Speak Your Truth, not Your Mind

Cristen Rodgers

Every living thing – people and plants, stars and streams alike – has a unique voice.  This unique voice allows them to express the essence of who they are, what they know, and how they feel.  With it they can sing out loud the song of their distinctive soul.

Everything speaks – the flowers speak in color and form, the wind through the ecstatic dance of movement and sound, and the sun uses the language of energy and light.  We as humans have the gift of speaking with all of these and more; we speak in words and color, movement, light, and sound; we use our hands, our voices, our actions, and the power our hearts.

Quite unlike other living things, the ways in which we can speak are almost infinite – we can speak the truth or a lie, we can speak clearly or in riddles, we can speak with language or with art, with good intent or with bad.

Though gifted with countless ways and means of expression, we each have within us one voice that has more purity, more power, and more purpose than any other.  This one voice arises from deep within us; it is the voice of the spirit and it speaks in the language of the soul.

We know when we are speaking with this inner voice by the way that it feels.  When we give it life, when we allow it to pour forth from our soul and trickle out into the world, there is an uprising of passion within us, tempered only by a sense of complete peace.

When this sacred voice comes rushing forth, it’s almost as if little bits of our soul get embedded in whatever medium we use to express it, much like a vessel can be embedded with bits of the material it carries.  Our words, music, or art becomes a holy container that carries the most valuable gift that we have to give to the world – the magic of who we really are.

Finding our voice, transitioning from silence to song and from reserve to release, isn’t always easy.  Often times, it must get loud enough and cause such a roar inside that it begins to shake the walls that contain it before we are ready to risk letting it out into the world.  The more that it wells up and creates pressure within, the more that those walls begin to crumble – but it’s up to us to complete the job by slowly and diligently chipping away at the bricks that still remain.

These inner walls don’t go up overnight.  They go up slowly, one brick at a time – one censure from a teacher or a parent, one dissent from our peers, one dismissal from someone we care about, one misunderstanding at a time.  They go up to protect us from what we fear.  They protect us from judgments, criticisms, and disapproval; they protect us from being ignored and the risk of being discourteous.

Sometimes, we fear that others won’t accept the unique vessel through which our souls speak the clearest and loudest – our words, our art, our movements, or our manipulation of matter.  When others don’t respond well to our unique method of expression, we silence that expression in favor of another and incidentally quiet our inner voice.

Whatever our individual fears, we must choose to look them in the eye and defy them, because this sacred voice can only speak when we willingly break open our hearts and embrace our vulnerability.  We must accept that we will sometimes be ignored, criticized, and make others uncomfortable – and we must accept this because we owe it not only to ourselves but also to others to share our love, our insights, and our compassion in our own inimitable way.

There’s a reason that we each have the unique voice that we do – because someone out there will understand that love, those insights, or that compassion best when it’s expressed in that particular way that only we can.

Finding our voice doesn’t mean that we must express everything that we think or respond to everything that happens or is said.  Finding our voice means that we have opened ourselves up inside so that when the time is right, the spirit will speak through us in the distinctive methods of our unique soul – and we are able to do this in such a way as to be kind and uplifting even when the situation seems to defy it.   Rather than simply responding to the world, we are using the power of our self-expression to shape the world.

In this age of media empires that thrive on manufacturing emotional uprising and on perpetuating frenzied expression, it’s important that we not only find our voice but that we know it.

We know our true voice by the respect it demands – not from others but from ourselves.  Our true voice, arising from within the spirit, speaks only in truth.  Because truth is timeless, this inner voice is never rushed – and it is careful and conscientious in its expression so as to avoid confusion or misrepresentation.  When we confuse finding our voice with speaking our minds, we often end up over-simplifying or over-generalizing our truth, and in the process we risk creating more confusion instead of bringing more understanding.

Our true voice arises when we want to express, to share, and to create; whereas the chatter of the mind and the roar of emotions often arise when we want to prove, to display, or to denounce something.  Perhaps more now than ever, we are subtly encouraged to instantly express our thoughts, beliefs, or perception of what we see and hear.  But now more than ever, our voices are often set sail on winds that will take them around the world and back, ending wherever and with whomever they might – we thus would be wise to be vigilant with where that voice is originating.

Do we want to contribute to the ongoing cacophony of ill-conceived and uncensored thoughts or do we want to release the soothing and subtle sound of our unhindered soul?

Let your voice be heard, my friend, because the world needs the gift of your unique insights, of your sacred love, and of your deepest knowledge.  But let not that voice be defiled by the need for immediate expression, tainted by a temporary emotion, or lost to poor translation.  Sing for us the song of your beautiful soul and gift us with the magic of who you really are because who you really are is what the world desperately needs.

©2016 Cristen Rodgers

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45 Comments

  3. Thank you, Cristen! This truth really needs to inform my expression. So often, temporary emotions, always a reaction to the ill-considered statements and actions of others, lead to further wrangling and discontent.

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  7. “There’s a reason that we each have the unique voice that we do – because someone out there will understand that love, those insights, or that compassion best when it’s expressed in that particular way that only we can.”

    Very well said!

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  8. Oh Cristen…this is so powerful. I’m going to copy it so I can read it over again and again . I can so easily influenced by one negative remark and forget all the good that I do for those who indeed understand the language of my soul. I especially liked the way you put it:
    “This one voice arises from deep within us; it is the voice of the spirit and it speaks in the language of the soul.”
    Thank you so much and have a peaceful day.

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  11. To be is to let go and become your true Authentic Self. The Voice of the Ancients dwells within me, within all of us. Let Love flow through us into this world. Thank you.

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  15. What a lovely, beautifully written post. I would love to comment further but I’m on my phone with a tiny, humbly bumblee keypad – don’t get me started on speech to text errors. LOL. I can hardly wait to read more!

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      1. Mercy, that makes me feel so much better. Hardships indeed produce patience. Can hardly wait till our carrier resolves our connection issues. I feel like the turkey buzzard cartoon, “Forget patience, I’m gonna kill something!”

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