It’s almost midnight. And I decided to turn on the mic and start speaking. And I’m a little afraid because this is probably going to be my most personal podcast ever. Because I’ve had a few things that came to my mind after watching someone speak. And that has brought up so many emotions and thoughts and realizations around me, my voice, the people in my community, the work that I do. And I felt like people needed to hear that. So I decided to hit record – I can always delete it after – but go for it and share it.

And maybe to you, it’s not going to be that impactful, but to me, it is. Mainly because recently I felt really uninspired. Everything that’s been going on: life, the pandemic, work. And I’ve been trying and working on creating my program, and I have all these ideas about how I want it to be. And I feel stuck sometimes creating those small things. And I feel like something is distracting me and pulling me away every time I try to concentrate. Which is really hard because it’s just me and myself, there’s no one there next to me to tell me to do something. And I have to do it.

And I know that nothing’s going to happen if I don’t do it. But I feel I have this obligation to complete it because I know it’s going to be good. I know it’s going to be transformational for some people. Because it’s really everything that I know yet, something is blocking me from putting it out there. I’ve been meaning to do it for over a year. And here I am still working on it. Though I know that it’s going to come out no matter what, I wish it had been a little easier.

And I’ve been doing everything related to high performance, productivity. I’ve been journaling, trying to meditate, keeping my phone away. That’s a lie because I know I need to keep my phone away. I keep it too close sometimes, but I try. And still, my brain is distracting me, it’s not something external. And I know that I need to have that pull that I usually have when I create content. Because content is easy for me to create. I just want to speak and talk. And all of a sudden, this is really, really hard.

And as I was searching for pieces to work with and to use as examples, I came across Amanda Gorman’s TED talk. Amanda Gorman is a black American poet, who gave a phenomenal, phenomenal performance in the inauguration day in January, 2021. And she read her poem, and it was an unbelievable. I’ll link to it in the show notes, if you haven’t seen it.

So, one of my coaches, one of the coaches in my school sent me another video of her performing from earlier this year. And it was really good and funny and powerful. And I kept on browsing, something pulled me into listening more to her. Because here’s the thing, I was listening to her and I was listening to her sounds. And there was something really special about her sounds, something very, very kept together in particular and crisp about her pronunciation, yet different.

And her story is that she had a speech impediment. She used to stutter as a child, so she had to go to a speech pathologist and therapy. And she had to work on her sounds and her speech. And you can hear that, you can hear that when she talks. There’s like so much respect to the sound and voice. So I was swept away with her reading and her voice.

And then I saw that she had a TED talk, and it’s called ‘Using your voice as a political choice’. And I’m like, “Okay, I’m in, my friend. I’m in.” And in the first minute she talks about her mantra, that she uses every time she goes up on stage before she has to read a poem. And those words are: “I am the daughter of Black writers, who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and change the world. They call me.”

Now, as I was hearing this after hours and hours of trying to create something unsuccessfully or very, very slowly, those words hit me deep. Because all of a sudden, I’d realize that what I’m doing – and it’s not just this course, it’s everything that I’m doing – is not just about me finding my passion, doing what I’m called to do. It’s not even just about the people I serve in my community. It usually is just about them, but all of a sudden I realized that I am here because my ancestors, and my grandmother, and her grandmother, they couldn’t use their voice. Their voice was taken away from them, stolen even, again and again and again.

My grandparents on both my mother’s side and father’s side had to leave their home country and immigrate to Israel when my parents were really, really young. So with young babies, they had to move to a country without any money, without speaking the language. And they have arrived to a country where it wasn’t just the language barrier that prevented them from immersing into a new culture. It was also the reluctance of the country they had moved into, to welcome them as a part of it.

Both my grandmas were powerful women. But I don’t remember their voices. I don’t remember them speaking much. And when they did, and it was a combination of Arabic and broken Hebrew. And as a child, I did not have the patience to listen. Now, it got me thinking about all those moments where they wanted to speak up and speak out, and yell and scream, and they couldn’t. Because people would not listen to them, or would not understand them.

My grandma had a young child that when he was 18 months, he was a bit sick. So she took him to the hospital. And they told her that she should leave him in the hospital because she needs to go back to her family. She did not speak the language and she could not understand what they want from her.

And eventually, she went home. The next morning she came back, and they told her that the child had died, my mom’s younger brother. She didn’t believe them, but they didn’t listen to her. She didn’t have the words to express what she wanted to express and to demand what she deserved. But they just told her to go home. She was never even able to bury him. And my mother till this day talks about how she remembers her saying that she did not believe that he actually died.

Why am I telling you this? Because the inability to speak and to be heard is generational. It’s not just about you, and it’s not just about English. It’s something that we carry. And it’s our job to break the chain. Whatever our history is, or our ancestors’ history is, we owe it to all the people whose voices were not heard: minorities, women, people of color, immigrants. And not only because of the language, but because of the system. And because of society and patriarchy.

So recognizing that this is something that we carry and is in our DNA, can help us break that pattern and break that chain, and move from being a hostage of our own voices into feeling free. For many years, I was ashamed of my voice and I was ashamed of, you know, speaking and saying my opinions. I did not think that I matter. And I did not think that I was interesting. And every time I spoke, I thought to myself, “Oh my God, they’re thinking that I’m so not smart right now.”

And even now, when I’m recording this podcast, I’m like, “Hadar, that is so shallow. Hadar, you shouldn’t publish this episode because who cares about your ancestors? Right? What does that have to do with English?” These are the voices that go through my head as I’m recording this podcast. And honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to publish it or not. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

But I know that this is something that is my work to break. Because the people before me, the people whom are the reason for why I’m here, couldn’t. And I can. And my job is to share that with you. So you think about that too. And you think about the voices of your mothers and grandmothers. And you think about how many times their voices were stolen, and how they found it back in their own unique way.

And how you’re not going to let your voice be stolen: not by a second language, and not by fear of other people’s judgment, and not by colleagues or friends, or even parents who criticize what you say or don’t say. No one can take away your voice, which is your immediate self-expression. You owe it to everyone who has come before you. So next time you’re afraid to say something, remember that.

Amanda says in the talk, “The choice to be heard is the most political act of all.” The choice to be heard is the most political act of all. Be political. Speak. Be heard. And after this talk, I created my own mantra. “I’m the daughter of powerful women whose voice was stolen. And they took it back. They call me.”

And this is what Amanda says at the end of her talk about poetry: “What path do we stand on as a people? And what future as a people do we stand for? And the thing about poetry is that it’s not really about having the right answers, it’s about asking these right questions, about what it means to be a writer doing right by your words and your actions. And my reaction is to pay honor to those shoulders of people who use their pens to roll over boulders so I might have a mountain of hope on which to stand, so that I might understand the power of telling stories that matter no matter what. So that I might realize that if I choose not out of fear, but out of courage, to speak, then there is something unique that my words can become.”

Now, after this, recording this and hearing this and thinking, I feel more focused than I’ve felt in a long, long time. Because sometimes all you need is to remember the reason why you do what you do. And sometimes it’s not about you, it’s not about your job. It’s about something bigger than all of that. It’s that obligation that we have to speak. And if we want our children to be free, then we must initiate that freedom. Thank you for holding space for me and my story. And thank you for listening.

Now, if you want to share with me a story about your ancestors – and it doesn’t have to be family members, it could be stories about the people from your home, and your tribe, and your country, who were able to own their voice. So, if you want to share that story, I’m inviting you to leave a comment on my website. I’m going to link to it in the show notes. And also, you can send me a DM at @hadar.accentsway on Instagram. Thank you so much for being here. Take care.