Claiming your voice can be scary and challenging, but it is important.
When you don’t claim your voice, then you don’t share your voice.
When you don’t share your voice, you don’t use your voice.
And when you don’t use your voice, your voice doesn’t get to be heard… and the results of not using your voice and allowing yourself to be heard can be devastating.
You must let the walls, the barriers that are holding you back from using your voice come crashing down. The “what ifs” of life will haunt you if you silence that voice that deeply desires to speak and be heard. Sometimes, claiming your voice is the hardest thing to do, but it is the most important thing to do. And when it comes down to it…
you just need to do it afraid.
Claiming my voice has been a journey, and it is one I am still on!
I have learned and grown over the years and through all the challenges I have been through, connecting with and using my voice is one of the most important and scary journeys I have been on in my life.
I am a person who likes to analyze things, so for me, the journey to claiming my voice has been a process of experimenting and analyzing. I have often learned the most, though, from those times when I chose NOT to honor my voice and use it. It is after these times where the outcome has been most deeply felt.
The most recent experience I had of NOT claiming my voice resulted in an outcome that has been one of the most challenging ones my family and I have gone through.
I recently went through the birth of my seventh child, and the plan was for a simple and beautiful birth in the comfort of our home. I had done home births before, so this was not new territory. What happened when things unexpectedly shifted was a transfer to the hospital. The anticipation of having only one way to birth my baby was met with another option. It was a way that embraced a similar experience to the birth we had planned for at home, only with some medical interventions. Although I was surprised that I was a good candidate for this option being offered and expressed my surprise, I was reassured and chose to move forward with this option. I trusted the professionals.
Through the process of this experience, though, sensations arose in my body that led me to feel I should speak up and question the process. But, I chose not to. I chose NOT to claim my voice and speak up. Why? Because I was afraid. I was afraid of being judged. I was afraid I would be labeled as a difficult patient. What resulted was the most challenging experience of my life. I am still living with the aftermath of this experience.
I often wonder, “what if…”
What if I had spoken up?
What if I had questioned what I was feeling?
What if I just did it afraid?
Up until now, the journey of learning how to claim my voice, to honor and connect with my voice has been both easy and challenging.
It has always been easy for me to speak with people and engage in many different conversations. It has been challenging when conversations shift to discussing topics that are controversial and offer an opportunity for me to connect and share opinions I hold or when I need to speak up for myself and what I need, like what happened in the birthing example I shared. It is challenging when I am afraid.
I used to joke with people and say that I believed the challenge to claim my voice would shift when my children started to talk back to me. It didn’t change. I have had several occasions with nearly all my children where they spoke back to me, some more intensely than others. Up until recently, I was still afraid to claim my voice.
I let fear hold me back. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being judged. Fear of being seen.
But mostly, a fear of being heard.
What I have learned along my journey is to embrace my voice. When I claim my voice, I take a deep breath and lean into my breathing, one deeply connected breath after the another.
Then, when I am ready to speak, I soften my voice and get very intentional with the words I use. When I soften my voice, I feel more powerful and certainly more supported.
I know what it is like to live with the “what ifs” when I choose NOT to claim my voice. So, as I move forward, I gain the power I need by connecting with breath, embodying my feelings, and letting my voice speak softly and strongly.
Because even when it’s scary, I have to claim my voice and just do it afraid.
Click here for an audio “Do It Afraid”:
MARIELLE SHOFFSTALL
Marielle Shoffstall, BodyMind Method© Coach and Embodied Wellness Practitioner
After nearly two decades of working in the wellness industry, Marielle is currently transitioning her mainly massage and bodywork-based business into a location-independent embodied coaching and wellness business.
She uses the BodyMind Method©, along with her many other credentials and insights from personal experiences to support her clients to connect more deeply with their bodies, improve their flexibility, and intuitively move forward through life’s many challenges with ease and confidence.
Marielle is the proud mom of seven beautiful and energetic children. She holds two degrees from Lake-Sumter State College in Psychology and Sports and Fitness and is currently furthering her Psychology education with a degree at the University of Central Florida.
She is a licensed massage and bodywork therapist, a therapeutic yoga and movement practitioner, a certified personal trainer with NASM, and has a wide background of experience, both personal and professional, in the realm of the birth arts.
Marielle lives with her husband, seven children, two cats and two dogs in sunny Central Florida.
*Thanks to Sammie Chaffin @sammiechaffin for making this banner photo available freely on Unsplash 🎁
