Since I’ve been helping women find their voice for over 20 years, someone asked me “Can someone steal your voice?”

The short answer: Sort of – but not really.

The idea of someone trying to steal your voice is like the concept of people “throwing bad medicine” or “putting a curse” on you. Sure, people do that and I won’t say that’s not real. However, nobody can affect you or your energy unless some part of you is somehow open to and/or triggered by it. But I’m not saying you are somehow inviting people to come and take away your voice.

Here’s How Someone Can Steal Your Voice

You might be vulnerable to “losing your voice” if you:

• live with trauma or grief.
• have mental health issues.
• have been abused.
• grew up believing you’re not good enough.
• have been marginalized in any way.

Women often find it hard to leave abusive relationships for this reason. When I found my voice in a big way in my late 30’s, I left a trail of abusive relationships behind. I experienced gaslighting and verbal, psychological, physical and emotional abuse for years. At times I felt like I didn’t have the right to use my voice.

When a person is silenced, gaslit or told negative messages about themselves or their voice, they will often respond by becoming not only silent, but angry, fearful and depressed. If an abusive person threatens your safety for speaking your truth, it’s easy to feel like they’ve stolen your voice.

So many of us have been silenced in some way or another before we were old enough to recognize what was going on. That suppression, plus years of similar experiences added on, creates a collection of trauma triggers. It becomes a heavy weight holding down your spirit – and your voice. BUT…

Here’s Why Nobody Can REALLY Steal Your Voice

If you feel someone has stolen your voice, trauma and grief are what actually the culprits. Ever feel like you have a lump in your throat when you go to say something or sing? I’ve learned that if you have a lump in your throat, it is a ball of trauma or grief waiting to be released. You know how to release it? Sound your voice. I know, it’s super ironic and not easy, but sounding your voice in a safe space is the way through.

The trauma or grief that got stuck in your throat has put your voice into hiding. Hear me out. I am not victim-blaming. Look at it this way. Yes, someone abusive created that trauma. But your voice is not actually stolen. It’s just waiting to feel safe to come out again.

How to Find Your Voice

You can get support to help you find your voice again but the bottom line is, nobody can give your voice back to you except You. What I do for the women who work with me is hold safe sacred space for you to feel like you can sound your voice and speak your truth. Then I teach you my signature Sing Yourself Alive process and support you through mentoring and healing.

When you let the trauma and grief be released through your tears and sounding your voice, you will find your voice.

I’m speaking from not just 20 years of witnessing women going through this process but also personal experience. I grew up feeling like nobody cared what I had to say. My voice was so quiet and small that nobody could hear me. I was bullied as a child and abused as a young adult. In between, I lost both my parents. All that grief and trauma kept my voice locked down until I had a healing session with two Indigenous grandmothers. They helped me release the grief and sing my spirit back to my body.

Cool Fact: The vibration, essence and flow of your breath and voice will help you find your voice.

I know what it’s like to feel like you have no voice. I felt like that all the way into my 30’s until that ceremony with the grandmothers. It hit me again too, when my son died in 2016. Even if you’re still carrying grief or trauma, you can find your voice. You can even get to a place of being able to sing for pleasure and express yourself again with confidence and joy.

Many of us have had abusive or traumatic experiences where we were silenced or told we are not good enough. Those experiences have taught you to stifle your own voice to get by in a society or relationship that has punished you for expressing yourself. Talk about mixed messages! We were expected to “tell the truth,” and yet we were not allowed to express the truth that really mattered – our own.

You still have your voice.

You may not think so, but it is there, hidden underneath layers of emotions, tears and truths that we didn’t – and maybe still don’t – feel free to express. And you CAN recover and reclaim your voice again!!

Believe me, I’ve been there more than once, going through layer by layer, experience by experience and healing that trauma by singing myself alive.

Have you heard my voice? If you have, I’ll bet you can’t imagine me being so quiet that you couldn’t hear me.

I’ve had people throw bad medicine at me. The truth is, it can only get in when people kick you when you’re down. That’s when your boundaries tend be weaker, when you are grieving or having a trauma response or hurting in some other way. Those times, it’s good to create or reinforce your energy boundaries.

Here are some truths for you:

1. The more you are in your element, doing something you love, or hanging out with people who support you and feel good to be around, the less anyone’s “bad medicine” can affect you.
2. Apart from someone physically damaging your physical throat, nobody can steal your voice.
3. Nobody can give your voice back to you except You.
4. Our thoughts and beliefs are incredibly powerful and so in order to shift our mindset, we need to flood ourselves with new, positive thoughts and beliefs, and allow ourselves to feel good.

I can’t bring your voice back for you, but if you want me to help you find your voice and access that true power within you that is *already there*, book a Discovery Session with me. Your voice is precious and so are you, no matter what anyone else has told you.

You deserve to have your voice heard, your true power expressed, and your love shared. Have a beautiful week!

Love & Blessings,

Brenda MacIntyre, Medicine Song Woman

RESOURCES:

• Want to dive right in and get some support? Head over here.

FOLLOW ME ON SPOTIFY – MUSIC FOR THESE CRAZY TIMES:

• Follow My Artist Account on Spotify.
• Follow my Global Pandemic Playlist on Spotify. The studio (CD, not live) version of the songs I sang in the livestreamed concert are also in this playlist.
• Follow the RENEWAL Playlist for springtime on Spotify