Losing your voice feels like a slow death.

The ability to defend yourself falls away and you become a pawn player for anyone around you. 

Pain replaces joy.

Fear replaces love.

Turmoil replaces trust. 

Compliance replaces empowerment.

And you become silent. 

More often than not the voice in your head becomes louder when your audible voice feels stripped away. 

The screams echo in the mind when you fall into place with someone else’s life. 

You say yes and your mind screams no.

You say nothing and your mind begs for you to speak up.

Silence becomes deafening and alone time is replaced with a long to-do list to avoid conversations with yourself. 

Because in those conversations you might trip over your own thoughts and begin to hear the subtle suffering in the words chosen.

Or maybe you’ll hear someone else’s voice and find that it’s unfamiliar to you. 

Perhaps you’ll recognize that the pain you’re experiencing isn’t yours to take on. 

But in noticing these things, there is a choice to be made. 

You can remain silent or you can break from this pattern and begin learning how to exercise your own voice again. 

It’s terrifying. 

You will stutter and sweat. 

You will pace and cry. 

You might yell into the abyss with tears rolling down your face. 

You might fall back into compliance again and again. 

It will likely be uncomfortable, and that’s okay.

Discomfort isn’t something to fear. 

Lean in.

Take up all the time and space that you need to step forward into the words that feel right to you. 

You have earned the right to speak.

And you deserve to be heard.

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