How to hear your own voice again and stop abandoning yourself
A reflection on time, regret, and five practical ways to come home to yourself.
10 MIN READ
Rather listen?
I narrated this one for you.
I think a lot of us live under the impression that we have a lot of time.
Time to figure it out. Time to change. Time to repair what needs repairing. Or even enough time to become who we always wanted to be.
Maybe we do.
But maybe we don’t.
I spent Friday night thinking about this for hours, after finishing The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a novel I had been excited to read and, even now, I’m not sure I liked it.
What I do know is that I haven’t stopped thinking about what it brought up in me, which really was the question of:
What am I growing now that I will have to harvest someday ?
And what if harvest comes sooner than I expect?
I’ve left a few questions and practical ways to explore this at the end if you’d like to sit with that yourself.
Meeting Sybil
The Correspondent is told through the letters of Sybil Van Antwerp, a woman in her seventies whose correspondence slowly reveals her work, family, relationships and tremendous grief.
I found Sybil fascinating.
I also found her to be selfish, rigid and, at times, deeply unlikable.
She had spent much of her life prioritizing her career, sometimes at great cost to her family. After the devastating loss of her young son, the art of living seemed to become a prison she couldn’t bare to face.
By the time we meet her, Sybil is hard and brittle. Kindness reaches for her and she resists it. People attempt to love her and she often keeps them at a distance.
But, I kept reading.
I wanted to know what happened to her and how her story would end.
And sooner than I’d prepared for, the book ended.
Sybil died.
That’s It?
Toward the end of Sybil’s life, things began changing.
She softens. She admits hard truths and finally asks for forgiveness. She allows herself companionship and begins receiving some of the love that had been trying to reach her.
She is also losing her sight.
I felt like I was watching someone hurry up and try to live.
And then there were no more letters.
I sat there with the book in my hands thinking, That’s it?
I was so disappointed.
And then, another thought arrived almost immediately:
But that’s life.
One day there won’t be another chapter.
We spend so much of adulthood sowing toward later. We work. We raise families. We make sacrifices and build things with the expectation that eventually there will be a season when we get to reap and enjoy the harvest.
Then eventually comes.
But, what if we don’t like what we’ve grown? Or what if we don’t get as much time to enjoy it as we thought?
That’s what stayed with me about Sybil.
And it made me wonder how many of us are doing some version of this right now?
Maybe Regret Isn’t the Measure
I’ve spent plenty of time imagining my 80- or 90-year-old self and asking if she’ll be proud of present-day Ambyr?
And while I think there is wisdom in that, there’s absolutely no way to guarantee what she’ll feel, or if there will be any regrets.
For the first time in my life, I’m okay with releasing that as the assignment and choosing something else. Something more aligned.
Staying as close as possible to Ambyr.
Or more simply put, being able to hear my voice above everyone else’s.
If I can just commit to that, then perhaps in my golden years, I will reap a harvest that’s mine and still recognize the woman who planted it.
If you’re wondering How You Can Do This…
I’m no expert but I think it’s more available than we realize.
That is, the art of coming home to yourself.
As I research books, interviews, and podcasts, there are an overwhelming amount of resources to help discover your soul’s purpose, the power of intention, and what it means to become your truest, most aligned, self.
There’s quite a bit of woo-woo, but there are also many things I’ve tried and found useful in hearing my own voice and distinguishing it from that of others.
Here are the 5 things I would tell you to do right now if you’ve been guilty of people pleasing, silencing your own voice, or are riddled with the fear of disappointment. 👇🏾
1. Stop immediately asking everyone else.
If you’re used to having an idea and immediately calling someone, asking five people what they think, or looking for confirmation—try not doing that.
Sometimes talking about something too soon means defining it before you’ve had enough time to know what you think. Before long, someone else has an opinion, you’re responding to their reaction, and now there are voices in the room that never needed to be there.
Try This Instead:
Give your thoughts some privacy.
I’ve started doing this by simply not telling people everything right away. And I have the gift of gab. I can talk for hours. But when something feels new or important, I try to let it belong only to me for a while. I sit with it. I write about it. I let myself form an opinion before I invite anyone else into it.
The goal isn’t to stop asking for advice or become closed off to other perspectives. It’s to learn what your own voice sounds like before it gets crowded out by everyone else’s.
I don’t need my voice to be the only one. I want it to be the loudest.
Warning: the practice of this may feel extremely uncomfortable at first.
2. Journal about the ordinary stuff.
If you’re trying to hear your own voice again, start keeping a record of what’s happening inside of you—not just the big revelations, but the completely ordinary stuff too.
I’ve journaled for as long as I could write, and it looked different in every season.
As a child, sometimes I drew what I couldn’t articulate.
