Mailbag: Part 2

a puff of air. Welcome to Permission to Speak, the podcast about how we talk and how we get ourselves heard with me samarve Hi. Guys, this is part two of the mail Bag episode, and this when we get into a lot of specific questions around vocal fry breathing,

especially during say, times of anxiety. What tone really means, listeners worrying about sounding too nasal and um some big ideas around speaking without apologizing for taking up time and space, which you know, I think it is actually the heart of like ninety percent of our vocal drama, as well as a you know, sister idea of what I called in this episode getting voice shamed, which I think is so insidious that most of us don't quite notice it or or can't quite put our finger on it when

it's happening. And we also answer a question about why specifically we end every episode of Permission to Speak by making sure to celebrate the voice of someone whom I guest admires. This was a delightful conversation, and I can't wait for you to hear it and give me feedback. This is mail Bag Part two. Here's a question from one of our listeners. I'm doing a lot of phone banking for the upcoming election, and I feel like I

come off too formal or cheesy. I want to put people at ease, but also get my point across quickly. Do you have any tips? Phone banking is so hard. It's like, you know, cold calling anybody? So hard? Um. My biggest tip is really make it about them, because it sounds like from what this person's the way that they're framing the question, that's they're they're thinking about themselves. Uh, totally understandable, but really really think about what am I trying to How am I trying to make the other

person feel it's really good? Uh? Can we talk about people just getting a little nasily actors, but also just speaking in general. Um, there's a specific question that someone's an actor from Chicago and they speak a bit nasily. What can I physically do to take myself off out of the Chicago Chicago. I wonder if, um, they've been getting feedback about that, or if they're hearing it in their own head. Um. I partly ask because I don't want I feel like some of it is self consciousness

that is like misplaced energy. We don't have to actually change the way our body sounds. But um, if they're getting feedback, if it feels like it's getting in the way, UM, I don't know if this is what they mean by nasally. But sometimes it's that we're not breathing enough and we're not we're not connected enough to our chest resonance. So we have these two different ways that sound comes out

of us. Basically, guys, the way that we make sound come from inside our body out is not really our mouth. It's that our bones vibrate the space in between our bones, which are sort of like cavernous you know, caves vibrate the sound waves literally like bounce off of the cave. The inner walls of the cave of us and then come out through all the parts of us. And if you if you put your hand on your chest and you talk, you just say like, hi, my name is Samara. Uh,

you will feel vibrating. And if you put your hands in between the two sides of your nose underneath your eyes and you talk, HI, my name is Samara, see if you vibrate there too. In a dream scenario, although we're vibrating everywhere, the two largest chamboos are our mask resonance and our chest resonance. Oh. I talked about this with Adell because she doesn't like the word mask because

it sounds like we're hiding ourselves, right whatever our face resonance. Um. But the idea is, and especially if you're feeling nasily, this is something sometimes what the thing is Ideally we've got both going on equally or in a nice blend, whatever doesn't. Actually, if we're all chest resonance and nothing is happening, no vibrating is happening in our face, it

usually gives off a bit of an underwater quality. There's like this sort of sense like you have a cold and like nothing's coming out up top, so like you're just vibrating down here right. Stereotypically this is a male thing, but you know, obviously it doesn't matter. It's cultural more than it's a biological sex things. But you will feel at least a little powerful, but not necessarily present. And then the opposite is true for the mask. You know,

if you're if you're all pingy all the time. Pingy is this word that we use to mean this sort of like very very present up here a thing. You know, you will sound very present, Hello, I am right here, I am in your face, I am fran dresser, right, but you lose all your power. The rest of your body is just not participating in the game that is communicating. So in a dream scenario we have both. There's pretty

easy exercises to do. That has to do with sort of like moving around the different parts of those of those body parts and actually kind of just trying to like breathe sound into their checking and my vibrating now, my vibrating now. Um. I really encourage people to like search some of those terms on YouTube and see if there are voice coaches who actually like lead you through

those sorts of exercises. But you know, the short answer is probably a little bit more chest residents would help if you're feeling nasally, and I bet that what's annoying you, if it's not annoying other people, is that it's not that it's nasal, it's not that has anything to do with your nose. It's that you've lost your sense of power. You know. Interesting, this is from an American actor. What would be the best way to begin learning an RP Australian or New Zealand accent? Why is it so hard?

