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TO FIND YOUR VOICE, TO FIND YOURSELF

When I went on sabbatical from my job on Wall Street, I started taking voice lessons. This was a big risk for me. Really big. Yes, I majored in music, but my emphasis was piano. I was good at accompanying vocalists as they sang classical, Broadway, and religious music, but removing myself from the bulwark of the piano and attempting to actually sing was terrifying.

Even though I could generally sing on pitch, my vocal talent was nowhere near my keyboard expertise. My voice teacher kindly, pithily, and accurately described my voice when she quipped, “I’m sure there’s vibrato in there somewhere. We’ll just have to find it.”

As my life got busy again, I stopped taking lessons. I remain wistful about learning to sing. Perhaps I’ll try again someday. I do wonder: Why do I want to sing so much? Why am I hooked on reality shows that involve singing? Perhaps it’s because singing is about finding my voice, especially my figurative voice, the one that declares, “This is who I am,” “This is what I have to say . . . do . . . share.”

DISCOVERING YOUR UNIQUE VOICE

In Writing to Change the World, author Mary Pipher declares: “Voice is everything we are, all that we have observed, the emotional chords that are uniquely ours—all our flaws and all of our strengths, expressed in words that best reflect us. Voice is like a snowflake—complicated, beautiful, and individual. It is essence of self, distilled and offered in service to the world. . . .”

Chrysula Winegar (chrysulawinegar.com), originally from Australia, is a work-at-home mother with nearly two decades’ experience at blue-chip corporations. Currently authoring her first book When You Wake Up a Mother, Chrysula describes below what it was like to lose her voice, and then to gradually rediscover this essence of her self.

Chrysula Winegar: “Oh My Goodness. I Left My Voice on the Bus.”

I wanted to stay home full-time with my children. My mother sometimes wasn’t able to, and she sometimes didn’t want to: both are reasons I respect. My husband and I discussed the decision at length. He was home for a time with our eldest two children while growing his business; I took on the role of primary breadwinner. For some families it works. It didn’t for us.

Most days, being at home is enough. I have amazing children. I was never this smart at their ages, never this spiritually connected, certainly never this interesting. I love being my children’s mother. However, after a few years of being at home full-time, I realized something was missing. I did not feel heard.

Partnering with my husband for eight years in his private art consultancy, and now running that business fully on my own, has helped me feel heard. I love beautiful things and I love sharing them with people. Art has the capacity to speak without language, to fill voids of which we’re not even aware. I am privileged to have access to so much visual conversation. But it’s behavior, people, words that make me feel alive, make me feel that I haven’t somehow left my voice, disembodied, on a bus aimlessly trolling the streets of New York.

A few years ago I had a letter to the editor published in The New York Times. It was an incredible moment. In just a few sentences, I was able to express things that had been on my mind for more than a year. The act of publishing connected me to thousands of people who were thinking the same thoughts and, even better, to thousands more to whom those thoughts hadn’t occurred. It felt as if I had begun a conversation with New York.

Since my early twenties, I’ve been intrigued by the relationship between organizations and families. A consultancy business and a PhD thesis are both being constructed in my mind. I recently realized that I don’t need the full-fledged second business and the prefix Dr. just yet. What I need is to be part of the conversation. What I hunger for is to participate, even at the fringes, in the topics I feel passionate about.

I started a blog titled Work. Life. Balance. Writing allows me to give free rein to thoughts that have been bubbling away for years. On Twitter I can participate by sound bite and get access to all the data and discussion I need. I can read/listen as much or as little as my other responsibilities allow. These tools provide a sense of engagement, of participation, of dialogue—especially when both friends and strangers give back through their often profound and intimate comments. I’m part of a rich conversation. I’m listening, plugged in to the research, the debate, the buzz. And I have things to say. Oh boy, do I ever.

