Recently, I was going through some documents and I found the speaker agreements from the year I did my first seminar. Instantly I was taken back to standing in the front of the room for the first time. I remembered how scared I was, how glad I was that there was a podium I could clutch, and how much I hoped that no one could see how terrified I felt. Speaking in front of people had long been a fear of mine, and doing what I did that day was akin to jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

Talking in front of people, or even to people, was often tough for me. I was mush mouthed, I stumbled, I giggled inappropriately. Sometimes I’d snort laugh or blush, in that singular blush that redheads have where their cheeks seem to become the color of their hair. And all the time, in my head, I heard the voices. I was “weird”. I was “fat and ugly”. I “never said anything interesting”. No one “cared what I thought”. Who was I to “think I knew what I was talking about”?

When people say they hear voices, we tend to think it’s about being crazy, but I’d guess we all have voices in our heads, voices from our past and our present that tell us who we are and who we should be. If we’re lucky, the voices are kind and tell us positive things. If we’re not so lucky, the voices are mean, the bullies in swim class, the parent who drinks too much, the people who just don’t get you and don’t care to try, those who are so insecure themselves that they only way they feel like something is to make you feel like nothing.

When I was first asked to do that seminar, all the voices came out in full force. There seemed to be a million reasons why I couldn’t do it. A million reasons why I shouldn’t do it, and only one reason why I should. The reason I should do it, and did do it was simply this. I got to decide who I was and what I could do, nobody else had the right to make that choice for me.

So I stood there, clutching the podium, praying that no one would see my knees trembling and I opened my mouth and I spoke. Was I great? Probably not. Did that matter? Not really. I was good enough to get a second chance the next year, and then another chance the year after that. I learned that I loved being in the front of the room, that I had things to say that were valuable and helpful, that I could make people laugh and think. I learned that, in a small way, I could change the world, and it didn’t matter that people had once said I was fat or weird or boring. I learned that I needed to stop listening to all the negative voices in my head and start listening to my own voice.

The one that, quietly, in a whisper, said “I can do this”.

The one that said, shakily, “I’m terrified, but I’m going to do this anyway”.

The one that murmured, thoughtfully, “Maybe I’m not who they say I am”.

What is your voice saying to you?

Are you listening?