Tamara Beatty on Finding and Freeing Your Authentic Voice

Today's episode is really a full circle of so much of the ground we've covered because it intersects so many of the topics we've been exploring, from acceptance to love, fear, boundaries, and ultimately accessing one's true self. The topic we are going to be exploring today is very close to my

heart because we are talking about the voice. I wrote a blog recently for my blog, Soul of Everley, and if you don't know it, go check it out at soul of Everley dot com and sign up for our newsletter because that's the best way to stay in touch

and receive my Leada's musings outside of the podcast. But the blog was about an experience that I recently had with my voice and with performing, and even though the situation was unique to me, so many people wrote in saying how much they resonated with what I was sharing, so it got me thinking of how I could share even more of all the ah ha moments, because there have been many that I've been having since working with my voice in the capacity in which I am now,

and to do that, I thought I would bring on a very special guest my voice and I call her my voice slash life coach because that's basically what she is, Tamara Beatie. I first connected with Tamara during my time on the Mass Singer. As a vocal coach, Tamara has worked to not only heal, but to reveal some of the most powerful and beautiful voice as possible. She has an extensive resume I could definitely rattle off, but honestly, her depth and gifts go far beyond any of her accolades.

Tamara's coaching style is incredibly unique and flows much deeper than the work that we do with my actual vocal courts. She is intuitive, she's patient, she's curious, and she is a powerful healer. I have never actually worked alongside a vocal coach in this way because I honestly haven't trusted anyone in the way that I trust her, and I

think that says a lot about Tamara. What's really been incredibly eye opening is how much the work we do together has overlapped with all the areas of exploration I've been dedicating this podcast too, and I realized that the lessons I've learned from her and the progress that I've made run deep to the core of finding our individual

voices and connecting with our true selves. I hope that you find healing and liberation and our conversation and begin to explore ways in which you can reveal your own powerful voice. And with that, I welcome you to this episode of Holy Human. Odd YEA yeah, Tamara, thank you for coming on Holy Human. This is such an interesting thing for me because you and I just saw each

other yesterday. I feel like I have had conversations on this podcast with people that I've had intimate relationships with, but I find I am finding that this is probably the most intimate relationship that I've had with another that's on this podcast. And I never expected anyone to be in this position with me, actually to have this kind of relationship, and I'm I'm super grateful that you are in my life and the work that we do together is I don't even know how to describe it. We

sometimes get to my voice voice. Sometimes we were working on my voice a lot at this moment, like just building stamina because I have been going, you know, have gone back out on the road, and so I've needed that after having a year and a half off. But I feel like there's so much work that we do before the voice and just to give people kind of

a bit of a background. Like you and I met on the Mass Singer and I actually ended up with you because I had lost my voice during filming and I was on steroids and I everybody kept telling me, there's this wonderful woman and she has all these tricks, and I'm like, sure she does. I've been around long enough to feel like I know every trick in the book, and sure enough, my intuition just guided me to go

see you. And I'm glad that I had lost my voice at that moment, because I don't think I would have walked into your room and your space and unless I had. So with all that said, I would love to hear first off, what you experienced of me when when we first met, because I know for myself, I was very hard headed. I didn't want to think about singing it was like the last thing I felt like if I thought about it, then it would I would lose what I innately had, And so I'm just wondering

what your experience and all of that. One. Well, first of all, my goodness, thank you so much. What an amazing um compliments. I really appreciate that. For me, when I work with somebody, I just feel so privileged that they're trusting me, because, like you say, the voices really a lot more than just this physical instrument that we're working with. It's all the stuff behind it, everything that we've been through, and it's a little bit like we

want to keep that space safe. So I'm always really appreciative when somebody takes a leap and says, okay, let's try this, because it's not just their livelihood, it's also everything that makes them them. So thank you. Firstly, thanks so much. Of course, Well, when we first met, all I knew was that you were just looking to get your voice feeling a little bit better for a performance. That's all I knew, you know, That's all I thought it was too. I was like, she can help me maybe,

but yeah, and then when we connected. You know, it's really common for people even to have had experiences where they've seen somebody, or they just have this idea that what they're doing is being changed, or they have to insert a whole bunch of extra effort and that takes them out of the performance. And I understand that that

makes sense to me. But essentially when we connected, I mean, the very first thing I noticed was just in your voice in general, I just felt like you were even though you might have felt guarded in one way, you were very vulnerable. That's interesting you were. You did allow me space too, to kind of come in and ask questions, and I was aware that there was a spot that we could go to, but I just was like, that's where we'll go to, and we'll just kind of keep

going there, keep listening. The voice is more powerful than anything we're thinking. So it's sharing a lot of the way we're living, a lot of the way that we're doing our life, the blocks we hold, how we thrive. So basically my job is just to listen to the voice and then try and and bring it back to you in a way where you feel like it feels more like you. One of the most interesting pieces for me was how you went and through my body first,

like it was really important. I could tell my musculature, like everything felt really tight. I've had a lot of dental surgeries over the past, you know, eight years, and I feel like my jaw was had constant tension. The muscles in my neck were constantly tight. And instead of going toward my voice first, you started it on the body, and I was just wondering how the body informs our voice. Okay, so this body is absolutely incredible. It is our voice,

our voices, our body. It's a mechanism of our body. We sometimes forget that because we're using it to express, but it's actually a mechanism inside the body. And if we are experiencing tension of any sort, that kind of signals to the brain. You know, there's tension through the nervous system, it signals it to the brain and then the brain kind of comes back out and you know, it might send some hormones, it might send some adrenaline, and might send things like that. But essentially this tension

has to be kept somewhere. So where does this tension go. Well, sometimes for singers, it it goes into the areas that affect our voice. And so when we've got these extra muscles that have been recruited to help us sing or speak. It could be for a speaker. We essentially can start building a habit that creates a habit way of speaking or singing or phone maating that is physiological. It's it's in the body. And even though you know, the signals go back to our brain and the brain says, you know,

I'm tight. Oh no, something's bad, it's happening. I have to worry. I don't want this to happen. Essentially, it comes back down to the body that this worry is expressed or mirrored intension, and this tension has to lie somewhere.

