✨A word’s best friend✨

From a very young age, my voice has been my key instrument when expressing myself. I remember creating my first songs when driving my parents’ riding lawn mower. I also remember consequently hitting a tree …

On Sunday evenings I frequently and at times rather imperatively invited my family to sit and see some theatre piece or live performance I had put together. And long before I got to invite real live personalities for my national radio show, I impersonated the most marvelous imaginary guests when taping my cassette recorder equivalent.

I loved it. Although I did not think of it at all, I loved using my voice. Without me realizing, it gifted me a uniquely refined way to express the different emotions and energies manifested within me. And since my parents were extra particular about what I could and could not let out in the open and very much in favor of me and my sister being ‘good, well behaved and silent girls’, voicing my emotions in that clandestine way served me really well.

Of course, those ‘good girl’ times are long gone. Even today someone commented on me that ‘he most certainly believed I can very well speak up for myself’. I smiled and embraced the compliment, since I knew from how far I had come: it took a lot of courage, healing and trial and error for me growing back from the hurt, insecure person I felt I was into the joyful, trusting, loving ‘larger than life’ type of person I had once decided to cover up in safety under satin sheets of pretend.

And my speech is still evolving: a few months ago, I couldn’t help noticing that often still, I produce a lot of talk that does not really have any value. Sometimes, I just say what comes to mind, one sound, one word after the other, sentence after sentence just for no reason at all. Then what airs is often no more than the expression of an old fearful thought or pattern and not serving me at all up to the point where I perceive it as downright tiresome.

So recently, I decided to enroll myself in a little experiment: I committed myself to ‘speak only in order to serve’, just for one day and then every other day again. I committed to talk only to serve myself or the other and have been doing so now for about 3 weeks.

The process and consequences were quite interesting. This commitment made me way more mindful of why I was wanting to speak and from what place. Whenever I felt the need to say something, I’d first consider what it was I was wanting to say and why. Then, I decided if I would actually let those words come out or not. Often I chose not to because I felt my speech did not contribute to the situation, nor to me, nor to the other. They were just an energy waste polluting my outer and inner climate.

Another observation told me that when in the realm of ‘no speech’, I really liked roaming in that self-made center of silence. Since from there I’d felt a certain trust coming to be that if ever words needed to emerge, they would. Moreover, when speaking those well-inspired words, I felt they rose from a much deeper place, a higher consciousness, from the heart, not from the mind.

From the reliance – that whatever words needed to arise would arise - that built up, I grew trust in situations that would normally feel awkward to me. For example, standing with a group of people I did not know so well, I’d used to always feel tempted to say or do something to ‘break the awkward silence’. Now, when picking up my daughter from a party, I noticed that ‘urge’ had practically disappeared. Instead I spotted I had not wanted to say anything just for the sake of it while feeling even more secure.

As a voice-over and coach I KNOW about the power of silence. I deliberately use this nothingness on a daily basis as the most fertile soil from where I mold words, phrases and the mere sound of my voice into a perfect atmosphere, an authentically raw and highly sophisticated emotion. From stillness, I have created my best voicing work and my most delicate singing. It has always been my most trusted portal through which I have been able to bond with the deepest of my soul.

Thinking back I have to admit that silence has proven to be my most heartfelt foundation for a lifelong connection, my best means for ‘in-still-ing’ a connection, with myself or any other. It makes my speech shimmer, like a gemstone. Silence, is like a diamond. But not ‘a girl’s best friend’ in particular and certainly not a ‘good girl’s’. SILENCE …, IS A WORD’S BEST FRIEND!

Love,

Ann 🙏🏻💚

Want to make your words shine like diamonds? Let’s talk!🎙

👉🏻 www.anngrutman.be

#voice-over #voice-coach #silenceisawordsbestfriend #ANNythingispossible #raiseyourvoice