In the meantime, my two eldest children are becoming more interesting. They are becoming aware of other people, and their thoughts are beginning to develop. As they expand their capacity for social interaction, I’m able to engage with them on richer levels. We all benefit. I loved them as babies and toddlers and preschoolers. When we aren’t fighting, I truly adore them as they learn and grow through these next stages. As I have listened and tried to understand their emerging voices, their attempts to listen back enable my own voice. The first inklings of their wanting to understand me are a gift, a recognition that we’re beginning to develop real two-way relationships.

In the convergence of reading, writing, speaking, listening, I’m finding a flow of authenticity and personal truth. My family life and professional interests are merging. As they integrate, I feel heard. I have my voice back.

I especially like this from Chrysula: “As I listen and try to understand [my children’s] emerging voices, their attempts to listen back enable my own voice.” True conversation—the sharing of ideas and the feeling of being heard, something that for many (me included) is happening via social media platforms—further enables us to find our voices, as well as to discover our dreams.

STRENGTHENING YOUR VOICE THROUGH CHALLENGES

Finding your voice often comes through facing challenges. In the book The Maiden King, Robert Bly and Marion Woodman observe, “For thousands of years, a powerful voice was a mark of personhood. The longer the person stayed in the underworld (plunged to the depths of sorrow, for example) the more powerful the voice.” There are myriad examples of women who, after years of sorrow, loss, or other challenges, have emerged as powerful voices for change in the world.

LaNola Kathleen Stone (lanola.com), an artist, photographer, and the author of Photographing Childhood: The Image and the Memory, shares her experience of falling into and climbing back out of the abyss of sorrow.

LaNola Kathleen Stone: Rebirth of the Creative Self

Since I was very young, I’ve had an active creative pull. In my teen years, the tools of photography allowed me to express and share my creative meanderings in images. Over the past two decades, I have invested time and resources to develop this gift through my university education, a move to New York City, and subsequent graduate school.

Now, not all of the images I shot were drawn from organic intuition. The photographs that I labeled my personal work, and which I deemed as having little commercial value, were often pushed aside so I could continue to develop my professional portfolio and make a living as a shooter. I knew that my personal work fed my creative spirit, but the roar of a hungry tummy was more audible. I took the images and ideas that played in my creative mind for granted, utilizing them once in a while but never gifting them the way they gifted me. And, when I turned my attention to maintaining a marriage with a verbally abusive man, the vibrant images began to fade and were eventually gone.

It was a tangible absence and the hole left was deep. I had never known life without ideas and images and I was worried that they’d never return.

We all know when our life is out of balance; it just doesn’t feel right. I liken this to a “perfect” shirt that is too tight, or a beautiful shoe that has heels that are too high. I knew the balance in my life was gone, but I worked very hard to stand up straight in those heels that were too high and suck in my gut for that shirt that was too small. If I could only conform to another’s expectations and make my marriage work, then the balance would return, right? But in a marriage, the balance of each is achieved by the efforts of both. So no matter how hard I tried, I alone could not make our marriage work. He pursued his goals without respect for me, but the rage and frustration around his career and life were increasingly directed toward me. His rants grew longer and, although my husband never hit me, his grabbing and shaking increased. I knew it was not right, but the tirades and horrible name-calling, grabbing, and shaking became normal. I adjusted, but a part of me had to die to make room for this new normal.

When his decisions eventually led to our divorce, my time was then filled with the heavy silence of being alone, alone without a husband and without the gift of the images that had once creatively danced in my imagination before the abuse. The silence was deafening.

I was sad as long as I needed to be sad, and upset as long as it took, but the journey from that low to being truly happy and fulfilled today (just two and a half years later) came through validating creative promptings, something I’d done little of while distracted by my situation of abuse. I mourned the loss of one life, but as I surrounded myself with positive and creative ideas, I began to investigate the possibilities of another. Like our gifts and our talents, ultimately, our pasts come in various shapes and sizes and it’s what we do with our past that defines us, not merely the past itself.

