Listen to Your Own Voice

Author of Body Odyssey: Lessons from the Bones and Belly
Visit me at www.bodyodyssey.biz

Your voice tells others a great deal about you. It can also offer you helpful clues about your state of mind if you listen closely.

When your emotions are intense, that's an especially good time to tune in to your vocal quality. Our emotional responses are usually based on some very old "tapes" about how we experienced the world as a child. So, when we listen, we're likely to hear voices reflecting different “characters” from that time in our life.

Is the voice sounding whiny? In other words, does it have a "You're always picking on me" quality to it. That may be the whimpering
"victim" voice of the child you once were, who felt at the mercy of people around her.

Maybe the voice you hear in yourself is authoritarian, sounding like, "I have to do this, or else." This may reflect the voice of authority figures you grew up around, who you felt you had to heed.

Is the voice combative, the "Don't mess with me" type? Does it make you think of moments as a child when you had to defy authority to survive?

Listening to the quality of your voice can help you discover how "old" you are as you speak (maybe only 3 or 4 years old). Then you can give that child character within you some help from your wise, mature adult voice in order to handle whatever's happening as an integrated, "present" person.

If you hear whining, your wise voice could exhibit compassion, saying to the whiny character, "It must seem scary to feel picked on. I'm here to take your hand and make sure you get what you need." In response to the authoritarian voice, the wise voice might offer, "The rules may seem firm and the consequences dire for failing to follow them, but you're in charge. You have permission to do it your way." Other child voices can receive similar understanding and guidance to dispel the power of the ancient emotional charge behind them.

When you're stressed, let your voice teach you what you need. Listen to and care for all the different characters still living within you after all these years.

Author of Body Odyssey: Lessons from the Bones and Belly
Visit me at www.bodyodyssey.biz