So being able to have your body loose, you know, your diaphragm not tensed, kind of not in a state of sympathetic reaction whereas fight flight or freeze, to try and get it out of that into that parasympathetic mode, it really really really helps the voice to sort of begin to mirror those qualities of relaxation and calm and ease. M I get so many things I can say about this. Um. Yes, getting into my body first and relaxing some of those muscles gave me a It made things start to feel

a bit easier. I know that there's been so many things that have opened up for me around this work with you, and one of the biggest pieces there's you know, there's been different misconceptions, things that have been told to me about the voice in the past that you've totally like blown open for me. But one of the biggest things of pieces of awareness for me has been how hard I try at so many things. And I think a lot of people can relate to this, you know.

I In fact, I just heard one of my um one of my therapists I have many, one of them, one of them today was saying how much drama we cause in our adult lives in order to feel like we're living a life worth living or doing something. You know, we're causing the drama in order to feel like we're

doing enough. And that totally made sense to me because we've been talking about this of how I, with my voice, especially make it harder than it is in order to feel like I'm doing something more than I need to do in order to be who I think I have to be. And I know that plays over into so many different parts of my life of how we're making things more complicated than they have to be and that's been a major lesson, one of the big aha moments.

And I feel like for me, my voice is such a huge catalyst for change because what I'm learning is if I can see and experience the lesson within my voice, not just see it, but actually like feel it and experience it, it trickles out into all the other areas of my life. So that's been one of the big factors for me, is bringing ease into the body and the voice. And it's still it's a layering piece for

me because I'm noticing there. I can feel so at ease, and then all of a sudden have triggers on stage that all of a sudden make my muscles tense up. I know, yesterday I was performing and I text you after and I was like, I had this voice in my head that was like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. My muscle started tensing up. And Daryl, my sweet friend Daryl, and I were just talking about this. I actually something I didn't tell you.

I went out into the hall, I said I need a break, and I went and screamed I know, which you, which was one of the things that has been told my whole life to me. I was actually taken to the doctor because I wanted to be a cheerleader and I was told, like, you can't scream because you will ruin your voice as a singer. And so yesterday was such a breakthrough for me, and I was like, there's this child inside of me right now that does not want to do this, and I need to go let

it have its moment. I need to let myself have my moment. So I screamed, and I went right back and sang breakthrough. Yea, yea. But I I just wonder you say that you can you can tell all of these things about someone through their voice. I would love to you to expand upon that a bit. And we've talked about how the body plays a role in our physiology, but like, what else can you tell about someone through their voice? Like does trauma? Obviously trauma shows up through

the voice. I'll let you kind of go there. Absolutely, you brought up so many amazing things. I'll just touch a tiny bit on them, like we absolutely kind of exert a lot more effort in many things in life, Like maybe I'm even brushing my teeth and I'm brushing them like fervently and I can just like brush them. I don't have to kind of really go crazy at it.

But it's the same thing we you know, at the same playing piano or something, I might exert more effort um in parts of my body that I don't need. And it's the same with singing. It is true in singing that we do need as the voice, you know, a sense and pitch to recruit different muscles. And the ones we want to recruit are the ones that allow that voice to basically think of it as a rubber

band like lengthen and not length. And I mean it's not exactly like that, but the idea of you know, we have to have that um mass, stretch or be in a position where if I was to like pluck it like a string, it would be higher because it's more taught, right, and so our voice. We want to recruit those muscles. But the muscles we don't want to recruit are the ones that are used for you know, swallowing. Well, it's not accurate, but the idea of hilaris we don't

want to recruit that too much. We don't want to recruit the ventricular fold too much. We don't want to recruit lots of other neck muscles and things like that. So we tend to recruit those things because it's easier to go the way of I'm not gonna worry about my airflow. I'm going to use my muscle tension, my ability to close my vocal cords or use my muscle in order to make sound, because it's more efficient in

the way that it's easier. But the most efficient way to sing is actually to synchronize that airflow as well as the approximation or the adduction or they're bringing together of your vocal courts. So it's like a dance. You're

trying to navigate this dance. And when we have a dance to navigate that's not all our own doing, we tend to want to be like, nope, I'll do it, you know, and and sort of take over as opposed to like there's a force in its own self to be able to propel, almost like a gravitational pull of the voice. And if you can learn to go with that gravitational pull, you don't have to use as much effort.

But of course, if we're very competitive, if we have kind of perfectionistic tendencies, things like this all of these things kind of serve our identity in that way to be able to do something and see the outcome of it and feel the outcome of it. So, coming back to your question, how can you tell a bit about how someone maybe lives their life through how they're using their voice? One of those things is that like how much of the person is trying to present themselves versus

allow themselves. So you can hear when I'm presenting something, you can hear that I'm carefully presenting it for you instead of just sort of letting it come out. So that presenting would show me that that's an area you don't you don't want to lose control of that. You want to make sure that there's certain things. Or perhaps if somebody has had um some trauma for example, um, let's say some sort of a sexual violation, it could be it could be you know, somebody has witnessed a crime.

Even you know, there's this sense of like when you have that trauma, what happens in the body, Well, you're breathing, shallows and it almost stops. Your body goes into that sympathetic nervous system and it goes into fight or flight. Oftentimes this is the freeze mode. And you can hear that freeze mode before somebody begins to seeing or speak.

