Coming Home to Your Voice

When was the last time you heard your own voice—really heard it? Not the voice you use to navigate meetings or make small talk, but your authentic voice, the one that emerges when you’re not trying to be anyone other than exactly who you are.

Most of us have spent years perfecting the art of leaving ourselves. We’ve learned to live in our heads, analyzing and strategizing and protecting. We’ve mastered projection—making our feelings someone else’s responsibility. We’ve become experts at denial—pretending we don’t feel what we feel, don’t want what we want, don’t know what we know. And perhaps most cleverly of all, we’ve learned to live in fantasy—anywhere but here, in the messy, imperfect, completely authentic reality of who we are right now.

This disconnection isn’t our fault. Our minds developed these strategies to protect us, often when we were very young and truly needed protection. But somewhere along the way, the very mechanisms that kept us safe began keeping us small, keeping us disconnected from our own authentic experience.

Why Your Voice Matters

Your voice is immediate and honest—it can’t lie. Unlike your thoughts, which can spin elaborate stories, or your actions, which can be performed, your voice reveals exactly where you are in relationship to yourself and your willingness to take up space in the world.

Think about it: when you speak in a meeting, do you make yourself smaller so you don’t stand out? When you laugh, do you hold back so you’re not too loud? When you disagree with someone, do you swallow your words to keep the peace? These aren’t just vocal habits—they’re patterns that show up everywhere in your life.

If you make yourself smaller with your voice, where else do you make yourself smaller? If you’re afraid to be heard in conversation, where else do you stay silent when you have something valuable to say? If you judge your own sound as wrong somehow, where else do you treat yourself as not good enough?

Working with your voice offers a direct path back to authentic self-expression because it’s so immediate. Every time you choose to sound, even when you’re afraid, even when you’re judging yourself, even when it feels uncomfortable—you’re choosing yourself. You’re choosing presence over hiding, authenticity over safety.

The Psychology of Vocal Hiding

Most of us learned very early that our full expression wasn’t always safe or welcome. Maybe you were told to be quiet when you expressed excitement. Maybe you learned that your needs were too much, your emotions too big, your authentic expression somehow wrong. Maybe you were laughed at, criticized, or ignored when you tried to share what was real for you.

So you learned to close. You learned to control. You learned to present a version of yourself that you thought would be more acceptable, more lovable, more safe. But here’s the thing about closing: when we shut down our voice to avoid judgment, we also shut down our capacity for authentic connection. When we make ourselves smaller to stay safe, we also make ourselves less alive.

The beautiful paradox is that the very vulnerability we’ve been trying to avoid—the risk of being heard, of taking up space, of being real—is actually the doorway back to ourselves. And you can start practicing this doorway anywhere, anytime, with nothing more than your breath and your willingness to make sound.

Three Practices to Reconnect with Your Authentic Voice

Practice 1: The Foundation Hum

Find a private space where you can make sound without worrying about being heard. Sit comfortably and let your lips come together gently. Allow a simple “mmm” sound to emerge on your exhale. This is the most basic sound humans make—we hummed before we learned words, before we learned to worry about how we sound.

Give yourself 2-3 minutes to explore this hum. You might hold a single tone, or let it wander into a simple melody. Find your own sound, your own rhythm. Don’t worry about it being beautiful or correct—worry about it being yours.

Notice what happens in your body. Does your jaw tighten? Do you find yourself making the sound smaller? Do you feel self-conscious even though you’re alone? These reactions are completely normal—they’re information about how you’ve learned to relate to your own expression.

The practice isn’t about getting rid of these reactions. It’s about staying present with yourself even when they arise. It’s about choosing to sound anyway, choosing to express anyway, choosing to show up exactly as you are.

Practice 2: Opening with Vowels

Now we’ll work with open vowel sounds—”ah,” “oh,” “ee,” “oo.” Choose whichever feels most comfortable. These sounds require you to open your throat and mouth more fully, which means you’re literally practicing vulnerability in a physical way.

Let your chosen vowel sound flow out on your exhale for 3-4 minutes. You might explore different pitches, or stay with one tone. You might feel called to go louder, or to stay soft. Follow your authentic impulse, not what you think you should do.

As you sound, notice what stories your mind tells you about why you should stop, why you should be quieter, why you should be different than you are. Instead of believing those stories, try staying present with the simple act of making sound. Try letting your voice be exactly what it is without trying to fix it or improve it.

This is vulnerability in action. This is what it feels like to choose authenticity over safety, presence over protection.

Practice 3: Speaking Your Truth

For this final practice, speak these words aloud: “I am here, I am real, I am enough.” Start by whispering, then use your natural speaking voice, then speak with full presence and strength.

As you repeat these words, let yourself feel what it’s like to speak truth into the space around you. Notice if you feel tempted to rush through it, to say it quietly, to add qualifications or explanations. See if you can simply let the words stand as they are—complete, sufficient, true.

This isn’t about positive affirmations or convincing yourself of something. It’s about practicing the physical act of speaking truth, of taking up acoustic space, of trusting that your authentic expression has value just because it’s yours.

Making It a Practice

The journey back to yourself doesn’t happen in one session—it happens moment by moment, choice by choice. Every conversation is an opportunity to practice. Every interaction is a choice point. You can choose to show up authentically, or you can choose to hide behind old patterns.

Start small. In your next phone call, notice if you’re making your voice smaller or bigger than feels natural. In your next meeting, pay attention to whether you’re editing your words before you speak them. When you laugh, notice if you’re holding back or letting it fully emerge.

This isn’t about becoming louder or more dramatic. It’s about becoming more real. It’s about trusting that your authentic voice—whatever it sounds like, however it emerges—deserves to be heard.

Your voice is not just the sound that comes out of your mouth. Your voice is your presence, your truth, your willingness to be real in a world that often rewards pretending. You don’t have to wait until you’re perfect to use it. You can start right now, exactly as you are, in this moment.

Because this moment is the only moment where choice lives. This moment is where you get to decide: will you show up or will you hide? Will you speak your truth or will you say what you think others want to hear? Will you come home to yourself or will you stay lost in old patterns?

The choice is always yours. The moment is always now. Your voice is always available.