along the way.
However, the commitment to expressing my true voice as a genuine priority has enabled me to persevere.
My relationship with writing is a good example, and it also highlights a key point: the essence of your true voice remains the same, it’s simply the forms that evolve and change.
My Ideas, My Voice
My professional writing has gone through a number of different phases but the first one which required me to express my ideas using my true voice was writing a regular newsletter.
It felt excruciatingly difficult initially because until that point my writing was professionally oriented towards the requirements of my role as a publisher.
Yet I stayed with it, and after many years of regular practice and continuing to show up as authentically as possible, it’s clear that the difference between the way I wrote then and how I write now is unquantifiable!
Evolution of Expression
When it comes to my books, they were written several years apart and I stand by the content of them both absolutely; yet the evolution of expression is unmistakable.
Today, as I write this blog, the process continues to unfold.
The forms I’m using to express the essence of my ideas have changed again and I’ve no doubt this progression will continue.
Lessons Learned
So I’ve learned a fair amount about discovering your true voice over the years and feel inspired to share a summary of some key points with you:
- Connect with the Real You
This is the starting point for a conscious approach to writing and all forms of authentic self-expression.
At the very least, pause and take three conscious breaths to centre and align yourself before taking any action.
Ideally make time for a short meditation, some conscious movement or the full Conscious Writing Process* to establish your inner connection and clear the way for insights and ideas to pour freely through you.
- Practice and Persevere
Discovering your true voice is a process that comes with practice and perseverance so it’s important to release any attachment you have to “getting it right”.
It takes courage to show up as the real you; yet the more you do so, the easier it gets.
Stay with it and it won’t be long before you’re able to feel the authenticity reflected back to you – or not as the case may be!
- Embrace the Evolution
When you look back at your work with the benefit of experience, you’ll undoubtedly see how you could have expressed yourself differently and potentially reflected your inner truth more accurately.
However, you will certainly have done the best you could at the time, and ultimately you could see the whole of life as a work in progress.
So give yourself full permission to embrace the evolution of how your true voice is expressed, and above all, remember to enjoy the journey!
What are your thoughts about this approach to discovering your true voice and where are you on the journey to finding and expressing yours?
*****
* The full Conscious Writing Process is set out in my book Conscious Writing and you can also use the audio I created to lead you through the process which is available for download a short way down this page.
Hi Julia,
Thank you for sharing your insights about being authentic. I’m still not sure what my authentic voice is, but I am beginning to realize what it is not. I am Perhaps struggling with distinguishing style and voice, but I can tell if I stray from being authentic, my style becomes overly wrought, not true. I will be considering this topic more As I move forward and would appreciate any additional posts on this topic.
Hello and thank you for your comment. You’ve raised an important point because it’s often easier to notice when your voice isn’t authentic; something doesn’t ring true so it stands out because of that. It’s a bit like when someone calls me Julie instead of Julia by mistake – it just doesn’t feel right.
So I encourage you to continue increasing your awareness of when this occurs and the circumstances relating to that so you can learn what helps and hinders your authentic expression.
Alongside that, I recommend paying full attention to when your voice IS in alignment with your inner core and the message or story you’re in the process of sharing. Awareness is always the key alongside plenty of practice! And I’ll be happy to write on this topic again in the future.
Yes, Julia. What’s so difficult in talking about voice is that it is a process. Maybe more of a verb than a noun. as you so correctly point out, it evolves over time … as do you and i, as writers, as evolving consciousnesses. and yet there is a thread there that links your voice today to your voice from 10 years prior. when i look back at my memoir, published just 15 months ago, i can see how my voice has evolved since then. but it is unmistakably me, nevertheless. though i teach writing, i’ve avoided talking much about voice because i can’t figure out how to do it. how do you do it? the tools of voice are so global – the one’s you so rightly point to – authenticity at the top of the list. no relatively easy to define tools like “USE MORE DIALOGUE” OR “I still can’t see this scene.” always a joy to read your insightful blogs.
peter
Hi Peter, yes indeed, it is an on-going process. The way I see it, the thread you describe linking your voice to what you’ve written previously is the essence of you that remains the same; it’s just the forms that change.
It’s tough to teach because it’s hard to pin it down exactly in terms that everyone can easily grasp. That’s why I distinguish between essence and form where the essence is the “real you” beyond the conditioned part of you that thinks it “should” be writing in a certain way, and the form relates primarily to the style and craft of writing. It’s still somewhat intangible yet the distinction seems to work for most people.
Hopefully that adds a little something to your thinking on this and thank you for you positive feedback on my blogs which is inspirng for me to hear 🙂
First, Julia, I look forward to seeing your response to Peter. In addition to the usual struggle to let my voice be heard, I also wonder about doing dialogue in my writing, drawing upon my imagination to “see” what it is I want to write, etc.
I resonate with what you have written here. “Embrace the evolution” is the one that jumps out at me. It makes me think of the need to be OK with the obstacles ans stumblings along the way~~to see them as part of the process of evolving~~rather than looking at myself as falling short of where I want to be.
Hi Helen, I hope my response to Peter makes sense to you too. And yes, being OK with the obstacles and stumblings along the way is essential for us as Conscious Writers.
If we were to falter each time we looked back on a piece of writing and realized that if we wrote the same thing again now we’d do it completely differently… we’d probably give up writing altogether!
So embrace the evolution, cultivate your awareness and keep showing up to write consciously and joyfully. It will come together if you stay with it and who you become in the process is just as important as what you write 🙂
For most of my life my authentic voice lay hidden beneath the mask I was wearing to protect myself from judgement and rejection. in other words, fear held me back from expressing my true voice. since connecting with my authentic voice through conscious creative writing, my fear has vanished through joyful expression from my soul. thank you Julia for showing me the way.x
Hi Jeanine, that’s wonderful to hear and thank you so much for sharing your experience of how Conscious Writing has opened the way for you to release your fear and express your true voice as a joyful expression of your soul. Fabulous! x
This blog is brilliant. massively stimulating guidance. I, too, was very badly held down by ‘ Do not ruffle our feathers.’ the damage from being told never to tell the truth goes terribly deep. ‘finding the essence’ has helped greatly for seeing the path out of the blockage. my question is what to do to stay steadily in the place of the essence of my true voice? Looking forward very much to your workshop next saturday in london. thank you.
Thank you Peter! I appreciate you sharing that you also had the experience of “don’t ruffle the feathers”; it takes time and courage to break such patterns yet it’s so important to do so.
I’m glad that “finding the essence” has helped you see a new way forwards. The response to your question could be a whole blog and more… In fact most of my posts relates to that in some way.
As a succinct response that’s directly relating to your writing, I recommend using the Conscious Writing Process every time you write to connect with the essence of who you are as the source of your true voice first, then follow it’s lead directly into your writing.
I’m delighted to hear that you’re coming to the workshop on Saturday; you’ll experience the process and I’ll say more about discovering your true voice then. I’ll look forward to seeing you there.
Thank you, Julia! I loved how you wrote about how our voices are not static but rather in constant evolution like our minds and hearts. As I learned in conscious writing, writing is such a beautiful way to find out who we truly are and express ourselves from that beloved space.
Hi Melinda! Thank you for your lovely comment, and yes indeed, the forms we use to express the essence of who we are are in constant evolution.
Conscious Writing IS a path into who we truly are (like the in-breath) and that “beloved space” as you so beautifully put it is naturally creative (like the out-breath) and leads us into authentic self-expression…