I don’t think I ever lost my voice.
I think I learned
when it felt safer not to use it.
I learned to think before I spoke.
Then think again.
And sometimes,
say nothing at all.
I learned how to read the room,
how to avoid criticism,
how to keep the peace.
For a while,
I thought that was strength.
But somewhere along the way,
keeping the peace started costing me mine.
My voice was still there.
In journals.
In prayers I wrote down.
In conversations I rehearsed
but never had.
It was there when I knew
something didn’t feel right
but convinced myself to let it go.
It was there when I had something to say
and wondered whether saying it
would make me difficult.
It was there every time I made myself smaller
and called it peace.
Eventually, I had to ask:
Whose peace am I protecting
when I abandon myself?
I wish I could say
I answered that question once
and never silenced myself again.
I didn’t.
I’m still learning.
Sometimes I notice myself shrinking.
Sometimes I hesitate.
Sometimes an old fear reminds me
how much easier silence can feel.
But now I notice.
And when I do,
I can return.
I can say what I mean.
I can write it down.
I can set the boundary.
I can speak, even if my words
don’t come out perfectly.
Because maybe my voice
never needed to return.
Maybe I did.
The Story Behind the Poem
I can remember being a little girl who talked a lot.
After school, I could talk my parents’ heads off telling them about my day. I wanted to share what happened, what I learned, what I thought about it, probably some details they didn’t even ask for. 😆
One Friday afternoon, my father picked me up from school. He asked about my day, and naturally, I started telling him everything.
At some point I said something like, “Today, we had a couple quizzes…”
Before I could finish telling him how I did, he corrected my grammar.
My father was a teacher, so looking back as an adult, I understand what he was doing. He heard something he believed needed correcting and wanted me to know the proper way to say it. I also understand his tone much better now. What sounded stern to me as a child wasn’t necessarily intended to be harsh.
But little me didn’t have any of that context.
I just felt embarrassed.
There wasn’t even anyone else in the car. Still, I remember immediately wanting to stop talking. I had been trying to connect with my dad after what already felt like a long day at school. Suddenly, that school day felt a whole lot longer from the back seat of his car.
It was a small moment, but when I look back now, I can see what I began taking from experiences like that:
If I don’t say it correctly, maybe what I’m trying to say doesn’t matter as much.
That belief didn’t develop because of one conversation with my father. Other experiences reinforced it over time. I became increasingly uncomfortable with criticism, especially when correction felt more like an attack than an attempt to help.
So I adapted.
I learned to follow the rules. I tried to avoid getting in trouble. I paid attention to what other people expected from me. And while there are good things that eventually developed from valuing accountability and integrity, there was another side to it.
I became a people-pleaser.
Sometimes protecting the peace meant abandoning what I needed, what I thought, or what I actually wanted to say because speaking openly didn’t always feel safe.
That is something I’ve had to work through as an adult.
Therapy has helped me understand that having a voice means using it.
It means believing that what I think is worth acknowledging, even when someone else disagrees. It means speaking my mind while still having healthy boundaries around what I choose to share. It means recognizing that my perspective may help someone see something differently, just as another person’s perspective may help me.
And it means accepting that I don’t have to communicate perfectly for my message to have value.
That last one still makes me smile because I care deeply about words. I will absolutely sit here and change a sentence five times because I want it to say what I actually mean. 😆
But there’s a difference now.
I can refine my words because I care about communicating clearly without using perfection as a requirement for allowing myself to speak at all.
Writing has helped me do that for much of my life.
As a teenager and into my twenties, I journaled often. Sometimes I wrote down prayers. Sometimes I needed to get everything out of my head and onto a page so I could read it again and understand what I was actually thinking. Even when I traveled alone, I kept travel journals. Later, I’d use those entries alongside my pictures to document the journey.
Eventually, journal entries and notes from studying Torah became part of the foundation for Alignment with God.
And after years of talking myself out of writing that book, I eventually put my actual name on it.
Looking back, I don’t think my voice suddenly returned when I became an author.
It had been leaving me breadcrumbs all along.
Writing was one of the places I continued allowing myself to exist honestly, even during seasons when speaking openly was harder.
Now I’m learning to extend that honesty beyond the page.
I’m learning that using my voice doesn’t require me to be the loudest person in the room. It doesn’t require everyone to agree with me. And it certainly doesn’t mean everyone needs what I have to say.
I can simply offer it.
Our paths cross with different people throughout our lives. Sometimes another person’s experience gives us language for something we’ve been struggling to understand. Sometimes their perspective allows us to see something we couldn’t see from where we were standing.
I’d like to leave room for my voice to do that for someone.
They can listen.
They can consider it.
They can take whatever resonates with them and continue on their way.
My responsibility is not to make everyone receive my voice.
I’m learning that my responsibility is to stop abandoning it.
And when I notice myself doing that again, because I’m human and old habits have a way of resurfacing, I know what I can do.
I return.
Voice Notes
Something to sit with
Have you ever made yourself smaller, stayed quiet, or withheld what you really thought because it felt safer than risking criticism or rejection?
Think about where you may have learned that.
It doesn’t have to be one dramatic event. Sometimes the lessons we carry are formed through ordinary moments that meant something different to us than the other person ever intended.
If you want to write about it
Think of a moment when you felt as though your voice wasn’t welcome.
What happened?
What did you want to say?
What did you decide to say instead, if anything?
And looking back from where you are now:
What would you want that version of yourself to know?
You don’t have to rewrite the past. Just notice what you learned from it and whether that lesson still deserves to shape how you use your voice today.
Scripture for Meditation
“Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.”
— Jeremiah 1:9
Take this with you
Your voice doesn’t have to be perfect to have value.
You are allowed to think carefully about what you say. You are allowed to decide what remains private. You are allowed to change your mind as you learn and grow.
And when you realize you’ve gone quiet because you’re afraid that being fully yourself might disturb someone else’s peace, perhaps it’s worth asking:
Whose peace am I protecting when I abandon myself?
Then give yourself the opportunity to return.
