A Classroom Full of Voices

Is your head full of voices?

Yeah, mine too.

Each voice trying to get your attention, trying to tell you what you should do and who you should be.

Sifting through these voices is difficult, maddening really.  Like bumping your way through the halls of high school during passing period, these voices are reflecting back insecurities and an unattainable image.

Each voice seems so confident their way is the way and they want you to join their clique.  But we know from experience that not all of the voices are the True Voice.  We have listened to them before, tried on their style and felt “not quite right”.  Each experience leaves us uncomfortable in our own skin, an awkward teenager. 

We feel like a phony, a counterfeit.  Like we’ve done something wrong and we will soon by found out.

Yet there is another voice trying to get our attention.  This voice, completely uninterested with popularity, does not use the tactics of the others.  No bullhorns, no fear mongering, no promises of popularity, no inflated hubris or wallowing self-defeat.

This voice is steady and still.

We know this voice but we over-ride it with second-guessing and “reasonable thinking”.

The other voices will talk until they are blue in the face while the True Voice waits patiently.  The trick is not to silence all of the competing voices (this will only make them shout louder) but, instead, to acknowledge them.  These voices are a part of the class and a piece of you.

Like a seasoned teacher who acknowledges the misguided and disruptive statements of a student, “Thank you for sharing, you’ve been heard, you can put your hand down now.”

“I’d like to hear from the others.”

In this case the teacher is not caught up in her pupil’s musings (which carry the potential to derail the day’s instruction).  Yet at the same time, the student is not viewed as a threat.  Instead, this vetted instructor is able to honor and affirm the truth; this voice is a part of the class and, once it has been heard, can go back to silence. 

This silence creates space.

In this space the True Voice, the Quiet One (like the shy kid in the back corner) can be invited to share Her unique brilliance, that the entire class might grow, learn and discover.