I'm eleven years old in synagogue sitting with my butt on the turned-up leather theater seat, training my finger across the line of Hebrew, trying to keep up with all the old men who have been singing this song their whole lives. The sound of their voices is so sad, like they want something they lost, like they can touch it inside themselves to bring it back through their bodies. I imitate. Chadesh, chadesh yomeinu, chadesh yomeinu ki-ke-dem... (return us to days of old...) I want to be a singer. I want to feel it like that. Singing loud enough to hear myself, hoping to stand out as a natural, I push the air through my clenched throat, simultaneously trapped by the specifics of my surroundings and freed by my ability to give voice to my yearning.

Later, at play practice (I'm Toodles in Peter Pan), I work to project my voice, pushing the air up into my nose to sound bright and perky like Heidi and Melissa and the girls who get the good parts. If I don't sing loud nobody can hear me and I'll be overlooked. By the end of play practice my throat hurts, but I don't want to stop. Singing makes me feel good, like I can imagine another me. I could practically write a song about it right now! Look at me, you may think I'm fat, you may laugh at my fake leg, but you don't know what I got inside!

In the car ride home I sing for my mom, proud of my volume and the bright tone that I've learned from the theater girls. My mom rolls her eyes and rolls down the window.

"What, you don't like it?" I ask.

"You sound so nasal, I can't even listen to you," she says.

I cry the rest of the way home, hiding my red face as I run to my room, wondering if I will ever be loved for what's inside of me.

When I teach a "Singing as Social Justice" workshop, I start by having everyone pair up and tell each other the stories of their voices. Everyone has a story, whether it's "I love to sing but I'm tone deaf," or "I've had years of training and I can only sing opera." You may have been told you can't sing, most likely in a moment when you were really enjoying yourself, or trying really hard. Or maybe you were told you have a good voice, and you learned to hone the qualities that are pleasing to others, carefully weeding out sounds that are unique, strange, or uncomfortable.

Most of us are afraid to use our authentic voices; we don't even know what that might mean. So we stay silent. Or we push. We sing in one specific constructed way because we think that's the only way to sound "good." Whether you were taught to believe that you are a good or bad singer, it's a judgment that can be built up into an identity, a system you can use against yourself and others.

But there are other possibilities. The voice, and the sensitivities derived from practicing and using it, can be used as a gage or an energizer in a space. It can be a source of pure expression, a way to connect, and a way to observe the space you're taking up. When we're stuck in our oppression we often feel voiceless, the throat closes up, we can't find a way to say what we need to say, words come out as a whisper. When we are acting out of privilege or entitlement we don't realize, energetically, what kind of impact we are having on the space we occupy, whose voices we are drowning out. The authentic voice can be used as a tool for social justice, a way to feel ourselves and hone our attunement to each other, to connect outside of social or institutional hierarchies.

For the sake of transparency, here are some of my insecurities about my voice: It sounds strained. It sounds stuck in my throat. It sounds boring. I run out of breath. I sound cheesy. I sound old. I sound young. I sound imitative. I'm not as good as Pat Benatar. I'm not as good as Patti LaBelle. I can't do those really big high notes that lots of girl singers can do. I can't do those really cool runs that R&B singers do. I don't sound like I mean it. I'm being melodramatic. I went out of tune. I lost track of what I was doing. I sound wobbly. I sound scratchy. My throat hurts. I have to cough. My voice cracked.

I have been told to shut up. I have been told I can't sing. I have been made fun of; I've been eye-rolled; I've been asked to please not sing because it's not appropriate to the environment (obviously I thought it was, whoops).

One time I was at a silent meditation retreat where I was instructed, for accessibility reasons, to do chanting instead of walking meditation. I thought this was a great idea, but once I started doing it I realized there was a problem—I was the only person at a silent retreat making noise. And people were looking at me weird, walking away from me with annoyed looks on their faces. I worried that people thought I was just making up my own special rules, but I couldn't explain myself, because it was a silent retreat. I watched the crows diving around in the sky squawking and screaming and I felt jealous of them for getting to express themselves without self-consciousness. After one of the teachers came and talked to me on the fourth day, saying other meditators were complaining, I had a breakdown, I cried and cried, feeling like I took up too much space, like there was simply not enough room for me in the world.