What's an RP? I was gonna say, I'm actually not sure if r P Australian is a thing, although I'd be happy to have somebody tell me. RP is this term that means received pronunciation. It is shorthand for the proper British accent. The American version would be called standard American. We don't have RP American received pronunciation American. But RP, obviously this is a term received is already kind of just this made up thing. It's a way of talking

about the standard. So like cockney is not right, it's talking about the standard. So you know, this came up, God knows, this came up a lot in that linguistics conversation that I had with Dr Charity Hadley about what standard means. It's usually just made up by the richest white people you can find um. But as a dialect it is useful to learn. I mean, it's useful to learn any standards so that you can speak intelligently about deviations from the standard. That's not about putting good or

bad judgments on it. It's just about saying, like, this is a thing, so that then we can talk intelligently about when we go step away from the thing. So r P is useful of RP is also known as the Queen's English or BBC English. Sometimes people say there are also different gradations of it, because sometimes OURP refers to the hundred years ago version and sometimes it refers

to more contemporary sound, which is also dialect um. So for Australian, I'm not sure what the standard is, but I will say that Australian and New Zealand are like so hard to learn. I would I'm about to say, are the hardest, but I'm going to put them along

with Irish, and along with South African and Scottish. You know, when we're talking about learning accents, we can talk about regional accents of English of American English, like the South, like Boston, like Gloucester, Glouster, mass um or like uh English as a second language. So if we're learning a French accent, right, but when we're talking about English as a first language in another part of the world, that will always have the most rules, the most different sound changes.

When we're talking about Australian, literally every vowel sound changes from American to Australia. So for like having to make a cheat sheet of like this sounds which is to this sound. The cheat sheet for French is maybe ten sounds long. The cheat sheet for Australian is like that's just more things for your brain to have to kind of like integrate, integrate, integrate over time. It's just much harder.

I actually did have a question that I didn't put on here, and I won't do it because I was like it'll blow her mind and be like no. But someone did want you to go through the various dialects in England and say them all differently rapid fire. I mean, you know, it's doable, but it requires like prep, you know. I mean I like to say I don't come fully downloaded like you know in advance. Um with like all accents of the world, and there's actually some people who

have put together some amazing videos. Um. Amy walker Is aims for this. If you search on YouTube for sort of like trapesing around various parts of the world and you know, switching from accent to accent, to accent to accent. It is totally something I can do as well, but like I do need to actually do my research, do my prep, practice it, and then you know, get there, um, which is my long way of saying no, not right now. Okay. So this is from an American and she's married to

an english Man. He's often says to her that she's speaking too loudly, and I often tell him that he speaks too softly. That sounds normal, It sounds like my life. These are common stereotypes of loud Americans and the English who speak in whispers. How did this come about? To English speaking countries speaking at different volumes? That's really cool, listener. I mean, the short answer is it's cultural. I think

that in her case is probably also gendered. You know, men don't have to speak up in order to be heard dot dot dot permission to speak. I'm man loudly, you know, A lot of the times when women tell me that they speak to loudly or that they are quote unquote too much, it's because they've had to figure out how to overcompensate, and it hasn't necessarily worked in their favor. But the impulse is I have to push

through my discomfort in order to be heard. Whether or not it works as I say, is you know, debatable in different spaces, but the impulse is not something men often have to deal with ever. Ever. Um, the British American thing cultural, I mean really understated, you know, the British thing. That American humor is also really like whad broad and that British is so understated and reserved and you know, clever by by you know, quiet machinations rather

than being so broad and over the top. Obviously, those are huge generalizations. I think I have very sophisticated humor, thank you very much. Um. But you know how delightful when you're married to somebody from a different culture, no matter what the culture is. I mean, a lot of us grew up in households where being loud and speaking over each other had really different connotations. Being loud and speaking over each other in certain cultures totally normal. That's

how people talk. That's how we get our point across. That what comfortable sounds like, that's when you know people. Well, that's what you can do. That's what intimate sounds like. And in some cultures speaking over each other is so looked down upon that you would never do that with the people you love and how dare you? And then when those two people grow up and marry each other, Well,

that's a recipe for fascinating you know, cultural interactions. So it doesn't have to be this thing about what nation you were born in. It's really like, you know, each of our idiolects interacting with the other person's idiolect. I would actually be interested in a follow up to the person that wrote this question, because I'd like you to just, for like, for fun, flip it and see how much your man misses you after you are not that loud American that he fell in love with. Okay, next up.

