- Aug 6
- 2 min read
Hearing Your Own Voice Among Others
Hearing your own voice among others
Think of the last time someone asked, “Which one would you like?”
Often we can answer at once what others might want: what the boss expects, or which choice would put the family at ease.
But when asked, “And you… what would you like?”
sometimes there is a long silence.
Not because we have no answer, but because we have grown used to listening to the voices around us, until our own has quietly grown faint.
· · ·
It rarely happens in the big things. It hides in the small ones, every day.
We say yes faster than the heart can catch up.
We say “anything is fine,” when in truth there was something we wanted.
We adjust until everyone is comfortable, reading faces, tones, and expectations around us.
Until we no longer notice when our own voice began to fade.
We do not do this out of weakness.
We have simply grown used to caring for others' feelings, until listening to ourselves became the thing that is always postponed.
And when this happens often, the voices of others grow louder, while our own grows quieter.
Until one day, when someone asks, “So what do you want?”
it is not that we are afraid to answer. We are simply no longer certain which voice is ours.
· · ·
Returning to hear your own voice does not have to begin with a great change.
Sometimes it begins with not answering right away.
With allowing yourself a small silence before saying “yes,”
to ask: what am I feeling right now, and what actually matters to me?
The answer will not always change. We may still choose the same thing, still say yes as before.
But this time, it is an answer with ourselves heard inside it.
· · ·
Listening to yourself first does not mean closing your ears to others, and it does not make you care less.
It means knowing, among many voices, which one is yours.
When we hear our own voice more clearly, we no longer always have to choose between ourselves and others.
Often we are simply answering from a place more honest to ourselves.
A Moment of Reflection
Gently ask yourself
· Whose voice have I been listening to most lately?
· Is there a voice of my own I have not yet listened to?
· If I gave myself a little more silence, would I hear something different?
Perhaps our own voice never went anywhere.
It only grew quiet, because we became used to listening to others, until we forgot that our own voice deserves to be heard too.
And sometimes, only a few seconds of silence is enough to hear it again.