In My Own Voice

I am so in love with the way David Whyte speaks so clearly through his poetry of this time we are experiencing in our evolution of choosing radical truth.  I just completed the first module of Embody Shakti Yogini Teacher Training. We spoke a lot about truth and what that means.  Truth is different for each person because it is one’s own personal experience. In my experience it’s not always easy to stay on this path because not only are we creatures of habit but we can also feel safer in the heard. Discovering our truth requires deep self study and inquiry and the willingness to look at all parts of ourself with radical honesty.  It also means we take full responsibility for our choices and never blame anyone outside of ourselves for the outcome.

I have been a yoga teacher here in Boulder  for almost 20 years and it has been a great edge for me to step into my own creative expression; to find my true voice and offer my truth from the teachings that have moved me along on my evolutionary path. For many of us who are more comfortable in the shadows, it feels very vulnerable and scary to show our authentic selves because it doesn’t always feel pretty. It’s often the part of ourselves we have outcast so we are disassociated from that part.

The first line in this David Whyte poem, “All the True Vows” that speaks so clearly to me is:

Hold to the truth you make every day with your own body, don’t turn your face away..

Turning our face away from our truth, blame others and go about our lives in the same manner we have is easier.  Until of course it’s not.  Until that voice becomes so enraged that she has not had a voice that she starts to lash out at others.  Yes, this is what happened to me and wasn’t pretty at all.  But she spoke loud and clear.  She was angry and she needed to get my attention before it was too late.

Then he finishes with:

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

I am living this in my life as we speak.  All the other voices are finally fading away as I break the contracts I once signed. I am speaking for the first time, after all these years, in my own voice and I have never felt more liberated and alive.

When we have the courage to see and give the deeper aspects of ourselves a voice, integrating that into the essence of who we are, everything shifts. Then we open to a world of possibility rather than limitation.

All the True Vows

by David Whyte

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.

Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen

nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.

By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,

it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.

Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you

and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,

that way you’ll find
what is real and what is not.

I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

– See more at: http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2012/04/09/david-whyte-all-the-true-vows-2/#sthash.opTFfTCI.dpuf