I've been teased by my friends that when I meet a foreigner speaking English to me, I often respond to them in their own accent. That's amazing, even in broken English. Sometimes I have become aware of this, but I can't seem to stop why is this? Is it psychological? Am I trying to get in the same level or trying to get them me? I figure they would understand me better, But that doesn't actually make sense because they're probably used

to hearing English spoken. Well, Um, it's so beautiful. You know, a lot of people have this, and then a lot of people don't. I think it has to do with empathy, you know, it has to do with mirroring. We're always trying to fit in. I mean, truly, this is like a subliminal We are not always consciously thinking how are the other people in this room sounding? So I should sound more like them, and then I'll you know, be taken seriously by the it's not conscious. But there are

rules of conversation in every room that you're in. And I'm using the word rules very loosely to me, and like, you know, there's stuff for picking up on in order to sort of win the conversation, when not meaning that other people would lose, but when meaning that like what we want to have happen happens, which is often as you say, connection. Um, if we're talking to somebody who sounds different from us, we may very well all of us or most of us be subtly changing the way

we sound in order to mirror them. We do it with hand gestures as well. You know, we do it with body language. We do it with facial gestures. Uh. It sounds like the listener is just like doing it in a more extreme way, so they've become aware of it, right, But it's something a lot of us do. I mean, it's what a part of why I like to say that our idiolect is not is all the stuff we talked about before, but also like who you dated one time for six months, you know, like we pick, we sponge.

It is a human thing to sponge. And also if a linguist were on right now, they would say that is why dialects exist. That is why there are so many different sounds around the world. It's tribal. It makes us feel safer on a biological level to sound like the people were around, and then to be like, oh, those people don't sound like me, so they must not be safe. It's also the heart of why internal biases around dialect are so hard to shake. It's really primal.

We're primed to be scared of people who don't sound like us. It's a fucking bummer in our globalized world, like we want to connect with the rest of the world and treat everybody like humans, and we also have these things inside of us that are trying to keep safe these instincts. Um, how we should take a break. We will be back into a second and we're back cut.

What's mixed? Um? I have a question for you. If someone's long winded, how do they effectively get to the point of a story or a question and a business setting at home in person without losing the authenticity and excitement about the question that they're asking or the project that they're working on. How do we get to the point? Yeah, my answer is making about the other person? What do

they need to know? Right? If this is something where we're actually trying to develop a story for when we're going to have the floor in a more formal context, then that is actually something we can think about ahead of time. Right. How am I going to tell the story? Where does it start? How do I make sure that I'm getting to a conclusion where the why of the message of the story is there? Or is it just a story that's like this funny thing happen to me.

If I want to connect it to the people to the why I'm telling it, then I have to have to develop it ahead of time. I mean, it's it's very anti instinctual because it's not how we go through life telling stories. But uh, if it's not, if it's not this formal context, if it really is just like, how do I cut out the fluff, connect as aggressively as possible to who you're talking to and why in the moment, and let yourself breathe and let yourself think

and don't just get on a roll. And if you feel yourself getting on a role, stop I went down a tangent. Hold on, let me collect myself. I think that most of our long winded nous is from not collecting ourselves, not taking literally a second to breathe and like organize the parts of our body that are all like wow, I thought, all the stuff is going on right? If we can breathe and collect and go, why am I telling this story? Oh? I know? I want to

get to this part that will help us. And the other part of it is that often if we're going off on a billion tangents, it's because we don't really trust our voices. We don't really trust that we can say something once and and be done. Like I wasn't heard as a kid. This is a little bit about right. How we talk to ourselves on the inside affects how we talk on the outside totally and practice. I mean, I'm actually I'm trying to do it right now as I talk. There's we all have different modes. We can

totally be tangenty and random. I like, the last thing I want to do is tamp anyone down. The whole point of permission to speak is that my version of public speaking is not about put you in this box. It's about let you out so you do you. But if you're working on a specific thing, then you can try. You can turn a microphone on because it tends to make us all a little bit more intentional. Uh. You know, turn your voice memos app on when you're alone in a room and try to tell a story. Envision who

you're talking to. Don't just tell it to a wall. God knows that it's not. It's not a helpful thing. Uh. Think of who you're talking to, think about them, smiling and nodding. Right, set yourself up for success, and then tell that story and see see if you can get to the end. With this few like, you know, tangents that end up seeming like you're sort of apologizing for exist stay as possible. And if you hear yourself going, I mean, I don't know, do you know what I mean?