If I let any of these things stop me, I would not be a singer.

After I give people a moment to tell the story of their voice to each other, I ask them to turn inwards and notice their breath. I ask, no matter what your mind is telling you, no matter what is going on around you, just breathe and allow yourself to feel your body—your feet on the floor, your butt on the chair. Feel the parts of your body that move with your breath, the obvious parts like your chest or your belly, and the subtler movements too—the shoulders, the neck, maybe even the hands, the thighs.

Visualize yourself in a bubble of gold shimmery light, and imagine that when you inhale that light pours into you, filling up your lungs, symbolizing all the amazing possibilities and potential and support the world holds for you. Notice how this feels in your body. Notice places in your body that are tense or painful, and when you exhale, visualize that tension, along with any negativity or self-doubt leaving your body in a puff of black smoke, which dissipates, making room for more light inside you.

Watch your breath become longer, slower, and deeper. When you feel full, take one last deep breath, and then push it all out with a big long shhhhhhhh.

Now wait.

Keep waiting.

See what it's like to be empty, to be without something you think you need. Imagine that you are an embryo, floating, perfect and supported, drawing in everything you need through your skin, completely whole and symbiotic with the world. Watch your body as it prepares to take a breath, knowing that it is available to you whenever you need it. Your stomach starts to contract and pulsate, and finally, when you really need it, allow yourself a good, deep breath. Imagine this is your first breath. See where it travels inside you.

This exercise helps you create a body memory, of what it's like to let go. So often we are walking around in the world with all this stale energy, stale air sitting around inside us. We don't know what we have inside us, what we're capable of, because we don't know how to let go of things that don't feed us. This openness, this depth, is something you can return to every time you sing. It is always available to you—your body, your breath, the reality of this moment.

That yearning I learned to channel in synagogue, that was the essence of what I was looking for, and it was the channel through which I searched. I wanted to feel myself, to access my body, to experience myself as whole, to funnel my dreams into sound, to be recognized and accepted. Musical theater gave me a space to dramatize that yearning, to seek the approval I so desperately believed I needed. At sixteen I played in my first band, and found that musical theater and Hebrew prayers had not prepared me for punk rock. I needed to be louder, madder, more aggressive. I imitated the bratty high-pitched sing song of the riot grrrl bands I looked up to in my community. I wanted to sound like Kathleen, Allison, Corin. I strained to be heard over the amps and drums. As I got older, I found that the strain of forcing my voice, combined with the stress of expectation, meant that I would always lose my voice when I had to perform.

When I wrote a rock opera in 2000, I found myself in a position having to teach other people how to sing my songs. This meant working with them to get the sound that I wanted, doing warm-ups together as a group, remembering to take care of my own voice so that I could help others take care of theirs. As a teacher, I found myself asking things like, where in your body can you find the most authentic sound? How can you honor your voice and let it sound natural, not forced? What parts of you have to open to let it out?

I explored these questions in myself, and began to work more directly one-on-one, often with students who have been told since childhood that they are tone-deaf or can't sing. In my experience, everyone who I've worked with is capable of finding a note, holding it, and making a nice, resonant sound. The key is to let go, stop thinking so hard about it, just find the space of the note; locate yourself inside of it. You can tell when you are there, you just have to feel it.

After we've taken time to breathe and connect to our bodies, I lead workshop participants through a series of silly exercises. We scrunch up our faces and then stretch them really big to feel all those muscles. We massage our jaws, imagining they can open from the hinge. We do the motorboat: Rev your lips—brrbbrrbbrbb—feeling the vibration all through your face into the back of your head. We do roller coasters: use your hands and your voice together, start as low as you can go, then slowly climb all the way to the top of your range and then slide back down. We do hi hi hi's and ha ha ha's and other games and exercises that allow people to get over themselves and just mess around.