So when somebody comes in, they don't really know that they're really showing you so much about their life, what they think is important to block, how important their voice is, their identity that's tied in with their voice, and we create all these projections on our voice. So it's so much more when we have a voice problem than up my voice is hurt. It's like, oh no, I'm gonna lose my my ability to share and receive love. I'm going to lose my livelihood. I'm going to lose That's

what we're sad and worried about. And that worry creates a state in the body, and that state must be experienced and expressed in some way. And I think that the thing that you said that was really interesting when you went out in the hall and you screen and you're like a you know, when you think of that, that's really a catharsis. That's a st ang emotional feeling

that wants to come out. It's like if you want to cry but you hold it in, and you really really want to cry, but you just you hold it in. Where do you experience that feeling? I mean in my throat, right, It's not in your tear dect, it's not in your eyeballs, right, it's it's in our throat. And that's because that holding back of a catharsis or a natural reaction to something which you know, if you think about how we lived

as children. Sometimes we've been in environments or you know, the industry itself, of the music industry kind of does not allow us to just always express ourselves in that way. So that energy has to go somewhere, and it almost always goes into our body. It goes into our body into muscular tension, and over a period of years, that muscular tension starts to come out in many different forms. One of the forms can be of So that's why

it's so powerful. And on that powerful note, we are going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Welcome back, my loves. We are talking with a wonderful Tamarra Beaute about the energy and power behind connecting with our true voice. It's such a powerful form of transformation, like catalyst for it. Absolutely, it's so interesting to me because I've been praised for the control of my voice. It's like musicians and some singers are praised for the

control of their voice. And it's such a mind fuck because it's like, yes, and well, first off, do you even want that much control of your voice? What am I missing if I'm always controlling it? That's what I'm That's what I find myself asking. It's so we live in this world of duality. I'm I want to go here because I you sent me, Well, we had a conversation and you ended up finding this book that was with you where you were, and you opened it to a page that had a ticket that was stuck in

the book. And the book is called Effortless Mastery, and I wanted to read what the top of the page said because it's stuck with me. Um, As you improvised from an expanded consciousness, you discover that, in fact, there are no wrong notes. Appropriateness and correctness are products of the mind trying to live within those imaginary guidelines in him its flow. And so for me, like there are right and wrong notes, like that's what I've been told.

I mean, there are quote unquote right and wrong ways to do things. I guess within the linear world that we live in, if I'm going to sing a certain song, there are notes to hit to create that song. But what I start starting to ask myself within this duality of like good and bad and right or wrong? Like what is in between? What am I missing by only hitting those notes? Like what am I missing that I could be creating or drawing from that? Those dualistic ways

of thinking are what's it keeping me from? Absolutely You're bringing up so many amazing, you know, ways of thinking, because the question is is what is control? What's what's control? Is control being able to you know, guide something into a specific set of parameters that you have created. Like when you say it's the right note of the wrong note for the song, I mean you could say, I mean, if you kind of want to go off a little bit, you could say, well, that's it with that harmonization of

that chord. But if you harmonize it differently, put different notes you know in your base or you kind of you have a different sense of tonality than is it is it a wrong note? So it's like when we're creating songs for the radio, we've got more formulas, and that formula there's a little bit more like this is right and wrong because this is what we're conditioned to. But if you really look at the expansiveness of music and sound, you know, sound is you're never singing one note.

That note you're singing has harmonics, there's always these other notes on it, So you're never just hitting a C or just a B or a B flat. You're hitting you know, a series of other notes if you've got great resonance. So in one way, if you think of music, not in the industry's point of view, and you think of it as sound and communication, you know, really, is it really a wrong note? Not not necessarily so that if you kind of blow it up like that, then you can sort of think that way and and right

or wrong? Whose constraints are using when we're using those confines and things. So you know, again, if we're singing for industry stuff, we do have to play by certain rules and we've got certain confines that we're we're going in. But for me, the question is, is somebody who here, I'll say it like this. The other day, somebody said that they were kayaking, and then somebody was really good

at kayaking said kayaking is a downhill sport. You know, it's like you're going down, it's just down the river. And immediately I thought singing is a downhill sport. It's working with gravity, it's never going back. If it's going back, we're holding some tension. Right. So the question is does a downhill skier who has to go down this hill and navigate moguls? What's their control? What are they controlling them?

Not falling on their face? Right? But but they're not, like they can't exert the effort of guarding, stopping hesitation, they will not be able to master that run. In their control is an element of allowing. And that's where I think our idea of control goes on its head because element of control that always holds and guides and controls everything in that way is not nearly as powerful as the element that also brings in the idea of allowing,

letting go, surrendering. So if you've got that element alongside, you know whatever else you're doing, that to me is true control. Because your voice has its own momentum that you can harness. Your your vocal cords coming together has its own momentum. We can stop it, just like we can put a paddle in a river and stop the flow of our boat or we can go with the flow.

So in that sense, I say, what we're missing out on is really a catharsis what is that expression of ourselves that we're stopping by trying to control it in the traditional sense of the word. It's a real sense of release, It's a sense of ease under a lot of demands. There's so many things I feel like we are missing out on so much by controlling in the traditional way, which is really more of a sympathetic approach. Doesn't have a parasympathetic feel at all, you know, yes,

I completely understand that. I mean, I feel like it's interesting with my voice because I've felt like in the past until probably the last year and a half, when I think being off the road gave me a moment for things that didn't used to seep into my voice, or I wasn't aware of them seeping into my voice.

It became a place for them to seep into. Also because my mind started creating stories around feelings that I was having in my body because I wasn't in quote unquote practice all the time like I had been in the past, and with any kind of trauma that lived in the body. Even with the tight muscles and everything like I was somehow still able and I still can.

