I had to help myself first

When I first started on my path of healing, I had no idea what I was doing. I had been voice-challenged for a long time, and other than to speak up, which rarely worked out since I was angry, resentful, and sad all at once so the words got jumbled, I didn’t have any real direction or understanding about what would make me stop feeling like shit.

I tried lots of things that I thought might help me get clear about how to speak up: therapy, coaching, a challenging fitness routine, and even training as a coach. It’s not that those things didn’t help me, but none of them helped me enough to heal my own need to silence myself. Lots of healing modalities, but no clear plan.

I realize that healing is a long-term, forever kind of thing, and I appreciate that, but that wasn’t my issue. The issue was that no one helped me look to myself to the degree that I could rely on me instead of shape-shifting as people and circumstances dictated.

So how did I get to where I am now?

I built myself a friggin’ boat. Not a real boat, a lifeboat that allowed me to live as an independent, verbal, self-honouring woman. That boat (as my books say) saved my life because it allowed me to find my voice.

How did that happen? I listened to myself, deeply listened. I got familiar with my voice wound (what was in my way), and I tapped into what I needed and began to ask for it.

I let myself off the hook for all the times I left her behind. I got quiet and started to pay close attention to what my body and my heart had been trying to tell me for years. I paid attention to what I needed, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t put me behind anyone anymore.

And I listened, really listened, to all the other women that I had worked with and known for so many years who suffered in silence, not knowing what was happening to them or what they needed to do to help themselves. Women whose silence went well beyond just saying what they needed physically, emotionally and financially.

Then I built my own program to help women heal from being voice-challenged. It was my version, my model, of how to put ourselves first, without fear or regret, and to speak from our deep, inner, authentic voice that will never disregard us or let us down. This is the same model that I train practitioners in, so they understand what we go through.