Episode 19
[00:00:00] Have you ever walked away from a conversation replaying it over and over in your head thinking, "Why didn't I just say something?" Or perhaps you've agreed to do something that you didn't really want to do. You had a-- You said yes when really it was a no You laughed when something actually hurt You said it was fine when it really wasn't fine at all.
Most of us think losing our voice happens in one big moment, but I don't think it does. I think it happens in the little ways that we don't speak up, don't speak our truth, are gently quieted as children, when we're put in a corner, we're put in a hard place, a boundary that we didn't set. Until one day we realize we don't actually know who we are anymore.
Hi, I'm Nicki Kuurman, and welcome to The Practical Mystic Podcast, [00:01:00] where universal wisdom meets modern life. I see this pattern of losing our voice in women every single day in my clinic. Not because they're weak, not because they've done something strong, and definitely not because they don't have anything valuable to say.
It's usually because they care so deeply and have so much emotion and feeling about something that they don't want to upset people with it. They've been told that their emotions are too big, too much, perhaps that they're too sensitive. They're trying to keep the peace. They don't want to disappoint anyone.
And somewhere along the way, keeping everyone else comfortable has actually eroded their own sense of self. It often starts with really good intentions. I don't want this to be awkward. I don't want the other person to feel bad. This is making me uncomfortable. Every time we silence ourselves, a little piece of us is chipping away. [00:02:00]
Every time we silence the feelings, we hold them in another place in our body. And over time, the message that we are telling ourselves is that "I don't matter. I'm not important. It's not safe for me to speak." And I don't think it's just about speaking. I think finding our voice happens in so many ways. It's not just about becoming louder or even sharing our opinion more.
It's about being true with our words and our essence, connecting how we really feel, and communicating that with authenticity, kindness, and truth. It's not-- And to become more honest even, sometimes it's saying, "Yes." Sometimes it's asking for help. Sometimes it's saying, "No, this doesn't serve me. I'm not [00:03:00] interested in that.
No, thank you. Moving on." And remember that no is a complete sentence. N-O, full stop. Makes me think about this story. When I was young, I saw an interview on, I don't know, I think it was on ABC, with Elizabeth Murdoch. And one sentence stuck with me. She said, "Never complain, never explain." And I didn't know what that meant for years.
I pondered it, and throughout my life it has meant different things at different times. I think it also gets caught up in silencing myself because nobody wanted to hear me complain but the power in it is never explain. You don't have to give a reason why your no is a no or your yes is a yes. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone
Being [00:04:00] empowered to never explain yourself for validation, for seeking approval, for the elusive permission slip to be authentically you I've shared in this podcast before how that permission slip, oh, I've had to do so much work around that, of always looking for somebody else's permission or validation to say, "Hey, it's okay for you to be you."
I don't think we share enough around what's okay for us and what's not okay. When I think of boundaries, I always think of this Robert Frost quote that says, "If I was building a wall, I'd want to know what I was walling in and what I was walling out." For me, authenticity comes when I know really clearly within myself what is okay for me and what is not
Your authentic [00:05:00] voice doesn't always sound confident. It can be shaky. It's not easy to speak up and say your truth
Of course, you're going to worry about how people take it from time to time. Sometimes it tumbles out of us with tears and crying and a tough conversation with somebody that we love but it's all true. It's how we really feel. What I've noticed over the years with working with clients is that the body always keeps the score,
And the body always knows immediately what it wants. We overcomplicate it with our mind all the time. Our body says, "Yeah, I want that. Let's move towards that." And the mind will come up with 3,000 reasons why that's not safe to do that. Conversely, our [00:06:00] mind can go, "Yeah, I like chocolate." And our body goes, "Eh, not so much."
"Yeah, yeah, we really like chocolate." Body goes, "Mm, not really." But we override it, and we eat the chocolate. When I see someone come into my clinic with tightness in their jaw, ear, nose, throat issues, not being able to speak up-
They often feel shut down, shut down emotionally, disconnected from themselves, their family, from their life. Conversely, sometimes I see people who come in, and they talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and they've got a million words a mile a minute, and they need to get everything out because this is their opportunity to actually be heard and witnessed.
