Your True Voice
After a decade of looking for freedom, in my voice and in my life, this is what I have found to be true: no matter how hard I try, I cannot fake freedom.
As a singer, it's important for me to have a free voice. Not pushed, not held back, but full and generous, open and honest.
In life, my goal is the same.
For one's voice--physical or metaphorical--to be free like this is not a matter of effort, but of trust. I must believe, not just in my head but in my bones, that my voice is enough. Then, and only then, does my true voice feel safe to make its way out into the world.
Over the years, I've Learned to appreciate and value this true voice so much more than any technically perfect sound I could ever make. That is a big shift compared to 20 and 30-year-old Nathan.
Earlier in my career, I spent a lot of energy trying to become technically proficient enough to sound free. But the more I tried, the less free and the more imprisoned I became.
There eventually came a point when I genuinely didn't know what my "true voice" was like.
I suppose it's natural that the older we get the more we lose our taste for being "impressive" and start to wonder who we really are. What's interesting about this shift is that the very thing we're looking for by trying to be impressive is what we find when we finally have the courage to look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are.
I am sending you this letter today as an invitation to do just that.
You may not be a singer, but you have an important voice in this world. And it is perfect.
Are you acquainted with this voice? Not the one you've worked at--that you've planned and executed--but the voice which emerges when you truly feel in your bones that you are safe to simply be.
If you're like me--or, I suspect, like most people--your answer might be no.
That's fine. It's great, actually. Today is the day.
My hope for you is that today you will find your true voice. And I want to tell you that today this voice is waiting to be found.
The only path that has led me to my own free, true voice has been by way of letting go. By trusting that my voice is enough.
I have not been able to control my way to a free voice. And that's the point. There's no need to control your way into possession of something which is already yours. No need to perfect something which is already perfect.
The path for your free, true voice in this world is by way of letting go, and trusting that you are already enough.