My Voice Was Never the Problem

By Kristi Cruise

There are moments in life when something buried for decades suddenly rises to the surface with clarity you can’t un-see it. You can’t unknow it. You can’t go back to the version of yourself who didn’t understand.

I had one of those moments recently.

This revelation cracked open a lifelong pattern and illuminated the truth underneath it:

My voice was never the danger.

The adults around me just couldn’t hold it.

For most of my life, I believed the opposite.

I thought I caused the chaos.

I thought my words were too sharp, too honest, too destabilizing.

But now I see:

I wasn’t unsafe because I spoke.

I was unsafe because the people I spoke to weren’t regulated enough to receive it.

This single truth is reshaping everything.

Two moments in my life — separated by decades — mirrored each other in a way I can’t ignore.

In both moments:

    •    I spoke an (unpopular) truth I felt obligated to say.

    •    The adult on the receiving end reacted poorly.

    •    The situation quickly spiraled into chaos.

    •    I walked away feeling like the source of the harm.

As a child, the conclusion was simple and devastating:

“When I speak, I become unsafe.”

And because children can’t separate their voice from someone else’s reaction, that belief sank deep into my body. It shaped the way I moved through the world, chose relationships, handled conflict, and learned to swallow my own needs.

After many years, I've  finally saw the truth with my adult eyes:

Their behavior/reaction created the harm.

Not my voice.

Having enough of these instances as a child helped solidly engrain me into what I call Emotional Homelessness. No anchor, no adult co-regulators, no mirror that creates a safe space in the body.

EH can be carried into adulthood and is stored in the muscles, breath, and nervous system.

    •    The jaw that never fully releases

A 5th Grade Me Holding Much On My Shoulders

    •    The ribs that stay lifted instead of dropping

    •    The constant subtle bracing for impact

    •    The vigilance that never turns all the way off

    •    The ability to relax only in yoga, never in “real life”

EH teaches the body that safety is conditional.

That rest must be earned.

That truth is dangerous.

And until now, I didn’t understand why the pattern felt so ingrained.

Now I do:

My body learned early that honesty led to abandonment, attack, or collapse.

Not connection.

No wonder my system has lived half-tensed for decades.

But here’s the part that feels like tectonic plates are shifting:

The shame I’ve carried all these years was never mine.

It belonged to the adults who:

    •    overreacted

    •    lashed out

    •    withdrew

    •    blamed

    •    couldn’t regulate

    •    couldn’t stay present

    •    couldn’t protect

    •    couldn’t parent

Shame becomes toxic when it settles on the wrong shoulders.

And for years, it settled on mine.

I finally handed it back.

Not with bitterness.

With accuracy.

The moment that truth clicked, something inside me — something tight and ancient — finally softened.

Now, I'm learning to live by a new rule. 

For most of my life, the rule was:

If I speak up, I’m unsafe.

But that rule was written by a frightened child who didn’t yet understand that adults are fallible, limited, and wounded in their own ways.

My new rule — the one I’m choosing to live from now:

My safety depends on the capacity of the person I’m speaking to.

Not the truth of what I’m saying.

Some people will meet my words with curiosity.

Some with defensiveness.

Some with awe.

Some with collapse.

Their reaction is information — not a verdict.

This revelation is not just personal.

It is foundational to the work I’m doing through all of my brands.

Because every person I work with carries some version of this wound:

A moment when their voice was too much for someone else’s nervous system.

A moment that taught them to stay small.

If we’re going to heal shame, we have to begin exactly where shame began —

with the misplacement of responsibility.

Not everything that happened to us was our fault.

And yet, our bodies learned to carry the burden.

This chapter is about learning to put it down.

I don’t know exactly where this leads yet.

But I know how it feels:

    •    like relief

    •    like truth

    •    like the spine straightening

    •    like the body unclenching

    •    like something ancient making room for something new

It feels like the beginning of a chapter I’ve been preparing for my whole life.

It feels like coming home.