Neither of those positions are wrong and, and both are really, really valid and valuable at times. [00:07:00] We need to get to the truth in any way it comes out Sometimes the client says to me, "You're the only person I can share this with
I know there's been times in my life where my therapists have been the only person in the world that I could share how I really feel about something. I think it's the one beautiful thing about any kind of therapy or one-on-one talking with someone, is that you can get to the heart of your truth in a safe environment, and I think there's times in our life when we all need that.
It shows up when someone says, "Oh, I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything."
It shows up with, "Nobody ever listens to me Even though I'm talking all the time. I know for me, one of the biggest issues I've had around my voice is swallowing my grief [00:08:00]
Goes into that never complain part of me that locked away, "Oh, you can't share how you're feeling with somebody because nobody really cares what you're going through. No one really understands you. No one understands your pain and the waves of grief that wash over you." It's like they just knock you over in that moment.
Whoever said grief was like a wave is the most accurate description. It comes up and it just tumbles over you, and it can be mixed in with anger and sadness and frustration and disappointment and a whole bunch of other emotions
And it's confusing. We don't really know which one to deal with first in that moment and because of that [00:09:00] confusion, we can often not say anything or in that confusion, we say a thousand things, but none of them are really getting to the problem underneath. I don't know about you, but when I'm sad, I completely shut down.
I turtle away when I've got stuff going on, and I hide myself from the world. My closest friends know this. They're like, "What's going on? We haven't heard from Nic for a while." I just totally turtle when I've got stuff to process, and when I'm ready, I pop my head back out of the shell and say, "Okay, now I'm ready to talk about it."
We need to allow ourselves processing time. We can't always process everything in the moment and expect it to come out cleanly. It rarely does. The hardest person to be honest with is myself because sometimes I already know the answer I just don't want to [00:10:00] admit it yet. I see this when we know the relationship isn't working or we're exhausted
Or we're over-committed, overwhelmed, stressed out. I see it in 100 different ways in myself and other people. So, if you are processing a lot of new information, awakening at a spiritual level, and you don't have a lot of support around you, it can be really lonely Over the years, I've built a beautiful network of friends and colleagues whom I can chat with around my spiritual growth, but not everyone gets it in my world, right?
My family don't understand my spiritual life. It's okay. They don't need to
Sometimes we feel like we have to push our opinion on others or bring people along with the ride. I [00:11:00] have learnt over many years that this does not work for me. What I find is that I move, and I feel like everybody's back here, that nobody shifted or got that awareness, and I try to explain it, and it doesn't come out right and it's okay.
Because as we process and move through our own challenges, our own beliefs, our own spiritual development, the people around us will naturally shift in their own vibration to come with us on the journey. Admittedly, it kind of feels like a ladder. Like, we move and they move a little bit, and we move and they l- move a little bit.
But they do move
you affect your environment and the people around you all of the time. Conversely, you'll notice when someone's in a bad mood, how everyone else in the house kind of goes into a bad mood as well.
Awareness of [00:12:00] where you're at in every given day, emotionally, mentally, even physically, helps you process and stay cantered even though all of this stuff is going on. And the more we stay present and aware of our own thoughts, the more capacity we have to allow our truth to settle in our body more gently and more deliberately Don't think authenticity means you have to be brutally honest about every single thought that you have every moment of the day.
I believe authenticity is when we are aligned with living what we know is true for ourselves and when we're feeling out of alignment, what do we need to do to bring ourselves back online? [00:13:00]
I shared I-in another episode about why don't we do the things we know we need to do when we feel out of whack, like eat better or move or water or whatever we need. Why don't we do that?
if we are not speaking our truth, if we are not stepping out and verbalizing, communicating, whether it be with ourselves or with other people, about what we need to do to live in alignment, to feel better, to be our most authentic self, to have more joy, if we're not sharing that with other people, then we're not really being true to our own cause, our own values
If your highest value is honesty, you need to live that. [00:14:00] If your highest value is faith, you have to live in faith and dedicate time and energy to the practices and the rituals that go along with that
The two things that guide my life are faith and acceptance and they're not easy. They're not always easy values to live by
But they're the scaffolding that I need to help support my life
When I don't accept myself, everything starts to crumble. When I judge myself, I can't speak clearly. When I judge others, I'm just getting caught in chaos and stories that are none of my business When I don't trust [00:15:00] the intuition, the nudges, my guides, I lose faith in my life having its own path and its own trajectory.
