Speaker 1: Okay. This is a quote from of all places, Brigham
Speaker 1: Young University's magazine, in a piece by Brittany Carford Rogers
Speaker 1: about some studies that were done on small groups with
Speaker 1: mixed gender and how many women needed to be in
Speaker 1: a group before women spoke up as frequently as men.
Speaker 1: Here's the quote, what happens when women are outnumbered? After
Speaker 1: years spent analyzing lab and real life settings to determine
Speaker 1: what it takes for a woman to really be heard,
Speaker 1: to truly be perceived as competent and influential, these professors
Speaker 1: have found the same truth for women. Having a seat
Speaker 1: at the table does not mean having a voice. Quote.
Speaker 1: Women are systematically seen as less authoritative, says priests, And
Speaker 1: their influence is systematically lower, and they're speaking less. And
Speaker 1: when they're speaking up, they're not being listened to as much,
Speaker 1: and they're being interrupted more. End quote. That article, by
Speaker 1: the way, ends with this beautiful quote. The goal is
Speaker 1: to create a space where women can be seen as
Speaker 1: influential as their authentic selves. Welcome to the podcast. That's
Speaker 1: all about the voice, which means it's all about power.
Speaker 1: Who has it, how we get it, how we sound
Speaker 1: when we have it. I'm your host, Samarve, and this
Speaker 1: is permission to speak where we can throw all our
Speaker 1: best ideas about how to get ourselves heard into the
Speaker 1: pot and start. This week's guest is a Dell Cabit.
Speaker 1: She is a beloved voice coach in l A who
Speaker 1: has worked for twenty years with actors, with non actors,
Speaker 1: with anyone who wants to figure out how to release
Speaker 1: the voice within the one that you know I've gotten
Speaker 1: beat it out of you with like they're too loud,
Speaker 1: you're too soft, you're too anything's, which is something that
Speaker 1: we talk about in our conversation. I wanted to have
Speaker 1: Adele on because she is someone that I actually turned
Speaker 1: to as an advisor in this realm. I have sent
Speaker 1: people to her. She's trained in the link later method,
Speaker 1: which you'll hear more about what that actually means. UM
Speaker 1: in our conversation, she's such a deep and really loving
Speaker 1: and generous understanding of the connection between the voice that
Speaker 1: comes out of us and the body that is often
Speaker 1: getting in its way and why. And we go really
Speaker 1: deep here about the layers of socialist ship and we
Speaker 1: also come out the other side. UM. It's quite optimistic
Speaker 1: and Adele's got just such beautiful insights about what it
Speaker 1: means to find your voice, to really let yourself out.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for you to hear it. This is
Speaker 1: Adele and here we are in our respective home studios,
Speaker 1: with our respective tea and water. Why good voice people?
Speaker 1: So hi, Adele, welcome, Thank you for doing, Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. You are a well known voice coach
Speaker 1: in l A and you work with not just actors
Speaker 1: but also non actors. So I'm wondering just to start off,
Speaker 1: if you could tell me. You know, obviously we're in
Speaker 1: this bizarre time when nobody's really working in person with anybody.
Speaker 1: But but prior in the in the before times, as
Speaker 1: they say, who of the non actors who tended to
Speaker 1: come to you? And why? Ah? Okay, good question. I
Speaker 1: mean I always say that I work with anybody who
Speaker 1: has a voice, so that's most people. Um, but people
Speaker 1: come to me mostly uh when they perceived that something
Speaker 1: is wrong with their voice so called wrong, or if
Speaker 1: they're experiencing some kind of vocal pain or issue that
Speaker 1: they're confused about they don't know what to do, or
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people get feedback at work saying, um,
Speaker 1: you know your voice, you gotta work on your voice.
Speaker 1: Your voice is either too sounds too young, you sound
Speaker 1: like a little girl or a little or you don't
Speaker 1: sound like a man. I mean, people say things to
Speaker 1: people about their voice that is that is really rude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes up. It comes up a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: on this podcast because obviously those little those little comments,
Speaker 1: especially you know when the stakes are high, whether it's
Speaker 1: in work or when you were young and you're just
Speaker 1: figuring out who you were. They stay with us, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they really do. That's the main reason why people come
Speaker 1: to see me is because of things that they were
Speaker 1: told as children or at any time really um about
Speaker 1: their voice or about themselves, or if they have somehow
Speaker 1: gotten the idea that it that it was it was
Speaker 1: more advantageous to them to to learn to shut up.
