EXPRESS YOURSELF DON’T REPRESS YOURSELF
It’s been a while since I last shared my voice on here.
Nearly two years in fact.
I could say that my silence has been down to being busy with exciting projects, gorgeous clients and a post lockdown calendar that’s bursting at the seams, and I wouldn’t be lying, but I wouldn’t be telling the whole truth either.
The truth is I lost myself for a bit there.
I lost myself and I lost my voice.
The loss of my voice came first.
I lost myself in the silence.
I’ve always found myself through words, through conversation, through talking things out. My voice isn’t just my way of communicating my thoughts, feelings and needs, it’s my way of uncovering those very things. It’s my door into who I am.
I am, without doubt, an external processor. I process out loud. When I try to organise my thoughts in my mind, they can feel like one big jumble but when I talk it out, things get much clearer. This won’t come as much of a surprise to those who’ve had to listen to me over the years(!) but, honestly, I didn’t realise how integral it was to my sense of well being, my sense of self, until I suffered the impact of having fallen out of the habit.
I’ll not burden you with the specifics of how I got there, no doubt you’re navigating your own version of a pandemic hangover, but I want to be open and honest about my struggles because I think the world would be a better place if we all did that as often as we felt able.
For a long time I masked how much I was struggling.
And I was good at it too. I’d whip out the smile and guile and don my old self as a disguise.
But she’d feel empty and loose. As though, instead of expanding and outgrowing that old me, I’d shrunk.
She sagged and gathered about my ankles like Nora Batty’s tights. I had to puff out to fit her, to put on a show to fill out her toes.
I knew all the right beats, which notes to hit and which gestures to make, but they weren’t connected. They weren’t truthful.
They weren’t an honest embodiment of how or what I felt or even of what I really wanted to communicate.
I thought I was giving people what they were expecting, what they wanted, but I was building barriers rather than bridges.
Why couldn’t I reach out and tell my friends, family, or even my partner, how much I was struggling?
If it was because I didn’t want them to see the messy, unsure, insecure, vulnerable version of me, I probably should have brushed up on my Brené or simply read my own words on perfectionism and connection.
The best version of any of us is the truest version.
It’s our willingness to show up as our messy, imperfect selves that leads to that connection we all crave.
And this is no less true when it comes to acting and accents.
To feel at home in a new character, voice or accent you’ll likely have to implement the same strategy as I do to feel at home in my own mind.
It’s one thing to have a technical, cerebral understanding of the palette of features that make up an accent, voice or character but it’s a different thing entirely to have knowledge of what it feels like to use those features to connect and communicate.
You know those performances that tick all the technical boxes but for some reason just don’t land, or, like me in my Nora Batty suit, land way too hard? I’d wager those actors haven’t gotten around to the ‘feels like’ bit yet.
To find the embodied connection required for a performance that draws people in, you, like me, will need to do a hell of a lot of processing out loud.
Speak, out loud, in the accent, as the character, as much as possible.
Just as a writer finds their voice through using it, you, too, will find the voice and accent of the character by engaging with it.
Experiment.
Play.
Make mistakes.
Writers get a shot at that shitty first draft so why shouldn’t we allow ourselves the same courtesy when it comes to acting, accents or even life?
Allow yourself the opportunity to explore what it really feels like to use the features of the accent to communicate and connect as that person in every which way. Out loud.
Explore how it feels different to use the new features, tools and sounds instead of your own. Really try them on for size.
Make yourself at home in that distance between your own communication style and that of this new person. Because therein lies the difference between forcing yourself to fit and slipping into something that feels tailor made.
Most of all, embrace the messy stuff! Get curious about the tricky bits. Shine a spotlight on them. Give them plenty of air time. They’re often the keys that unlock it all.
'Clarity comes from engagement not thought’
I couldn’t agree with Marie more on that one. Even if, now and again, my mind might need reminding. Although that mind certainly feels a hell of a lot clearer for having written this. For my having given myself the permission to take up space with my ideas, to poke them and prod them and try them on for size, to test them out, then scribble them out, then test them out again.
It’s been a messy, uncomfortable and exhilarating process. And now, at the end of it, I’m feeling much clearer on and more connected to who I am and what I’m about. And that’s making me feel much more connected to you!
So why don’t you have a go at your version of that shitty first draft?
Why not open your mouth or lift your pen and…
Give yourself permission to take up space even if especially if you’re feeling messy.
Fill that space with your gorgeous, imperfect voice and use it to explore, experiment and try things out.
Get curious about the messy bits… they might just hold the answers you’re looking for…
P.S. Do you think you’re an external processor like me? You might be an internal processor. Why not get googling to find our more about the two thinking styles? It’s a super interesting way of framing things. Although, whichever you are, you’re still going to have to process that accent aloud 😉
P.P.S. It really is okay to not be okay. But you really don’t have to do it in silence. If you’re not sure that speaking to a friend or family member is the right choice for you, why not pick up the phone to the The Samaritans?