Reading the Desire chapter of The Joy Diet stirred something in me this week.  Martha Beck writes that if we are attuned to our heart’s deepest desire, we will recognize our calling, our gifts – our true purpose in life.

One of the places my journey toward more fearlessness has taken me this year has been toward a deeper understanding of my own truths – my desire.

Here is one of my truths that has been unearthed – I have a deep desire to speak with my own voice, and I want to do it out loud, in public.

I think I’ve known this for a long, long time, but it’s been buried under many layers of “I’m not good enough”, “Public speaking is about showing off – you shouldn’t show off” and one of the original ones… “women aren’t meant to speak in church.”

The first message was pretty constant, growing up in a conservative Christian home.  Again and again, I watched men do what I wasn’t allowed to do. When I was around fifteen, I practically begged my dad (who had taken over the leadership of our tiny church in the absence of a pastor) if I could at least be allowed to do the scripture reading on a Sunday when there were few men available to take on the duty. He said no, it wasn’t appropriate.

That message stayed with me through two years of Bible College. I could join the drama group, but I couldn’t speak in chapel. I could be the vice president of our class council, but I couldn’t be the president. It was there that I learned to “lead from behind” as I did all the work but let the male president pretend he was in charge.

I tried to honour the longing in my heart by sinking myself into drama. I went to University and studied theatre. But I wasn’t really meant to be an actor – speaking in someone else’s voice didn’t fit me very well. I learned fairly quickly that I was better at writing plays than acting in them.  I got pretty good at writing and directing plays, but I felt the longing as I sat in the audience watching other people speak my words.

After university, I started working in government, and soon I put my skills to work by becoming a professional communicator.  I wrote dozens of speeches, and then watched politicians and bureaucrats use my words on stage. I wrote hundreds of press releases and “quoted” the experts in my words, but with their names following the quotation marks. I wrote endless newsletters, web content, reports, communications plans, etc. – always telling someone else’s story and letting someone else be the expert.

Things started getting better when I left the government and started working in non-profit. I still mostly wrote for other people, though – about passions that were not my own, and stories that inspired me but didn’t really dig into the places where I wanted to dig. I got to do a little more public speaking, but more often than not I was preparing presentations for someone else to deliver, producing videos for someone else to narrate, and planning media events where someone else would step into the spotlight.  All the while, I wondered why I wasn’t more fulfilled, considering I was getting to do so many of the things I loved to do and writing about things I felt at least somewhat passionate about.

But then this year came, and more and more I began to realize that there was something else stirring – something that I’d been burying while I thought I was following my calling and sharing my gifts in the best way imaginable. I think the turning point came when I won the Communicator of the Year award and realized that, for me, the best part was when I got to speak in front of a room full of professional communicators about my experiences and expertise.

The truth is, the times when I’ve felt most alive are those times when I’m speaking and/or writing from my own truth, my own passion, and my own wisdom.

Having a blog (or two) has helped a bit, but it’s not enough. I want to speak and I want to lead workshops. I want to write more, but I want that writing to lead me to more opportunities to speak.  I don’t want to be behind the scenes anymore. I don’t want to write for other people or edit other people’s work.

That’s my truth – my heart’s desire.  Now that I’ve acknowledged it, I need to find ways to fulfill it.

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