Once I have everyone warmed up and accustomed to making sound, we start to improvise. Begin with a hum, moving your bodies just a little, a wiggle or a bounce, feeling the vibration in your body, letting the sound you make fill up the bubble of personal space around you. Really listen to yourself, and allow yourself to take leadership inside that space. Don't worry about sounding good. Allow yourself to explore, and learn to orient yourself inside the sound, attuning to the sensations and experience of using your voice.

From here, open up into a vowel sound, a small oooh, and let that sound move around, watch it evolve. The sound of a bunch of people doing this at once is kind of like an orchestra tuning up. Start to play with different vowel sounds (ahh, ohhh, oooh, eee), exploring range (how high can you go? how low can you go?), volume (how quiet? how loud?), and combinations of the three (what's it like to make a loud low "ahhh" sound as opposed to a small high "eee" sound?). As we enter more fully into the sound, becoming aware of what our voices are capable of, we start to notice what those around us are doing, and we start to echo and respond to each other, weaving together a dynamic, textured fabric of sound.

From here, I can just watch the experience evolve. We can add in a beat, create a repetitive line that we hold and repeat, taking turns moving away, improvising and then returning to the group. We can start adding in words, riffing off each other. Sometimes there is a swell of volume and expression, sometimes the sound all but dies out but then transforms into something new. We can usually tell, intuitively, when it is time to end. I have done this with hundreds of people, in many different contexts, and it is always, always beautiful. The songs we create together are magical, real, totally strange and totally perfect.

There is often at least one person sitting there, singing, with tears streaming down their face. The intimacy in the space is tangible. People feel that they are sharing themselves, and experiencing each other, in a way that is extremely rare in this world.

Learning to access your authentic voice means taking up space in a way that is self-aware, self-loving, and generous. Singing can teach you to be observant of your self—your body, your voice, your thoughts. You can tell how present, how authentic you are in the moment, based on how your voice feels when it comes out. There isn't one way it should sound, so if it doesn't feel right, try something different. The more you use your voice, the more tuned in you will be to how it feels coming out of your body, and how it interacts with different spaces, people, acoustics, moods, environments. You can feel your voice at different volumes and intensities, see how it bounces off your environment, see how you're impacting the world.

Give yourself the benefit of the doubt! It's okay if it doesn't sound good. Just keep trying. Keep focusing on singing from way low down in your belly, feeling the vibration, relaxing, and loosening up. It really is okay, even if it's hard. Assume the world deserves what you have to give. You are giving your most special gift, yourself. People want to hear and feel it. By being your brave and authentic self, you give permission to other people to access that in themselves too. This helps create a more loving and giving world.

Why don't you sing.
I mean really sing.
I mean do the thing your heart wants most.
It's so close, it's right here.
In the hum of the atmosphere.

Take those words, or some version of them, and make a song out of them. It can be sing-songy, droney, totally out of key, operatic, punk rock, meditative, whatever. Find yourself a place to be, maybe in your car, maybe in the shower, at the garden, walking down the street, and sing it. Sing it loud enough so that you can comfortably hear yourself, quiet enough so that you aren't purposely invading other people's space. Sing from your core, feel your gut. Your personal style is the combination of your influences, filtered through the specifics of your body in the moment. To let the body express itself without judgment while also being mindful of your environment, of the people impacted by the space you take up, that's revolutionary.

My throat still hurts when I sing Hebrew prayers; I often still push myself too hard on stage. But now I also sing for meditation, I sing with friends, I sing impromptu songs as outgoing voicemail, I sing show tunes and 80s pop while I do the dishes. I hum and direct the vibration to parts of my body that are painful or tense. I've built up enough of a body memory that I can often remember to ground myself, breathe, relax, and feel my body, even when I'm on stage. As I've learned to be gentler with my own voice, I've confronted fears about taking up space, of not sounding good, of not knowing what I'm doing, of being embarrassed. And I've learned to enjoy myself and actually feel the moment.

I have a vision that some day I will be able to enter any space, with any group of people, and we will be able to sing together. We will make up spontaneous, joyful music, in which we each take leadership and give reflection to each other, where we are all able to shine, but nobody is the star.