Losing my Voice

Yesterday, I started losing my voice, and it stayed gone all day today. Of course, I had meetings scheduled all day today, and I needed to speak at all of them. So I got to try on a new persona today — that of a person who speaks softly, calmly, and slowly.

Normally, my voice is clear and strong. Projecting is not a problem, and although I have learned to speak softly on occasion, when I get excited or agitated, I naturally start speaking faster and louder.

So today was interesting. I liked that my inability to speak up without straining my vocal cords forced me to slow down and speak softly and gently. I was able to stay calm and deliberate as I spoke, even when I was excited about something. It felt better — getting excited eventually drains me — and I’m sure it made it easier and perhaps more enjoyable for others to follow. I’d love to keep practicing this.

However, there were also times when I wanted to project simply so that others could hear me. Not being able to do that felt frustrating and disempowering. It would be interesting to experiment with this long-term to see how much of a role my natural voice plays in me being seen by others, and how I might compensate in other ways.

One reply to “Losing my Voice”

  1. You know, that reminds me a lot of singing, where you are told that being loose and relaxed makes your voice resonate better, and thus can make it louder, or at least "fuller" sounding in many cases. So much of singing is about learning to make your muscles produce just the right amount of tension to hit certain notes at certain volumes, with a certain quality. And you find that people who are not trained tend to be too tense, and shout, at least when they aren't conscious about it. Interesting parallel.

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