Speaker 1: They actually the body which is designed to survive. If
Speaker 1: you're in a situation at any point in your life,
Speaker 1: when you are you know you're threatened, or your body
Speaker 1: figures out I gotta you have to be quiet or
Speaker 1: you could be in danger. You know, then the muscular
Speaker 1: ture of the body will actually go through that and
Speaker 1: might cut off your breathing or your throat muscles might tighten,
Speaker 1: or your tongue or your jaw or anything can happen,
Speaker 1: and then that can have an effect on a person's
Speaker 1: voice for the rest of their life. And it's really
Speaker 1: crazy because nobody really knows this. This isn't common knowledge.
Speaker 1: It's not something we learned in high school or even
Speaker 1: college unless you go to your theater department and take
Speaker 1: a voice class or something. Although I have done a
Speaker 1: little bit of voice work in MBA schools, they do
Speaker 1: have voice work. Now they're they're starting to realize that
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, I'm on mind body voice connection exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I even had a one of the partners
Speaker 1: in a law firm call me and say that she
Speaker 1: wanted to send me one of their associates who was
Speaker 1: up for partner, but they didn't feel like they could
Speaker 1: give her partner because of the way her voice sounded,
Speaker 1: and that she sounded like a valley girl, is what
Speaker 1: the woman said. And she did a lot of up speak,
Speaker 1: and she was glottalized, so she talked in the back
Speaker 1: of her throat, and so she told me that they
Speaker 1: weren't going to give her partner, and she really wanted
Speaker 1: to give her partner because she was a genius lawyer,
Speaker 1: but she just on the phone. They just thought they
Speaker 1: were talking to a teenager, and so they sent her
Speaker 1: to me, and she did not want to be there.
Speaker 1: She she you know, it was not her choice. And
Speaker 1: it's a very personal thing to to work on your voice.
Speaker 1: And if you I mean, it can be it also
Speaker 1: doesn't have well and also just the whole idea of
Speaker 1: buy in, and you know, somebody has to want to
Speaker 1: absolutely because what we're talking about, I mean, there's so
Speaker 1: much in what you just said that I want to
Speaker 1: like slowly unpack. But but you know, one of one
Speaker 1: of the things is, of course we're talking about UM
Speaker 1: helping people change how they sound, but also sort of
Speaker 1: reveal how they might have sounded if if the world
Speaker 1: been giving them, you know, conditioning cues their whole life.
Speaker 1: And that can sound a lot like we want you
Speaker 1: to change. Don't be yourself, Yeah exactly, it don't be
Speaker 1: yourself exactly, which is like that's an impossible thing to
Speaker 1: try to reconcile. So what so what happened with her?
Speaker 1: With you and her? She only came a couple of
Speaker 1: times and was really resistant, and UM I tried to
Speaker 1: work with her really gently, and I tried to, you know,
Speaker 1: just give her basic things and help her to experience
Speaker 1: in in more of a fun way, because voicework can
Speaker 1: be really fun. Also, how she could breathe and how
Speaker 1: she could move sound through her body in a way
Speaker 1: that felt more authentic to her. And I tried to
Speaker 1: talk to her about, you know, the fact that her voice. Uh.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to just come out and say her
Speaker 1: voice could be more expressive, but it can be more expressive.
Speaker 1: I mean that is one of the things that happens
Speaker 1: with a lot of learned vocal patterns, is that it's
Speaker 1: just expressing a cultural norm and not really the authenticity
Speaker 1: of the person. And it's a great question, because that's
Speaker 1: exactly what a lot of my work is, is trying
Speaker 1: to release those things, those that are basically physical tensions,
Speaker 1: and sometimes there is a psychological aspect as well. Of course,
Speaker 1: although I don't do therapy us. This isn't therapy, but
Speaker 1: it can be therapeutic for sure, but you know, to
Speaker 1: sort of undo the world's effects on us. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is yeah, And and this is really
Speaker 1: at the heart of the point of this podcast, because
Speaker 1: this is the stuff that affects absolutely every one of us,
Speaker 1: and we don't you know, often know it. As you say,
Speaker 1: it's not something that's in the common parlance until we
Speaker 1: have a vocal issue, you know, we're losing our voice
Speaker 1: or we get this kind of feedback that's literally getting
Speaker 1: in the way of that woman getting the power she deserves.
