Community Singing - Delightful Present or Painful Past?

It’s tough to capture in video what I do because singing is such a vulnerable experience. We’ve outsourced something as human as joining our voices in song to “the professionals” and we’ve become fearful of raising our own voices because many of us believe the lie that our voice is “not good enough!”

Many people I talk with have trauma around vocal expression:

• “I was told in 3rd grade to stand in the back and just move my mouth.”
• “My mother hit me across the mouth whenever I ‘back-talked’ (otherwise known as expressing a differing opinion with a bit of attitude as a child).”
• “The music teacher at my elementary school suggested that maybe I needed voice lessons before joining the school chorus.”
• “My dad would regularly tell me to shut up or he’d give me something to cry about.”
• “Nobody in my family can sing…we all just laugh at how terrible we sound!”
• “Only the powerful people would speak in my family…these were the men, so as a little girl I learned to be quiet and just listen.”
• “My parent sent the message often ‘Oh, honey, you can’t say THAT! What will people think if they hear you say what you’re actually thinking?’”

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These stories leave painful scars long after the abuse ends. These are the stories of shame and silencing that come from being taught to be quiet, nice, polite, small, demure, respectful, inauthentic, and false to our True Selves.

The sad thing is that we come to internalize these false ways of being early, and, without examination, we stay small and live lives that squelch our true self-expression in so many ways.

Singing is just one form of self-expression, but speaking and singing our Truth matters. I work with people who want to reclaim their authentic voice through joyful and judgment-free community singing. Your unique voice deserves to be heard…just as it is!

Let’s sing more and worry less about how it sounds to the critics…even when that critic is one's self.

*I’m grateful to @outshine.adventures for this short video clip from last night’s impromptu sharing of “Bele Mama,” a song from Cameroon, West Africa after a gorgeous hike and yoga practice in community on Earth Day as the Full Pink Moon was rising over the bluff!