As human beings on the planet today in the midst of a tremendous transformational time. It is our responsibility to speak our truth. To demonstrate to ourselves, our kids, our families and our communities the way to peace of mind. To learn how to connect to our inner voice and give it the respect it deserves. It will take practice. It will take saying things that have been buried for so long they probably aren’t true anymore. What matters is speaking out loud. Giving your still small voice a chance to amplify its deepest truth. Sometimes getting to the truth takes releasing the hounds of your fearful thinking. You must live in the space of openness and undefendedness. You will get stronger. You will develop this most critical muscle and you will showcase this tenor of self  so others can recognize what it is like to have the freedom of your unique and beautiful sound.

It took me writing five books to be able to understand the concept of speaking out loud into the clear air. I hope you enjoy this selection from my first book about getting completely bare to the most authentic expression of the soul.  I offer all of this up so your transition and transformation can be so much more elegant and effortless and free. Enjoy!

I was afraid. I was afraid I would die again. I had leapt off the cliff to end my relationship, and I would need to do it again and probably again.

I was afraid to speak as though it were my life I was living. I was afraid to live my life outside of the judgmental obervationalist I had become. I was afraid if people really knew me, they wouldn’t like me. I was afraid to lose anymore friends. I had set up an invisible bodyguard determined to protect me. This bodyguard distorted everything, clouded the connectors, questioned my perceptions, muffled my intuition and misdirected my mojo.

It was once

Then not again

My hopes at finding such

Lies within

Never once and never more

Does one so sweet

And sorrowful soar

Lights started to flicker in the distance. I saw something. It resonated. It didn’t last long enough to be recognized and then it faded. I wouldn’t let it go. I looked closer.

A flash. A moment. Your heart knows.

My way of being in the world was flawed. Long ago I had lost touch with my inner everything. I would need to reclaim it.

I knew how far I would need to go to reclaim my voice. I knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant, but I also knew, I could do it. It was me, after all. The grief and the growth and the grasping would be good things.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe said it best.

And so long as you haven’t experienced this

to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest

on the dark earth.

I didn’t want to be a troubled guest anymore. I could die and grow like the best of them. I could redo myself. I could find a way to listen to my heart’s symphony, to hear that faraway aria through the distracting cries. I’ll meet myself on the other side of this new death. I could practice another way of being in the world.

What was lost could be found. David Whyte hit it hard.

The day I saw beneath dark clouds

the passing light over the water

and I heard the voice of the world speak out,

I knew then, life is no passing memory of what has been

nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.

It is the vision of far off things

seen for the silence they hold.

It is the heart after years

of secret conversing

speaking out loud in the clear air.

I listened as if my life depended on it.

Excerpted from The Bare Melcessities: Walking Out. Waking Up. Getting Bare. available at the Beliefnet store.

Melanie Lutz reads from her book….