How to Get Your Voice Back When You Lose It

I grew up scarcely using my voice. That’s honestly not an exaggeration. I was not only shy, I was stubborn about the wrong sort of things. Like refusing to answer questions, keeping my ideas inside my head, and insisting I had no opinion.

That’s how our small-town community knew me–as the girl who barely talked. 

I wasn’t wordless, of course. I’d spend hours a day drinking glorious words from pages of books. Vicariously, I lived the richest of experiences alongside animals who talked, princesses who escaped by boat at night, and classical characters who beckoned me back in time.

As I grew, so did my vocabulary and my justice sensitivity. I’d forget for heart-pounding hours that I wasn’t living in Europe during the Holocaust. By the time I finished another historical fiction series, I was confident I could find my way around Jerusalem blindfolded. 

But find my way out of the floundering sense of identity I’d adopted? I didn’t know where to start.

Everyone now expected me to stay silent. I expected me to stay silent. And that felt like a label I couldn’t lift, no matter the longing inside to open up and be known.

Your Voice Matters Too

Underneath my slouched posture and avoidance of eye contact was the belief that my voice didn’t matter. I left speaking up to those whose words were more effortless, less awkward. I thought that meant they mattered more.

Perhaps you can relate.

You dismiss the value of your voice because someone else can articulate it better, say it with more confidence, or couch it in more credibility. You second-guess, self-critique, self-sabotage. 

Because, like me, you struggle to believe, way down deep, that your voice also matters. You forget the very sound of your voice is pleasant to God. That the way we see and what we say is not exactly like anyone else, and that’s God’s confirmation that we each have value.

Getting Your Voice Back

Although, by grace, I’m learning to push through the self-doubt and let other people in, I literally lost my voice recently, and it resurfaced childhood memories of staying quiet. Awkward hours in the car with girls I considered friends but felt inferior around. Mission trips halfway around the world where my shyness followed me. Communications classes where conversations paced faster than I could keep up.

Back then, I couldn’t call it seasonal allergies, and I certainly never lost my voice from talking too much. Yet, I find the process of recovering our voices is similar. Let me explain.

First, we rest.

I spoke in a whisper, and as little as possible, for several days after losing my voice because I sounded so terrible, but mostly because rest restores our bodies when we’ve pushed them too hard or are immunocompromised. 

To overcome the lies that keep up from using our voices, we also need rest. Rest from the barrage of self-critical assessments and comparisons that we unconsciously entertain. And rest in the truth that God sees value in us because He put it there, on purpose, for a purpose.

As an Enneagram 9 with a strong 1 wing, I get the constant chatter of an inner critic. It’s a loud and relentless voice continually nitpicking your work and your self-worth. Whether or not you’re familiar with Enneagram language, you too might be harder on yourself than anyone else will ever be.

Maybe it’s that voice inside your head that quiets your own voice. Because the more often we put ourselves down inside our heads, the less value we see in our voices.

Telling the shame and shoulds to take a time out can feel as futile as trying to push darkness out of a room. Resting in what God’s says about us is like turning on a light switch. It zaps the negativity and floods us with God’s affection for us.

Second, we sip tea.

While we rest exhausted vocal cords, we might also find hot tea soothing. I love any excuse to sip multiple cups of tea a day, even if my mostly-milk chai barely counts.

Tea slows us down–our hands but also our souls. We’ve got to pause productivity and make space for healing. It’s a reset I often need.

I can’t power-walk with a cup of tea in my hands. I can’t even type with both hands unless I take frequent breaks. 

But what can I do? I can sit down for a few minutes. I can soak in a worship song. I can read my Bible. In the evenings, I can sit on the couch with my husband and enjoy tea and conversation together.

On days I struggle to see the value in the voice God has given me to use for His glory, I can also adopt these practices, pausing to turn my attention to Him and the people around me. Essentially, “sipping tea” is steeping in truth while slowing down to enough to let it do its deep work.

Third, we take extra vitamins.

Admittedly, I land pretty far on the crunchy side of the spectrum. I’ll try about any herbal, purely natural health remedy first: cinnamon to level blood sugar, oregano oil during allergy season, turmeric to keep my obstinate ankle from swelling, green energy powder in place of coffee. So of course, I’d browse the natural health isle for anything to boost immunity and get my voice back more quickly.

Regardless of your vitamin choices, I’ll guess that you also take extra to expedite healing. And just as we take care of our physical bodies by giving them what they need to recover, so too can we overcome the self doubt that steals our voices by being “strengthened with power through [God’s] Spirit in [our] inner being[s]” (I Corinthians 5:16 ESV).

Although there is a limit to the amount of vitamins we can consume in a given day, God does not limit Himself. We can simply ask for more of Him and expect that He’ll respond.

To demonstrate, let’s end with the prayer in Ephesians I touched on briefly. I’ll read straight from The Voice translation, but I encourage you to personalize it as a prayer. Pray Ephesians 5:16-19 over yourself regularly if you’re quick to dismiss the value of your voice:

Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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