JULY 2024: having the courage to tell our untold stories

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

―Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

have you ever researched the life of Maya Angelou?

what fascinates me most about her is not only that she was a wildly acclaimed writer/artist, but the fact that like thousands of women, she knows what it is like to completely lose her voice and her power…and also what it’s like to reclaim it.

here is an important story from her life.

at the age of seven, Maya was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. he went to jail for this, and then was killed after his release. believing that her confession of the abuse was the cause of the man’s death, Maya became mute for six years.

in other accounts of this incident, it was recorded that Maya became so “frightened by the power of her tongue” that she made a conscious decision no not speak for those 6 years.

oh, the story of women and the relationship we have to our power.

of course, Maya goes on to become a huge civil rights activist — and actively transforms her own childhood trauma and societally imposed systemic racism in her works of art throughout the duration of her career.

her story is one of losing her power, losing her voice, in order to reclaim it.

this made me think about my own life.

how when i dared to publicly tell the truth of the abuse that was happening behind closed doors in my family, my father legally threatened to sue me. how this incident completely destroyed the relationship i have to my power and my voice…for years. like Maya, i didn’t sing for a full decade.

and this is the story of many women.

we live with untold stories that fester inside of us. we are taught to take on the opinions of others as our own and see ourselves through the eyes of a society built for men. we’re taught to be responsible for making sure people react well to our truths, rather than simply speaking them and letting people deal with their own emotions. we are taught to carry our mothers pain, our fathers pain, our families pain...to wear martyrdom and self sacrifice as a badge of honor. we are taught to betray our own inner knowings and voices and truths in order to coddle the feelings of those around us. we are groomed to bend to another persons version of the truth, of what it means to be a woman, of reality, rather than discovering and embodying our own.

we are taught to behave, to be nice, to be good, to be appropriate, but never to be ourselves.

and it takes a toll on us.

as a result of this conditioning, we are severed from our own power.

the kind of true feminine power that can only come from tending to our own bodies, truth, emotions, and authenticity.

so how do we get there? when we have been so conditioned away from ourselves in the most subtle of ways spanning over generations…how do us women truly learn to reclaim and embody our power?

well, we start with daring to tell the untold stories that live inside of us. we dare to allow our voices be heard and witnessed by safe others. and, we dare to stand rooted in our bodies and not abandon or shrink ourselves when doing so.

in telling our untold stories, as writer John Bradshaw says, we release the shame that “binds” us. in telling our untold stories, we let go of stagnant emotional energy that keeps our voices stuck on mute. we are able to rage and grieve and cry and say/do whatever it is we needed to in the moment where our power was violated and we couldn’t access the internal resources at the time. we release the shame and projections and opinions of others that we have taken on as our own truth. we clear ourselves out of all of the gunk that blinds us to the truth of who we are.

in telling our untold stories, we dare to say this is where i have been, this is what happened to me, this is what i have walked through…but this is NOT who i am.

one of my mentors, Adriana Rizzolo, taught me that shame can only survive in the basement. meaning, shame only survives when secrets are kept and voices stay silent.

shame cannot survive when a story, and therefore a voice, is set free.

so this month will be all about telling our untold stories.

on Sunday, July 21st, we will meet for Creativity Church and dare to let our voices be heard…in the kind of ways that truly set us free.

in the meantime…start journaling.

what is your untold story?

what did you/do you need to say but have never had the chance to?

what has been left unsaid?

what have you been afraid to share, to speak out loud?

what story holds you bondage?

who are you trying to protect by staying silent?

what are you afraid will happen, if you finally tell the truth?

of what happened? of how you felt?

of what you really think, feel, and believe?

bring your story to church.

(sharing optional of course)

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.

SEE YOU SOON.

XX EMMA