Just before Christmas I lost my voice – really lost my voice – I awoke one morning and found that I couldn’t project it… my throat wasn’t sore, and it didn’t feel swollen, my voice just simply didn’t want to work. I was reduced to a whisper, and I quickly found that I didn’t really want to try to use my voice at all.
The period before it disappeared had been a stressful one. My husband and I were supporting both his father and my mum and dad. My dad was in hospital in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s and the outlook did not look good, and my mum needed support with this traumatic life transition. My father-in-law was requiring more and more support from us – constant phone calls to check that he was eating, washing, etc, even just to ensure he was getting up before 3 pm! There were several, at home, appointments that needed my husband and I to be there. My husband was also doing his dad’s weekly shop and taking it over there – I could see that it was exhausting him, and I was trying to advocate for my father-in-law to have daily carers go in and help ease the pressure. In theory my husband agreed with me, and had even done some research on care agencies, but obstructions were coming from an unexpected quarter, which led to several arguments between myself and my husband as he defended said person time and again to his own detriment. The night before I lost my voice, I felt that everything I said was being ignored, and I was being blamed for a situation that wasn’t of my making. I felt silenced.
And then, I really was silenced. So, what did I learn, in this space that suddenly appeared, where I couldn’t respond…
1. That when I stopped adding to the noise, my husband started to listen and hear his own words. Whereas before his automatic response was to defend, suddenly he had no attack to defend against and he could hear his own views on the subject. Surprisingly, he discovered they were the same as mine! He gained clarity over his thoughts and I learnt that less is more. Give people the opportunity to hear their own thoughts and words.
2. I realised that I had stopped using my active listening skills and had become lost in the frustration of feeling that I wasn’t being heard.
3. That some people will always try to push your boundaries – despite the fact it was obvious that I was finding it difficult to communicate, a certain person still expected me to make all her phone calls for her and sort out any problems that had cropped up.
4. It is better to ask questions rather than make a statement – people don’t like to be told what to do. They have to find their own way.
5. Some people really don’t possess any emotional intelligence
6. It made me stop, think and feel into the person I want to be – had I got lost in the darkness of that year? Could I find and bring back that person that I used to be and wanted to be. I felt that I had lost touch with my values and I wanted to find a way to reembrace them.
So, I took the time to rest. I took it back to basics – journalling and meditating, exercising and day dreaming.
That year had been so fraught and distracting that I had lost touch with all the ways in which I kept myself grounded. Losing my voice meant I stopped in order to try to find myself.
Since then, I have tried to step back and have realised that not speaking, but giving space, isn’t the same as being silenced.
Sometimes life needs us to take a deep breath and take some time to check in with who we are and who we want to be.
Yes I can imagine you learned a lot about listening. Great article!