Happiness is Finding Your Voice

Perhaps since my heroine in my latest novel, THE CHOCOLATE GARDEN, found her true voice, it’s been on my mind. I’ve been in the process of finding my own as well over the past couple of years, and like my character, Tammy Hollins, it is 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, what you were saying and expressing wasn’t how you truly felt. No, those things were held in a private place inside either because they weren’t allowed to be said or when you did say them, they were shut down or not acknowledged by the person you said them to.

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. Stuffing our feelings more and more inside ourselves, refusing to acknowledge them makes people sick, depressed, and lonely. We’re not exactly being honest with the other person either, are we? Oh, the tangled webs… Worse, what I realized and what Tammy realized is that 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 at first might be tough, and continue to be, until the people around us start to listen and see who we truly are, 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” has been an insightful masterpiece into this journey of finding our voice again. The lyrics are the mantra I want to live my life by:

No more second guessing
No, there’s no more questioning
I’ll be the one defining who I’m gonna be
No concealing feelings, or changing seasonally
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, in some ways, you are killing the person you truly are. And how will any of us ever be happy doing that?

Loving ourselves means being willing to stop concealing feelings and speak with our true voice—no matter what.

Be brave. Take the leap. Everything inside you will be cheering, even as you may stand on the edge of the cliff with your knees quaking. Happiness is only a few steps away.

 

Image courtesy of Pixomar at FreeDigitalPhotos.net