Because there was this other time. You know, when you hear yourself doing those tangents, stop the recording started again, and try this time. What if I sounded like somebody who really believed herself, who really knew that this story deserved to be heard. Just really really tell yourself that. I'll tell yourself that and see what comes out. You know, we can all practice. I mean, I'm also not against using ms and likes. I mean, I think that's a

big old you know whatever. It's like a Baal stereotype that like, we shouldn't talk in ums and likes, you know, Go and listen to Amantemont tell I love when she was like, if you take all those out, you actually don't sound human. But when we're using too many of them, it is sometimes because we do not trust that we can say what we want to say and get to the end of our thought without taking it back, without somehow apologizing for taking up time and space. We can practice,

I am practicing it right now. I was holding an intentional beat. Thank you, so I didn't cut anyone off. We have a Peruvian actor in the US, but English is not his first language. He says. If I speak with my normal accent, I'm sometimes told I'm playing a stereotype and limiting my casting range. And if I speak with a standard accent, I'm accused of trying to be someone I'm not. What would you suggest in my case? And before you answer that, I actually think this is

somewhat connected here. We're going to jump down a little bit to a question we have from a black woman who grew up in a predominantly white town. She's been told all of her life that she sounds white or too white. She asks, why does this have such a negative connotation and what can I do to change my generally offended response. Why should I sound blacker and why should I sound whiter? For that matter? It's all very

confusing to me. Yeah, yeah, I really hear this. Um, you know, English is a second language, and also people who are dealing with, you know, deep rooted racist notions of what standard American is and isn't. Are both people who have had to like think much more consciously than a lot of the rest of us. I mean, you know, it's a privilege to sort of find this podcast and

then start thinking about your voice. You know, for a lot of people, they don't have that privilege because it's something that they're that they're confronted with every day from people having all kinds of opinions. Uh, and because there isn't I mean, you know, I'm on this kick to say that there's, um, there's clearly a beauty industrial complex, and there's no voice industrial complex. We don't even know.

Not only are there standards of the voice that are really nebulous, but we don't have any of the language to talk about it. It's not like we can say, stop that shaming me, what's the difference, what's the what's the version here? Stop voice shaming me? I mean, I would like to introduce that or something like that into the lexicon, because the reality is the people who are saying that to you have no idea that what they're doing is like, you know, racism as where they stand.

They don't know, they don't have you know, I don't want to blame them, even but you know, for people in Hollywood to tell this actor uh, you're doing a stereo type when you really are just sounding like yourself. You know, Hollywood is full of people who think that they know everything and don't you know, And I'm so furious for you that you have to deal with that. I think an answer for both, actually for for for both of these listeners might be in this word idi elect.

It might be in giving yourself the language to say back to people. It sounds to me like you have a stereotype of how I should sound based on how I look. But actually, there's this really cool idea I just heard about of an idiolect. It means that every single one of us sounds different from every single other person because our life experience is reflected in our voice. Do you want to know more about my life experience? Because really we just have to open it up for people.

We have to, you know, teach. As much as that's like annoying, you don't have to. I mean, God knows, you can just like disengage. I think being offended is completely allowed. Please don't be like sorry about being offended. But if we want to also, you know, change the story, change the way everybody is listening to our voices. There is an element of teaching involved if we're if we're willing to take that on, and I think the teaching is is just this. It sounds like you're sort of

trying to put me into a box of sounds. I totally get it. We're all trying to meaning make here, but I don't fit into that box because of my life experience. Do you want to know more about my life experience? It ruins met a little bit of the Michelle Obama thing. If you can't hate up close, as soon as you start to hear somebody's real story, then you can enroll your listener. Again, not your fucking responsibility, And I'm sorry you have to do this, but if

you want, you can enroll your your listener. The person who who has you know said things about your voice, you can enroll them in geekdom around the fact that all of us sound different from everyone else. You know, this is challenging. This is real challenging. I and I want to I don't think you read these. I just want to also let you know that, UM, one of our listeners said that they have a deeper voice compared to most women. UM, and so the issues that she

runs into are a little different than most. Mainly, she feels like she can't raise her voice without people accusing her of being needlessly angry, even when it's justified. Combine that with being a first generation Nigerian American, and that's a whole lot of stuff I have to unpack. Yes, it is okay. So I just she just wants to thank you for this podcast and for giving her the comfort that she's not overreacting and she's looking forward to

more episodes. Yeah, I mean, um, you're not over reacting. I dream of a future where all of us can be as angry as we actually are, justifiably so about various things that pop up in our life, whether it's political or personal. We're just to not only be angry, or not only have these feelings, but also have them move through us the way that they do for children. Once you feel the feelings, you get to sort of move on from them. I mean, that's my dream scenario

for during this pandemic. When I'm just feeling like, you know, hopeless and overwhelmed, just like feel it, and then it's more likely to move along, suppress it, and it's more likely to stick around. Right, So I just want to honor that, and then also, yeah, the angry black woman trope is so overplayed. It's something you know, Michelle Obama had to deal with, Sarah her Witts talked about that,

