Finding Your Own Voice in the Wilderness

Tuesday, December 31st, 2013

 

To find one’s own voice requires hearing one’s own voice – and listening. It may be felt deep within the body, or sensed as a “knowing” or “rightness.”  It may come in the form of stillness, or be experienced in a flow of effortless momentum – having the wind at your back or being carried down stream by the current.

Hearing our own voices is generally easier when we are somewhere in nature – rather than struggling to decipher sounds emanating from our souls underneath a continual stream of loud traffic or in the midst of constant chatter in an anxious, over-stimulated crowd.

Yet it can also be hard to hear one’s own voice in the wilderness feeling terribly alone before learning how to listen. Following one’s own voice is not convenient because it may require bumping up against what we think we want and need – or what others think we should want or need. We may choose NOT to hear to our own voices when it tells us something that we do not want to know, when it  requires us to sit in the emptiness of “not knowing” – when the stakes feel to high or the pain becomes too intense to bear. These times of deep soul searching, are what Jung referred to as the “night sea journey,” and shamans call dismemberment.

Jung described the process of learning to follow one’s own voice as individuation – a journey to our deepest Self. It is the journey of orphans and widows because the path is often lonely. Yet, during times when we are able to remain steady, when we listen to our inner voices and do not abandon ourselves by turning away from what we are hearing, we may discover a deeper connection with the living world of energy surrounding us.

I have learned from the people I work with that there is comfort in living with the integrity that comes from listening to the voice of one’s soul. There can be strength in the process of  purification that comes from staying in relationship with what we know as our individual truth.  Staying connected to ourselves holds the potential for us to discover profound meaning. If we listen we may realize that we are not alone.

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