Speaker 1: I did a mail bag episode recently where somebody wrote
Speaker 1: in about always being told that her voice was soft,
Speaker 1: and somebody else wrote in about being called too loud,
Speaker 1: And it makes me think about these personas that either
Speaker 1: get thrown on us or that we you know, that
Speaker 1: we're actually sort of deliberately projecting. But I wonder if
Speaker 1: you think about when you when you meet with somebody
Speaker 1: to talk about their voice, like, ah, I you're this
Speaker 1: sort of type. There's been a lot of study done
Speaker 1: on on why some women, especially around puberty, start to
Speaker 1: lose their voices and become really soft and have a
Speaker 1: difficult time expressing themselves to anyone, including the boys. You know, um,
Speaker 1: if that's their inclination and versus you know, the women
Speaker 1: who are go the girls at twelve or so who
Speaker 1: go really loud, and a word like brassy is a
Speaker 1: word that these poor women are used to hearing about
Speaker 1: themselves and that's a that's a huge way to assault
Speaker 1: a woman's power is to you know, they would never
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they would say your hair looks terrible.
Speaker 1: But you know this is way deeper than your hair
Speaker 1: looks terrible. You know, this is your voices. You you are,
Speaker 1: your voice, your as you said a moment ago. Your
Speaker 1: voice reveals who you are. It can reveal your thought,
Speaker 1: your feeling, your your intentions, your passion, you know, and
Speaker 1: if you're being ridiculed for something that some person feels
Speaker 1: is not the way you should be as a woman,
Speaker 1: either at work or in an audition or in any case,
Speaker 1: then you know, that's that's something that I think really
Speaker 1: voice work can help with. So really, actually it sounds
Speaker 1: like there's and this this absolutely rings true with my
Speaker 1: experience as well. There are, of course a billion nuances,
Speaker 1: but it seems like there are these two main categories
Speaker 1: of what happens to us. And it's either that we
Speaker 1: adhere to the messages that we're getting and we become
Speaker 1: softer and we quote unquote no our place, and that
Speaker 1: has repercussions our whole life. But you know, is about
Speaker 1: playing by the rules. And then the other extreme is
Speaker 1: pushing through that to something that feels maybe even louder
Speaker 1: than is necessary, but is on purpose in order to
Speaker 1: to be sort of a rebellious spirit, and that can
Speaker 1: also have negative repercussions. Yeah, and then here we all are,
Speaker 1: you know, decades later, still reconciling the thing that you know,
Speaker 1: we gravitated towards one of those those two sort of extremes. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: That can happen on any on any level, and it
Speaker 1: can and it can be other things besides loud and
Speaker 1: soft too. You know, it happens to everybody, what I
Speaker 1: think it happens to everybody to varying degrees of seriousness.
Speaker 1: Just high school in itself is it's traumatic. Um as
Speaker 1: is probably not going to high school right now, which
Speaker 1: is also totally weird. Um tell me more when you
Speaker 1: say other things besides soft and loud, so where that's
Speaker 1: volume obviously, and then what else you know, monotone is
Speaker 1: is another thing Your body when it tries to survive,
Speaker 1: will create tensions. So it could be that, you know,
Speaker 1: the back of your throat gets very tight, or your
Speaker 1: breath stops. Breath stops a lot for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's really common in our world. It has
Speaker 1: a lot to do just on a basic level with
Speaker 1: we think that we're supposed to suck in our stomachs
Speaker 1: in order to be beautiful. Yeah, this was on my
Speaker 1: list of things to talk to you about. It feels
Speaker 1: really really universal. Yeah, it is so universal. And people
Speaker 1: feel that if they relax their stomach muscles they look fat.
Speaker 1: And women who have to wear you know, five inch
Speaker 1: heels or whatever they wear, um, it cuts off the
Speaker 1: breath in the back. It is so high that your
Speaker 1: lower back gets compressed and it completely affects your your breathing.
