The shift was subtle.
My client gently placed her right hand at the base of her neck, stroking it as she shared about her strained relationship with her husband. Her voice became lower and flatter. She looked sad.
“The voice is the fingerprint of the soul.”
—Daniel Day-Lewis
I was in a therapy session with a female senior executive for depression and anxiety. She was searching for that vibrant, daring, and deeply sensitive young girl who had lost herself along the paths of college, marriage, motherhood, and climbing the corporate ladder.
Given what she was sharing, I asked what she noticed coming up for her, especially around her neck, shoulders, and head.
She closed her eyes, leaned back, and exhaled. She shared about ongoing neck and jaw stiffness, headaches, and shoulder pain. She carried Advil in her backpack. She said, “I don’t know how I feel about my life.”
“I think you know how you feel. It shows up in your upper body pain and soreness. Suppressed emotions show up as physical and emotional pain. The issue is that you’re not speaking your truth,” I said.
“If your upper body pain and soreness could speak, what would they say? What are you afraid of?” I added.
Intense emotions, tears, and breakthrough insights ensued.
Around the time of this therapy session, I was in the midst of my research on The Bill of Emotional Rights. Investigating the “I Am” was the most fascinating compared to the other rights. “I Am” is about fully expressing your beliefs, convictions, values, and your ONLYNESS. A strong I AM is the courage to show up, trust, and convey your inner wisdom, claiming your voice and space. A weak I Am is about hesitation to express one’s ideas or act on convictions. Feeling timid. Overly concerned about fitting in and being liked.
For several years, I had noticed a recurring pattern in clients’ development of leadership presence and self-confidence. Many had clenched jaws, neck and shoulder tightness, and rather raspy and flat voices. A few reported instances when they had lost their voices when standing up for what they believed in. What’s the significance of voice?
Our voice is an instrument for self-projection and self-protection.
Projecting our voice onto the world is an essential human capability. With our voice, we convey energy and emotions, claim our space, and clarify our power and boundaries.
Our voice is “shaped” from early infancy. How we perceive and express our experiences is shaped by how we are rewarded, loved, rejected, and shamed as children.
Our emotional experiences growing up further shape our voices. Our voices and postures convey if we are confident or hesitant, joyful or sorrowful, expressive or pensive. All can be traced to our early life conditioning. It is often not the fear of speaking and projecting our voice that is the challenge. It is a compromised self-perception and self-expression formed in childhood.
The emerging science of trauma also shows that a compromised voice is manifested in a range of physical complications—neck, jaws, and shoulder stiffness, elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and leaky gut. At play may also be trauma responses of freeze (e.g., feeling numb, flat affect, feeling stuck, hard to move/act) or appease (e.g., overly compliant, avoiding conflict, pleasing and conforming).
Deepen Your Voice Authenticity
Distill Your “I Am” X7 Excercise:
Practice the “I Am” question-answer seven times to get clearer about your expressed self-perception.
Focus on an area of your life—e.g., your career, marriage, family, friendship, finances.
Ask yourself, ”Who Am I?“ and then respond to your question by stating, ”I Am…“ filling in the blanks. Don’t overthink it.
Jot down any emotions that come up.
Notice any physical sensations that come up with each Q&A—tightness, expansion, excitement, changes in breathing and heart rate. Notice and welcome such sensations.
Repeat the cycle seven times and write down your answers along the way.
What do you notice at the end of the exercise? Do you see one opportunity to own your voice and “I Am” emotional right a bit more?
Start small.
Question for you: “What is your voice reflecting?”
Good news. I received many follow-up emails based on my last week’s blog, HOW DOES IT “FEEL” TO BE IN YOUR FAMILY? The readers wanted to understand their own family dynamics more deeply. I will be offering an experiential and interactive free Zoom session soon. Stay tuned.
DM me if you want to assess and invigorate your emotional rights.
With love and gratitude,
Dr. Ardeshir Mehran
hello@ardeshirmehran.com
Clients: Therapy | Testimonials
Dr. Mehran Studio | Linked-In
Podcasts | Blogs
Bestselling Book: You Are Not Depressed. You Are Un-Finished.