The King's Speech, Part 4: Needing Allies To Unlock and Release Your True Voice

"When God couldn't save the King, the Queen turned to someone who could."  What???  Stay tuned. Remember The King's Speech story?  With England on the brink of war and in desperate need of a leader, King George VI's wife, Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, arranges for her husband to see an eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue. After a rough start, the two delve into an unorthodox course of treatment and eventually form an unbreakable bond. With the support of Logue, his family, his government and Winston Churchill, the King has to face himself, his insecurities, his lack of confidence, his painful speech impediments, and claim his true voice in order to deliver a radio-address that will need to inspire the people of his empire and unite them in battle.

This is the true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and those closest to him who help him find it.

So when the King finally stands in front of the microphone to broadcast the most important speech he’s ever delivered and the nation has ever heard, his therapist and friend Lionel says, “Forget everything else … and just say it … to me.”

One of the powerful themes in this story is that what ultimately empowers the King to get to that place of “just saying it” are the last two words in that statement, “to me.”  Lionel Logue has become a safe place for the King to courageously explore himself and get to know his true self.  Lionel has helped facilitate a profoundly supportive relationship in which Bertie is encouraged to start truly believing in himself.  This friendship becomes transformational.  Lionel’s confidence in his own voice and his ability to help the King is extremely empowering to Bertie.  The King is able to not only discover what to say but also that he is capable of saying it and expressing it authentically because he says it to his safe and supportive friend, Lionel Logue.

And what's more, he has a loving and supportive spouse who believes in him and goes to great lengths to help him unlock his potential and find his Voice.  This is one of the beautiful descriptions of what a genuine, Spirit-filled love relationship is--two people working with all their strength and loving support to help unlock and release the true Voice within the other.  Imagine how transformational our close relationships would be if each person unselfishly committed everything to helping the other find and speak their true voice.

Do you notice the tag line at the top of the movie poster at the right for The King's Speech?  "When God couldn't save the King, the Queen turned to someone who could."  This isn't meant to be an indictment on God.  But it is a profound reflection on how God most often chooses to operate in our lives--through other people who believe in us and who will go to any lengths to support us and empower us to be our best God-designed self.

I am so fortunate to have a wife like this.  She absolutely believes in me more than any other person on the planet.  She not only supports me in my sense of destiny and calling, but she actively empowers me and acts to help me be my very best.  She works along side me to help me overcome any obstacles keeping me from fulfilling and speaking my truth.  And I want to be as committed to doing this for her as she does for me.  Mutual intimate allies, on the same team, working to unlock and release each other's true voice.

We all need safe places in which to discover and explore ourselves, to find out who we really are, and how to express that authentically.  We need our closest allies to not be threatened by our true voice.  We need those closest to us to believe in our unique voice enough to help facilitate and support our expression.  And we have to be so committed to each other that when the going gets tough, when complications arise from what sometimes appear to be conflicting voices in each other, we stay with it and find creative ways to empower each other through it all so that there's a win-win result.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:  What are your safe places – those supportive relationships – in your life that help you live out your Voice and speak your truth?  What might you do to empower those people in your life – to give them permission to empower you?  Who are the people in your life that you are helping to find their Voice?  How are you doing with that?  Are you truly supportive, empowering, safe?

I'd love to hear what you think about the importance of this theme in your life.

The King's Speech, Part 3: How To Find Your Voice

“The King’s Speech” is the powerful, Oscar-winning true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.  For a description of the story, read my post. As the red light in King George VI’s broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, his speech therapist and friend Lional Logue, knowing how nervous the King is, says to the King, “Forget everything else and just say it to me.”

So I've been unpacking the three parts of that statement--what they say about discovering your unique, personal significance (your voice) and how can you use your voice to put your unique stamp on the world.  My last post described the importance of not letting the past define your present and future.  Now for the second part of Lionel's statement to the King.

And just say it …

This too is a challenge.  One of the problems is, as our internet-based society is showing us, there is no lack of voices shouting stuff all the time.  Much of the time it's just noise.  People think that because the web gives an instant global platform, all they have to do is shout out and the world listens.  Not true.  We have to know what we’re trying to say; and to say it so that people truly listen, it has to come from inside us and express who we are so that there's genuine alignment; which means we have to know ourselves, to believe ourselves, to have confidence in who we are.

This is a 3-step process and journey:  self-awareness that must be followed by self possession that produces authentic self expression.

I like the way Stephen Covey, in his powerful book The 8^th Habit, defines Voice:  “Voice is unique personal significance--significance that is revealed as we face our greatest challenges and which makes us equal to them.” (p. 5)

Here’s how he describes finding this Voice.  Voice lies at the nexus between four areas of our lives:  Talent; Passion; Need; and Conscience.

Talent – your natural gifts and strengths; Passion – those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate, and inspire you; Need – a problem in the world that speaks to you and that you can effectively help solve, including what the world needs enough to pay you for; and Conscience – that still, small voice within that assures you of what is right, truth for you, and that prompts you to actually do it.