Speaker 1: But as corporate women, they feel they absolutely have to
Speaker 1: wear really tall heels. I mean we're sort of like
Speaker 1: we're compensating, right, Like we get power from our heels,
Speaker 1: we lose power from our breath, right, right, That's a
Speaker 1: great way of saying it. Yeah, And that is sort
Speaker 1: of like the gamble that you know a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a good one. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a good gamble to take because the heels, you know,
Speaker 1: make an instant impression and the breath we just sort
Speaker 1: of expect and people will have thin voices we're not
Speaker 1: we're not all actors here, you know, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's sort of there's sort of agreed upon
Speaker 1: sense that that, of course we're not going to be
Speaker 1: fully expressive with our voices. This is corporate America after all,
Speaker 1: it really is. And there's so much at risk for
Speaker 1: people in the corporate world that, you know, any wrong
Speaker 1: move could get them fired. At least they they sense that.
Speaker 1: And there's a certain way you're supposed to be. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to be outgoing, you know, for one thing.
Speaker 1: There is actually a way of behavior that you have
Speaker 1: to adhere to. But when I work with people and
Speaker 1: we can kind of we can find a larger parameter
Speaker 1: for them to work in. I think that my goal
Speaker 1: is always to help them free their voice, to find
Speaker 1: their natural voice so they're not stuck in that parameter.
Speaker 1: And it works. I have seen results with that. People
Speaker 1: have seen results where they find a different way of
Speaker 1: being in their body. It's actually has to do with
Speaker 1: how you're in your body, how you're breathing, and how
Speaker 1: you're using your voice can create a deeper sense of
Speaker 1: relaxation and a more connection to your actual voice so
Speaker 1: that people hear it better. A deeper connection to thought. Also,
Speaker 1: the way your body works, you have when you have
Speaker 1: a thought, you actually have a breath at the same time.
Speaker 1: That's naturally what happens, and that's one of those things
Speaker 1: that can get disconnected and make it more difficult for
Speaker 1: you to express thoughts while you're speaking or for us
Speaker 1: to are you talking about when you say the thought
Speaker 1: to the breath, Does that also happen when we're alone
Speaker 1: and just thinking thoughts or do you mean in the
Speaker 1: in the process of communicating. No, that's in uh, that's
Speaker 1: I would say that's all the time, but definitely in
Speaker 1: the process of community. I don't think it's something you
Speaker 1: can turn on and off. It works sometimes. It's that's
Speaker 1: how the body works. That's so beautiful. I mean, partly
Speaker 1: it makes me think obviously sort of a gasp, like
Speaker 1: the actual concept of I have an idea and that
Speaker 1: makes us take an inhalation of of of wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And partly it makes me think of something that I
Speaker 1: have absolutely you know, reminded or taught I guess clients,
Speaker 1: because it's not something that um people are born knowing,
Speaker 1: which is this idea that in an ideal world we
Speaker 1: have a thought. It connects to just the right amount
Speaker 1: of breath for the actual thought. Again, when we're in
Speaker 1: alignment and when our body and our mind are working together,
Speaker 1: and then it comes out of our mouth and lands,
Speaker 1: you know, beautifully easefully on the person we're talking to.
Speaker 1: And of course the problem is that as soon as
Speaker 1: the stakes are high, as soon as the relationship we
Speaker 1: have with the other person is fraught, as soon as
Speaker 1: the thought we have, we don't trust, our throat starts
Speaker 1: to get in the way at aspects of our body. Mean,
Speaker 1: I'd love you to talk about what besides our throat,
Speaker 1: or more about the throat, but you know, the parts
Speaker 1: of our body that block that really beautifully simple mind
Speaker 1: to breath to out the mouth, you know process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I agree. And the only thing I would add
Speaker 1: to that is when it comes out, it finds the
Speaker 1: perfect pitch in your voice to describe that for you,
Speaker 1: for the person speaking, which actually takes us back to
Speaker 1: the monotone you were starting to talk about, because monotone,
Speaker 1: you know, for people who aren't necessarily thinking this way
Speaker 1: about it. What we had been originally talking about was volume, right,
Speaker 1: soft versus loud is just generally on quiet too loud spectrum,
Speaker 1: and then the other major one. I mean, we can
Speaker 1: we can also talk about tempo and tone. But the
Speaker 1: other major one that us voice people think about is pitch.
