The small voice inside her grew louder. Because the woman could not hear it yet, it spoke through her body as illness. This illness tied her tummy in knots. Knots made up of the longing and frustration to be heard. The woman felt the voice every day. It was the current that guided her life invisibly. Some days it was stronger, some days weaker. The busier she became the voice faded into the background. But it never went away, it waited patiently. There was something so important, essential, that the voice needed the woman to hear. Something that came from childhood, which could never be spoken back then. When the woman was a girl and needed to say it the most. To have a kind adult listen to her, take notice and cradle her tiny hands, holding and believing the feelings and emotions behind the words. But no one was there to hear. So the voice lay buried for years, aching inside the girl. As she grew the girl built rooms around the voice. Rooms within houses, within countries. Landscapes of wild beauty and raw desolation. Deserts with rolling waves of sand burned under the sun. Tundra of ice and snow, jagged mountains towering over the small determined voice.
Covering it.
All the voice needed from the woman was to be heard. To speak out loud that which had waited for so long. To be listened to. Childhood had passed, the girl had survived the horrors which were the birth of the voice, so there was nothing, nothing to be said in return. Just to listen. Finally. That was the ultimate salve, the ultimate love that could be given to the girl and the woman. To hear, to acknowledge, to know what the voice had needed to say right from the beginning. The voice never gave up the hopeful dream of being heard. Like a swallow flying South for Summer, it kept on until it reached its destination. Sometimes the smallest most delicate being has the fiercest intentions. Then one day in pain and illness the woman feeling desperation at last heard the voice, what was needed to be said all those years ago. Like a damn breaking the short sentence burst forward. It was simple, it was clear. It was a truth denied a thousand times over with all manner of activities and behaviours designed to keep it quiet, so survival could triumph. So the truth it contained could be held back from annihilating the girl, saving her from a certain death within the complete abandonment and terror she had once lived.
I am afraid, said the voice. I am scared.
The voice repeated this over and over. The woman knew it needed to be said for as long as it needed to be said. What had been impossible to acknowledge as a child was finally out. Finally free. The woman was amazed. It seemed so obvious, yet this ultimate truth she had kept locked down in silence was the door to another life. A life without buried fear. This huge truth had dominated her life keeping her from owning her true power. Hidden, so deeply for survival’s sake, its meaning had fuelled her life. It had held her back. This simple, powerful truth with it’s need to be met with love and hope was at last out in the open. Released. The girl and the woman she was now were released too, because knowing your story is everything. The birth of consciousness of her voice with its truths, fears, desires and longings would allow her mind and body to finally live in peace and stillness. I am afraid , I am scared said the girl inside the woman, and the woman responded, I hear you now. I only wish to hear because listening is love, hearing is love. Receiving you is love. Being is love. Believing is love. The woman felt she may now be able to grow old in peace for she had found her voice and had accepted it as part of her. She could now give her voice what she had needed, all those years ago. Love and safety. Peace and safety. Trust and safety. The stormy inner world of her emotions, calling out through her body fell calm. The wall between her and a separate existence from herself and the world crumbled. She could be one at last, she could be whole.