When Silence Starves Us and Noise Blinds Us

People often treat communication as if it were a volume control. Some speak very little, hoping that silence will protect them; others speak too much, hoping that the sheer number of words will help get their message across more clearly. Mylena Vocal Coach has spent more than thirty years working with and listening to leaders, executives, and artists, and the most common problem has nothing to do with the number of words, but rather with a voice that has lost its connection to the emotions and the very meaning of communication.

Insufficient communication leaves any listener wanting more, while excessive communication drowns out the message you’re trying to convey. Both situations distance you from your Inborn Voice—that primal vibration that keeps you alive and connects you directly to your emotions.

Poor communication is never shyness

When you hold back your voice for too long, the consequences are inevitable. Your voice grows faint. It becomes harsh. You simply forget how to convey your emotions to the other person. Mylena Vocal Coach observes this constantly in meeting rooms, where the key figure in the discussion usually says almost nothing. That’s why decisions are made without that person being part of the process. Mylena Vocal Coach also observes this phenomenon in interpersonal relationships, where people stop expressing how they feel and suddenly find themselves strangers in their own homes.

History, even if the sources are uncertain, teaches us that this is the price of silence.

The old “forbidden experiments”

Herodotus tells us that Pharaoh Psammetichus I wanted to discover what the “original” language of humankind was. It is said that he entrusted two newborns to a shepherd, ordering that no one speak to them. The children were fed, kept alive, and deprived of all human communication. The story goes that they later uttered a few “words” that might have resembled a Phrygian term for bread. Although this account is almost certainly baseless, the obsession underlying it is revealing. As early as the 7th century B.C., a ruler believed that by depriving a child of speech, one could extract a sort of “pure” truth. Today we know that what results is suffering, which stems from the desire to communicate.

Centuries later, the Franciscan chronicler Salimbene di Adam wrote that Frederick II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, ordered wet nurses to feed and bathe the newborns, but never to speak to them, never to sing, and never to offer the joy of a smiling face. He wanted to see Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or Arabic emerge spontaneously in those children. According to the chronicle, the children died—not from lack of food, but from the absence of the sound of clapping hands, of gestures, and of the warmth of a voice. Historians still debate how much of this is fact and how much is the product of medieval rumors. The warning, however, does not need scientific validation to be useful.

It is said that in Mughal India, Emperor Akbar built a “house of silence,” the Gung Mahal. Reportedly, newborns were raised by mute wet nurses, far from spoken language, to see if a divine language would emerge on its own. Later accounts describe children unable to speak, devoid of a cry that could turn into speech. Once again, the accounts are fragmentary. Yet the pattern is always the same. A human being who is never granted a voice does not become an expert in silence. That human being becomes unreachable.

We do not cite these stories as scientific data. We cite them as a mirror. The voice is not an ornament. The voice is nourishment. Without it, identity does not mature.

What poor communication does to adults

There’s no need to resort to those experiments to stifle the desire to express oneself. The same results can be achieved by establishing a corporate culture that punishes free speech. The same result can be achieved in a family that views the expression of emotions as an annoying noise to be silenced. You can achieve the same result by bottling everything up, holding back every sentence that might put you in what you consider an uncomfortable position.

The effects seem practical, and they are brutal:

– Decisions are never made because no one wants to voice what the real problem is.
– Teams keep repeating briefings because it keeps them busy.
– Trust erodes, because the gap between what people feel and what they say is too wide to be acceptable.
– The body will pay the price: shortness of breath, a clenched jaw, and a cracking voice.

Silence born of fear is not as powerful as silence born of presence. One is empty. The other is full.

Too much communication is not generosity. It is fog.

The opposite mistake is even more obvious. Never-ending email exchanges. Meetings where the obvious is reiterated. Social media posts that treat everything as if it were urgent. Leaders who first explain, then clarify the explanation, and finally send a follow-up message to “make sure we’re all on the same page.”

The result isn’t clarity. The result is like navigating through fog, with no clear destination in sight.

When everything is said, nothing is heard

Mylena Vocal Coach works with executives who can speak nonstop for nearly an hour, but in the end can’t even remember the single sentence that was supposed to break the ice. They have the data. They have the slides. They have the key points prepared by three departments. Their voice is there, but the emotion is missing.

Information overload has a specific effect on attention. The mind begins to treat everything the same. A product launch, a parking reminder, a crisis, a joke, a personal confession: everything is perceived as equally important. It’s normal for people to stop listening.

You can see this in everyday life:
– A manager copies twenty people “for transparency,” and no one takes any concrete action.
– A speaker fills every pause, terrified that silence might seem like incompetence, and the audience doesn’t remember what the presentation was about.
– A couple argues all evening and can’t even answer a simple question: “What do you really need from me tonight?”
– News, chats, and notifications train the nervous system to skim the surface. Skimming becomes a habit. Going deeper feels inefficient.

Too much communication masks emotions. It’s emotions that make a message real. Without them, speech becomes nothing but noise.

The loss of focus is a vocal problem

Yet it’s often described as a productivity issue. Mylena Vocal Coach can clearly sense it in the voice. The pace quickens, and the pitch follows suit. The breath never sinks into the body. This is because the speaker lacks confidence that a single word can bear the weight of their emotions.

When people lack confidence in their own voice, they simply pile on more words. That’s the trap.

The Inborn Voice method doesn’t teach you to play the part of a “confident” character to mask that panic. It doesn’t give you a script to overwhelm the room with words. It restores your inner alignment so that just a few words can make all the difference. This is vocal realignment: not louder, not longer, but more authentic.

The Way of Inborn Voice: enough communication

Between the rock and a hard place, there is a third way. You can speak from the place where your voice springs forth.

Where instinct reacts, emotions respond to a wound, and the mind tries to control the situation with logic, there can be no truth. The level of the Inborn Voice is different. When you reach this level, silence becomes part of the message. You do not stifle the one important message to convey. You let your Inborn Voice manifest, and it will not compete with the noise. It will transcend it.

If you recognize yourself in either of these extremes, you don’t need instruction on technique, but on how to connect with your emotions. Observe whether you hold back because you fear being judged, or whether you overdo it because you fear not being appreciated. Both are masks. Both are perceived within the first ten seconds of a conversation.

If you want to hear what your voice is actually doing—and not what you hope it’s doing—book a vocal assessment session below. The gap between your inner identity and your outer sound isn’t a flaw. It’s where true communication begins.