UnSilencing

Today I found my voice.

Just as I was going to take another breath–like the many millions of breaths I’ve drawn so far–and add another word to the millions of unimportant things I’ve already expressed in my life, I paused, inhaled a little deeper, and surrendered. I realized I hadn’t fully entered an important conversation with myself yet. I leaned in, inhaled and asked myself in a soft voice with the utmost grace and genuine wonder, “What difference do you most want to make in your life?” I couldn’t lie, suppress, or hide, even in the dark corners of my own mind. There was no reason to: I desired a pure unfiltered truth.

There was no separation from my gut, my backbone, my shoulder, my heart, my thoughts, my mind—it was all one voice.

“Have the courage to speak,” I breached as the blue whale bellowing: It came out of a hollow place so deep in my mind I didn't recognize it as my own sound.

Whales are the loudest animals on the planet, yet we humans cannot hear them.

Their sound travels thousands of miles and is a bid for connection.

I call out now because I can no longer just take in. It’s time for me to separate chaotic noise of disillusionment from the vital sound of my own calling.

Another calling.

I will risk the swim across vast oceans, turbulent currents to be in the clear waters of truth.

I will meet you there. We will unsilence ourselves.

Together we will breach again and again, bellowing questions until we know what matters.