Is it time to speak your truth?

I remember it vividly: sitting in the chair in my voice teacher's studio, sobbing. We had just released a pocket of tension within my tongue and this glorious sound came rushing out.

I was crying because I'd never made that sound before.  Crying because I didn't realize I could sound like that.  Crying because it had taken so long to finally release it.  Crying because there was just so much feeling.

Fear.  Anger.  Grief.  Joy.

Emotions rolled out of me for the better part of a half hour.

My teacher, the inimitable Cate Frazier-Neely, sat with me, encouraging me to let it all out.  When the tears finally dried, my voice had reached a whole new depth of resonance, and the tension, amazingly, never returned, at least not to its full extent.

What I had spent years trying to accomplish with a smorgasbord of technical and physical exercises had been released in one simple cue:

Sing your truth.

This is not to say, of course, that the technical exercises didn't help me get to that point, but rather that, on their own, they weren't enough.  I had to go deeper, connect with something more authentic, and be willing to touch on those hardened vulnerable places within for the exercises to work their magic.

In Dr. John Sarno's book, The Mindbody Prescription, he talks at length about the connection between emotional repression and chronic pain and health issues.  He has concluded over 20 years of research and results that the pain results from tension and inflammation created by the stress of constantly suppressing and unconsciously repressing feelings, especially anger.

Alexander Lowen agrees.

Suppression [of feeling] entails the development of chronic muscular tension in those areas of the body where the feeling would be experienced. ― Alexander Lowen, Fear of Life

In other words, by not connecting to the truth of our experiences and of who we are, by not living in complete integrity with ourselves and with others, we create stress in our systems that can manifest as tension, pain, and disease.

For my part, as a 'good girl', perfectionist, peace-keeper and people-pleaser, I had spent my life not expressing the anger I didn't know I felt and actively suppressing the anger I did.  All those unsaid words and trapped emotional energy had, quite literally, choked me and my authentic sound in the form of massive tongue tension.

To release the tension and my authentic voice, I had to acknowledge my truth.

This is why I teach in the holistic way I do.

And this is why I am so excited to take Martha Beck's newest program, The Integrity Cleanse, starting this Wednesday.

Because your voice will reveal your truth and your truth will reveal your voice.

The Integrity Cleanse will teach you how to identify and act on your authentic truth, consistently. In the process, you’ll move past the conflict created by living outside of your integrity and into real happiness.  Registration is open through noon on Wednesday, Sept. 9.  Payment plans and class recordings are available.

Find Out More and Register:

Martha Beck Integrity Cleanse