Diana Lockett - The Space Between the Words

IgnIte Female Change makerS / 21

DIana lOCkett

“Our experiences do not define us; they inform us and can catapult us toward our deepest purpose.”

My longing is that you, the reader, will remember that in spite of, or perhaps because of, your history, you have the power to heal, to connect to your soul’s purpose and to become your own unique Change Maker in the world. You are a miracle and your voice matters. May my story help you unlock the potential of your life, encourage you to turn your pain into your purpose, and use the gift of your voice to Ignite a difference in the world.

the SpAce betWeen the WordS

As a little girl, I loved talking, singing, and making up stories. I spoke so much that my twin sister didn’t need to speak until she was almost four years old, as I not only spoke for myself, I also spoke for her. That’s how vocal I was as a young child. I don’t recall the specifics of it, but I grew up hearing that narrative… a lot. And talking and singing were some of my favorite things to do during exciting events, holidays, and family gatherings, and especially at Christmas time.

I loved Christmas. I adored everything about it: the way the lights danced on the tree, the excited feelings of the little girl in me, waking up Christmas morning, and opening the carefully wrapped presents. I enjoyed the feeling of my family coming together in celebration and singing carols, both in our community, at church, and at home. My father would put on his favorite Christmas

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songs and we would sing as we decorated the Christmas tree while my mother prepared a feast for our family. I would sing along at the top of my lungs, even if I didn’t know the words or was out of tune. These are some of my earliest joyful memories and they included me using my voice as a self-expression instrument, until one Christmas day when my voice was silenced.

My family used to call me ‘Chatterbox.’ I’m sure it was meant to be funny, but I received the message that my voice was too much with each passing joke about “Diana is the chatterbox of the family,” and “We can never get a word in when Diana is around.” This didn’t feel like a badge of honor to me. As a little girl, I received the message that I was too much, my voice was too eager and was not welcomed. I felt ridiculed and shamed. I would come home excited to tell my mom about my school day to find her asleep, medicated, on the couch… again. In time, I learned that, as a good little girl, it was best to be seen and not heard. I would retreat quietly to my room with my excitement crushed and my words swallowed.

I remember one particular morning when this conditioned belief was reinforced. I was seven years old. I woke up with the excitement that always engulfed me on Christmas morning. The tree was decorated, the carols playing on the record player, the smell of Christmas dinner filled the house. I was excited to open my stocking and see what Santa had left for me. Chocolate, socks, candy and… a wind-up chatter teeth toy. The red and white plastic ones that you wind-up and they chomp up and down.

My family laughed as they affirmed that this reflected ‘Diana the Chatterbox.’ I remember the feeling of my shoulders drooping, the deep contraction in my heart, the sense of my throat closing. I remember the beliefs that arose at that moment when that mocking gift confirmed what I had been told and what I began to believe about myself. My voice was too much. My voice was not welcomed.

That was the day I began to silence my words. In that moment, I told myself my voice didn’t matter. And over time, I allowed that belief to create my identity, my thoughts, my feelings, behaviors, and habits. I learned that it was best to be quiet. That was my initiation into the journey of the powerlessness of silence.

I kept quiet during childhood physical abuse with silent tears as my Dad expressed his fury. I kept silent during teenage sexual assault where I didn’t dare make a sound, not even a tear. I kept to myself during infidelity and betrayal. I kept quiet when I was forced to have an abortion. I kept silent through an acrimonious divorce, even when I was locked out of my house. I kept to myself when my ‘friends’ started a public slaughter on Facebook,

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questioning my worthiness to open a new business after previous failures. I lost all words when everything I owned was taken away and I had to declare bankruptcy. Each of these experiences in my life led me to swallow my voice, dismiss my pride, and relinquish my power a little more. I put a lid on all my feelings and instead of expressing myself, I held it in as shame.

The shame grew until it became a dark monster that threatened to swallow me whole. In time, I felt incapable of holding the humiliation anymore and my feelings and thoughts turned to hopelessness, depression, and suicide. Some days it took everything I had to negotiate with the demons in my mind. The need to feed my children and take them to school was the only thing that could lift me up and give me purpose, but still, all this in silence. I was unable to share my fears, my anguish, my darkest secrets. What I had to say, after all, didn’t matter.

