🎙️ Weekly Insight #53- Your Voice Story, Revisited

                                  

A pair of MuppetMe’s show the truth—voice is never solo.

Beginning again with breath, presence, and the art of listening.

Maybe you’ve been told your voice is too quiet. Or too much. Or too flat, too foreign, too young, too old. Most people carry some version of that story. And most people have never been shown what to do with it.

So let’s start with you. Take a moment to think about these:

Listening back – When you hear your own voice on a recording, what’s your first reaction? Do you avoid it, or are you curious? Why?


Describing yourself – If someone asked you to put your voice into words, what would you say? Too high? Too low? Clear? Raspy? Even? Uneven?


Hearing others – When you listen to someone else, what makes you lean in? Is it the steadiness of their breath, the variation in their tone, the way they pace their words?


Language of preference – Think of a voice you like. Can you explain why? Is it warmth, strength, calm, energy, or something else?


Awareness of breath – When you speak, where do you notice your breath? In your chest, your shoulders, your belly? And when you listen to others, how does their breath shape the way their voice comes across?

There are no right or wrong answers here. The goal isn’t judgment—it’s awareness. The more clearly you can describe what you hear, the more clearly you can begin to work with your own sound.

For many people, the hardest part is simply hearing their own voice from the outside. On a recording, it rarely matches what you expect. Inside your body, you hear resonance through bone and tissue. On playback, you hear the stripped-down version that everyone else hears. That mismatch can feel uncomfortable—even discouraging. We’re wired to be critical, and the first impulse is often to pick apart every detail we dislike. But playback also gives you a chance to hear the beauty in your sound—your natural pitch range, the color or timbre, the unique way your voice vibrates. No other vibration is quite like it. That’s what makes your sound different from anyone else’s. It reminds you that voice is both inner experience and outward connection.

Epictetus, the Stoic teacher I’ve often quoted here, has a way of cutting through noise. He reminds us that the voice isn’t just about speaking—it’s paired with the faculty of hearing. To listen well, he says, is its own art.

That matters because your voice doesn’t exist on its own. It’s always meeting someone’s ear. The way you listen—curious, distracted, patient, hurried—shapes what another person feels free to say.

And it works the other way too. The way you speak gives others something worth listening to. One person breathes out, another breathes in. That shared act—voice and listening together—is where connection actually happens.

I keep coming back to Epictetus because his focus is always on what we can actually use. He isn’t abstract about the faculties—he’s practical. If the divine gave us reason, speech, and hearing, then our task is to use them well.

“The divine has given you the most excellent faculties: reason, speech, and the power to hear.” — Epictetus

That’s exactly the same challenge we face with voice today: not to wish for a different sound, but to work with the one we’ve been given, in the presence we already carry.

Voice isn’t an elite skill. It’s a universal faculty—one of those gifts every human carries. In that sense, voice really is a kind of superpower. It’s how vibration inside you becomes connection with someone else.

That’s why we begin again here. This isn’t about fixing your voice. It’s about noticing how breath, tone, and presence already live in your body—and learning to use them in a way that fits your reality.

Over the past year, I’ve shared 52 ways of looking at voice. What connects them all is a simple truth: voice isn’t a performance trick. It’s not five tips for confidence or a set of habits you borrow from someone else.

Voice is lived. It’s the sound of breath made physical, thought made shareable, presence made tangible.

As we step into a new year of Weekly Insights, here’s what you can expect:

Short, practical ways to notice your voice in daily life


Tools for working with breath and tone without leaving your body and brain behind


Reflections that connect voice to leadership, listening, and everyday presence

If you’ve been following since Week 1, welcome back. If this is your first time here, welcome in. Either way, your voice story matters—and we’ll keep exploring it together.

If You’d Like to Follow Along

I write weekly reflections like this—on voice, breath, presence, and communication in everyday life. If you’d like to follow along:

📝 P.S. You can find more voice reflections and weekly insights on the blog anytime: https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com 📚 Browse full blog archive

If you’d like to revisit earlier posts connected to this week’s theme, take a look at:

Weekly Voice Insight #1 – Discovering Your Unique Voice: Hearing Yourself as Others Do-https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2024/08/weekly-voice-insights-1-discovering.html


Weekly Voice Insight #21 – Registers, Range, and Tessitura -https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/01/weekly-insight-21-discovering-gift-of.html


Weekly Voice Insight #33 – The Uh-Huh Drill: Resonance and Tone-https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/04/weekly-insight-33-pitch-presence-and.html


Weekly Voice Insight #41 – Giving the Benefit of the Doubt - https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/05/weekly-insight-41-quiet-power-of-giving.html


Weekly Voice Insight #49 – Breath Isn’t the Fix—Awareness Is -https://dyavwithelias.blogspot.com/2025/07/weekly-insight-49-breath-isnt-fix.html

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