If you've ever felt like your voice wasn't heard, this story is for you.
Introducing: ❤Heart-Beats❤
🎵A Series on Music, Love and Inspiration W/ @heart-to-heart🎵
Showcasing music & sharing my inner song with you.
H💜B 001: Part of Your World: A True Tale of a Broken Song
If you’ve been hanging around with me, you’ll likely have noticed that I have a deep-rooted love and connection with music. It is here that I want to respect, cherish and cultivate it, I hope to share that with you.
Ever since I can remember, the rhythms and sounds that came to me through song, pranced into my ears, trickled down through my veins and coursed into my heart as it danced to the beats of the tune.
I see myself as intimately intertwined with music. I have an insatiable passion for it, to be around it, to live it. I feel it come from inside me like I’m giving birth, bringing it to life, every time I let the music flow through me. That passion is what this blog is about.
I mentioned to you in another post (here) that I was traumatized by an embarrassment I suffered singing publicly. After that, I refused to open my mouth. I hardly ever sang, even if I was the only one in the room.
Before I say anymore, I have a small story to share with you. It’s a story about a little girl who used to love to sing.
There once was a little girl who was born with a voice that was strong with the ferocity of a wild stallion inside of her; no reins could keep it from trying to wander free.
When the little girl was young and naïve, unscathed by cruelness that the world can bring, she would let her song run wild, flowing waves along the ocean's melodies.
She would hear tunes and they would attach themselves to her like glue, stuck in her head on repeat, rolling over and over again as if they had a mind of their own. The music never slept or bat an eye, it was always playing on in her thoughts.
With the music on twirling into her every moment, she would often find herself drumming with her fingers, humming through her daydreams and singing out loud wherever her day carried her.
The joy of the sounds that music made, caused her heart to flutter, eyes to grow wide and worries to fade away.
Her step-father would often shun her mother, criticizing her for sharing her voice and violently tell her to cage away her song.
Growing up hearing that- seeing the pain take hold of her mother’s face and cripple her smile when her gift was being refused was heartbreaking… it made the little girl fearful to think she could ever be the source of pain through her voice.
These thoughts twisted themselves around in the little girl’s mind, but when she would play and frolic without any cares, her mind would wander and her voice would slip out of her closed mouth and float into the air.
The step-father would hear it and reprimand her. Telling her to tame her voice, to tie it up inside her head and cage her mouth shut, in the same way he did to her mother.
The little girl was devastated... embarrassed... ashamed. Her heart screamed with a pain so deep that she cried herself to sleep. Leaving her smile behind, she promised to lock the song away.
The teachers tried to encourage her song to come back out but she did not want to disappoint her step-father and she kept her tongue tied, mouth firmly held shut, voice buried deep within, heart scorched.
This little girl, was me.
For years of my life, I felt the song inside me bursting to come out, wildly fighting my pressed lips for a chance to escape but my fear and shame were so strong that I repressed it down for years.
Music playing entered into my ears and edged the voice to come out... my song started screaming inside of me.
Sometimes, when my song would become too strong, if I was completely alone and no one could hear me I would surrender and belt my heart out. The feeling that came from that release was an outer-worldly kind of happiness that nothing else compared to.
I lived for those moments of freedom, for my song to break its way into the world and rejuvenate my soul.
I remember I was feeling discouraged and alone that day so I called on my song for comfort with a Disney tune… Part of Your World.
While I was sitting there, eyes towards the forest, back against the other kids...A friend had snuck up behind me so quietly that I didn't realize she was there. She waited behind me and overheard my song. She startled me and her enthusiasm battled my embarrassment. She was so kind and encouraging; I explained to her how I felt exposed, naked, ashamed... but she begged me to keep singing to her.
I was petrified but my heart jumped at the thought of being able to share my song with someone...finally and so… I sang.
I opened my mouth and let the song burst from within. It excitedly latched it's way up my chest, through my lungs and out into the world.
A few minutes later, our whole group of friends were surrounding me, standing around in a circle with me enclosed in the middle of them all.
I sat in the grass, my eyes attached to the daisies in my hands as I preoccupied my mind as best I could in hopes of letting the words fly off of my lips, despite my chattering teeth and shaking palms.
My friends were roaring with cheer as the egged me on! I looked up at them for the first time when my song had finished and saw their smiling faces looking down at me. The girl who had first found me here told me I needed to enter the talent contest that coincidentally was going to be held that very night.
My heart spoke for me before my mind could talk me out of it. I entered.
My song had a mind of its own and let itself loose into the microphone and was amplified from wall to wall.
If this story were to end here, all would have been well and a happy ending would be had. Unfortunately, with ups there must come downs as with anything, there must always be balance and while my confidence soared and my voice felt freed, it took a spiraling turn downwards when I faced what we will call “the embarrassment” years later which brought me to the second segregation of me from my voice in my life…and was existing until just a few short days ago.
We are born with this incredible gift inside of us, this sound, this melody that is ours- it’s unique to us and it contains so much power.
Song is a source of happiness in times of despair, it’s a story when there’s no paper, it’s a light at the end of a tunnel.
Yet, our culture has turned it into something that we mock, we make fun of, we criticize. We popularize this behaviour.
I don’t agree with that, and I support each and every single voice out there no matter what your pitch, what your melody or what your sound. If you are singing from your heart, I applaud you.
I am sharing my gift here with you all as a stand against everyone who ridiculed me and shamed me into hiding my voice away. I will never let my voice be treated that way again and I will rise against my self-doubt and insecurity and be the inspiration for you to do the same.
I am releasing my song as an inspiration, a beacon of light for those whose voice may be lost out there somewhere looking to find its way back.
Thank you for being supportive and loving with me as I have battled my fear and cast light against my demons. I will be posting more of my song and giving it the freedom it deserves.
For now, I leave you with the song this story began with, Part of Your World. I began singing this song to share with you and my puppy went wild, she was trying to lick me the whole song. My mind told me to record another version, one where it was perfect so my ego could be saved but, that's not me, not why I am here and not what I encourage. Here's the raw version, from the heart.
XO,