Six months after my divorce, the images finally began to appear again. Now I validate them, all of them. Through my validation, I have completed graduate school, won scholarships and awards, am currently working on a book deal, had my work shown during one of the most prestigious art fairs in the United States, Art Basel Miami, and have been able to teach and mentor young undergraduate photographers. These results have both surprised and delighted me.

I now acknowledge my gift, and it never fails to give back. These images are my white rabbit beckoning me to awaiting adventures. I don’t always know what is down the rabbit hole, or where it will take me, but I do know that to trust my inner self is paramount. In this my creative self has been reborn and is thriving. In this is my happiness.

USING YOUR WORDS

As we face our own challenges, we must remember that we have a voice, and having a voice is powerful. We all have something to say, but many of us simply need to learn how to speak, whether through words written or spoken, images, music, movement—whatever medium enables our voice. We admonish young children to “Use your words!” especially as an alternative to screaming or hitting a sibling when they don’t get what they want. As children, we don’t always know how to express our emotions, and as women we often experience the same problem, even though we are adults. Our emotions overwhelm us and we don’t know how to express our most deeply held views. We don’t have the words, or we haven’t had a rational moment to craft what we most want to say, but there is great power in “using our words.”

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the world rejoiced. In celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its fall, I reflected on the kind of conviction, the kind of voice, required to break down walls—be they miles of concrete in a former Communist region or invisible but no-less-apparent barricades in an office setting, or in our community or home.

Would the Berlin Wall have fallen without President Reagan’s 1987 speech challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”? Probably, but not as quickly. Yet according to The Wall Street Journal, officials in the State Department, the National Security Council, and the White House all pushed Reagan to deep-six his “tear down this wall” rhetoric. They warned that Reagan’s “sock-it-to-’em” line would incense Gorbachev and fray relations. Reagan left the line in. The wall came tumbling down.

SPEAKING OUT WITH CONVICTION

As a sell-side analyst on Wall Street, the stakes were obviously much lower for me than they were for Reagan. Money was involved, but not lives or freedom. I nonetheless struggled to be decisive in assigning a buy or sell rating to a stock. When I upgraded, short investors were unhappy. If I downgraded a stock, the reactions were even worse; not only were long investors unhappy, the executives and owners whose net worth stood to dwindle were steamed.

I eventually learned what President Reagan knew. The only safe harbor is our convictions. Safe not because it proves we are right, or guarantees our popularity, but safe because it ensures we are honest to our core values. Articulating our beliefs tears down walls of our own insecurities and clears the way for others to change.

Although speaking from conviction might require us to say something others don’t want to hear, it’s not unkind. Gorbachev might not have wanted to hear, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” but President Reagan wasn’t throwing him under the bus. On the contrary, he was saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, you have the opportunity to do something grand and good. It will require sacrifice, but I believe you’re up to the challenge.”

Learning to make a decisive stock call was terribly difficult. I didn’t want people to be mad at me. However, it got easier when I had a boss who encouraged, even challenged me —“You aren’t a shrinking violet!”—to be decisive, to have an opinion. His belief that I could do something grand within my sphere of stock picking was a turning point. Perhaps President Reagan’s words were a turning point for Mr. Gorbachev as well.

I believe the same is true for you and me.

Reagan’s speechwriters discouraged him. His challenge would be unpopular. In my own situation, I feared antagonizing those with whom I worked. And yet, just as the world needed to hear what Reagan had to say, the world needs to hear what you and I have to say. Our point of view, our feminine point of view, matters. It matters to encourage others and advocate for the grand and good things that are our dreams. In fact, I believe one of the most important things I learned while working in the financial sector was to “use my words.”

Buddhist monk Maha Ghosananda was quoted by author Jacqueline Novogratz in The Blue Sweater: “If you move through the world only with your intellect, then you walk on only one leg. If you move through the world only with your compassion, then you walk on only one leg. But if you move through the world with both intellect and compassion, then you have wisdom.”

Elizabeth Harmer Dionne, a retired attorney who is currently pursuing her PhD in political science at Boston College, is a woman who is using her words to defend one of her dreams, that of being a mother.