Like Darren, I were talking about someone vials and watching her do these like incredible things where I was reading an article on her in the New Yorker and I was, I think it's the New Yorker, and uh. She was talking about how she could just like quiet her mind to this still place to do anything when it came to gymnastics, and then obviously when she got the twisties

and the whole thing happened, she couldn't. And I feel like that's kind of where I was and have been all my life, Like when it came to my voice, like I could overcome. You could cut all my limbs off and I could be bleeding out and I'd still be able to sing again. It would just happened like and so it was almost like it was the one place I wouldn't allow the trauma to infiltrate in a way.

Our psyche obviously has a way of of getting our attention through the thing that is the most important to us. And I think this downtime gave allowed my voice to become a space where that could creep in and which has been such a gift because I'm noticing the quickest direct line to my healing at the same time because because of how important it is to me, one of the one of the things that has really broken down

for me. Well, several bits. One you mentioned earlier, this perfectionism and this idea of good and bad, And I wonder because you you were a professional skier before you were a coach. I wrisen a skier, but I was a competitive athlete and sorry, what did you do? That's okay? No, I was a runner, kind of a jumper, track and field. I don't know why I had skiing my mom. Maybe because the downhill thing you were talking about. I'm like you, I don't think I couldn't do that very well, that's funny.

In my mind, you were totally scared. That's very cool. But as a competitive athlete, like, I wonder how you experienced I wonder how you experienced the perfectionistic tendencies and the this kind of being the best, like how that affected you? And then once you started to coach people, how your own experience with that informed how you coach people. Yeah, I really do feel like my experience as an athletes informed the way that I worked with people. Because it's

an arena of pressure and demands. It's a physiological like experience to build muscle and to build stamina and to build strength and and those types of things, and in singing it really is as well. So I do wish I could redo my athletic career with the knowledge I have now, because I think I would have been able to, you know, improve so many areas by not just going in and muscling everything. Um. I my father was actually

my coach. He was a really good coach. He used a lot of like Russian techniques, so we were like it was pretty hardcore, like I would have a tired chain to me and I would be running at the hill and things like that. So in that sense it was a little over overdone, over pushed and things like that. But but at the heart of it, the idea of I have a lot of pressure, I've got to deliver

in that moment. You know, I read you did learn that art of I guess it's partial visualization, but it's also just kind of what you were saying, where you just you zone in and then everything just clears away and you learn to straight ahead focus and that's that's what you're focusing in on. You just use that and it's a kind of a combination of masculine and feminine. I'd say it's like it's strong, but it's also very like I've got this. It's not terribly like this. It

has this energy and flow to it. And that's really the only way that I could withstand a lot of the demands that happened. And so when I started working with people like helping them with television performances or helping them on tour and things like that where the adrenaline is really really high, I definitely feel like it played

an important role. But I really do wish I could do it again with what I know now, because I think you can be much gentler and exert a lot less effort and get a lot more out of it, even just by visualization and and connecting with um that feeling of knowingness inside of you and and replaying that. That would be what I would love to go back and do. Yeah. Absolutely, I've been playing around with that myself,

with the visualization pieces. Yeah, it's been great. It's actually I can tell when I I'll do several days of it and then I'll stop for a few days, and I like my life changes it like all of a sudden. Especially one of the biggest pieces right now for me is this kind of soft power that we talk about. It's not the brushing your teeth to the hardest to make sure they're the cleanest. It's not like it's not

muscling through everything. Um And one of you know, one of my visualizations and things that I do for myself is that I visualized my my day and going through my day facing challenges, being in a state of gentleness with those challenges or softness where I would be really activated, just lessening the activation a bit. And days when I do the visualizations, it's like, oh, that really works, and then I'll forget it for a couple of days and

I'm like, oh, I'm super activate again. Like it's definitely not in my nervous system yet. So yeah, I completely agree with you. And even singing something. That's one of the things you tell me is like visualize the note, which I think I think I've done that naturally anyway, like I hear it and I know where it is, but it's never it's been more like auditory for me than it has been visually. And so now combining sometimes

for super high notes like combining visualization. I already hear it, so to combine it visually takes it to a whole another ease that I'm go that that really works. Yeah, or even just you know, the feeling of follow through or hearing it and then feeling you know, quote unquote visualizing the feeling of it being easy is is super powerful. In fact, if someone's lost their voice, that's one thing I would say is, try not to replay the feeling of whatever it is, that sensation you might have in

your body. Try not to replay that over and over. Try not to replay the idea of you always talking it sounded like this, you know, really don't listen to your old voice in terms of what it was before it felt like that, because that's just going to make you, you know, sad or something like that. But if you just think, no, my voice is right there. In fact, I think one of the biggest misconceptions of the voice is that it's fragile. Yeah, I wondered what some of

the biggest misconceptions. I think that definitely speaks to, you know, someone telling me like, don't scream, You're gonna ruin your voice. Don't don't whisper, Like, we we work a lot with air in the voice, and maybe that is a different thing than whispering, but I remember that was one of the first things. You're working with so much air on the voice, and I'm like, well, I was told never to whisper because that would be, like off, the worst

thing I could do. So I think in both respects, there is such a misconception that the vocal cords or the voice itself is really um tender and delicate. Yeah, absolutely well. And the airflow air flow is kind of having people have this idea of like breathy is bad. But you know, if I'm speaking like this, I've got my high larynx as well. So now I'm recruiting another muscle to help me. And it's that muscle that's the issue. It's not the airflow. The airflow is what we need.