and obviously Michelle talked about it in Becoming. It's just one of those things where like how we look gives us a whole lot of different leeway to be different ways. I mean, Brett Kavanaugh was a disturbingly good example of how being unnecessarily angry about something can seem like respect can seem like, uh, we should respect him, his his his righteous anger. And you know, I bet for this listener, if she's angry in a context, she gets branded as

being irrational. The rationality of anger is very gendered and certainly racialized as well. Um there are three amazing books about this, one by somebody who's about to be on the podcast named Sorya Shmali called Rage Becomes Her Um, and the other ones are Brittany Cooper's Eloquent Rage and one of the biggest inspirations for this podcast, Rebecca Tray, Stirs, Good,

and Mad. All three of them are about female rage in the Trump era, and all three of them are are different ways in to talk about how a we can process rage healthily and be we can channel it

to make the world a better place. And I think one of the biggest reframes there, which is from Rebecca Trayster for me, is that if we know our history, women's anger has moved forward society at almost every turn, and then for obvious reasons like it scares the patriarchy, we are continually told to feel ashamed of our anger.

But if we think of our anger as our fire, as the thing that will make our society better, it doesn't mean we can always bring it out in every context with no bad consequences, unfortunately, but it does mean that we can at least love ourselves through that process of having to sometimes hide. It's great so true. We

have a question from an avid listener. Growing up, I was often told that I was too loud or too emotional, which is why it sur I would never ever say things like this to my kids when I had them, if I had them. I now have a four year old son, and he has a lot of energy and speaks very loudly. It's familiar. Um. We had his hearing tested and everything came back normal. However, I'm finding myself constantly telling him to speak softer or be quiet, which

I really dislike doing. How can we teach kids about their voices early on, to enjoy and expand their voices, both literally and internally, but to be conscious speakers and listeners. I love this question. I have two answers. One of them I feel like we might have hit on in an earlier episode, although I don't. I don't so if it's repetitive for people, you know what, it's too bad. Who kind it's called reinforcement ladies and gentlemen, um, I

would too. So two things. The first one is very is very specific practical advice, which is I think that four is not too early to start talking about helping your child read a room. This is not about don't talk loud, because I agree that that's not a very helpful you know, and as she can clearly attest, it ends up having lifelong ramifications of feeling like you know you were signed unced, but rather saying I'm right here, or saying do you think that you could talk a

little quieter to get what you want? Or do you think that this room needs that kind of volume, like really asking them questions, not sounding like an asshole, but really trying to get them to think through. You can even talk about like, are you speaking at that volume right now because you have a lot of energy and you just want to get stuff out? Or are you speaking at that volume because you think you need to for me to hear you. If it's the former, let

them run around outside a little bit. You know, I can tell because of our previous conversation that when you talk at that volume, it's because you need to run around, you need to move your legs. Cool, good to know. Or you know, it may very well be that the kid thinks that they need to talk that loudly in order to get their needs met. You know. I like to say to my son something along the lines of, like, when you talked quieter, did you notice how you actually

got what you wanted better? Right? Because, Like, because I have this acting background, everything is about like tact in order to get your needs met. I mean that's sort of like how we all learn acting, like how to break down script. So it's a tactic. If we can think about volume as a tactic and teach our kid how to think in terms of tactics, I think that's really empowering for them. As well as we'll get us the results we want, which is that they filled the

size of the space and no bigger. The other thing I want to say, though, that's much more philosophical, is Nancy Luna Jimnez, who I'm hoping to get on the podcast Nancy spelled with an eye does the stunning work with adults to sort of help them see that the ways that all of us got stifled as kids is the beginning of It's going to sound really heavy handed, but is the beginning of sort of the ways that

we perpetuate oppression. Put more simply telling kids to not feel the feelings they're having, she calls adult is um. Making kids kind of be adults, process things too quickly, too early, has lifelong ramifications. I think about this all the time with my kid because and he has an oversized emotion. It is inconvenient and sometimes infuriating and sometimes silly,

let's be honest. And yet I am trying desperately to make sure that he's allowed to have his oversized emotions as he figures out what size emotion he wants to bring to a space, and that will happen the older he gets. It's hard, Hey, what was it? Jack? Be quiet, I am trying to report podcast. Just kidding. UM, I love my son. Ladies and gentlemen, set up up. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. We're back, so let's get down to some

brass texts as they say, some terminology. UM, vocal fry. I still don't get it, and I don't know exactly what it is. You mentioned that people may use vocal fry in order to not seem in intimidating. Do you

