4. Following the Breadcrumbs: the intersection of voice and truth

We've been conditioned to believe that truth requires external validation—academic credentials, citations, someone else's authority. But oral tradition has been humanity's primary way of passing down knowledge for millennia, and by devaluing it, we've lost our ability to know and trust ourselves. We explore what's at stake when we're taught that our experience, our feelings, our inner knowing aren't valid forms of wisdom.

We discover why our inner voice directly informs our outer voice—how our sound becomes a sonic reflection of our thoughts and feelings. When there's misalignment, we feel it as dissonance. When there's alignment, that's when real transformation happens. We're invited to explore the power of creating space—actual stillness—to hear ourselves clearly, and why our subjective truth, felt in that stillness, is more powerful than any citation or external validation.

✨ Key Takeaways

• Oral tradition has been humanity's primary way of passing down knowledge—by devaluing it, we've lost our ability to trust ourselves
• Your inner voice directly informs your outer voice—when there's alignment, transformation happens
• Creating space for stillness is essential to hear yourself clearly and discern your truth

✍️ Journal On This

• When do you feel most aligned between what you think/feel and what you say?
• Where in your life are you saying things you don't actually believe?

Resources

The Mysticism of Sound and Music by Hazrat Inayat Khan. 

Transcript

Voice, Truth, and Institutional Conditioning

Chelsea 0:03

In a world of misinformation, disinformation, and trying to hold multiple truths, we can get bogged down with trying to hear our own voice, especially when we've been conditioned to obey and follow through institutionalized learning environments. We're told our own knowing isn't welcome or valid, and so we wait for someone else to say it first. We hold ourselves back from sharing, we bite our tongue, close our throats, and stop our voice from emerging and being fully heard.

Chelsea 0:36

This is the Wisdom of the Voice podcast. I'm Chelsea Edwardson, and today we're entering into a bit of a complicated conversation, one where voice and truth intersect. We'll be diving into the connection between our physical outer voice and our intangible inner knowing to look at how we can feel that truth through the voice.

Chelsea 0:58

We'll also be exploring the challenge of anchoring ourselves to our own knowing in an authority-established, influence or heavy world that is not only noisy but fast and leaves us little space to reflect and hear our own wisdom. So thanks for joining me. Let's dig in.

Chelsea 1:28

I've spent a lot of time thinking about authority and the voice—especially when I reflect on my own research and writing. And while I am wholeheartedly grateful for my experience and opportunities, often I feel deeply frustrated by the limitation of institutional learning environments.

Chelsea 1:39

In academia, authority and value have typically been based on building upon previous research. And although there is absolute value in learning from and referencing others, it can be stifling to try and express yourself in an environment where your voice has no validity unless it is backed up by pre-existing ideas.

Chelsea 2:01

In other words, someone else's voice.

Chelsea 2:05

After all, there's nothing like a good old game of telephone where we continue to perpetuate a static truth by paraphrasing and relaying it over and over again until it becomes so distorted it is once again new. But let's be clear, this makes it valid, right?

Chelsea 2:23

When I submitted the first draft of my thesis and my master's degree, I included a personal

Personal Story, Trauma, and the Singing Body

Chelsea 2:28

story. I included this story because the abuse that happened in my childhood directly relates to my voice. I was in an environment where I was vulnerably sharing my heartfelt songs, opening my voice and recording my stories, feeling safe to express myself, not knowing that I could be taken advantage of and harmed.

Chelsea 2:49

This story was imperative to my research in order to contextualize my hesitancy and fear around opening my voice while being objectified, judged, and graded. And in knowing that we all have stories like this to some degree, it was important to create a somatic bridge from my words to the feelings, the embodied experience of the reader.

Chelsea 3:13

In the context of vocal research, it's important to address the trauma that becomes embedded in the voice, because the body is the instrument. In fact, understanding how our conditioning plays into our ability to explore our voice is not just important, it's necessary. You can't technique your way out of trauma.

Chelsea 3:35

This approach is based on reflexive research methods, meaning the process of critically examining how a researcher's own biases, belief, and perspectives influence the research process and findings. For when the reader can understand the lens of the researcher, they have a greater ability to interpret the information because we know more about their perspective. And while reflexive research isn't new, much of the academic world still criticizes it as navel-gazing or self-indulgent, as if understanding yourself is somehow less valid than citing someone else.

Chelsea 4:11

But through the lens of understanding oneself, and in particular, one's voice, we open the door to insightful conversations and connections between trauma and the effectiveness of certain teaching methods, and what can help to open and nurture those places of vulnerability, or potentially close them down and harm them further.

Chelsea 4:33

In my experience with Western classical vocal music, the objectification of the voice exacerbated some of my blocks and cornered me into a place where developing it as I had hoped was impossible.

Chelsea 4:46

Having my vulnerable expression shut down in childhood through trauma created a separation between my body and my voice, which was further perpetuated by quantifying and measuring my voice according to standards that ignore its holistic nature.

Chelsea 5:02

My voice is me, and treating it as a separate entity is not conducive to healing it.

Chelsea 5:10

When I addressed this in my thesis, specifically looking to support the methods that I found to be so powerful and liberating in singing with Bu Candri, my teacher in Bali,

Reflexive Research vs Academic Gatekeeping

Chelsea 5:20

it seemed to offend and almost trigger my advisor, who rejected my first draft as a whole and instructed me to start again.

Chelsea 5:28

And not only was my entire draft rejected, but comments were thrown like daggers, stinging and sticking to my sense of self. "Why do you have to be so ambitious? Why can't you just say what you learned? Who are you to say this? And am I one of these people you're writing about?"

Chelsea 5:48

It was clear that it touched something personal. My voice and my truth was not welcome in this academic space.

Chelsea 5:57

This was the pivotal moment of a long-standing breakdown. It seemed that every essay, every summary, every piece of writing I turned in was turned down. I remember spending hours on a 500-word summary, being scrutinized on every word choice I made. And while I'm all for questioning and analyzing, being curious and accurate, the tone was judgmental and dismissive. "What is authenticity? This doesn't mean anything. Why are you putting opinions in here?"

Chelsea 6:28

It seemed that my ideas were too bold to be included, too original to be considered, too much of me to be valid, too much.

Chelsea 6:39

My experience was so disabling that I even developed a stutter for several years during and after finishing my graduate work. I felt like every sentence that came out of my mouth had to be justified and proven. And as a neurodivergent person with a strong intuition and sensitivity to emotion and empathy, it was very challenging because so many of my thoughts came from that deep, less quantifiable wisdom.

Chelsea 7:06

It was as if I was being told that my voice didn't matter, which inherently meant I didn't matter.

Chelsea 7:13

Let me be clear though, this is not and was not a personal attack. These experiences are far too common and rooted within these environments to be scrutinizing any particular individual. The comments I received about my thesis, such as, "the reader must feel at every moment that they are learning about the topic, not about you". Or "you need more information about what she actually does, not how it made you feel". These underscored the dismissal of feelings and story, being valid forms of learning and analysis. And while things may be changing slowly, we still have a ways to go.

Chelsea 7:56

In this conservatory-institutional -patriarchal- quantification-based culture, we have been led to believe that facts are truth and that without them, information is untrustworthy or invalid, which is, quite frankly, far from the truth.

Chelsea 8:14

Oral tradition, sharing wisdom through direct experience and storytelling, has been humanity's primary way of passing down knowledge for millennia. Indigenous wisdom keepers or ancient Greek philosophers sitting in circles, spiritual teachers sharing parables, grandmothers passing down life lessons through stories, medicine keepers knowing which plants heal, elders who understand the rhythms of seasons, storytellers who

Objectification of Voice and its Harm

Chelsea 8:43

carry the community's deepest truths. None of them needed peer review to validate their wisdom.

Chelsea 8:50

By devaluing that tradition, we've lost our ability to know and trust ourselves.

Chelsea 8:56

What happened to experience being valid? What happened to genuine discussion and exploration where we actually grow together instead of just regurgitating approved ideas?

Chelsea 9:09

When we have to prove ourselves with someone else's words, we move away from our own wisdom, and without careful attention, we quote unquote lose our own voice, the source of that wisdom.

Chelsea 9:22

Real learning is expansive. It involves risk. In fact, it requires risk, experimentation, and yes, it involves not always being right. When we play it safe, we lose our capacity to evolve.

Chelsea 9:39

That's why discovering the mysticism of sound and music by Hazrat Inyat Khan was such a revelation for me. I carried this book around for years, and one day I realized something that deepened my respect for it. Khan barely uses citation. His voice is the authority. He speaks in clear statements, and his words resonate inside me as deep knowing. When I read them, it feels like he's articulating a truth that I haven't been able to voice. It makes intuitive sense, and other readers feel it too.

Chelsea 10:14

One person wrote in a review, "I find this book very comforting and full of philosophy I agree with, but have been unable to verbally express". Another said "the author's insights are accurate in a way that can't be described as scientific, but rather heart and soul felt". That's exactly what I'm talking about, that inner knowing that transcends academic proof.

Chelsea 10:40

The word mysticism in his title is key. He describes this as the belief that direct knowledge of spiritual truth or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience. In other words, truth doesn't rely on others believing in or agreeing with your perspective. It doesn't rely on academic credentials or someone else's authority. Truth relies on your own personal experience, your own inner knowing, your own authority.

Chelsea 11:14

Khan's book resonates because it sings truth. There's a knowing, and when we know, we know.

Chelsea 11:22

And here's where it gets really interesting. This inner knowing, aka the inner voice, directly informs and reflects itself in your outer physical voice too. And that truth can be felt in a tangible, visceral way. As human beings and ultimately as animals, we instinctively feel the energy attached to expression, especially through sound.

Chelsea 11:49

Because let's not forget, we are physically impacted by sound waves. They hit our bodies, resonate in our ears and through our skin. They have real measurable impact. And our sound is the embodiment and the sonic reflection of our thoughts and feelings, a result of what comes before it.

Chelsea 12:10

If I say I love you without meaning it, you'll feel that whether it makes logical sense or not. The vibration of your outer

Mysticism, Inner Knowing, and Authority

Chelsea 12:20

voice carries the meaning and truth of your inner voice. No wonder we feel confused when we depend solely on words for information, without integrating the feeling that rides with them.

Chelsea 12:32

When there's misalignment between the inner and outer voice, it creates dissonance for both you and whomever is listening. And when there's alignment between those worlds, we can hear and feel harmony just as clearly.

Chelsea 12:48

Khan understood this deeply. He tells us that "sound gives to the consciousness an evidence of its existence, although it is in fact the active part of consciousness itself which turns into sound. The knower, so to speak, becomes known to himself. In other words, the consciousness bears witness to its own voice".

Chelsea 13:13

This is why working on your inner voice is so transformative. When you address your emotions, know who you are, and learn to listen for your own truth, it automatically translates into the vibration and energy you emit.

Chelsea 13:28

Your voice is the conduit, a powerful transmitter of energy and literal sound waves. When you align that with your physical expression, when you say what you mean and mean what you say, everything shifts with it. Your relationships, your work, your creative expression. That authenticity extends into every facet of your life. And most powerful of all, your voice becomes a measure of your transformation.

Chelsea 14:01

There's a question in Khan's book that really gets to the heart of this. "Which is more powerful? To say something mentally or to say it aloud?" His answer is "if you say it mentally and do not speak, it is powerful. If you speak and do not say it mentally, it is powerless. If you say it mentally and speak at the same time, it is most powerful".

Chelsea 14:29

Let's unpack this.

Chelsea 14:32

First, "when you say something mentally and do not speak, it is powerful". This means thoughts translate whether we voice them or not. Even without physical expression, our inner feelings radiate. We are emotional beings. We feel the nuances of emotion whether they're expressed outwardly or not.

Chelsea 14:53

Second, "if you speak and do not say it mentally, it is powerless". This shows the impotence of words alone. If you say I love you while feeling angry and resentful, the phrase will weigh differently. The words only carry as much meaning as what's underneath them. If meaning and words aren't harmonious, your voice reveals that disconnect.

Chelsea 15:18

Third, "if you say it mentally and speak at the same time, it is most powerful". This is the power of alignment. When your thoughts and feelings are truly heard, when they move from inner knowing into physical reality, that's when real transformation happens.

Chelsea 15:38

This is the wisdom that flows out through the profound conduit of your voice. It doesn't require force or effort. It simply sails out. You don't need to make anything happen. Your job is to listen, receive, and reflect. When you do that, you learn profound things about yourself, which allows you to bring harmony and alignment into every aspect of your life. Your voice speaks that truth for you, loud and clear.

Chelsea 16:09

So now that we've covered all of that, let me address the elephant in the room. There's a counterpoint to this argument that also holds truth, and I think it's important to discuss it in

Inner Voice, Outer Sound, and Alignment

Chelsea 16:20

this context, even though it opens up a whole other can of worms. I didn't want to leave it out because even as I wrote this episode, I found myself arguing with myself.

Chelsea 16:30

What about all the misinformation out there? What about the people who are trusting their truth and causing harm? Where's the line?

Chelsea 16:40

Real talk. Today we have a proliferation of voices claiming their truth without any space for reflection or discernment. Their truth is not based on an inner knowing, but a knee-jerk reaction, often coming from an ego-based desire for attention. What's worse is that many respond with a similar impulsivity, adding weight to a voice that is not rooted in reflection. And like any great party, the more people that join in, the louder it gets.

Chelsea 17:14

But volume doesn't equal truth. In fact, the reinforcing, amplifying effect makes it hard for inner truth to be heard through all the noise.