We can't make sound without air flow. You know. The way for anybody to know that the voice is not fragile is that the function of the voice is not to speak or sing. The whole function of the voice is to protect our airways. It's function is to have open vocal courts that we can breathe. And then they close so that food doesn't go down the wrong way.

You know, it's a protection mechanism. It wasn't meant to help us phonate essentially, and so therefore that very reason of our life depends on these this you know, muscle, this ability to open and clothes. How fragile could it be if our life depends on it? Right? You know it is true that you know, you can have a sneeze and like you can hemorrhage your voice, like if someone is vulnerable to it, that you can have that. But if your body is able to heal, well, you

know it's it's going to heal quickly. It's it's our reaction. Two, the situation I've lost my voice, Um oh no, somebody said I shouldn't scream. I can't do this. All that is, all of that is reinforcing, the holding back, the guarding, the cautiousness. And we know that the cautiousness has to go somewhere in their muscles. And now that's what causes us to have trouble with our expression. It's it's not that we have a real problem with a mechanism, it's

that our reaction is a panic. That panic is causing a body state. So it's that's the that's the association between psyche and soma. I have a thought, now my body starts to react to that. My breathing gets shallow. I start to go into that sympathetic approach. The nervous system all it does is it's translating what the body is.

So I know we talk a lot about like it's in the nervous system, but essentially it's in the body, and the nervous system relays that information up to the brain and then the brain just acts accordingly, and of course it wants to take the path at least resistance. So if we just keep thinking and thinking and thinking,

and it just feeds into the cycle of holding. So what we're all we're trying to do is get back to the natural function of the voice, which is why it's so freeing, because the function of the voice is to protect. And that's why when you say, oh, it goes, I know how to protect and it starts to squeeze. It knows how to protect. So it starts to protect as its own way of helping you accomplish your task of like, oh, they're not do that, So it's helping you do what you're we're asking it to do. What

we want to do is get out of that. And oh wait a second. The mechanism of my voice, if I take away communication, it's just a mechanism that I can synchronize with the right amount of airflow and and muscle use. That's it. I love that you you talk about the voice as the like the truest voice in us, as the big V voice. I would love to know. I mean, you have touched upon it, but I would love to really get clear on what you mean by the big V voice, because do we touch it? Do

we know what? How do we know when we touch it? All right, we are going to take a quick breath, but we'll be right back with Tamara's super insightful answer right after this, and we are back, my friends. We were just talking about how and when we know we've accessed our true voice. Well we know, we know because it's the goose bump. It's it incites a reaction and emotion. That's what we feel moved when we've experienced that voice.

And we know that voice doesn't have sound. Because I've said this before, if you see a silent protest people marching for a human right. You know, if you see thousands of people marching, that's a collective voice that is very powerful, and you could be moved to tears by watching it, seeing this collective voice in action. You know, that voice didn't have a physical vehicle, Like I work with voices all the time, and I do not believe

that our voices are physical. That's that's the vehicle of expression. It's the physical representation of our big voice. So yeah, our big voices to me are kind of synonymous with our power, our fingerprint or a thumb print on life, Like what we bring to the world that nobody else really brings. It's all we've got to offer in our own unique way. Really untouched by I think are traumas and things that informs it it, but it only informs

it to grow. I think we have this idea that this is what I was, and I had this feeling of power and this and that, and then all these experiences happened to me and it shrunk. Well, that's not your voice drinking. In my opinion, it's always there full well. It's like a water well that never never, never, never runs dry. It's always there. It's just we move farther and farther away from the water, but the water is

always there. So all we want to do is just stand by the waters try and access this this voice. And this voice really to me, doesn't have words, doesn't have thoughts. It's so powerful it sits behind and that when you ask me that question of how can you tell what somebody's how they're living their life by their voice, it's because this bigger voice speaks to us too. It shows us what we want, what lights us up, what inspires us, what moves us. And that's what you bring

to people is your vulnerability, which I really admire. I don't think I'm anywhere near as vulner ball I've I've often remarked that, wow, I'm not just on stage but just as a person. When you're recounting, you know, your life, you're really willing to put it out and say this is how I feel, and you know it's not great, and this is how I feel and this is what I went through. And that is a hard place I

think to get to myself. But that vulnerability, um is expressing this part of you, and you have this ability to bridge the gap between a capital V and your So this capital V, I'm saying it's bigger than a regular little voice. It's got a capital V on its consciousness. Really, I mean you could you could call it all sorts of things. I think soul like whatever, yeah, whatever exists, whatever the eye is that exists past the mask. Yeah. Really,

And to me I would call a knowing nous. It's like just something that you know is your Yeah, there was a fingerprint of you know, a conscious fingerprints like there you go, that that person. You know. It feels like that's kind of me in the loosest sense because it's not an encapsulation, but it just has this let's call it a frequency. It has a frequency with which we we are tuned to, and so that frequency wants

to express itself. And that's what I think the definition of an artist is is somebody who has something inside that wants to get out. They don't have to paint, they don't have to draw, they don't have to dance. It's somebody who has something inside and they want to

get it out. And in order to bridge that gap from that capital V what you've got and your voice or your movement or whatever it is, what we gotta do is get past all the little blocks that we put in its place, and it's those blocks that are what seems like the shrinking of the well. But it's not. It's not that it's not there. It's always fallen, plentiful. It's it's just that we maybe don't know how to

access it or the gate gets closed. So the process of of feeling more freedom, because that's all we're trying to do, is essentially bridging that without the editing, without the worry, without the traditional control, because we can't really truthfully get from the big V to the little VA if we're controlling it in a traditional way. Mm hmm. Yeah. The freedom piece that you speak of another thing that's really opened up for me. And I think a lot

of us are challenged by discipline in our life. A lot of us have this idea that discipline is hard, it can be challenging to stick with it. There's so much shame that comes along when we don't stick with it. At least that's been my experience. And my dad was also rehearsed with me when I was a child, and he was the one, you know, they taught me many great things when it came to rehearsing and work ethic, but as a child. This all came so naturally to me.

