Why is finding your voice so challenging?
Why is finding your voice so challenging? After all, it's your voice; shouldn't it come naturally? Shouldn't it just be there, present? After all, it has been with us all along.
Finding your voice is about discovering what you want to say and how you want to express it - a style of storytelling, a narrative structure, an aesthetic that complements our personality. Finding your voice is expressing yourself and how you see the world through a medium of your choosing. For me, that medium is writing and photography. So, why is it so difficult to find something that is inside us? To put it bluntly, it's like gazing at ourselves in the mirror.
It all begins where we lost it in the first place - in childhood. In a series of natural events, we molded and changed ourselves to fit into the group, the community. Whether it was in pre-school, high school, or even within our own homes as we grew up. That moment when you were told, 'Only girls play with dolls,' or 'That looks weird; you sound funny,' or 'That's not how we behave in this household.' Whatever coping mechanism we adopted to fit in and avoid making waves is where we lost our sense of our true, authentic selves.
Most of us rediscover it, usually in university or when we move away from home or leave our hometown. We find a group of peers who resonate with us because they remind us of how we once were or want to become, and we begin to find ourselves again. However, it can take years to regain what we've lost - not just in how we act, dress, or engage with the world, but also in how we express ourselves.
Over time, once we've reconnected with our childhood selves and become the person we've always been inside, we change, evolve, and grow. It's at this point that we begin to experiment and integrate new aspects into our identity - trying things out, seeing if we like them, and adopting a bit from here and a bit from there, shaping our worldview and philosophy. Through our experiences, we change and gradually refine ourselves.
This process of self-discovery and evolution takes time, whether it's about finding your voice, your motivation, your values, your style, your vision, or your perspective on the world. The challenging part about finding your voice is that it's a journey of continual change. Sometimes, it undergoes significant transformations when we least expect it, and sometimes those changes are so subtle that not even our closest relationships notice. Discovering our creative voice involves a great deal of trial and error, sprinkled with the element of time, and I'm confident you'll uncover yours as well.
My own voice has taken a lifetime to mature, and that maturation is a perpetual process. I've reached a point where my voice is refining itself rather than undergoing drastic experimentation, as I did in my younger years. Yet, this refinement also takes time, and time is different for all of us - it's relative. We all perceive, experience, and feel the world differently.
So, why is finding your voice so challenging? Because your voice is always changing. Sometimes, it changes in massive strides when we see it, and sometimes those changes are so small that not even our loved ones notice. Our creative voice takes a lot of trial and error to find, and when you add a sprinkle of time into the mix, I'm sure you will find yours too.