Perhaps since my heroine in my latest novel, The Chocolate Garden, found her true voice after a long struggle, it’s a topic that’s been on my mind lately. I’ve been in the process of finding my own over the past couple of years, and as with my character, Tammy Hollins, it has been a beautiful and sometimes messy process.
At first, it’s rather strange to realize you don’t have a voice, and what the heck do I mean by that? Well, you lose your voice when you keep saying and expressing things that are counter to how you truly feel. Your real beliefs are held in a private place inside, either because you haven’t allowed yourself to express them or because they were shut down and ridiculed by people.
Tammy doesn’t find it easy to express her true feelings, and I get that. It’s hard. We’re so scared we won’t be loved if we do, but the truth is, we’re only harming ourselves. Refusing to acknowledge our feelings makes us sick, depressed, and lonely. We’re not exactly being honest with other people either, are we? Oh, the tangled webs… Worse, we are betraying ourselves—the worst betrayal of all.
The truth is that when we find our voice, we return to happiness.
Sure, some of the conversations might be tough at first as we finally introduce who we truly are to the people around us, but we must press on. There’s liberation here, and it’s the Holy Grail as far as I am concerned.
Katy Perry’s song “Love Me” is an insightful masterpiece into this journey of finding our voice again. This lyric is the mantra I want to live my life by:
I'm gonna love myself, the way I want you to love me.
And that's it, right? We all want to be loved, but is it really love when we stop speaking with our true voice and instead speak with the voice that the one we love wants to hear? My heroine ends up in an abusive marriage with destructive family patterns because of the loss of her voice.
But she breaks free. The pressure of being miserable is too much. She doesn't want her kids to end up like she did. She makes the choice to be happy again. Just like I did.
So, if you're afraid to speak with your true voice, know you're not alone. Everyone is at first, and sometimes there are moments when it doesn't seem worth it. But if you silence yourself, you are in some ways killing the person you truly are. And how will any of us ever be happy doing that?
Loving ourselves means speaking with our true voice and expressing our true feelings-no matter what.
Be brave. Take the leap. Everything inside you will be cheering, even as you stand on the edge of the cliff with your knees quaking. Happiness is only a few steps away.