Even though my relationship with my own voice was not a powerful one, I went into a profession to help others find theirs. I became a Speech Language Pathologist in my early 20s and, for 30 years, helped children who were minimally verbal or nonverbal. My mission was to match their voiceless needs with a communication system to give them a voice. I didn’t realize that in doing so, little by little, I was finding my own.

Throughout this time, I started practicing yoga for self-care. I fell in love with the healing properties of yoga and the hope it brought to my life. I became a Yoga Instructor and eventually opened up a Yoga Teacher Training Academy. Every day, I felt like an imposter. When I taught, I was simply regurgitating what my teachers had taught me, which I realize now we all do at the beginning until we find our own voice. In the quest to go deep and find my authenticity, I started sharing my story. In the quiet moments between my words, I began to notice that people listened. They listened and they used my teachings to inspire their own lives, to find their genuine voice. The more I shared my story, the more it impacted my community, my students, my friends. And myself.

Teaching yoga brought me back to my purpose and allowed me to access gratitude for the blessings in my life. In spite of having hit rock bottom, even with a leaky roof over my head, I recognized that I had my health, my kids were thriving, and I had an impactful message to share. I knew with certainty the Universe had my back and I was ready to trust that and welcome change.

It was a profound revelation.

The transformation that followed allowed me to make a conscious decision to turn my pain into my purpose. I became resolute in my steps to create a personal evolution and my daily mantra became “Life is happening for me.” I began to find my own words. To appreciate my own unique voice. In love and gratitude,

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I patiently allowed my words to come forward and be expressed through me. I realized that I had been standing in my own way for so long and holding myself back. I hadn’t trusted myself. I had allowed myself to be defined by… everything and everyone! My parents, my schooling, my religion, my society, my friends (the not so good ‘friends’) and my experiences. I began to evoke questions such as “Who was I?” and “What legacy did I want to leave behind?” along with “What was my purpose in my life?” These became my North Star questions and the inquiry brought me to explore my beliefs, thoughts, feelings, actions, and the results that I was longing for in my life. I saw the misalignment in who I was and who I wanted to be. I made a commitment to myself that if I wanted to change my life, it was up to me. And it would begin right now.

There were many changes made that year and one of the biggest was to have a compassionate relationship with my feelings as part of my plan to reclaim my power. I decided that if I longed to find my voice, to express myself, I had to have the courage to feel my feelings as the thermometer that would allow me to recognize how I was showing up each day. I knew that I longed to release the tension of shame that I held inside. The shame that had engulfed me for most of my life. I learned how to express my grief and release a lifetime of sorrow. I discovered how to use my breath as a tool, to connect with my body and its sensations and to trust it as my inner guidance. I did the deep practice of forgiveness, for myself and others. I noticed tension began to leave my body and create space for clear intentions. That work guided me to a new and present path and I began to feel my own inner goodness.

Well almost... I was now confronted with the one emotion that I avoided for so long. It called to me. I heard my inner voice: “Do it.”, “The idea of it is scarier than the experience.”, “You deserve it.” I knew from the research that touching my anger would release my shame and allow me to connect to my passion. My default response to anger was to shut it down, to put on meditation music and calm myself. I am a Yogini, after all, and I did not have a healthy childhood imprint of anger.

On a gray day in Amsterdam during a Heart IQ™ circle, I let go. I surrendered to my anger and my shame. I witnessed these expressions leave my body as messy, loud, primal sounds of uncontained rage that had been confined for decades. I moved my body… I found my voice… and I fell in love with it.

The most beautiful gift was how the strangers in my circle received my anger and shame with love, encouragement, and celebration. I felt an immediate relaxation in my entire nervous system and a spaciousness in my throat. I felt my wholeness and completeness.

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I learned that day that my self-expression was a gesture of self-love. I discovered that forgiveness is a practice and I have all the tools I need inside me. I decided that I am worthy to feel and express myself and embraced that power comes from my heart.

I knew from the teachings of many wise leaders that when we numb one feeling, we can numb all feelings and begin to live a life of mediocrity. I knew that the unwillingness to touch any part of my pain and my emotional ranges leads to them being suppressed and showing up at the most inappropriate times and in harmful ways like judgment or rage (we call these ‘shadows’). I had been living that life and was very good at numbing out (with ‘good’ habits like yoga and exercise) but had not allowed myself to fully feel the spectrum of my embodied emotional range. I now realize that was a ‘spiritual bypass.’ When I welcomed the time to stop and feel all my emotions AND express them in a healthy manner as they came up, what came out wasn’t scary anymore. It was clear, it was on purpose, and it was veiled with passion. And from that passion grew the increasing clarity that I was on the path toward exploring my life purpose. Touching the emotional ranges of anger allowed me to find my voice to express my excitement, joy, love, and gratitude.

