As those of you who follow me on Facebook know, I’ve been ill with a lurgy since 2 February. And, if you’ve not yet followed me, you can ’friend request’ me here… It’s where my up to the minute news often hits!
Anyhow, the lurgy began with a sore throat immediately followed by loss of voice, hacking dry cough (my rib muscles are still sore) and a rotten fever. Lack of focus, energy and motivation.
Nice!
When I could stand without the impulse to get horizontal again, I began to reflect on the ‘no voice’ thing.
I’ve had a few kindly interpretations of my illness given the coincidence of me speaking on 31 January. However, a lot of people have succumbed to this particular lurgy and they were quietly going about their business without public speaking as far as I know.
A virus is a virus is a virus!
And…
I didn’t have a voice when I was abused as a little girl.
I didn’t have a voice when my father left when I was 10.
I didn’t have a voice when a GP fondled my breast when I was 12.
I didn’t have a voice as a distressed teenager; lost, despairing and not feeling as if I belonged. I acted out instead with truancy, mischief and a relationship with a much older man.
I didn’t have a voice when my son’s father abandoned us when I was 20 and my son was 20 months.
I didn’t have a voice to express my roaring grief at the loss of my love… even though he was a shit!
However, there were flashes of my voice. I delight in remembering at 16 smashing round the head of a 40 year old married slobberer when he pushed me up against a work filing cabinet to cop a feel!
I have a strong, loud and true voice now. A don’t feck with me voice. A calling you out voice. A full of compassion and love voice. An ‘I truly know what I’m doing and saying’ full of wisdom voice.
Is that because of my long-in-the-toothness?
Naaa!
You can get to be old and remain the same as you’ve always been; locked in painful behaviour because it never occurs to you to do differently. Because you’re unconscious.
With forty years’ of personal-spiritual learning and evolution, I better have a strong, loud and true voice as The Wild Elder. What kind of crap psychotherapist-alchemist-guide would I be if I didn’t!
If I wasn’t able to say yes or no when either is right for me. If I wasn’t able to repel all bullshit, manipulation and a range of other behaviours to inflict pain because the sender doesn’t have a voice to express their own. If I wasn’t able to use my voice for my own and the greater good.
You don’t have to work on yourself for forty years if you long for a voice to be and do the same.
I’ve got your back.
You only have to call me…
Love to you…
PS Know a woman who needs to have a voice? Please forward this to her and encourage her to follow me here.
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash