Silenced: Suppressed Stories, Stuck Stress, & our need to speak and share them!

Have you ever lost your voice? 

How did it make you feel? 

What was most difficult? 

Did it remind you of anything? 

As I write this on the first day of 2025, my voice is a raspy whisper at best. Its loss is an opportunity to reflect deeply on what it means to be and feel silenced. 

It’s incredibly frustrating when your voice disappears, and you can’t speak or express yourself clearly. And the more you try to force it, the worse it gets. The only real solution is to rest it and let it heal. 

I have a tendency to lose my voice leaving me to navigate this predicament quite often.  As a speaker, coach, consultant, course creator, and podcast host, when you lose your voice, you lose your ability to deliver on much of your work. 

But unfortunately, being physically silenced isn’t the only way we can find ourselves silenced. We can be and feel silenced for a variety of reasons both as a result of external forces, such as authority figures or cultures, and internal processes like fear or self-doubt.

Definition of Silenced

To be silenced means to have one’s voice, opinions, or expressions suppressed, stifled, or disregarded, either intentionally or unintentionally.

With this definition it’s easy to begin identifying the many situations we censor and silence ourselves. Whether we do so to avoid conflict, out of fear for our safety, because it’s part of our cultural, social, or religious background, or a concern of how others will react or respond, nearly everyone has been silenced at some point. 

However, it’s important to recognize certain segments of the population have a history of being silenced more frequently.

• Certainly, children have often been told to “be seen and not heard.” 
• Women have a long legacy of being limited as caretakers of the home. Many religions have relegated women to be subservient to their husbands and even deemed property of men. 
• Most minorities have only had access to express their perspectives in the last hundred years at most (and some still do not.) 
• Those diagnosed with “mental health” challenges have often been dismissed and disregarded especially by medical professionals. 

These examples are but a few from history that represent a legacy of whole segments of the population being silenced; their perspectives, experiences, and wisdom ignored or even outright disavowed. 

Being silenced isn’t just limited to these examples from history, it’s also something we experience often today. 

• Workplaces silence and censor their people either with policies, cultural practices, intimidation, or confidentiality agreements, or even through the use of severance agreements burying bad behavior from being made public by those involved.
• Religious Institutions silence and censor through their interpretation of sacred texts, limiting access to knowledge, controlling communication, hiding bad behaviors, and tying salvation to silence and subservience. 
• Governments do so by law, policy, or practice particularly by authoritarian leaders who seek to maintain absolute control over their population. 
• Even families can create cultures of fear that perpetuate the need to stay silent to prohibit emotional expression or particular behaviors, to protect oneself, to prevent punishment, and to promote privacy of family practices. 
• We can even learn to silence ourselves out of a sense of self-preservation. After being rejected, judged, or isolated from others, we can begin hiding parts of ourselves fearing the painful experience of other’s opinions and actions if we were to openly share or show up. 

Moment of Self-Reflection 

Take a moment and reflect on times when you’ve felt silenced. When you had thoughts or feelings you wanted to share but didn’t. For whatever reason you held back and suppressed yourself. 

• What do you really think, know, or understand about the situation? What does it really mean? 
• What do you truly feel, value, find important, or relate to about the situation? 
• What do you deeply identify with, need to feel safe, or sense to take action on? 

Suffering in Silence

Does being silenced always result in suffering? 

It’s important to point out not everything we think needs to be verbalized or expressed. We often teach children the saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.” 

I often teach in my courses and programs that we don’t have to identify with or be our thoughts. 

Our head brains love to make up stories about just about everything and their incessant chatter can sometimes be quite unhelpful. 

If everyone said or did everything they thought, I imagine the world would be quite a challenging place to live. I’m certain I would neither enjoy hearing everyone’s thoughts nor having others hear mine. 

What is the difference between being silenced and the appropriate discernment about what to share or not to share of our thoughts and feelings? 

I’ll admit there is likely not one “right” answer to this question. But I think understanding the difference for ourselves can be important to our personal self-awareness and development. 

When exactly does our being silenced begin to create suffering? 

There is a distinct difference between sharing or withholding a personal opinion on something of no real consequence and being silenced as a pattern of protection. The former, is simply a choice to share or not to share your authentic experience, opinion, insight, or perspective. You are likely unattached as to how such a communication is received. 

For example, sharing your perspective on a movie being good or bad, or enjoying a meal at a restaurant, or whether you like a particular type of vehicle. These are simply your personal perspective, and anyone’s disagreement is unlikely to influence you in any meaningful way. 

Likewise, withholding your opinion about another person’s unattractive outfit, food they cooked for you, and most especially whether their baby is ugly or not! These are unlikely in most cases to bring value to your relationships and are better left unsaid within your head! 

 “No one wants or needs to hear their baby is ugly!”

Alternatively, when we are silenced or remain silent as a pattern of suppression or protection it is likely to result in our suffering. 

Suffering occurs when we are forced to hide and silence something the wisdom within is urging us to share. 

We can identify when we are suffering by noticing any discomfort in our bodies. 

1. To do so, we must be present in our body and balanced. If we are disassociated or disconnected from our body, we won’t be able to “feel” the sensations of suffering. 
2. Once coherent and present in our body, we can begin to scan for any place of discomfort, sensations, or areas of tension. Trust your unconscious neural networks to alert you as you scan your body. 
3. When you notice a difference, make note of its location and what you feel as you focus on it. 
4. If you can, move your body in that area and notice what you experience- both physically and mentally. 
5. Notice any thoughts, feelings, or sensations (temperature, pain) that occur. Allow anything that comes to be communicated without judgment. 

Stuck in Our Suffering 

Even if we can detect the discord within our bodies and sensations of suffering, we often cannot release it with our awareness alone. 

The silenced stories stored in our bodies will bubble to the surface time and time again begging to be released. 

Our bodies know this stress being stuck within us is unnatural and unhealthy. They know the stress of silenced stories remain stored and stuck forever causing unnecessary stress and suffering within. 

And our body will keep reminding us in the only way it knows how, with painful sensations and discomfort. These sensations and messages from our bodies will build and build getting louder and harder for us to ignore. 

The worst part of being silenced is that in doing so we cut off access to the only salve to cure our suffering.  To release what’s stuck and stored within us requires us to speak in the presence of an empathetic witness. 

Speaking & Sharing 

For freedom from the suffering and struggle within, we must release what we’ve stored by sharing it with a witness. 

And not just any human can provide what we need. 

It’s not our sharing alone that brings healing. Rather it’s the compassionate witnessing by another human being who has the capacity to do so that brings healing to our hearts and bodies. 

Our resistance to sharing is often the result of our past attempts to do so being met with indifference, invalidation, minimization, judgment, criticism, discomfort, and detachment. 

Too often our attempts to share have resulted in further wounding rather than witnessing. 

Which means the choice of whom to share our struggles is critical to creating a successful result. We must find those who understand what we need, why we need it, and most importantly have the current capacity to offer us compassionate witnessing. 

Not everyone is equipped with the capabilities nor currently has the capacity to be a witness to another’s suffering. In fact, our western culture has caused a deficit of such abilities. We’ve not prioritized or valued such critical capabilities as compassionate witnessing despite its essential role in our health and wellbeing. 

We can’t think our way out of an embodied pattern that is preventing our growth. 

When we find these special humans that will witness our silenced stories and meet us in them with empathy and compassion, we will finally be able to release the stress stored within us. 

I cannot emphasize enough how essential releasing the burden of silenced stories are to our bodies and lives. 

How doing so impacts our health and happiness. 

How it releases us from burdens we’ve carried far too long. 

How our capacity expands freed from our silent suffering. 

And, most importantly, the freedom we feel as we become more fully ourselves. 

Reflection

As you reflect on your own silenced stories and suffering:

• What is currently demanding to be released? 
• Consider who your silence is serving - Is your silence to protect yourself or someone else? 
• Consider how your silence causes you suffering even if you’ve not consciously been aware of it. 
• Consider what pain, illness, or discomfort might be the result of your body demanding your attention.