When I went home at the end of that powerful experience, I brought along an old, reclaimed friend. I found my voice and welcomed her home. From that day on, my purpose became uncrushable: to help people to find their voices so they realize that they matter, what they do matters, what they feel matters, what they say matters. My mission was ignited with passion and clarity.

Within a year, I was invited to speak on a stage with The Global Changemakers™ with a commitment to help entrepreneurs to become healthier in their emotional and energetic systems. I went on to co-create powerful communities through my Yoga Teacher Training program, helping people find and express their unique gifts and voices. I began to offer my powerful teachings with humility and love, merging the ancient teachings of yoga philosophy with current neuropsychology, Shadow work, positive psychology, and coaching. I now find so much joy in my work coaching others to help them become clear in their lives, to access their joy and purpose and to express their own words with clarity and love. I find myself so energized when I help businesses create cultures that are transparent, mindful, joyful, and cooperative to increase productivity and become conscious Change Makers in the world. And I have stopped filtering my thoughts and now allow the Universe to use me as a vessel and let Grace speak through me.

Today, when I share, I share with the conviction of someone who has turned

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her deepest pain into a fiery mission in her life. I feel my resilience, power, and strength. I feel my joy, purpose, and immense gratitude for all that I have gone through. This is my new thermometer as I move through life.

We all have gifts. We all have powerful voices and messages. What I say matters. Just like YOU. With that assurance, I can sense the vastness of the ocean in me, as it is in you. I can ride the waves of Grace when life takes its unexpected turns and I know that I am not defined by my experiences. I made the choice to change so that, as Alan Cohen says, “My history is not my destiny.”

What genuine expression is needing a voice in your life? I believe that when you touch your truth and meet your pain with compassion, there is a vulnerability that allows your authenticity to shine through. As the Sufi poet Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” When you learn to hold space for your pain, you can remember that, in that space, you can realign with your truest vision for your life and go from a path of barely getting by to a path of unfathomable joy. I’ve learned that if I don’t like the answers in my life, I have to change the questions and I have to challenge my beliefs. When I change the lens of my perspective, I am met with clarity, ease, and purpose. Today, my deepest question is no longer “How will I quiet my voice,” but “How can my words change the heart of the world?”

IgnIte ActIon StepS

Here are some steps that I have developed and practice that I call “Be REAL and RE-ALign to Thrive™.” They are designed to awaken you to take responsibility in your life and find your own unique gifts, power, and voice.

R= Remember that you are a miracle and be willing to see the miracle in others. When tension, stress, and life get in the way of remembering the gift of your life, ask yourself: “If I was to take 5% more responsibility to show up with love in my life today, what would I do?”

E= Explore what emotions and energetic experiences are present in you. Practice daily meditation to quiet your mind and be able to tune into the sensations of your body. Sensations are the language of the body and can inform you about how you are doing. Rather than attach to the emotions, label the sensations and sit with them for a few moments (e.g. instead of “I’m sad.”, tell yourself “I notice my heart feels heavy and my shoulders are drooping.”).

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A= Allow whatever surfaces to be part of your experience. Soften and hold space for all of your sensations and experiences. Trust that it is all part of your embodied journey. Release what needs to be released through movement, sound, in circles, etc.

L= Love yourself no matter what comes up; your life experiences do not define you. Use a mantra: “Life is happening FOR me.” or “I am the loving creator of my life.”, or “I can realign to thrive in my life.” Recite these daily.

When you practice being the REAL you, it will take you on a journey to be:

I= Inspired: to stay with the moments that are painful and trust that they will show you the path to your deepest purpose.

G= Grateful: for all the experiences, as they are the catalyst for change in your life.

N= Nonjudgmental: with yourself and with others as you cultivate loving compassion.

Diana Lockett, M.Sc., E-RYT - Canada Realignment Coach, Founder of Realign To Thrive™ Dianalockett.com

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