I remember a teacher embarrassing me once and going to my journal and drawing a rocker absolutely raging.🤘🏾
Apparently, that’s what I had to say. 😂
Your journal doesn’t have to be literature. It doesn’t even have to contain words. It only needs to give you somewhere to show up without immediately explaining yourself to anyone else.
Try This Instead:
Write about the ordinary.
I ate breakfast. I went to work. Teresa from HR cut me off again while I was speaking. Why does she think she can do that? I feel like screaming every time she does it! And she needs a breath mint!! Anyway, I drove home mad. My cute puppy was waiting for me. He loves me so much. I skipped dinner #skinny. When will my dreams come true?
You see? 11 short sentences that actually reveal so much.
This step is meant to help you notice where your words and energy multiply. It’s an easy information-gathering tool.
And over time, those pages give you something incredibly valuable: a record of your own voice.
Note: No Teresa’s were harmed in the making of this post.
3. Notice your response before you do—or commit to doing—anything.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve been learning is that answering too quickly can sometimes betray my own best interests.
Before saying yes, committing, or taking action, pause long enough to ask:
Do I want to do this?
Then ask whether it aligns with your values or contributes to the greater mission you have for your life—or whether your answer is being driven by fear of disappointing someone else.
I’ve learned that when I override my own voice without examining it first, regret and rumination usually follow. Now I’m replaying the conversation, resenting the commitment, or trying to figure out how to undo something I never really wanted to do.
Try This Instead:
Give yourself time before you give an answer.
Option #1: “I need to think about that.”
Option #2: “Let me get back to you.”
Option #3: “Not at the moment, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
You don’t owe an immediate answer simply because someone asked you a question.
You may end up deciding to do something you don’t really want to do. Sometimes, that’s life.
But there is a difference between choosing a sacrifice and abandoning yourself to one.
Give yourself enough time to know which one you’re doing.
4. Pay attention to the people you can’t stop watching.
Think about the people who repeatedly capture your attention.
Maybe you save their posts, bring them up in conversation, wonder how they make decisions, or find yourself studying the way they move through the world. They don’t even have to be people you like. Sometimes irritation, envy or curiosity keeps someone on your mind just as much as admiration does.
Ask yourself: What exactly am I responding to?
I’ve noticed that some of the people who fascinate me have almost nothing obvious in common. I don’t necessarily want their lives or even want to be like them. But when I look closer, I can usually identify something specific that keeps pulling me back.
Try This Instead:
Separate the person from the quality.
Write down three to five people who repeatedly capture your attention. Beside each name, write what specifically fascinates you about them—sometimes it’s what they have, other times it’s what you see in them.
Maybe it’s freedom. Self-possession. Creativity. Softness. Courage. Discipline. The way they take up space. The way they’ve unapologetically built a life around what matters to them.
Then look for the pattern.
Sometimes the qualities we can’t stop noticing in other people are pointing toward something we value deeply, want more of, or already recognize somewhere within ourselves.
5. Ask yourself: What’s the rush?
I recently saw a video on Instagram where a woman demonstrated how much we rush through completely ordinary tasks. She moved quickly from one thing to the next until she stopped herself and asked:
“What’s the rush?”
That really stayed with me.
Sometimes haste is required. But have you ever stopped to notice when it isn’t?
I find, admittedly, that I have less patience as a mother when I’m rushing. So lately, when I feel myself speeding up, I remember that video and actually say aloud: What’s the rush, Amb?
Almost immediately, I notice myself soften.
And suddenly, the toddler who just destroyed the room I just finished cleaning becomes the cutest little guy ,who recently landed on Earth, and is fascinated by everything new to him—not someone trying to make things hard for his mom.
It just helps me move with so much more grace.
Try This Instead:
Interrupt the rush.
Ask yourself: Does this actually require urgency?
And when it doesn’t, slow something down on purpose. Drink the coffee sitting down. Take the extra minute with your child. Leave one drive quiet. If you only have 15 minutes, take the 15.
Slowing down gives you enough space to notice what rushing can hide—how you feel, what you need, what you’re thinking, and what’s actually happening right in front of you.
Sometimes hearing yourself starts with moving slowly enough to catch up with yourself.
Journal Prompts—For Your Quiet Time
You don’t have to answer all of these. Choose the one that makes you pause.
Where in my life do I feel most like myself right now?
Where have I learned to perform instead of simply being?
What do I already know is true for me that I keep negotiating away?
What am I postponing because I assume there will be time for it later?
What am I cultivating today that I will eventually have to live with (Good and bad)?
What principles do I want to remain true to even when there is an incentive not to?
If I stopped trying to prevent every future regret, what would I choose from where I stand today?
What does coming home to myself look like in this season?
And finally:
What is one thing I already know?
Maybe coming home to yourself starts much smaller than we think.
Maybe you get quiet enough to hear one thing you already know—and this time, you don’t immediately talk yourself out of it.
Start there. 🤍
With Love,
Ambyr
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