(It took me hours before I recorded the voiceover because I’m singing in it. I trip over my words my bit but I’m not doing it again. The voice sounds rough. But at least I sang for a little bit first!)
One of the appeals of the place I’m living now is that it has solid brick walls. When I saw it, I immediately knew that I would be able to do my voicework and not disturb others, which had a been a concern in my previous place. I found it very hard to do any singing while my roommate was home.
And yet, since I’ve gotten here, I can count the amount of times I have deliberately chosen a song to sing on one hand. And most of that was deciding on a song for Fringe karaoke.
I do sing during my piano practice when I decide to play a song I previously learned that I like. One of the things I love best about using Yousician is the original songs they create for the lessons and challenges that are doing songs in the styles of various artists with funny lyrics.
One of my faves is in the style of Bonnie Tyler:
There is no point in it all.
How can I sing a song like this?
When the most important thing is missing?
Hold me now
Baby you’ll just have to show me how
To make it all work like in a dream
Who broke the wind machine?
The wind machine is broken now.
Singing those are fun. But what happened to the lovely marathons where I’d sing a bunch of songs in sequence?
Part of that was a product of not having internet access, I suspect. YouTube wasn’t available to me and I do spent waaaay too much time there. And in the last few days, reading people I used to follow here at Substack, and going back to find some faves on Twitter (I am not calling it X - what a stupid rebrand), has eaten up so much time when I knew I needed to write a post to keep to the weekly posting schedule. I even journaled and the message there was to write, and I’ve been putting that off too.
I don’t get it. When I choose a song (as opposed to a Youscian song) I feel chills when I sing. What clearer message do I need that it’s something I should be doing? Why am I being so avoidant?
I’m writing this post to find out. Give me a minute to check in with my inner child. (Yes, this is a thing. Inner child work can be pretty powerful.)
Ok, after a little evasion, it’s a fear of being too powerful. And in full voice I feel very powerful. So why am I afraid of being powerful?
Because it’s not safe. People don’t like powerful people and I want to be liked.
Huh, that’s interesting. I can come up with a list of powerful people who are liked but that won’t change anything. Logic doesn’t change beliefs. So how do I change this belief into something that does serve me stepping into my power?
For this, I need to tune into my higher, wiser self. Going to take a minute or two. All of a sudden I feel very tired, which means I’m onto something.
Yes, time to use a Change Me prayer, a technique I learned from Tosha Silver. (She has a book on it.)
Beloved, change me into one who knows that I can be powerful and liked. Help me to commit to doing the things that have me step into my power.
I use “Beloved” to describe that force larger than myself, a term I took from Tosha because “God” has baggage that I don’t want to have to filter out for these processes. I started out using Tosha’s prayers but she encourages developing your own and I’m now confident in doing so. I may need to repeat this one a few times whenever I catch myself being avoidant and remember to do it.
Which in itself is a process, as I’ve recently gotten back into Tosha’s work. I’ve gotten very good at doing this when I’m at the edges of sleep or during journaling/meditation/spiritual listening time but I have been challenged into integrating this during the rest of my day. I had recently set this task for myself, to be more tightly integrated with my higher self and let myself be guided in this way.
There’s definitely more work to do but this is how I want to live. I know that everything I need to know is inside me. I just need to it dig out from all the stuff I’ve taken in just living in the world and give it voice.
Speaking of voice, let’s see if I start singing again. I set the intention. Now to commit.