Chelsea 17:25

Simply, there's not enough space. Social media is designed to keep us scrolling, never sitting with anything long enough to feel what's actually true. We've become so quick to dismiss, forgetting how to hold complexity, forgetting how to live in the questions, forgetting the nuance that can be felt in stillness.

Chelsea 17:48

Remember those oral tradition examples I mentioned, Greek philosophers sitting in circles, discussing and challenging ideas, parables offering reflective truths that live in the gray, life lessons through stories that are biased but application based, centered around personal truth, not black and white absolutes, and all felt in stillness.

Chelsea 18:14

We need space, we need stillness to decipher our own truth from all the noise. And that's exactly why this work becomes even more essential.

Chelsea 18:26

So with all that, let's review and put this into six solid reminders you can take away from this.

Chelsea 18:32

Number 1, your voice is you. Your voice is you. And treating it as a separate entity is not conducive to healing it.

Chelsea 18:45

2. Real learning involves risk. It involves not always being right. And when we play it safe, we lose our capacity to evolve. And in that, we stunt the development of our voice.

Chelsea 19:02

3. Don't underestimate the power of your emotions, thoughts, and energy when expressing yourself. Remember, your inner experience shapes all your outward communication.

Chelsea 19:16

4. We have to create the space we've been talking about. In a world of constant noise, we need to cultivate stillness so that we can actually hear ourselves. This isn't just nice to have. It's essential for discerning your truth from all the competing voices.

Chelsea 19:40

5. When you create space to listen, you can start to prioritize awareness. This means paying attention to what's actually happening inside you. Your thoughts, your feelings, your physical sensations. It means learning to recognize the difference between your voice, or what I call the voice that knows, and all those other voices we carry around. Remember, you don't need to make anything happen. Your job is to listen, receive, and reflect. In return, your voice will speak your truth for you, loud and clear.

Chelsea 20:18

And then lastly, 6. We can feel truth through the voice.

Chelsea 20:26

One way that I practice this is by having regular coffee dates with myself in solitude. That means I'm in a quiet place where I know that no one else can hear me. I turn my voice recorder on in my phone and I let it sit there, even if the recording is filled with space and silence.

Chelsea 20:45

It's kind of like Julia Cameron's Morning Pages practice, but for the voice. I'm capturing a stream of consciousness, not trying to create anything profound. When the voice bubbles up, I release it freely. I don't judge, I

Power of Words When Mind Aligns

Chelsea 21:00

don't edit, I don't worry about it making sense or not. The point is to make space and time to explore and nurture the relationship I have with my voice.

Chelsea 21:10

I'm learning how to listen to myself. I'm learning how to be with myself in the stillness. I'm learning how to feel and recognize my truth.

Chelsea 21:22

This is your invitation to put all of this into practice and start cultivating more intentional space with yourself, your voice, and your truth on the regular. And thankfully, having coffee with yourself is something that is fairly easy to integrate.

Chelsea 21:38

When you do this, try not to become fixated on the sound of your voice. See if you can move beyond judgment. The beauty is not in the quality, but in the energy within the sound. Your voice will resonate with you differently when you connect to personal truth.

Chelsea 21:55

This is why your voice is your perfect teacher. Every time you speak, sing, or even stay silent, it's offering wisdom about who you are and what you need in relation to that truth. It isn't about performance or getting it right. It's about creating space to hear yourself without all the noise and to recognize what feels right.

Chelsea 22:20

And if there's anything you take away from this episode today, it's that in a world full of noise, creating space to hear yourself isn't just valuable. It's essential. Your subjective truth, felt in stillness, is more powerful than any citation or external validation.

Chelsea 22:41

Or perhaps more directly, your voice matters. You matter.

Chelsea 22:52

In the next episode, we'll explore why it feels so good to release sound, why belting out a note is both emotionally and physically cathartic, and how to use this understanding to tap into a wellspring of natural power and immediately level up your vocal technique, your communication skills, and your authentic creative expression. And if that sounds amazing to you, that's because it is.

Chelsea 23:18

By the way, if you're drawn to exploring the deeper connections between consciousness and sound, the book that I mentioned earlier, The Mysticism of Sound and Music by Hazrat Inyat Khan is a beautiful place to start. I'll put a link in the show notes.

Chelsea 23:36

P.S. If you have a story about the intersection of voice and truth, or any thoughts about this episode at all, I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out through my website at www.chelseaedwardson.com to connect.

Chelsea 23:51

P.P.S. The first song I ever wrote was called There's a Flea in My Shoe, and I don't know what to do, but I gotta get it out somehow. Trust the wisdom of your voice. It knows.