Speaker 1: And we can talk a lot and has it come
Speaker 1: up a lot in other interviews about pitching our voice
Speaker 1: too high, pitching our voices too low. But the thing
Speaker 1: we don't always talk about here and that you're bringing
Speaker 1: up is that it's one thing to talk about too high,
Speaker 1: it's nothing to talk about too low. There's this other thing,
Speaker 1: which is monotone, which is about not actually going up
Speaker 1: or down much at all. Yeah, and that is something
Speaker 1: that people can fall into for again some reason, uh,
Speaker 1: some event that happened earlier, as a way to hide emotion.
Speaker 1: I grew up in UM, the state of Massachusetts, UM,
Speaker 1: and now I live in California. But in Massachusetts there is,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, there's a there's a lot of monotonism.
Speaker 1: There's a lot people speak in monotone a lot, and
Speaker 1: it's it's often when they are trying to not express
Speaker 1: their feeling. And what can happen at that point is
Speaker 1: that everything sort of clamps down to like a trap
Speaker 1: door to not let the feeling out. That's that's a
Speaker 1: big thing. And then that tension. It takes a lot
Speaker 1: of effort to clamp down on all those muscles you're
Speaker 1: speaking muscles, so tongue, soft, palate, breath, sees is. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of effort to shift yourself from a free,
Speaker 1: natural voice into a tight, non expressive, monotone voice. And
Speaker 1: that's something that can be completely freed up with voice work.
Speaker 1: That is something that happens naturally through the voice work.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting, and especially now when I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's stress levels are higher than ever, that
Speaker 1: effort you're talking about can feel good. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: using the word good obviously with quotes around. It can
Speaker 1: feel like we're doing something to our stress. Like the
Speaker 1: opposite is feeling our feelings. Yes, the opposite is feeling
Speaker 1: our feelings and speaking what we really want to say.
Speaker 1: And I think that obviously you can't always do that,
Speaker 1: but I think that people can do it a lot
Speaker 1: more than they're doing it. And I think you can
Speaker 1: do it in the privacy of your room if you
Speaker 1: cannot do it in in some other situation. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about some specific exercises for people to
Speaker 1: for now, we're going to take a quick break though,
Speaker 1: thank you, we're bad, and we're talking about um sort
Speaker 1: of practical things that we can do. I mean, so
Speaker 1: much of what we were talking about before the break
Speaker 1: were these, um, the massive stuff that in a way
Speaker 1: is sort of helpful most of all to make all
Speaker 1: of us feel like we're not weirdos, you know, like
Speaker 1: this is just happening to everybody, and now we can
Speaker 1: talk about it, and now we can talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that it's not just a mindset shift, and it's
Speaker 1: probably not just about breathing, you know, it's a combination
Speaker 1: of the two. It's thinking about the fact that we
Speaker 1: are a full system. What should we be thinking about
Speaker 1: when when we have to speak yes, yeah, and um.
Speaker 1: You know, there are lots of different parts of working
Speaker 1: on your voice. There's definitely the part of of relaxation
Speaker 1: and breath and physical awareness, which are really important, and
Speaker 1: then sound and um and working in the muscles of
Speaker 1: the of what I call the channel, which is the jaw,
Speaker 1: the tongue, the soft palate, so that those muscles can relax.
Speaker 1: I like the the image of the channel, right, it
Speaker 1: feels like, is on purpose, so that it feels open. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so that it's an open channel for sound that comes
Speaker 1: actually the images that it moves through your whole body.
Speaker 1: Because sound moves through the bones of your body. Bone
Speaker 1: is the perfect conductor for for vibration. Just like when
Speaker 1: you have a loud roommate or neighbor at college and
Speaker 1: you hear the vibrations of their music coming through the
Speaker 1: the the wall or something. You know, Vibration travels through
Speaker 1: the bones of your body, and the more tension you
Speaker 1: have in your body, the less that happens, and so
Speaker 1: more less resonance you're going to have in your voice.