Elizabeth Harmer Dionne: The Economics of Motherhood

Children are expensive. The projected lifetime cost for raising a child range from $180,000 to $290,000 to well north of one million dollars, depending on the neighborhood, possessions, and education a family selects.

Raising children exacts other costs. One study reported that 93 percent of “highly qualified” women who wanted to reenter the workforce after raising children were unable to return to their chosen career. In other words, there’s a robust off-ramp and an anemic on-ramp. Another study found that professional women who have a child experience a 10 to 15 percent drop in subsequent earnings. Numerous studies indicate that professional women still bear a disproportionate share of childrearing and housekeeping duties.

Linda Hirshman’s controversial book Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World verbally lashed highly educated women who opt out of the workforce in order to raise their children. According to Hirshman, such women fail the collective good of all women by succumbing to the pressures of a sexist culture. They perpetuate unequal pay and professional glass ceilings.

A recent issue of Wellesley magazine highlighted alumnae who chose to stay home. One woman stated that the hours she put into parenting made her a better mother than one who worked. The professional women who wrote letters to the editor were livid. However, there is an undeniable logic to the alumna’s statement. Doing something part-time (including parenting) does not render one a failure, or even merely inadequate. Nonetheless, there is a certain proficiency that follows effort and experience. There are variations in inherent ability, but performance typically improves with practice.

I left the practice of law when it became clear that my autistic son needed an advocate. The collective chaos of managing three children, a fourth pregnancy, two nannies, a housekeeper, and a demanding career finally overwhelmed me. My husband and I considered hiring someone to manage our autistic son’s education and therapies, but I simply couldn’t delegate his care. I needed firsthand knowledge of his diagnosis and how to treat it.

Leaving professional life was hard. I walked away from friends, a schedule, a salary, and social stature. I plunged into full-time parenting, something at which I was not proficient—something that still perplexes me! However, remaining in the workforce would have been harder. I made a free choice, fully apprised of the risk I took, and I have never looked back.

Philosopher Ayn Rand believed there is no such thing as sacrifice. Rather, there are only rational decisions that bring us closer to our ultimate goals. In other words, the choices we make are irrefutable evidence of what we value. Even generous acts reflect a set of values. Living in accordance with those values gratifies us, hence our gain outweighs our loss.

In a world of scarcity and competing demands, Rand’s view has a certain hard-nosed rationality. We give up something we want for something we want more. We each have a single life, made up of finite seconds that tick inexorably away. How we choose to spend each day both expresses our values and carries us closer to our ultimate goals, even if we have never articulated precisely what those values and goals are.

I was fortunate that my decision to come home had a positive, even miraculous, outcome for my son. Others make similar decisions without such obvious payback. I still have professional aspirations, and I’m pursuing them wholeheartedly, but I will not return to the practice of law. My time at home focused my values and helped me understand what I want to do with my remaining days, months, and years.

Criticizing highly educated women who “opt out” ignores two realities: the first is that society reaps tremendous, tangible benefits from able women (and men) who have the time to cultivate their families, neighborhoods, schools, churches, and politics. If all the capable people are working eighty hours a week, who will tend to our children, communities, and culture? Second, some values are intangible. Not everything can be monetized. It is good, and even necessary, that women be represented in all walks of professional life, because it expands the world of possibility for all women. However, there are values that defy commodification, such as the well-being of our children and even ourselves. There is also the opportunity to perpetuate our values through generations to come. By raising children well, we leave an indelible mark on posterity. Surely this is a rational choice that is worth the cost.

In learning to use our words, we believe what we say matters, that our opinions are as important as our encouraging words. What we think and say can summon the best in others; it can also be an important tool for achieving our dreams. For instance, were someone to question Elizabeth’s decision to leave the workforce, I’m confident that she would have at least five well-crafted talking points that articulate her reasons. We can have our talking points too. Said Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, “Once you have learned to trust your own voice . . . you have the basic tool to fulfill your dreams.”

