Losing your voice is something you never really give a thought to. It’s just one of those things you take for granted.
Losing your voice
I was going about my business, teaching secondary school science lessons by day and writing blogs and planning speaking events by night, when WHAM! Out of nowhere, laryngitis! Oh man, you’ve GOT to be kidding me. A teacher who can’t speak? A motivational speaker who can’t speak? I don’t know which is funnier – oh the irony!
Always one to look at the positive, I thought I’d share some of the hilarity that has ensued since I lost my voice, while being stubborn enough to continue to show up to work. Obviously I am a spectacular teacher! Something small like not having a voice isn’t going to stop me from teaching. Geesh! (Don’t worry, I have since taken the time my body clearly needed to recover).
The Hilarity:
Here are the 5 things I noticed the most during this particular adventure.
Charades
Everything in life became a game of charades. That seems fair enough – obviously if I cannot speak yet insist on teaching, it’s not a stretch to think I’ll try to be animated to get my point across, right? Right! Why were other people doing it right back to me??? One of my students was trying to answer a question I had written on the board by playing charades! That is, until one of the other students informed him he could still speak! It wasn’t just students either. At home, my step sons and fiance all joined this interesting charades phenomena that started in my classroom. I began to try to mime something out, and they in turn would mime out their response!
Whispering
At various stages of this laryngitis intrusion, I was able to whisper. It didn’t seem to matter who it was, child or adult, if I was whispering, so was everyone else! I’ve never had a quieter classroom, or house, before!
Abbreviated sentences
Again, not a stretch to see why I would shorten my sentences, even with a whisper, by making my point short and sweet. For example, instead of saying, ‘I am hungry and feel like a sandwich. Would you like one?’, I’d say, ‘Hungry, you?’ Again, everyone else started doing the same thing! My house was like a cave! Here we were all grunting out single syllable ‘sentences’!
The whiteboard
Every teacher’s dream! Yep, as you can imagine, I began carrying a whiteboard around with me, frantically trying to write down my sentences so everyone could understand me. Then I started getting lazy and just writing my abbreviated sentences. You’ve probably guessed it… people seemed to struggle with the notion of responding with their voice. They wanted to write on the board too!
The beauty of silence
This one isn’t funny, just interesting. Of course you have spotted the theme here. Whatever I was doing, so were others. This point is no different. Everyone around me seemed to choose silence more times than not. I became very comfortable with silence, and so did they. There was nothing stopping any of the people in my life from talking away like usual. My silence seemed to have caused many to reflect upon their words, and their need for them. Even my little 8 year old step son! We all seemed to just enjoy our time together, sharing space and experiences rather than words.
The joy of losing your voice
Basically, from losing my voice I have learned how much we as a species love to copy! We are desperate to follow the leader. Maybe we don’t want to be left out. Or is it that we want to join in on the fun? I’m not sure. But this I do know, whatever one person is doing, we are sooooo keen to do the same, regardless the reason. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In my case, I greatly enjoyed the charades, abbreviated sentences, silent rooms, and the gentle whispers. They caused a great deal of laughter… internal laughter of course!
Lisa Cybaniak is a survivor of 10 years of physical, psychological and sexual child abuse. She is a motivational speaker and blogger, helping shed the stigma of being abused. She is the founder of Life, like you mean it!, dedicated to helping survivors of abuse survive well, having the life they deserve.
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