Speaker 1: So there are easy things to do um you know,
Speaker 1: like just shaking, shaking your legs, shaking your legs and
Speaker 1: shaking breath or its sound down your leg as you
Speaker 1: shake it. Shaking is a great thing to do for
Speaker 1: your voice. You can shake your whole body, shake your spine,
Speaker 1: shake your butt, shake your neck, check your shoulders, everything,
Speaker 1: and as you do that, just kind of have fun
Speaker 1: with it and breathe and send sound through your body.
Speaker 1: That's a really great thing to do. Yawning is actually
Speaker 1: a great voice exercise, and it's really easy to do
Speaker 1: because it does actually stretch open the muscles in the
Speaker 1: back of your throat. So just whenever you have to yawn,
Speaker 1: just really focus on that. It's a stretch and you
Speaker 1: shouldn't um, you know, try to suppress it, but actually
Speaker 1: let it be big and yummy and make sound, do
Speaker 1: the big, ugly American yawn sound and the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and that really helps. And then even just doing some humming,
Speaker 1: you know, just hum, feel the vibrations of your voice
Speaker 1: on your lips so that it comes out of the
Speaker 1: back of your throat and onto your lips. Humming, just
Speaker 1: hum through a song that you like or something. Do
Speaker 1: you talk to people about mask residents and chess resonents?
Speaker 1: I totally do. That's uh. I don't call it mask because, um,
Speaker 1: just the I think language is really important and um
Speaker 1: and we're trying actually to unmask the voice and anyways,
Speaker 1: so I knew. I never call it a mask, um,
Speaker 1: but I know what you mean, and it is. There
Speaker 1: is the resonating ladder basically, which is the third section
Speaker 1: of this voice work, this link Later voice work that
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, for anybody listening. Kristin link Later is
Speaker 1: a real um hero of a lot of you know
Speaker 1: us voice people, and she has designated link Later teachers,
Speaker 1: which I think you are right and which requires a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot. Yeah, it's a really it's actually
Speaker 1: the most intensive training program for voice teachers that I've
Speaker 1: ever heard of. It takes over three years. I know
Speaker 1: some people who were had to do it for like
Speaker 1: five or six years before God she would actually give
Speaker 1: them the seal of approval. Is there a correlation between
Speaker 1: Kristen link Later's method of connecting people to their voice
Speaker 1: and the chakras. I'm not sure what Kristen would say,
Speaker 1: but um, but I definitely says. And I have an
Speaker 1: exercise that that I learned from one of my teachers
Speaker 1: whose name is Andrea Harring, who's a huge voice teacher
Speaker 1: in New York, who was one of the people who
Speaker 1: trained me. And it's a great exercise of bringing different
Speaker 1: vibration and different pitches into the different chakras in in
Speaker 1: the body. So the lower pitches are in the in
Speaker 1: the root chakra, and then you know the navel you're
Speaker 1: you go up and up and up until you reach
Speaker 1: the crown chakra, which is the high falsetto voice. I
Speaker 1: bring this up because I did a sound bath once.
Speaker 1: Hashtag so l a. Um. But you know it's right there,
Speaker 1: super cool. I mean, the whole idea that vibration affects
Speaker 1: our nervous system is obviously, like you know, completely scientifically,
Speaker 1: you know, approved. But I hadn't known about the chakras
Speaker 1: the sounds associated with the chakras, and then when I did,
Speaker 1: I realized that's exactly how voice people learn, you know,
Speaker 1: the sounds associated with a voice. Yeah, definitely, and I
Speaker 1: think that there are for I mean, I was back
Speaker 1: in the eighties, I have to say, giving away my
Speaker 1: age that we used to do chakra balancing. That's the
Speaker 1: first time I did, like way before I did any
Speaker 1: voice work where you know, you had a different pitch
Speaker 1: for each chakra, and the chakra system is energy. It's
Speaker 1: you know, it's like swirling energy in your body as
Speaker 1: it goes. And they're eight of them and they each
Speaker 1: correlate to a different frequency. So being able to bring
Speaker 1: that kind of entery this is right hashtag so l a.
