Please stop saying "I hate the sound of my own voice"

We've all said it. Even me. Yes, me. I make meditations, but I have said many times in my life, "I hate the sound of my own voice."

But I won't ever say it again. And I'm going to ask you a favor. Please, don't do it either. Not for me. For you. 

Your voice is the most valuable thing you have.

Your voice is your expression. Your voice is your ability to speak your truth. Your voice is what you use to cry for help and sing for joy.

If you tell yourself, "I hate my own voice," what you're saying is, "I don't want to hear me." And what happens when you don't want to hear you? A million other voices rise above your own. Voices that might not know what's best for you. Words, thoughts and beliefs are powerful. If you believe your own voice isn't worth hearing, how can you ever hear your soul when it whispers to you? How can you hear You?

Your voice isn't just that thing you hear when you leave a message. Your voice is your guidance, your inner compass. Your voice is the clarity that rises above the chaos, guiding you like a candle in the dark. 

Valuing your voice means you value it in all forms. When you hear your voice in your mind, nudging you this way and that, it's still your voice. You cannot hate one part of it and cherish and connect with another. Hating your physical voice while honoring your inner voice creates disharmony. That kind of inner discord is not serving you. It simply allows you to devalue a vital part of your physical being.

DO NOT EVER TELL ME YOUR VOICE HAS NO VALUE.

I won't accept it. I won't ever agree that your voice is worth hating. I want to HEAR YOU. I want to hear your dreams. I want to hear your pains so can I heal them. I want to hear your victories so I can celebrate them. I want to hear you in every way, and I want you to hear You also.

I want to hear your voice when it shakes with fear. I want to hear your voice when it sings off key, because fuck perfection, we're here to live. I want to hear your voice when you've got the spark of an idea, and you need a safe space to speak it into existence.

​I want to hear you.

You deserve to be heard. You deserve to speak free and clear and to never doubt your voice is worth hearing. You deserve to trust your own guidance, which is powerful and divine, and leading you to your greatest potential at all times.

I promise you, there's nothing wrong with your voice. You're just not used to hearing it. You're used to hearing everything but it. If you want to learn to love it, give it a chance.

Here's one way: Make a small recording of yourself. Thirty seconds or so. Say something like, "I'm here. I'm with you. I believe in you." If you play it enough times, the judgement will fall away on its own. What sounds off will disappear. What sounds right will come to the forefront. Trust me. I know. Because I was you.

I used to dread hearing my own voice. But now I know it wasn't my voice that bothered me. It was the fear of being heard. It was the fear of making noise and calling attention to myself. I felt safe in the silence. I could bury myself and hide, and so long as I didn't make a peep, no one would know I was there.

​We're so used to smothering our voices that we don't trust we have something worth saying. But we do. We so very much do.

​So please, don't tell me you hate the sound of your own voice. Tell me about the time you laughed so hard you cried. Tell me about the scar you have that no one can see. Tell me loud, so loud that people look and turn to stare, because you don't just deserve to be heard. You deserve to be seen. You're here for a reason, and I want you to shout until your throat hurts, and to hell with anyone that doesn't like it.

I bet there's a lot that's been bottled up for a long time, and ain't nothing like a good scream to break all that up and set it free. Trust me. I've been there. And if you don't want scream, then sing. Sing so loud you feel it in your whole body. Feel the vibration of your voice, that powerful part of you that speaks worlds into existence.