think that there could be other reasons? Sometimes it seems to be a way to a peer over it therefore not vulnerable thoughts I literally combined probably about seven people asking, and so do I. I mean, I actually love this because sometimes I fear that I'm mentioning it too much or that it's like such an obvious, like culturally agreed upon thing at this point, But of course you know,

it's a little inside baseball and it's not totally obvious. Um, vocal fry is literally just the sound that happens when we're on our voice like we are now, and then we go off it. So it has this sort of quality to it, right, So like Inevitably it ends up sounding a little like a door creaking open, and so people call it creaking voice sometimes instead of vocal fry. I think the fry word is meant to sound like bacon frying, right, Like there's some sort of that quality

a It is not gendered. Everybody does that. I was just gonna say, men do it too, and I feel like it hurts? Is it hurting? Um? It can hurt, is another thing for sure, especially if you do it habitually, like all the time. Him Another thing I will say. I think it comes in two forms. It comes in a billion forms, but in two major categories. One is when somebody opens their mouth to speak, and from beginning to end of thought it is all in vocal fry. We have people in our lives who do this, right,

you can start to listen for it. Now. I'm going to do some example of it here. We'll see how that goes. But it's really the equivalent of saying like, what's your name and being like, my name is Samara, and um, I just wanted to talk to you guys today about what's going on with me? Right versus category too. It comes up at the end of a thought and

really only at the end, so we're saying something. We're saying I believe that, you know, children are a future, but instead of getting all the way to the end of the thought, we go I believe the children are a future, which is up speaking vocal fried together, or I believe the children are a future, which is just vocal fry future. Right. We do this for a lot of reasons. I love that question. Is it is it about being unintimidating or is it about over it? Yes

to all of that, I mean um. When Dr Gupta was on, she said that actually going doing vocal fry is a way of avoiding up speak. So if we don't want to sound like we're going up in a question at the end of a statement, we deliberately like literally, instead of going up and pitch, we go down and pitch to the point where it's below our our regular range, and so it goes into vocal fry, just as you know,

the alternative to going up. But often it's that we're not breathing enough something I'm always on, you know, we just always hope that there was a There was another question I got about this about not about like what's

going on with breathing. We have someone who they are an actress and a yoga instructor, and they know the importance of breath work, how to get to it, how to teach it, and the anxiousness that this person is carrying during these bonkers times UM is not allowing them to tap into their breath work, and it's truly stifling them. The question was, what does this person do when they cannot get to that place of breath work to on themselves. What's the next tool in your toolbag? Yeah, I mean

I think that part. I think that what's happening on a physical level with the with the amount of ongoing low low grade trauma sometimes high grade for for some of us. UM, that's happening with our planet right now, but also with you know, our finances, with all the things that are that are the fallout. UM. It's showing up in our bodies as fatigue like literally just you know, always being tired. But also and relatedly probably UM not

giving ourselves enough space to breathe. We're just holding our breath. When we get anxious, we just tighten, we tighten. It happens all over you know, in between our um are like armpits you know, like there's a reason that that power pose is a thing. It's as much about like expanding our whole bodies as it is literally about creating space under our arms. Because that that thing of getting really really pinning your elbows to your body is a

way of trying to be really small. It's also a way of trying to hold in breath, right, Like, if we're not breathing enough, that's also this vocal fried comes out. You know. I was starting to say, if we aren't breathing with enough support that we can really get to the end of a long and I care type of thought. Uh. Our throats fortunately know how to compensate, and they compensate by like just pushing the tiny bit of air through and that is partly where vocal frid comes from. We

just have this sort of thing happen. So, I mean, I want to honor that person who asked that question about the meditation and breathing being um, you know, like not not just second nature. It's not second nature, and especially when anything bad is happening, it is not second nature to breathe deeply and well and support all of the you know, systems in our body with this like prana, yoga, life force, breath. It just doesn't always happen. We can be intentional about it and try to make it happen.

We can do meditation in yoga and then try to move that energy with us into our day. But you know, if we find ourselves holding again, I just want to say, like, yeah, hi, I am definitely feeling it too, definitely, and let's have a dance party. Let's try to have a dance party in that more totally, totally. I mean, you know, the opposite of this tightness is not just looseness, but its freedom,

this quality of freedom. We all want to feel free right now, and you know, but to get back to the specifics of the vocal fry, some of that is the same issue. It's not just we want to be free, like because tight equals icky and the world is messed up. It's also like vocal fry happens for so many reasons. Some of it is just literally our body is not being supported enough, so we go into our throats. But some of it is I mean, I love this, this, this point that this listener made that it can be