I'm like, why am I working? Why am I doing this? Why am I child? You know? And it was like the only reason I did was, you know, really in my mind was like to learn a new song every weekend that I was for the show is singing at And there was a lot of between the two of us, a lot of arguing like around why I was you know, why am I rehearsing so much? And I think because of all of that, the last place I wanted to

go and work was my voice. I had this kind of and I also had this belief like if you have to work at it and means I'm less than I've lost something like all these things. But what's been so beautiful about this exploration for me over the past few months is that I have learned that discipline and freedom for me at least go hand in hand. They're synonymous. Yeah,

they are synonymous. And it's a big eye opener for me and I. Actually, before we started working together, you know, several times a week, I had started a practice of doing some lymphatic work on myself every morning, and it wasn't working out to look good. It wasn't any of those things. It was because I wanted to feel better, and it became something that was sole for me. It was like there was nothing physical to anyone could see that made a difference. So it was a real dedication thing. Yeah,

it was a real dedication to myself. And then I think that led me to be able to open up to this idea of Okay, I can dedicate, and you were so wonderful with working with me, You're like even five minutes, like five minutes. But it became once I started to see that this discipline was starting to build stamina within my voice and I was starting to play more with um and yeah, and it expressed myself in

new ways. It became this direct line to a freer place in me, a place with much more ease, and that has spilled over into all the other aspects of my life when it comes to discipline, which has been so that's a huge, huge piece And for me also it's like what's driving the discipline. I always used working out as a as an example because I've been on both sides of it where the fear of not looking

a certain way has driven the discipline. And then also there's now like I like to move my body, I like to jump rope, I like to get on my trampoline. There's freedom in that, and there's also freedom and knowing like I'm healthy, I'm taking care of my body, and as I age, I'm gonna have freedom in that because I'm now putting in the work. And so for me, work in the past has been exhausting also because I've done it my whole life. Everything has been like work, work, work, work, work.

But there's a new kind of work that's coming into play for me that is really leading to freedom and it it is being driven by the why, like what is behind it? And I said to you the other day, I could quit tomorrow and I'd still do the work that we're doing together because I'm learning about myself and I'm expanding and there is a sense of of freedom and ease that is coming with with this discipline, and

it's for me. The discipline has turned into really kind of this devotion to myself, my health, body, my mind, my connection to source, connection to the thing that does

sing me. And it is also really turned into like what if, what if discipline was the highest form of self love from that place, not from fear, and then also it can discipline can then go into you can have to be careful, doesn't turn into trying to control because that I was just gonna say, a discipline and control imagine, like the discipline from that place you're talking about, the control that goes with it is kind of that one we were talking about where there's this art of

allowing at the same time. But if it's the other, if it's disciplined, like you know, very hard and stern and it's militant, and yeah, you've got these very strong ideas of right and wrong associated with it, where you have to kind of edit and measure things by, then of course the control is going to lead in that direction of Okay, these are the parameters with which I'm trying to gauge my performance by or gauge what I'm doing by. And it's really not that fun. It's it's

really kind of that's the soul sucking. I really do wish, I really wish that you didn't have that experience, and we can't take away our experiences, but where you can kind of keep that playfulness and curiosity and I didn't have to learn the idea of like even though it's easy, I'm going to make it hard. And now that it's hard, that's where my word is. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna drive at home, and I'm just gonna keep doing,

you know what I mean. So so this this is great because now you can kind of you know, we can't change what's happened. What what what we can do is just move forward in a way that feels better and curiosity play joy. I mean that feeling of expressing, like the definition of the word catharsis in Greek is really cleansing or purification, and I like that. It's like if I release what I'm feeling, whether it is sadness or whatever it's it's a feeling of purification. I'm I'm transforming

this energy and I'm letting it out. And if we've had experience where like industry Box, you know, had to keep performing all the time, Box or whatever our boxes are, you know, we we start to hold that energy against ourselves and we're the only ones who who reap those consequences. And and so yeah, the discipline to me, in my mind, is the art of trusting yourself. So as you do something, you're basically building trust with yourself and in that trust

your loosening, and in that loosening you're getting freedom. That's what I think discipline is well, yeah, in in this form, and I think that's a huge reframe for so many people because you know, discipline has been driven home in one way. You know, we've had to work everything has to be worked hard for. And I'm still too, I'm

still figuring out like can it be easy? Guilt and shame almost of it being easy, right, like you were mentioning before, And I definitely have not masked her that um from my own self because you know, when you're competitive, it's you can if you kind of keep going and you're like, I gotta work towards all that sort of stuff and not allow not have that also the experience of like joy and allowing and leisure and things like that. Then it's it's very easy to burn out. And that burnout,

you know, you have to then isolate. And the isolation causes you know, if we were talking from a point of view of a voice, it causes like a shrinking of your diaphragm, like physiologically will as you get older, it starts to get a bit more rigid, and things but then you know, the elasticity starts to kind of get lost, and and then we kind of start to really breach more shallowly just because we're breathing more shallowly, you know, and we have to like work it out.

