Voice and Where to Find it
Finding your voice is a difficult thing. Our world is loud, a constant barrage of sound, that does its best to drown out original thought, truth and nuance. How do you come to a place of fullness, an understanding of self concrete enough to brave the noise? There are no real answers to that question that do not feel like platitudes of the worst kind, but finding voice is as much about listening as it is about speaking. And when we learn to listen to ourselves, both as a way of both reflecting and understanding, we also learn how to connect to others, to see beyond ourselves, and to speak, with a voice that is a true reflection of our purpose. In a world that is constantly in crisis, using your own voice can be integral not only to yourself but to your community and for your survival.
Voice connects us. Knowing what matters to you, your values, your story and your journey is important on an individual level but also a communal one. Our voices help us connect. As people who’s experiences of life are varied, and shaped by circumstances and oppressive systems – voice helps us start to build bridges across differences and recognize the similarities we share and build on them. Our voices, our stories are the bed rocks of movement, of theory and of change. It is when we express our pain that we learn how to sit with it, long enough and intentionally enough that it births something.
As the world continues to struggle under a growing wave of conservative governments and media, our voices might be the only thing left that can turn the tide. Centering other marginalised voices and continuing to make space for their work, looking at the systems people are continuing to build and community models that decentre patriarchal heteronormative capitalist ways of existing with one another will allow us to build on that work too. Despite how deeply entrenched these systems are it is through listening to the voices of others who dream beyond them, and using our own voices to amplify our messages, work and beliefs that we can truly begin to shift them.
Developing our own voices requires sitting with ourselves, and continuing to connect with the things we say we value and the movements that have shaped those beliefs. Being feminist requires engagement with movement space and engagement with theory as you navigate a patriarchal world. To truly know yourself, how you feel and how something affects you, you must sit with each moment and reflect, you must continue to do the work of looking inwards as a pathway to connection.
Our voices are our most powerful tool, and no matter how loud the world gets leaning into developing our own voices and listening to the voices of others is the only way to cut through constant noise. Our futures depend on us, to connect beyond the world that has been given us, to dream beyond ephemeral connection and instead to lift our voices, and most importantly– to listen.
