“Do you mind muting?”
How our theme, Hear Our Voice, speaks volumes during COVID-19
by Marissa Freeman
Pam Sherman (right) leads the closing session of JWI’s 2019 Young Women’s Leadership Conference. (photo by MBK Photography)
The scene is a conference room filled with 200 young women. It’s the closing session of the JWI Young Women’s Leadership Conference (YWLC) and the day has been filled to the brim of panel discussions between thought leaders and entrepreneurs. It’s been hours of taking in wisdom and networking with women from all walks of life. And now, the final session of the day starts as Pam Sherman, Business Coach and 2017 Woman to Watch, stands tall at the front of the room and asks participants to get up on their feet, raise their arms high, and take up space. The room is awake and being asked a crucial question: How do you find your authentic voice?
2019’s YWLC kicked off JWI’s 2020 theme: Hear Our Voice. As an attendee, I was moved. As a Network board member, I was motivated. As a conference committee member, I was proud. And despite feeling ready to take off my heels, I stood up with Pam Sherman and found the energy to answer her posed question. From there, ink hit my notebook and I jotted down, along with my surrounding peers, these shared wisdoms:
Sometimes our voice comes to us when we least expect it.
My voice is a force of nature from which I can take action.
I have learned and achieved, which is evidence that I can learn and achieve.
Hear Our Voice is a mindset I carry with me everyday — and not just on my YWLN Sustainer bracelet. It’s something that I repeat in the back of my mind when my inner voice is doubting itself, too timid to emerge, or shut down by others. And up until a month ago (Was it a month? What day is it?), this powerful message was working overtime and succeeding wildly. I was showing up for my voice and my voice was showing up for me.
Then, quarantine. Doors shut, everyone packed up, and the entire world shrunk to the size of my 13” MacBook. I knew I should have splurged on the larger screen.
Now, my voice doesn’t cross over my desk to brainstorm with a colleague. It doesn’t project into the microphone when I’m teaching classes at The Bar Method. It’s not raspy after a night out with girlfriends where we talked about building healthy relationships or going for that promotion over a bottle of wine and shared appetizers. In fact, my voice is now used to ask my partner when his work calls are so we can decide who’s taking their Zoom meetings from the kitchen or our bedroom. It’s used to place a 30 second phone order for a contactless pick-up coffee, instead of making small talk with the baristas for 10 minutes at the corner shop I’ve become neighborly with. It’s used to scoff when I read the news and laugh when I escape into my favorite shows for a quick mental reprieve.
So what do we do now that our theme, Hear Our Voice, is met with challenging times and physical mask coverage? Just when our theme is ready to tuck away until we’re back in action, we need to turn up its volume to maximum levels.
In the final session of our 2019 conference, Pam Sherman emphasized that as much as our voices are vehicles for change, silence plays a powerful role in making a statement. Seeing this quarantine as a silence from day-to-day noises and distractions gives us space and time to look inward, recognize our own strengths, and fine-tune our inner voice to be able to share it outward when the time is right. Sometimes our voice comes to us when we least expect it.
In this unprecedented time, I’m reminded of my privilege and the feeling of safety I have in my own home. I’m reminded of the importance and sanctity of healthy domestic relationships. This, above all else, is a reminder of the countless women and children who feel no such security and are living in violent situations that they can’t escape. Let’s use this time to fuel the fiery energy we’ll use to bring that same safety and security to all that need it. My voice is a force of nature from which I can take action.
Lastly, in a moment where we’re facing self-doubt and uncertainty, you may feel small. You’ll feel like mornings turn into evenings before you’ve even changed out of pajamas. You’ll feel like showing up as the best version of yourself is too daunting a task. You’ll feel underprepared for roadblocks coming at you in these uncharted waters. This is when we tap into the voices we’ve heard to find strength in the past, all to realize that an inner drive to use our voice wisely hasn’t gone anywhere. I have learned and achieved, which is evidence that I can learn and achieve.
I’ll admit, there have been many-a-days that I haven't used my voice. Thursday, April 9th, was not one of them. As our Zoom room filled and the JWI Virtual Seder started, energy overcame me along with my co-chair, Mollie Bowman - DC Network President. We dove into the JWI Passover Haggadah we had created and used our voices to fulfill the commandment we fulfill every year: To tell the story of Passover. And while it wasn’t what we’re used to, this Seder was powerful, intimate and bizarrely beautiful. I’m honored to have been able to use my voice to share the story of the Jewish people’s resilience, especially when resilience is needed more than ever.
Hear Our Voice may have originally been a call to action to rise and lift our hands up, take up space in the world around us and get loud for our passions. In a time when we’re called to rather sit in our homes and keep to ourselves, let’s remember that our voices are powerful tools in all of life’s challenges, even the challenges when we feel muted.