And so it's like our body gets the side effects of this desire to constantly exert effort in order to have an outcome, in order to uphold an identity or to feel and receive love and things like that. So it's a big price to pay. Alright, loves, We're gonna take one final break, but we'll be read back. Hello again, my friends. We were discussing the manifestation of stress on

our ability to express ourselves and our voice. I find it interesting you were talking about isolation and how what it does to our body, and it's like, look at what we've gone through and the like year and a half and all this has been isolated. You wonder, like how many how our voices have shifted? Oh big time, what we are holding it? I mean, obviously I that was like the first place it went for me to

experience it. For people who aren't singers, we're living in a time right now where I think each and every one of our unique voices. You don't have to be a singer. We we need your voice like we need your fullest expression the Big V. Sure, we need your fullest expression. And I wonder people here listening to us and thinking like I'm not a singer. I know we've talked about many things that do apply to people that

aren't aren't singers. But one of my favorite things that you say is like to find this big V voice is to basically stop talking, which is beautiful. What do you mean by that? Exactly? Are you saying like go meditate? Are you saying stop talking? And observed? Like where do people go when they stop talking? That's a great question. I'll tell you how I learned this, and it is because I had laryngitis actually, and I I lost my

voice and I couldn't speak for quite some time. Or and maybe I was a little too cautious probably, you know, because you know this is what I do. I just was like, I'm just I don't have to speak, I'm just gonna wait. And that whole time period I realized that, you know, someone might ask me a question. I might have like twenty words. I want to explain things, say this association this story blah blah blah, and I was like, you know, I realized that did I really want to

say that? Maybe I didn't want to say that. What was I actually thinking? Like, I just realized how automatic our speeches and it really wasn't connected to what I was feeling. So I feel like, if you just stop talking, one of the things you might hear is your inner voice, which isn't always kind know that inner voice. It's not usually like, Wow, you're amazing, I think you're fantastic. You just keep doing what you're doing. You know, it's not

usually saying that, So that's not what I mean. But I mean if you stop and you quiet down, and you allow your own voice to spring up, your own words to spring up in your ear without them coming out your mouth, you go wow. And to me, that's intuition. That little intuition or instinct maybe is a better report that instinct on what's important to you, what you actually want to speak about, what you actually want to talk about.

That's a good way to do it. Like you can even take a day where you go, I'm not going to speak, I'm just gonna like listen and see what I really want to say that I didn't say, and also realized did I need to say? I didn't really need to say that. It really wasn't that important to me. I just did it because I could open my mouth

and do it. You start to start to pick and become like that's important to me, and then you go, oh, I didn't hear that was important to me because I was just so used to just boom boom boom, just talk talk talk talk, you know. So that's why the kind of mean. I love that. Thank you for clarifying that. One of my thoughts is like, do words dilute? Yes?

I do think so, yeah, I mean, And then how can we utilize those words as a power source like you're saying, instead of it just being this deluded thing that we vomit out all the time, right, I think being in tact and in touch with the space before your words and even better the space before your thoughts. Mm hmm. That is a very to me. I can just feel like, to me, that's the spot and the location, if there is such a location of this big V voice,

that's where it lives. You know. In Buddhism they have the word prosna, which is translated into wisdom. But it means the spot before your thoughts and your words, and that spot, to me is a sacred spot with which if we spent a little bit of time there. It's also the spot where I feel like, you know, when you're watching something and you feel inspired, it's that part that's ignited. It's not like my words instantly come out. I instantly feel like. That's that moment of what are

you transmitting? When you're kind of connected, when the big V is connected with that small V or whatever it is, your big voice is connecting with you, whether it's dance, or it's business, or it's like loving family or whatever it is that you're doing, that that voice is, that's

where it lives. So if we can kind of get into that spot a little more, just languish that time when you feel a little bit of inspiration, Just stay there for a moment and you're like, and try not to put into words so fast, Just try and stay there and let it be this ealing that doesn't even have an associated word to it. We don't really spend much time there, and I feel like that's really powerful. Yeah, it is powerful, and it's interesting. The space beyond words

one of our sessions. I said to you, I feel like words get in the way with music, Like I want to sing without words, and I do it at home and it actually I have such resistance to it because there's all the things around it, like what am I doing? Like that I will never be able to use this, like this does nothing for whatever it may be. Um, Like I can't make money off of not singing with words, So why am I doing? Like all the things, all the things that come before or that put up resistance

to me exploring this piece of myself. There's also call that the inner voice that's absolutely yes, absolutely well inner voice, and the yes and and not even mine, and an accumulation of of whatever industry parents things that have come at me. And and also there's this fear around like

there's no it's you know, improvis improvisation. There's no structure to it in any way, and so I'm there are less rules, there's no good and bad, there's like so I know, and it does it freaks you out, and it has freaked me out, And you asked me to share it with you, and I was like I can't actually started crying because I it's feels so sacred to me,

I really haven't shared much with anyone. We kind of started to touch on it the other day, which was so beautiful because it's such a fascinating experience for me as a singer who I'm really breaking down these mental constructs every time I spend two minutes doing it. It allows this like new sense of freedom and expression. And I'm finding that I'm I'm getting excited about wanting to share that eventually I can feel like coming. But it's joyful.

It is joyful. Yeah, it's joyful, it's playful and it but it what happens is I actually sit and listen to what wants to be sung, and so I'll hear different vowel sounds, different consonants, different like all these different sounds. I'll hear notes in my head and I'll actually listen before I express, and I'll try to match like what

is in my head. And so that's I think what for me that has been my way so far um with my voice, of getting in touch with that which is before fought it all of a sudden comes into my thoughts out of the space and then gets expressed, and I think that we can play that over into every aspect of our life, Like you're saying, like, what am I hearing before I before I allow the sound out, before I allow this thing that I'm going to say

to come out of me. I have yet to utilize it in that way, and I'm really gonna I make I had to play around with that, not just allow like I said, like we're talking about for things to just be blurted out, but to really tune into what's really wanting to be expressed. Is there a song in there? You know that? Is there a song that you've got in there? Like? How can you express it and get it out? It's it's cool. It's not for the purpose