“When you engage in things that tap your talent and fuel your passion – that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to help meet – therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.” (p. 5)

Here’s the truth:  there is a deep, innate, almost inexpressible yearning within each one of us to find our voice in life.  King George VI (Bertie) felt that yearning.  The reason he acted out in such anger and rage often was because he couldn’t understand his Voice – he didn’t think he had a Voice or certainly wasn’t worthy of a Voice or simply wasn’t capable of expressing his Voice if he had one – he was stumped, paralyzed by the many impediments in his life, speech being only one of them.  But the longing was there.  He had a conscience that was prompting him.  He began to develop a passion.  He certainly was aware of the need in his Empire that the King was called to meet.  And little by little he developed and embraced his talents, his unique strengths and gifts.  Until finally he expressed what ended up being a very powerful Voice not only in his Empire but also in the world.

Jesus, who was called the Word, spoke with such power because he spoke with his true voice, the voice that came from his personal truth, his identity as the true expression of God.  The New Testament writers referred to him as the Word of God.  And when Jesus spoke, people were drawn to him, they listened, they were moved, inspired, and transformed.  He wasn't just making noise.  He had captured his voice and spoke it with authority because it came from his core identity.  "I am the truth, the way, and the life," he said.  He not only spoke his voice, he lived his voice.  His voice found its highest expression in action.  The two were perfectly aligned.  And people followed, finding their own voice along the way, too.

So I have to enter into self-awareness – to look at these four areas to see what my unique truth is – what the expression of my core self truly is.  Have you ever noticed like I have that the closer we get to this truth, the more our conscience begins to activate – I start feeling strongly in my inner spirit about expressing this truth.  I feel dis-ease unless I'm expressing this truth.  That’s conscience – that’s the spirit in me that is tapping into the Divine Spirit and Fingerprint within me.  That Spirit is calling out to be expressed in my personal, unique way.  And when that conscience speaks and pushes strongly enough, I have to do something about it.  I have to act.

And the first action is the courage of self possession of that truth.  I must embrace myself with confidence.  I accept myself for who I truly am.  I begin to see clearly my uniqueness and I start falling in love with it.

So much so that then I compelled to the next action - authentic self expression – I have to do something tangible about it.  I know--I speak--I act.

The Hebrew prophet named Jeremiah described this undying urge to express his Voice.  He was a prophet with an almost impossible task:  speak truth to people who had lost their voice and their identity and had wandered far from God.  His challenge:  they didn't want to hear him speak truth.  So they persecuted him, laughed at him, ridiculed him, refused to listen to him, and ultimately killed him.  He faced the temptation regularly to give up, to stop speaking his voice from God, and take an early retirement.  But whenever he was tempted, here's what happened to him:

9 Sometimes I say to myself,

"Forget it! No more God-Messages from me!"

But then the Words becomes like a burning fire inside me,

deep within my bones.

I get tired of trying to hold it inside of me,

and finally, I cannot hold it in.”  Jeremiah 20:9

Once I find my voice, my true voice that comes from deep inside me and reflects my personal truth and identity, I am compelled to speak it, even at great cost.  That's my conscience working, nudging me to speak, empowering me to confidence and courage.  And that conscience won't stop until you and I speak and live our voice, just like Jeremiah, just like Jesus, and even like King George VI.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:  Take some time to define and flesh out what each of those four areas Covey refers to would look like in your life.  Where do they all converge for you?  How does that describe your Voice – your unique personal significance?

Next post, we'll look at the last part of The King's Speech:  what do we need in place to be empowered to speak our voice courageously?

The King's Speech and the Importance of Finding Your Voice, Part 2: Not Being Chained By Your Past

"The King's Speech" is the powerful, Oscar-winning true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.  For a description of the story, read my last blog post. As the red light in King George VI's broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, his speech therapist and friend Lional Logue, knowing how nervous the King is, says to the King, "Forget everything else and just say it to me."

In the next 3 posts, I want to unpack the three parts of that statement.  What do they say about discovering your unique, personal significance (your voice) and how can you use your voice to put your unique stamp on the world.

1.  "Forget everything else."

This first part of Lionel's statement might be the toughest for some of us--“forget everything else."  In this context, it’s forgetting all the obstacles and challenges that tend to intimidate you into silence or timidity or hesitation or staying with the status quo, taking the easiest route ahead.

For King George VI it was the huge audience of millions around the globe; it was the fear of not being able to speak, to have his words choke in his throat and not come out; the fear of failure; the fear of not being enough; fear of now having anything of substance to offer his people.  These are HUGE obstacles for the King.

Salon’s review of the King's history put it in perspective:  “For all the pomp and privilege of his upbringing, Bertie was essentially an abused child, tormented by nannies, plagued by childhood ailments and raised in isolation from the outside world. He barely knew his parents (Michael Gambon plays King George V, his father), had no real friends, wore painful leg braces and suffered from early childhood from a chronic stammer that made his public appearances painful for everyone. Perhaps the last monarch reared in the old aristocratic style, with a father who ruled at least nominally over one-fourth of the globe's population, Bertie was literally a man trapped between worlds. As Firth plays him, the prickly prince (who spent his early career as a naval officer and teacher) is eager to take offense yet painfully shy, fully aware that the monarchy has become a defanged symbolic contrivance in an age of radio and motorcars, yet halfway convinced that divine right is still involved somewhere.”

