65.1: 10 Days: The Need to Speak
Just by speaking I can break out of my self-made prison.
– June Singer
I had something else planned to post this morning but today’s reading from Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening‘s moved me:
So many times we suppose ourselves out of existence, imagining that if we speak our heart we will be rejected or ignored.
I once watched a man reach to call a friend, excited to share a deep idea that had overcome him. But as the phone was ringing, I saw him imagine a cool reception, saw him try on the pain of not being heard, and quickly, with a sign of deflation, he hung up before the fourth ring.
Still, the expression – whether misunderstood, well received or rejected – matters. For the cost of not making the call is that a piece of us dies. Consider how fish swim and birds fly. They do so because it is in their nature. For it is the swimming and the flying that makes them fish and birds.
Likewise, it is in the speaking of one’s heart that makes a human being human. For even if no one hears us, it is the act of speaking that frees us by letting the spirit swim and fly through the world.