Find Your True Voice and Free up Your Power
Some starting tips for empowering your voice
Your voice. Love it or hate it, you’re lucky to have it. It’s what you use to ask for things. It’s what you use to defend yourself. It’s what you use to say “I love you.” It can be a source of power…or weakness.
Maybe your voice feels weak because it’s too soft, or too high, or too squeaky, or too shaky, or too gravelly, or too strained, or too abrasive, or too nasal, and so on. If you put aside physical causes such as polyps or bad posture, the reason for weakness is a usually a lack of connection to what you are saying.
I’ve known people — male and female — with soft voices who could hold a crowd’s attention. And I’ve known people with loud voices who couldn’t get listened to. I watched a presentation by a man who had to gasp for breath with every sentence (and it was a little distracting) but we were all interested in the content, so we listened. I’ve seen teachers rant loudly, even threateningly, and the students just giggled and chatted with each other. (Confession: it was me. The louder I got, the less they listened!)
How do I make my voice more powerful?
By connecting it to your deepest experience and wisdom. By speaking your authentic truth. By making it as much yours as it can possibly be. By being as YOU as you can possibly be!
The techniques and practices of assertiveness can help you connect to your voice by posing these two core questions:
- what exactly do I want? (Not as straightforward as it seems at first glance, but we’ll talk about that more later.)
- what is the best way for me to achieve what I want? (Because assertiveness isn’t just about getting what you want, it’s also about getting it the right way, the way that is most authentic to who you are.)
Easier said than done, I know, but once you get on the path, you will be absolutely amazed at what happens to your voice.
Make friends with your voice
Before we go on to the techniques and strategies of assertiveness in the following articles, try getting connected to your voice. Observe it. Just observing will change your relationship to your voice, without you doing anything else at all! What we pay attention to flourishes, what we ignore withers.
If you do that, you will probably notice that your voice gets a certain way in certain situations. Do you whine when you’re hungry? Do you snark when you are menstruating? Do you mumble when people disagree with you? Do you squeak when you give presentations to groups? When your voice feels weak, try to pay attention to the following :
- Who are you talking to
- What is the context?
- What is your physical state
- What is your emotional state
- Did something happen previously that affected you?
- Are you expecting something to happen that will affect you?
Then ask yourself the same questions about times when your voice feels strong and true.
Are there patterns? Do you get weaker around older people, or stronger around your family? Do you get loud when talking to authority figures? Does your voice get tiny when you talk to builders or car mechanics? Are you stronger in the afternoon? After a beer? When you’re attracted to someone? When you’re threatened?
You could even keep a little voice diary of your observation. It might yield some surprising information at the end of a week.
Pay attention to other people’s voices
Once you start listening to your own voice, you might also start attending to other people’s voices more. Do they seem strong or weak? Notice what you can about what’s going on with them. For example, see if you can make connections between their voice and their body language. Sometimes you might even be able to ask questions — gently and carefully, of course.
If you get interested in doing a full-on project with your voice, there are quite a few books that contain useful voice exercises. I’ve used these two for years:
Freeing the Natural Voice, Kristin Linklater
The Right to Speak, Patsy Rodenberg
That’s enough for this post. That’s plenty to be getting on with. Over the next few articles I will be unpacking those two big questions, “what do I want” and “what is MY best way of getting it.” Over time I will discuss possible techniques and strategies, among many other things.
This is the first in a series of articles about assertiveness. My next post will be about what assertiveness is, and what it’s not.
