Real voice… Fake voice…

While clearing a bookshelf today, I may have found my fake voice. Ha. Nothing like a confusing statement to start a blog post, huh?
I may have found this fake voice in a tiny little booklet called Mind Sound Resonance Technique.

Simply put, the technique in the book, I had picked in India, is a kind of sound meditation. The idea is to chant certain sounds and feel vibrations of the chants all over the body. I decide to give it a try.

In a deep serious voice, I begin the series of chants – Aa… Uu… Mm… AaUuMm. Om…

I feel no vibrations. I remember trying it before. I remember not noticing vibrations. Total hogwash, I decide.
Hmm… could it be that perhaps some people are not meant to be spiritually enlightened yogis?

I decide to give up my quest – spiritual enlightenment can wait, I decide. That piece of chocolate, on the other hand, and my list of chores will not wait forever.  

Spiritual seeker or not, my curiosity is piqued. I go back to the book and sit down and close my eyes. Once again, in a deep, strong tone, I make the first sound. I study myself – so intent and serious. I wonder if I am trying too hard. I try a different pitch.  

This one isn’t as strong or important sounding as the previous. It seems more feeble, softer, gentler, less assertive or emphatic. It also feels more real. Somewhat disappointed, I continue.  

I realize I like the stronger voice better. Besides, that is my voice too. Yet, for whatever reason, it feels imposed and superficial. The softer, shakier pitch rings true. Seems right.

Even if both voices belong to the same person, the stronger one has more appeal. That would be who I would want to be, that would be how I would want to project myself – strong, confident, not-quivering. Why then does it feel more exhausting, less authentic?

In choosing the ‘better’, the ‘right’, the ‘sensible’, the ‘practical’, the ‘appealing’, the ‘acceptable’, the ‘approvable’, do we lost our authentic voice?

We’ve all done that. Smiled too wide, spoken in a pitch too high, smiled when we would rather glare, found our sweetest tone, when all we want to do it scream. Those are all our voices too. And to some extent, some of that may not be going away in the name of diplomacy. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard this is for the undiplomatic few. Sigh…

I wonder how we can remain true to our own voice. Our true authentic voice. How much of our life do we spend making sounds other than our own? How much of our life do we give up to these sounds? Do we snuff it out, no longer listen to it; does it seem less acceptable, too erratic, less predictable?  

I think of some shelved writing projects. Since last summer, I have not gone near any of them. A few short stories and a children’s book (that may never see the light of day).

Now writing can be a scary affair. It brings out authenticity and truth. I stopped writing for months last summer – fearful of what I would write, fearful that I would write only sad stuff. Perhaps I do.

In almost a year, I have not gone anywhere near the shelved writing projects, dreading that I will turn them into weepy tearful sagas. Yet the thought of sugar coating, or continuing in the vein I was writing them, seems phony and insincere. Why on worth would I want to do that? So I simply stay away.

We all know there is beauty in authenticity. Whether the voice is sad, or cheerful, or funny, or strong, or vulnerable – it will be beautiful when it is genuine. It will make sense, it will feel right when it is the real sound.

In the society we have created and in which we live, can we live only with only our authentic voices? How many times do I tell my kid, “don’t glare”? In “keeping face”, doing what we perceive is “better” and more “correct”, do we lose our authentic voice? Simply because it sometimes doesn’t sound as strong, or pretty or happy or virtuous, as the other ones we are capable of making?

Do we need to give ourselves permission to be who we truly are? Do we need to give ourselves permission to listen and to acknowledge our authentic voice?

Can we recognize the sound of our real voice?