I start trying to control and manipulate myself and go in these weird tangents that take me away from my true path
What do you need to help hold you and support you through your life?
I find it really comforting to know that there's these two principles for me, and sometimes they feel completely opposite in their agenda, sometimes acceptance feels like it's so physical and that I really have to wrench myself through the discomfort of n-not liking something that I'm going through or experiencing versus this faith that everything's okay.
Sometimes I feel like I gaslight myself because I'm like, [00:16:00] "Oh, but you know, it's just this," and go through that. We need different aspects, different light and shadows to show us the way forward because authenticity isn't simple. It's not clean. It's not one definable thing. Authenticity is when you feel like you are living from a space of truth, that you are in flow, and that you're really getting out of your own way.
You stop overthinking things as much, you stop judging yourself as much, and you actually come into alignment and a peaceful place of, "Ah, this is where I am right now." And when we can let go of that judgment, to me, that's acceptance and that helps me come back into align with who I truly want to be, how I want to show up, and how I want to live my life What are your values?
What are your scaffoldings? What [00:17:00] holds you in your flow of life? What are the things you can lean into in tough times?
compassion for yourself Compassion for others, kindness Respect, love All of these things are inclusive of authenticity, but none of them are authenticity alone
We throw away the word authenticity all the time as almost like a marketing ploy I want you to strip it back to what is the most honest thing I can say about myself right now? What's the kindest thing I can say about myself right now?
I'm going through a tough time. I'm feeling sad. This is annoying me. I'm not happy about this part of my [00:18:00] relationship or this part of my work. You don't have to share it with anyone straight away. Journaling can be really helpful, especially when we have shut our voice down, writing, other ways of communication, even dance and singing, all help move that energy through your body.
There have certainly been times in my own life when I have been quiet. So many. Not because I didn't know what I thought, usually because I didn't know what I was allowed to say, how much I was allowed to share, or how well my opinion would be received. I wanted everyone else to be okay first, even if it meant my discomfort.
How many times I've said yes when really, I meant no. Each time I moved a little bit further away from who I really am. And I've learned that these conversations [00:19:00] that I walk away and then I repeat in my head, "Oh, I should have said this, I could have said that" they're just a waste of my time now. If there's something that really needs to circle back round to be corrected, it will show up.
If I sit with something and go, "Actually, I really need to go back to that person and rephrase what I said there," then do that Sometimes you just need to simply pause and wait a while.
When you stay in alignment with yourself These tricky conversations or the things that you say in your head after a conversation with someone, they start to quieten down. They won't happen as frequently and when you're really grounded and you're really in your own space and you're feeling clear and energized, you'll find that you have more capacity to speak your truth in the moment.
It's almost as if time stands still a little [00:20:00] because you have the space around you to respond rather than react. When our energy field is so close and so tight and we are reacting to everything all of the time, we don't have the space to ponder what we would actually like to say. As I finish today, I'd like to leave you with these questions.
What conversation have you been avoiding with yourself or someone else? And how different would your life be if you stopped over-editing yourself and if you trusted yourself more? How would things be different? Your voice isn't something you need to find. It's already within you. It's been there all along, waiting for you to listen
If anything, I've touched on here today resonates for you, or you know somebody [00:21:00] who could benefit from this conversation, please share the podcast. If you'd like some help working through what's going on for you and your own authenticity or your own blocks, please reach out. Soul Guidance sessions are here to do exactly this, gently bring awareness to what's blocked us and helping you move through to a new state of being.
Thank you so much for joining me today. If you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe, or follow along on your favourite podcast platform. I really appreciate the opportunity to change your state and shift your story