ACTIVATING YOUR NAME

An important piece of finding your voice is activating your name. In his book The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande explains that complicated processes like surgery, where human error can lead to tragedy, require checklists. One of the most important, but often seen as superfluous, steps in his Surgical Safety Checklist is to make sure everyone in the operating room knows each other by name. Gawande found that when introductions were made before surgery, the average number of complications and deaths fell by 35 percent. He attributed this dip to the “activation phenomenon”: having gotten a chance to voice their names, people were much more likely to speak up later if they saw a problem.

On a recent visit to a university campus, I experienced the emboldening power of names firsthand. After announcing my last name to the parking lot sentry, whom I hadn’t seen for months, he asked, “Is your first name Whitney?” A number of luminaries pass in and out of that parking lot daily, yet this man remembered my name; I found myself sitting a little taller. Taking the positive influence of names even further, many have credited Bill Clinton’s remarkable political success to his prowess at not only reading people but also remembering their names.

Just as hearing or saying your name can boost your confidence, not hearing your name can detract from it. For example, as I was writing this chapter, my colleagues and I cohosted a business event. When introductions were made, my name was inadvertently omitted. All were aware of the omission as soon as it happened, but it was done. When I thought to chime in during the question-and-answer session (and ordinarily would have), I couldn’t quite. Because I had not been named, self-doubt crept in, and I found myself unable to fully participate.

Any words that people use to name us or, more generally speaking, to label us deeply affect our identity. The Zookeeper’s Wife is the story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, Polish Christian zookeepers who, horrified by Nazi racism, managed to save more than three hundred people. Author Diane Ackerman writes movingly about Polish émigré Eva Hoffman’s psychic earthquake of having to shed her name in order to save her life: “Nothing much has happened, except a small, seismic mental shift. The twist in our names takes them a tiny distance from us—but it is a gap into which the infinite hobgoblin of abstraction enters.”

Suddenly Eva Hoffman’s given name, and that of her sister, no longer exists even though “they were as surely us as our eyes or hands.” The new names were actually “identification tags, disembodied signs pointing to objects that happen to be my sister and myself. We walk to our seats, into a roomful of unknown faces, with names that make us strangers to ourselves.”

DISCOVERING WHO YOU ARE

Our names, our identities, our figuring out “This is who I am” are a huge part of discovering our dreams. And haven’t many of us said, “I’ll start dreaming once I wrap up with X, Y, or Z project.” At the same time, we are asking ourselves, “Why do I keep putting things off? There’s so much to do but I can’t get anything done.”

Perhaps we have it backwards. Perhaps having goals for ourselves is not something to do after we’ve wrapped up X, Y, and Z projects. Perhaps daring to dream is a goal we need to pursue now, because it’s key to getting those X, Y, and Z projects done.

Psychologist Timothy Pychyl writes in an article titled “Teenagers, Identity Crises, and Procrastination” that if we can’t answer the questions “Who am I?” and “What am I?” we’re more likely to procrastinate. In other words, the more people know who they are, the less likely they are to procrastinate. Pychyl explains the interconnectedness between identity and agency as follows: “Identity is that knowledge of who we are. . . . Agency is the belief that we are in control of our decisions and responsible for our outcomes. . . . It means we make a difference, we make things happen, we act on the world. Thus, being an active agent depends on identity, or knowing who we are.”

Perhaps, then, the best thing we can do is to put our busyness to the side, and instead focus on our identity and our dreams—or, as management consultant Robin Dickinson said after he read Pychyl’s study, “Focus on your To-Be List, before the To-Do List.” When we return to that to-do list we might just find we’re actually beginning to get things done.

Through dreaming, we can find our voice and know who we are. When we have a clear sense of identity, we can make things happen and act on the world; we can then speak the words that make our dreams become a reality.

USING YOUR WORDS . . .

The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.

—Richard Strauss, nineteenth-century composer