He's a man of ambivalence and conflict--unsure of who he really is and unsure of what his real role as King is suppose to be in this new era, and definitely unsure of whether he can fulfill it or not.  He's a man with a painful past that's still destructively shaping his present.

So when King George VI finally stands in front of the mike to deliver the most important speech he’s ever delivered and the nation has ever heard, his therapist and friend says, “Forget everything else.”

The Christian scriptures echo Lionel Logue with this significant perspective:  “12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which God has shaped me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God is calling us.” Philippians 3:12-14

Considering the author of these words, this counsel is particularly apropos.  St. Paul had quite a colorful past on both sides of the scale.  He had achieved great religious significance in his Jewish community--PhD in theology, schooled in the most prestigious schools of religion, impeccable family tree, considered at the top of the religious pyramid.  He was so zealous for the Church's religious cause that he was point person for the persecution, arrest, and even in some cases, execution of heretics and dissenters of the Jewish faith.  Until he had a dramatic conversion experience and suddenly was convicted that he needed to join the very team he was trying to exterminate.  A dramatic turn around, to say the least!

So when he writes about the importance of forgetting the past (both successes and failures), not getting locked in the past, in order the speak his voice in the present with authenticity and truth, he knows what he's talking about.

Forgetting the past isn't about denying it.  It's not about pretending it never happened.  It's actually about being willing to honor your past, to embrace its reality, to learn from it, to grow from it, to acknowledge that it's forever a part of your story and your journey.  It's about letting that past inform you and seeing how it has shaped you.  And then it's about letting it go enough to keep it from holding you back in guilt or pride, and moving boldly and confidently into your future by finding your true voice and speaking it.

This is my story, too.  I have to let go of the chains of the past in order to courageously step into my truth, in order to stand in the power of my unique authority and show up boldly in the world.

There is no one else on this planet who has my voice, who has my unique experiences from the past and present, who has my individual truth learned from those experiences, and therefore who can speak just like I can.  Right?  If I don't find my true voice and speak it courageously, the world loses out.   And if I can't let go of the chains of the past enough to step into my freedom and personal authority, I deprive myself and the world of important truth.  The same goes for you, too.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:  What are the obstacles or challenges that tend to hold you back from standing in confidence of who you are and giving voice to your truth and convictions?  What tends to keep you from living and speaking with YOUR voice?

Any thoughts about your own journey of "forgetting the past" and what that process has been like for you?

In the next post, I'll talk about what it takes to find your individual unique voice.

The King's Speech and the Importance of Finding Your Voice, Part 1: The Story

My wife and I recently watched the Academy Award-winning "The King's Speech."  It was research for the March series we're doing in our spiritual community Second Wind ("Looking at Life Through the Oscar Stories" in which we're using four of the Oscar-winning movies to  talk about life, spirituality, and transformation).  The King's Speech was one of the most inspiring movies I've seen in a long time.  I laughed, cried, cringed, hoped, committed - all in one movie.  I was pleased that it won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.  Well deserved!  If you haven't seen it yet, by all means do.  The implications from the story are profound. "The King's Speech" tells the story of a man compelled to speak to the world when he doesn’t feel like he’s ever found his voice his entire life – when he feels he doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say and whenever he does say something the words choke in his throat and emerge at times with a stammer.  To face a radio microphone and know the British Empire is listening must be terrifying. At the time of the speech mentioned in this title, a quarter of the Earth's population is in the Empire, and of course much of North America, Europe, Africa and Asia would be listening — and with particular attention, Germany with its charismatic and powerful speech maker Adolf Hitler.

The king is George VI (Colin Firth). The year is 1939. Britain is finally entering into war with Germany. His subjects long for reassurance and hope.  They require firmness, clarity and resolve, not stammers punctuated with tortured silences. This is a man who never wanted to be king. After the death of his father, the throne was to pass to his older brother Edward (Guy Pierce). But Edward ends up renouncing the throne in order to marry the woman he loves. The weight and duty of the royal throne suddenly fall on the lagging shoulders of Prince Albert, Bertie as his family calls him, who has struggled with his self-esteem and speech from an early age.

With England on the brink of war and in desperate need of a leader, the King’s wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother, arranges for her husband to see an eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). After a rough start, the two delve into an unorthodox course of treatment and eventually form an unbreakable bond. With the support of Logue, his family, his government and Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall), the King has to face himself, his insecurities, his lack of confidence, his painful speech impediments, and claim his true voice in order to deliver a radio-address that will need to inspire the people of his empire and unite them in battle.

This is the true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.

As the red light in the King's broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, Lional notices how nervous the King is and  says to him,  "Forget everything else and just say it to me."

Over the next three posts, I'd like to unpack that statement in terms of the process of both finding your individual unique voice and expressing that voice with courage and effectiveness.