Finding Your Voice

...and why we should all play "the second way"

Her mom is dead. She’s just moved in with her three uncles (who have no clue how to raise a 6-year-old). She’s in a new town, and it’s Christmas.

Or, at least, it will be soon…

That’s how “Christmas With Holly” begins. The Hallmark Christmas movie starring Eloise Mumford and Sean Faris has been one of my family’s favorites since it first aired in 2012.

Every time I watch it, I cry like a newborn baby…

In the opening scenes, 6-year-old Holly is so traumatized by her mom’s death, she stops speaking. Her uncles don’t know what to do. They try their best to love her and encourage her… but she just won’t talk.

Until she meets the owner of a magical toy store, who makes her feel so safe and wanted that at the end of the movie, she finally finds her voice.

Oh, and the store owner also falls madly in love with Holly’s cutest uncle.

It is a Hallmark movie, after all.

Sometimes, real-life trauma also makes us “lose our voice.”

When I first developed PTSD, I couldn’t speak about the things I’d seen, felt, and heard, no matter how badly I wanted to.

Like Holly, I didn’t feel safe.

I didn’t feel loved, or wanted, or needed. I wanted to be wanted, but because of my trauma, I couldn’t see that I already was.

I started withholding from other people. I wasn’t necessarily silent, the way Holly was - but I wasn’t speaking authentically.

I wasn’t using my true voice.

I was so weighed down by my trauma, I didn’t feel like I had an authentic voice anymore - and even if I did, I was certain no one would want to hear it.

I “stayed silent” for years, because I thought my trauma was somehow my own doing, and I was terrified that if I shared it with anyone else, they’d condemn me for being the failure I thought I was inside.

Trauma does that to people.

It twists us up, and it makes everything feel impossible, like we’re constantly two steps away from the end of the world - and no one can help us, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

And you don’t think you can tell anybody, because even if you do, who’s going to understand?

Fortunately, like Holly, I was able to find my tribe, the people who ultimately did make me feel safe, and needed, and wanted.

And now, I can speak authentically. In fact, nowadays, you can’t shut me up! Which is a bit of a blessing, and a curse, depending on what crowd I’m in…

But I didn’t come by this naturally. I had to work for it. I had to fight a lot of inner demons just to get to where I am today. And even today, I am by no means “cured” of my trauma.

(Personally, I don’t think trauma can be “cured.” But I do think we can learn to respond to it in healthier ways.)

There’s always hope, for every one of us. Some of us have to fight harder to find it, and to maintain it, but it’s always there, calling us onward.

If you’re reading this, and you’re still more “silent Holly” than you are “social Holly,” I just want to say that I see you. I know what you’re up against. I know how much it hurts, sometimes.

I also know that where you are right now is temporary. I promise you, it will change. Whether it changes for the better, or for the worse… I don’t know if anybody really knows, save God.

But the one constant in this life is that things change.

So I guess the second constant, if such a thing is possible (and if it is, then I hope someday they’ll call it “Glenn’s Constant”) is this:

With the right skills, and the right knowledge, you can make things change for the better. Most of the time.

If you’re stuck in a moment… or if you’re ready to move on… or if you’re somewhere in between…

I’m here. I’ve been where you are and I know you don’t have to stay there.

I know there’s still time for you to find your voice.

This world needs our voices.

It needs your voice.

If you haven’t found it yet, it’s not too late.

Maybe we can find it, together.

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“Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal!”

Twenty-one years ago, Macaulay Culkin thrilled U.S. audiences as he played a clip of Ralph Foody screaming this as he shot up a showgirl in the parody film-inside-a-film, “Angels with Even Filthier Souls.”

The film was a parody of the 1938 Warren Brothers film “Angels with Dirty Faces” starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. (A fact which I never knew until this very day; I always assumed it was a clip from a real Hollywood movie!)

A YouTuber named The Notorious Buttcrack has uploaded the clip that’s used in Home Alone 2:

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Around the Web

1. Life lessons from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9: In this almost 20-minute Ted Talk, Benjamin Zander uses Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 to illustrate the difference between possibility and positive thinking.

   Pay special attention near the end as he explains why we should all play “the second way.” Beware: He uses the f-word towards the end of his talk, so you may not want to watch this one with your children.

2. Looking for something to watch this week? Here's the best Christmas movie of every decade since the '40s

3. Or if you prefer, you can check out Good Housekeeping’s movie list to find the Most Popular Christmas Movie the Year You Were Born

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…and a Happy New Year

Thank you for joining me on this journey! Feel free to share this newsletter with a friend or colleague you think will enjoy it. (Just not the guy who double dips.)