about being over it. It's a great way. Vocal fry is a great way of highlighting that we're saying something cliche or we're saying something that we're bored with to be like, I mean, right, like we say that for a reason. It has all kinds of vocal markers of like I mean, the reason I say cliche is I've heard myself do this where I'm like, you know what they say, the more things change, the more they stay in this day, Right, it's like wat wall, It's like

putting a wat wat into our voice. Like, you know, we are allowed to bring so much nuance to what we're saying. We don't have to. You know, we can be sarcastic, we can be ironic, we can be all these things. And vocal fry, I think serves a lot

of really interesting purposes to sort of carve out. UM also carves out parenthetical statements like I'm saying something really big over here, but also by the way, da, and now I'm back to the big thing, right though, there are different ways that we're that we're coloring, shaping, painting thoughts for our listeners. Very Shakespeare by the way, I

love that, yes, painting for our listeners. Um. Okay, one more of our terminology section here, UM I recently had a female friend referred to herself as man splaining something, meaning she started to pontificate, pontificate, pontificate good word her point of view. She warned us she would be man splanning to us. So what does it mean when of fem is man splaining? Is this a thing for a

fem to speak up at this moment? Is this always something to be celebrated or is it just the other side of the same coin and both genders should be careful about it. Are we out of balance enough so that fems are allowed to explain until we are in better balance of power? Um? And the oh no, And I have thoughts. Um, First of all, I think that Yeah, I mean I think that this woman actually just like was using that term very loosely, and it it sort of loses all meaning if the you know, oppressed side

is using it to theoretically oppress. Um, it's a little bit like reverse racism, which is not a thing. So UM, yeah, I think this person really what she meant was I'm about to teach you guys something, and I don't feel comfortable putting myself into an authority position, so I'm gonna undermine myself a little bit with a joke. That's what I think, which is allowed, like let's use language and

evolve language, and but sometimes language then loses meaning. And for the second half, I mean related, you know, for famas, I'm assuming you meet women and also um, you know, women plus anybody who's in transition or who is presenting as a woman. I think that there's two different questions in here. One of them is are we equally all allowed to be assholes? You know? I would love I would love for everybody to be um more conscious about

how they're thinking. I don't necessarily think women can man explain, but I do think that women can bulldoze. In fact, I think there was another question that a friend asked about somebody who was who was bulldozing through conversations and you know, not allowing others literally silencing other people when you were doing that. It would be great to notice that and not just to say finally, I'm taking on

masculine characteristics pat on the back. You know, men should also learn to not do that, but so should women. The other part of it is, uh, is the patriarchy so out of balance that women should always be able to speak up? You know, Yes, but with the caveat that it is still on us to speak up consciously, to be thoughtful about the people around us, to always be asking why am I? Why am I having this conversation, what would be what would be a win for the

other person in having this conversation. I also want to say before I get off of this that um, the other the other question that I don't think we have time for right now, but that I'm referencing about bulldozing. If somebody is bulldozing in your life, if it's not you, but somebody else, I do think you have to talk to them. I think you have to find somebody in your in your social circle who is the person to step into a servant leadership role and take that person

aside and have a tough conversation. I mean, in the first half of this UM mail bag last week I called it a care frontation. I mean, you know there we are hashtag care frontation. But to say, um, I don't know if you notice that you're doing this, and what I really really love and appreciate about you is but or not even but and um, here's how we could use some support because something is happening dynamic wise in our conversations that isn't effective as it could be.

I love that. Okay, we have a lot of questions people asking you to do dialects and accents, and you know what, we just don't have time for it. But I have a great question from a middle school drama teacher, UM, who's obviously teaching over zoom as well right now, so it's a little bit more of a challenging time, and she finds tone inside and outside of the classrooms so important to effective communication. Would you be able to give a vocal reference to explain a lesson in tone meeting?

Could you say a few questions or statements, but say them in two completely different tones to show how much tone of voice can almost literally change. Meaning I don't even know what sentence to use, because this can happen on any sentence. But I do think that, um, most of us, all of us have the mechanisms to have a wide variety of tones, and don't always trust that that's the case, or we get habitually stuck in just a few But even like as simple as come here.

