How I Reclaimed My Voice: A Personal Journey into Self-Expression, Shadow Work, and Sound Healing

Reclaiming your voice goes way deeper than just freeing your vocal cords. It’s about reclaiming your creativity, your body, your truth — your whole self-expression.

For me, it started simply: with journaling.

That was my first portal. Journaling gave me an easy, accessible way to start hearing myself — to witness my truth without interruption. It helped me sync my mind with my hands, and over time, I was able to purge what I’d been holding inside and pour it onto the page. That shift — from internal chaos to external clarity — felt like a breath of relief.

In the beginning, even that felt scary. My inner critic, limiting beliefs, and old programming would scream at me. But journaling was safe. No one could read it. No one could judge it. I could write the rawest, ugliest truths, and still be met with compassion — because I was the only one holding space for it.

The more I journaled, the more comfortable I became with my truth. And here’s what I learned: reclaiming your authentic expression starts with facing and owning your truth. Because once you meet it with awareness, understanding, and love… you call your power back.

And when you love something about yourself, it becomes untouchable. No one can shame you for what you’ve already claimed.

That’s what I discovered about judgment — we feel judged when we haven’t fully owned who we are.

But owning who you are isn’t just about embracing the light. It’s about turning toward your shadows too — those parts of you that you’ve tried so hard to forget or hide away. The flaws. The shame. The parts that make your voice tremble. But those shadows? They’re your greatest teachers. Your initiators. They are what make your human journey uniquely yours.

(Shadow work deserves its own post, and I promise I’ll share more soon.)

But for now, here’s something to sit with:
If you were all light, no shadow, you wouldn’t be human — you’d be formless. A God.
Your shadows are the reason you’re here, embodied. They serve your evolution.
And when you start embracing them instead of running from them, you open the gates to liberation and peace.

Journaling became my anchor in this process. A companion in meeting my truths — all of them. And once I felt safe in my own truth, I began to speak it out loud. First with people I deeply trusted. People who held me with tenderness. Being witnessed in my truth helped rewire my nervous system. I started to feel safe with the parts of me I once feared. Safe enough to share, express, and even shine.

It’s wild how fast things can shift when you release the shame your stories carry.
That’s why I love community work so much — because shame dies when stories are told in safe spaces.

In community, I found more of myself. As I listened to others share, I realized I wasn’t alone in my pain, or my joy, or my longing. And that gave me a sense of confidence, belonging, and grace. I saw myself in others — and in doing so, I learned how to be graceful with their shadows too. Healing became a spiral: of love, understanding, and radical acceptance.

My biggest expression breakthrough came during my warrior priestess initiation.

It was my first time sitting in circle with women.
First time crying in front of strangers.
First time dancing intuitively without shame.
First time sharing my deepest feelings with people who got it.
Hell — even the first time I stood completely naked in my body, with others around.

That moment — that Mexico trip — was a shedding. A stripping of every mask, every layer that had kept me hidden. And it was there that I discovered sound healing. It started with simple vocal toning, which led me to buying my first drum. That drum spoke to me, and asked me to find a teacher. That teacher introduced me to my local community. And from there… everything changed.

Through my therapeutic sound mentorship, I began embracing the natural sound of my voice. I practiced vocal releases. I allowed myself to make sounds without logic or words. I turned raw emotion into melody. Pain into song. Sensation into vibration.

And I just kept showing up.
Over and over.

The more I told the truth, the more I could speak.
The more I spoke, the more I could sing.
The more I sang, the less I judged.
The less I judged, the more I fell in love with myself.

And the more in love I became…
the more peace I felt.
The more space I allowed myself to take up.
The louder and more unapologetic I became.

And that…
is how I got to where I am.