The other day I was singing - practicing a song for my voice lesson - and feeling frustrated. I couldn’t figure out how to sing like my voice teacher was instructing me to sing. I could tell when my voice was sounding good but it was difficult for me to presence why it sounded good one minute and then not quite right the next minute. Then, after some time, I stopped singing and tried to sing another song I like a lot. And I felt the same frustration, it wasn’t coming out the way I wanted it to come out and I couldn’t figure out why. I started doubting the quality of my voice.
This made me take a step back and look at what I was doing. In truth, I was trying to sound like someone else. What I realized was that my definition of sounding “good” meant my voice was sounding like another person's voice - either my singing teacher or a popular artist.
I was trying to sing someone else's song. No wonder I was having such a hard time figuring out how to get my voice to sound better - I wasn’t honoring my own voice.
It was a breakthrough for me. It may sound simple and maybe even obvious. But it was a reminder to me about authenticity.
This can be a difficult word: Authenticity.
In my experience, it is hard to sort through the myriad of noise and distractions both in our culture and in my own mind. It is challenging to determine who I truly am as opposed to who I think I should be.
So often we go through life trying to emulate other people. And a lot of times it is subconscious. Everyday when we wake up we are bombarded by popular culture telling us how we need to look, dress, act, and be. Advertisements, celebrities, magazines, TV tell us how we should look. We are shown how to act through commercials, movies, shows, and by the people who get the most recognition in our society.
Even if we try to ignore it, it seeps in. Over time it shapes the story we tell ourselves. If we are not careful, our story can become infused with the idea that we are not good enough. And that pulls us even further away from our authentic self.
I was reading a book the other day and came across a passage that spoke right to me. It was as if the words were placed there just for me, right when I needed it the most (oh, sweet synchronicity). Here is what I read:
“I’ve not forgotten the song of those dark years, hambre del alma, the song of the starved soul. But neither have I forgotten the joyous canto hondo, the deep song, the words of which come back to us when we do the work of soulful reclamation.” (From "Women Who Run With the Wolves", by Clarissa Pinkola Estés)
Hambre del alma. Soulful reclamation. Amen, sister.
We starve ourselves when we are inauthentic to the deep song within us, when we are out of tune with our soul. Starvation, not just in the physical sense (though that does happen), but in the sense that we deny our true self from coming out into the light, so it withers away in darkness. The longer we deny it, the smaller it gets and the more difficult it is to find when we need it.
But we can uncover and reclaim our deepest self -- our soul. We can dig ourselves out of the tunnel of “should be’s” and perceived insufficiencies. We can get past the noise, we can wade through the disempowering bullshit that so often drags us down.
We can decide, from a place deep within us, how we want to move through this world.
The key is to touch base and really listen to our deepest self. Then lovingly strive, every moment, to be authentic and true to that self we discover within.
What is your song? What is the story you want to tell and to live for?
I am still trying to get in touch with mine; I am constantly figuring out what is authentic and how I can live in deeper accordance with that authenticity; how to infuse that truth into everything I do, say, and share in the world.
What I do know is that the story I want to sing and share in this world is one of Love; one that honors, flows with and is connected to the source that holds the stars.