You know these two words. When you see come here written down out of context, it can be everything from like a really aggressive command to it, come on right, and we humans do know how to create that sort of nuance. We just have to actually use the tools. You know, if we want to practice, we could practice. I mean like, there's a way to say come here that's like come here, which means do it now right. There's a way to say come here that's like come here,

come here. Technically speaking, we dropped the h. Maybe it goes into vocal fry come here right, which is just like this is gonna be easy. Come here right, is like speaking to somebody who needs a little extra love. Come here, come here, come here, come here right. And then you can see from there we can get into really flirty come here, come here right. There's so many different ways that all of us can do that. We just have to actually think the thought of what we

want the other person to be feeling that. Um let's see. Okay, So, Samara, a lot of our listeners are really feeling inspired, including myself, about your vocal library that you've created. Um, can you share why why you find that the vocal library was something that you found so important and what that means to you and why you wanted to include it in the show. You know, I love that there's a spot in every episode to talk about what's working, uh, for

two reasons. One because often when we're thinking about women's voices, if there is any tradition of of of talking, you know, actually actually talking about women's voices instead of just sort of like whispering about like I don't like her voice without knowing how to talk about it. If there is any tradition, it's to point out what isn't working. Right, she has vocal fry, so I can't take her seriously quote unquote, or Hillary Clinton was shrill quote unquote. Right.

We hear all these, We hear all these, and they're all different ways of saying. Here's why a woman speaking in public sounds weird to my ears when the reality is a woman speaking in public sounds weird to your ears, because there's been thousands of years of you know, patriarchal rule where um public space meant men's space, y'all. So every time we open our mouths to talk in public, and some spaces are more accommodating than others, but every

time we are disrupting thousands of years of this ship. Right, Okay, So a that's partly why I just want to have a space where we can talk about what's working and not what's not working. And the other reason is that I think this happens with me, and I've noticed this happened with enough other people that I can say it with some authority. Um, we have a sort of cultural amnesia about what it what a powerful voice sounds like.

So we might have this moment where we're listening to AOC or we're listening to Katie Porter, or we're listening to somebody who isn't in politics but who is grabbing a microphone or who's talking into an Instagram live and being authentic and being themselves and like speaking to us us, And we can have this moment where like we think, oh my god, I want to be her, or I love her, or I you know, this is it. But then when somebody says, what is a powerful voice sound like?

We revert back to some you know whatever JFK comes to mind, like you know, some sort of like old timey straight white man who we aren't and will never be. And I think that this amnesia is something that we need to actively work on by thinking of every one of those times that we hear a woman's voice and we hear her speak to our soul as a data point, We're mapping the future of what power can sound like.

We want to each be our own data point eventually, if we don't already feel like we are in what power can sound like as we gain more power, as we redefine what power is. And you know, that's what I'm hoping that that third act does for people, is to make us all think like, Oh, power can sound so many different ways, and it can even sound me.

Thank you tomorrow to be clean X. Thank you for giving our listeners permission to speak truly and for encouraging people to use their authentic voices and find that even during difficult times. UM, I just want to say thank you, kat. I feel like you have given yourself a little little a little extra soup some of permission to speak today and I really want to applaud you. UM, this is beautiful.

I really loved, I really loved being in conversation with you and also feeling like the actual energy of you guys listening. UM, thank you so much for being a listener on this podcast, for being with me on this journey. I think that the only way that we will actually change what power sounds like in America is together and you are my together. So thank you for being together

with me. Guys, thank you for giving me permission to get dressed today like I got dressed up for you today, because you honestly show up to everything you do a hundred and and I really admire it. It's not easy, and you're doing such a great job. I know how how important having cheerleaders are and having family around and having all those things are to you, to me, to everyone, and it's really tough right now to not have that space.

But there are so many amazing questions and people listening to this show, and I invite our listeners to have a dialogue with your family, with your friends, and also with us, like we're part of your community here, and please write into our show, connect with us, ask questions. Be bold. Now is the time more than ever to figure out what that means. And it can mean sitting in quiet or still this for a little while, and

it can mean speaking boldly. But tomorrow you're doing all of that, and I and I and I also invite our guests and listeners to go to your website because there's a lot of more fun content and so many more cool guests coming and awesome surprises that live on your social media that they're just gifts. You're a gift.

Thank you, thank you. And we also got somebody asking I know UM for recommendations of this type of stuff that I'm reading that influenced me, and I made an I G live about it that lives up on obviously on my Instagram UM at Permission to Speak Pod, so do check that out and I will link to it in the show notes. So let's definitely you know, share resources along those lines. Thanks well at Permission to Speak Pod or Permission to Speak pod dot com and we're out.

Thank you to Cat for joining me for a second half of this massive episode UM, and thank you to all of you for sending in questions for going on this UM journey with me and uh you know, changing the world together. Thanks for that, guys. Thank you to Sophie Lichtman and the team at I Heeart Radio and

all of you. We're recording this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land that is the historic gathering place for the Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit US D A C dot us to learn more about honoring Native Land. Permission to Speak is a production of I heart Radio and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, listen on the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.