of making money. It's not for the purpose of of connecting others or making others feel something or feeling something when you're in the presence of others. It's it's solely there because we want. It's inside and we wanted to come out, and we're enjoying as it comes out, like, oh my gosh, this is what I can do. It's like an expression of the body, like you say you're

working out because you enjoy moving your body. We have to have some element, no matter how much it is a part of our industry, whatever it is we love to do, whatever it is that we do. If if we skip the step of having that play, the enjoyment of it just being without having a specific purpose that will come back to a gain in some type, we

really miss out. I think on what we have inside that can come out for no other reason than the joy of getting something in and out and and seeing it's like those you know, the mandalas and you know the sand castles that are just these temporary, beautiful structures and they get washed away, and was it worth putting all that effort to build that castle? Well maybe some people would think not, but you know, it's good to not have everything means something, because if it is like that,

then we are discipline. Our idea of discipline becomes very set and structured and rigid, and that all that does is it comes back into ourselves and makes it harder for us to be and feel free. Hmm. Yeah, there's I mean, such a conversation. I could go on and on about this because it is so fascinating. Is I'm just really grateful that you came on here to share this. Thank you, because I feel like we'll do this again. I feel like we'll have like Lean's life lessons through

the voice. It is I learned every day, you know, Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. And this has opened up a whole new level of play and and excitement. And Daryl said to me earlier, I'm excited for I get taken on this adventure with your voice now, like I'm excited for the adventure of your voice. And I was like, oh, that's really cool. It does feel a bit like an

adventure and this moment. So I've lived one adventure, and I think a lifetime of one adventure, and I feel like this is a new adventure that's opening up and I have no idea where it's going to lead, but it's really cool. I love it absolutely. I am so honored to be doing that with you. And I always like to say, like, allow your voice to reveal itself to you. You know, you don't have to tell your voice what it has to be. It it's our you

trying to tell you. So if you listen and let it be, it's may not be what you expect, or it may be something more than you expect. Either way, it's a beautiful thing. So um, again, thank you so much for having me. And so I always appreciate the talk and all I learned from this experience as well. So I always ask my guest on the podcast, of course, because I have to turn everything back around to music.

I just find that the songs that people choose reveal something about them, and so I always ask what what your holy five are? Which are like they could be your five favorite songs of life, they could be your five favorite songs of today, just anything that moves you, anything you're connected to. So I'd love to hear what your five are. Well. I love Kimbra's the build up. Oh I don't. I don't know that. Do you know that? Interesting Kimbra? Yeah, it's gorgeous. I want to love has

so much. You know, there's two versions of it, one which doesn't have this beautiful offshoot of all the orchestral kind of arrangement, and one that does. It's the one that does I just absolutely adore. So that's one, okay. My second one is an oldie like it's Elton John sixty years on. I have no idea why, because those lyrics should not relate to me, but I think it's just these all the cellos and the symphonic kind of orchestration of it. I just I love no it's too

beautiving sixty. I always just feel really moved when I sing along to it. I love that song nice. I actually found myself listening a lot to Hunter Hayes is Dear God. I don't know why. It's just the most beautiful like harmonies at the very beginning, and he must have been in a state where he was like really sharing his heart on that one and to so much why I can't find any pizza to feel like you? Are you sure that you don't? I love that song.

I love you turning me on to stuff. I don't know. Well, it's not a song, but I've always loved It's definitely overplayed. Now is a Daddio for Strings by Samuel Barber. I've always loved. I think I just love like symphonic orchestration kind of things. I think it's so gorgeous. That seems to be a through line. Yeah, um, Leonard Cohen, Mary Ann. It's a very very very loved song for me. When I was little used to listen to that Good Time to Love, And my favorite song recently is actually when

You Sang and it is borrowed. I adore those lyrics, the sentiments, vulnerability, and that you're the best, never give you plan like you too. So yeah, that's definitely on

my list. Thank you. That was definitely a one of those spaces before the words that was just like pure feeling of I always find that so interesting as a songwriter because a lot of the time I don't know how I'm feeling about something until I actually write it out right and then you're like, oh, I guess that's how I was feeling about that totally, And I mean that is ultimately when we create. I mean I think

that even more so than singing. Although singing, yes, I definitely tapp into the space before everything, but with writing, like things will just start to drop in, you know. That is that space before the thoughts. Once you get in touch with that, sometimes I almost fell blank and all of a sudden, like things will start like flooding in and it's like, well, I can't fast enough. But that's definitely one of those songs that was like super vulnerable.

I feel that it just feels like it's just opened up and out it came a lot of tears, A lot of tears came out. Six hour. Absolutely love that and I guess it's more than five. But I image and heat. I forgot about this one. I love her song, um hide and Seek. Oh yeah, see she cashed me around and it's just with the fol coder And apparently she sat down and did that song in a hole in one hour. The story I heard just this, you know, spouting out of beauty. Talk about someone who's really unique.

I love her voice. I think she's totally in in too, and in touch with this big V that we're talking about. She's so creative, she's constantly creating. Yeah, she's she's amazing. Well, thank you for sharing. I learned that you love orchestral things. I love that, I guess I do. Thank you so much again. Thank you for spending this time with me. Thank you, and that My loves brings us to the

end of this season of Holy Human. Um. It is such an honor making the show for you, and I would really love to know your thoughts about the episodes and topics, So please leave your comments wherever you're listening and let me know what you'd like to hear more of. Going forward and until our next season of Holy Human, I'll be updating this feed with some answers. To the questions you've sent over email and social media, as well as diving a bit deeper into my own personal Holy

Five playlist. So in the meantime, I wish you help, I wish you love, and I wish your peace on your path to becoming Holy Human. Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a production of I Heart Radio