Finding Your Voice in Estrangement

"The voice is the muscle of the soul" Alfred Wolfsohn

Rooted Wellbeing is a monthly series exploring everyday wellbeing practices for healing and growth, simple, inclusive, and accessible ways to support ourselves through the challenges of estrangement. Offering gentle invitations to pause, reconnect and grow small roots of steadiness and care.

I’m Jules, an Integrative Counsellor, Wellbeing Facilitator and Trainee Somatic Trauma Therapist, through this series, I share practices that have supported me and within the communities I work with, including my own lived experience of estrangement. My hope is that each piece offers something you may want to explore or gently lean into, as a reminder that we can find small moments of steadiness, reflection, space to express and connection.

Sharing our Voice

There is often something deeply vulnerable in sharing our voice, not just the words we speak but the sound of us; A breath that carries a note, the lift in our chest when we feel seen and heard, reverberations in the bones when we are able to let something out that’s been held in for too long.

For many of us navigating estrangement, our voices may feel lost, get tangled up in fear, self-doubt and the body’s survival responses. When we’re not in connection with our family of origin, when old patterns are explored, seen and shifted, the nervous system doesn’t always notice cues of safety, our bodies can often remember threat and hold many of our stories. One of the most common places that echoes remembrance in tension, can show up in the throat the literal and metaphorical place of voice.

I want to name, too, that writing and sharing about my voice feels vulnerable, there are many moments wvagus here my voice wobbles, my throat and chest tighten as I share, speak or write publicly about my lived experiences, a quiet question of “is this too much?” or “am I allowed to take up this space?” Staying with the fear and discomfort with compassion when I use and share my voice is an ongoing practice, learning that I don’t need to be perfect to be heard.

When the Body Says “Don’t”

The freeze response is one of our earliest, oldest survival instincts; when the threat feels overwhelming the body often drops into stillness, the primal instinct to stay rather than move, quietening the system so we don’t attract danger, a biological strategy from primal times. Navigating estrangement can bring in and heighten our fear responses, in the tightening of the jaw before a difficult text, the swallowing of words you wished you could say, the feeling of a knot in your chest that doesn’t quite disappear, the fear held in our throat often humming in the background.

So many of us learn to not use our voices when we were younger, whether this was because speaking up felt unsafe, or we learned that our needs would be ignored if voiced. Estrangement can amplify that old pattern; the voice that once served its purpose to keep us safe is now stuck in the off position long after the danger may have passed.

Sound, Singing and the Shape of Healing

Using our voice in sound, not just speech can be transformative; Singing, humming, chanting, primal sounds, letting out a scream in safe space these are all ways of telling the nervous system we are alive, here, and we can use our voices. There’s growing understanding in Somatic and trauma-informed work about the voice as a nervous system regulator, vibratory sounds can soothe the Vagus Nerve, calm the nervous system, helping us to reclaim agency in a body that may have been hypervigilant and on guard for too long. Singing can engage breath, body, creativity, emotional release and expression all at once.

Singing Together, Singing Alone

For many, singing with others in a group can bring connection, choirs are not just about harmonies; they can bring belonging, hearts beating together, breath synchronising, and bodies making sound in unison, there’s something profound in standing shoulder to shoulder with others, voices rising and falling in a shared space.

If a choir isn’t something that feels right for you, or you are unable to access one, there are many ways to explore your voice

• Singing in the shower

• Humming along to a favourite tune

• Practicing vocal exercises 

• Recording your voice just for you

• Letting out a scream into a cushion

I love a good scream, occasionally into the sea, in the car with the windows firmly shut, and if I’m at home alone I will scream with primal rage, releasing any noises, sounds that need to be released, it’s not pretty, but it’s honest, and often my nervous system feels grounded and soothed afterwards.

Finding Your Voice Through Sound Practices

Here are some gentle resources you may want to explore

Podcasts & Talks

Singing Through Trauma – Unleashing the Healing Power of Voice | Menoosha Muziki | TEDxGallusWomen

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The Healing Power of the Human Voice with Maryn Azoff

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Vocal Function Exercises 

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Trauma Gets Stuck in the Throat (Here's How to Release It) The Healthy Voice | Bella Payne

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Why This Matters in Estrangement

Estrangement doesn’t just separate us from our families of origin, it can also disconnect us from ourselves, we learn to stay small, to hold in, to silence our needs to avoid conflict or rejection. Reclaiming the voice can support us to stand in our bodies, feel into the power of hearing our voice and letting it speak.

When we use our voices musically, vocally, whether it’s a scream or a sigh we tell our nervous systems that we are present, we have agency, we have a story that matters, we matter.

Images 

1 & 2 stockcake 

4 Creator and Credit Maartje Monne