How Losing My Voice Taught Me Our Voices Matter

In my last post I shared how I lost my voice due to complications in surgery during my fight with thyroid cancer.

How that opened my eyes to just how precious our voices are and that what we have to say matters.

What I didn’t tell you is that I still struggle with self doubt, fear, and insecurity when it comes to sharing my voice and what I have to say.

Yes I am now viscerally aware of how precious our voices are, and I challenge myself to use it as often as possible for some kind of good, but old habits die hard.

It takes time to overcome deep rooted fear and insecurity.

You probably don’t know this about me but I have a pretty squeaky voice. I always have.

And when I get excited or passionate about something, it gets even more squeaky.🙈

When I was young people would make fun of me for it.
When I was in school teachers would yell at me for it.
When I started my career managers would push me to speak up.

Problem with all of this was…It wasn’t me. It was my voice. I couldn’t really change it.

I can physically only talk so loud…
I can only control my pitch so much…
And I’ll be honest, I NEVER want to limit my excitement or passion about anything… ever.

I didn’t always feel this way of course.

For years I think my soft squeaky voice only supported my fear of visibility and putting myself out there.

With time I started to believe no one wanted to hear my voice or what I had to say. As a result I spend most of my early life limiting myself to the shadows and behind the scenes in life.

Truthfully I began to diminish myself in all areas of my life and convinced myself I was just a humble person.

It wasn’t until I almost entirely lost my voice that I finally learned to love my voice for what it was.

I would have done anything to get it back those months it was barely a whisper.

Even if it was more squeaky!

I thank God everyday for healing my voice and bringing it back to me.

It’s not 100%. In addition to being squeaky, it can get raspy at times now, and I struggle to breathe during rigorous workouts and cardio.

But I am more proud of it than ever.

An activity to strengthen your own belief…

If you struggle with believing your own voice matters, I want you to imagine what it would be like if your voice was taken away from you tomorrow.

If all of a sudden it was gone and you could never speak again how would you feel?

What would you wish you had said?

Sadly sometimes we don’t see the value in something until it’s gone. Until it’s taken away from us or or we lose it.

While I never wish this on you, I do wish I could share the powerful perspective that comes out of such a loss. Not just for your voice, but for your whole life.

It teaches you to see things more clearly and live life differently.

To live so much more intentionally.

It’s a gift and this activity will help me share that gift with you.🖤

So jump into the activity and I’ll be back in my next post with another activity to help even more.

To living life differently,

xo Nicole