The new year is usually a time for giving up what no longer works. We promise to eat less sugar, watch less TV, or stop procrastinating so much. We all know how long overzealous resolutions last. But maybe this is the year to do it a little differently. How about adding something wonderful to our lives instead of taking it away? A resolution that makes us feel good about ourselves, that brings more of who we really are into our daily living. This year let’s give ourselves the gift of our authentic voice. Unfortunately there’s no waving of a magic wand to make it happen, if there was I would’ve done it a long time ago. But I can give some pointers for recognizing your truth when you see it.

These gifts come wrapped as daring and courage. This does not necessarily mean running into a burning building or rescuing stray cats, although this could absolutely be a part of your real voice. Often the biggest gifts we possess come to us in the smallest and most unsuspecting of packages. A fleeting insight grabbed hold of and brought to life. Many times the greatest courage and daring comes from the tiniest recognition spoken out loud. The repercussions of speaking our truth are vast.

Here’s how one of the small packages came wrapped for me. I used to act. I went to school for it, trained in it, did a ton of monologues, exercises, and plays. But though it all I was constantly measuring myself and my ability against everyone around me. It felt like there was a mysterious something you had to have or understand to really master this craft. Of course, it was a mysterious something I felt I didn’t possess. One day after a particularly crazy exercise my partner and I were sitting on stage being asked about our motivation for the scene. Oh boy, here it was, the deep mystery I would never really be in touch with, that unimaginable depth and connection I could never articulate.

My partner was first and talked on and on about her insightful and complicated intention and motivation. She had it down. All the while I sunk lower and lower into the vast unknowing, the realization that I have no idea what I am doing on this stage or on life’s stage for that matter. I felt like a fraud. The instructor gave a couple ideas and adjustments and then it was my turn. There were no deep and twisted family burdens, no psychological catastrophes, I said the only thing that dawned on me to say, a truth that I felt wasn’t enough. I thought I had to have a similar heart-felt, deeply wrenching intention like my partner, but that’s not what came, no matter how hard I tried to conjure it into being. Instead I stopped trying and simply spoke what I felt, stripped down, and uncomplicated.

You know what happens next. The class erupted, there was laughter and applause with the instructor saying, that’s it, absolutely right on. That’s exactly what we’re looking for, a straightforward, simple motivation. Is this not how it always goes? We think we need to be so clever, so cutting edge, but the truth is we just need to be ourselves. We only need to say what is real for us. This is the real daring and courage, to speak out loud what we find waiting deep down in our heart, at our core of who we are.

So let this be the year to begin. The year you say what is real for you. Dare to say what you find on the inside. Because the truth is we all want to speak from the voice we find there. Each one of us wishes we had the courage to be who we really are and accepted for this alone.

Here’s your chance.

Happy New Year.

kb