Speaker 1: But still actually I think it's becoming way more common
Speaker 1: than we than we realize. Um. But you know, bringing
Speaker 1: the pitch that correlates with each chakra uh into your
Speaker 1: body really helps you too. As you say, which I
Speaker 1: think is great embodying speech, but it's also directing the
Speaker 1: sound into your body and how I teach it also
Speaker 1: it brings into well, how do you feel? What's the
Speaker 1: effect of this vibration on your body? Does this you know,
Speaker 1: especially also with finding the resonators of the chest resonator,
Speaker 1: which is a great way to find a lower pitch
Speaker 1: for people trying to do that. And maybe you're a
Speaker 1: person who doesn't use your lower range much, and maybe
Speaker 1: that's because of what what you have discovered or learned
Speaker 1: from using it. You know, maybe there is some bad association.
Speaker 1: I say bad, but a negative association, like when you
Speaker 1: use your lower voice you feel sad or you know,
Speaker 1: you feel angry and you're not supposed to in some
Speaker 1: uh world, be able to express that. Bringing it back
Speaker 1: to some of the clients that you've had, you know,
Speaker 1: what is it for people to sort of try out
Speaker 1: these new vocal you know, breathing practices, find out who
Speaker 1: they sound like when they're not trying to sound like
Speaker 1: everybody else, and then like, oh god, it is she
Speaker 1: okay to bring into you know, a serious context. So
Speaker 1: I think that the freer person's voices, the more access
Speaker 1: they have to their whole three and have to four
Speaker 1: octive range, which is what we're born with, a three
Speaker 1: and a half to four octave speaking range. If you're
Speaker 1: talking about a singer, you know you're talking about Arianta Grande,
Speaker 1: or you're talking about Barber Stress that you're talking about
Speaker 1: people with the Whitney Houston enormous ranges that are not
Speaker 1: that common. But for people, everybody has that three and
Speaker 1: a half to four octave speaking range, and most of
Speaker 1: us only use a few notes in it. But when
Speaker 1: you start to open it up and experience what you're
Speaker 1: lower ranges, if you don't use it at first, you
Speaker 1: might feel it might feel weird, or it might feel emotional,
Speaker 1: or you might feel like there's something wrong with you,
Speaker 1: or it doesn't feel like you. But the more that
Speaker 1: you experience it, the more you realize that this part
Speaker 1: of your voice expresses a lot of things about you
Speaker 1: that are important that you want to be expressing, and
Speaker 1: not using it can cut your power and actually communicate
Speaker 1: your thoughts worse. Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's something I
Speaker 1: talk about with clients which we've been sort of circling
Speaker 1: around here, but I want to just put a fine
Speaker 1: point on which is when we use more pitch, we
Speaker 1: are being more vulnerable. And that's partly I'm putting it
Speaker 1: that way, I guess partly because it's a choice, right,
Speaker 1: I am choosing to reveal more about what I actually
Speaker 1: care about. But also it happens we end up feeling
Speaker 1: more vulnerable. That's why we don't do it when we're not,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling safe and so to be more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: What I really mean is when we show we care. Oops,
Speaker 1: now we've shown we care, we can't take it back,
Speaker 1: you know, like, now we've revealed something that matters to us,
Speaker 1: and I thinking, I'm thinking about this. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess in this, in this in this era as well,
Speaker 1: when people are I think, feeling a little bit more
Speaker 1: sort of free to admit the ways in which we're
Speaker 1: all feeling scared and confused, and you know, if we
Speaker 1: wanna you know, have a little silver lining moment, it
Speaker 1: is an interesting time to work on. Even though we're
Speaker 1: feeling stressed out and we might be feeling constricted and
Speaker 1: our bodies, if we work on feeling freer and more
Speaker 1: open and feeling our feelings, um, we're also saying I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm getting more and more okay with showing that
Speaker 1: I'm vulnerable, with showing who I really am. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course that is scary at first, but I think
Speaker 1: there's power and vulnerability. I think that you're not just
Speaker 1: showing vulnerability, you're showing your humanity and that you're a
Speaker 1: human being and not a robot, which is another thing, right,
Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of robots on TV. But uh,
Speaker 1: and that's that is really important. When someone is really connected,
Speaker 1: I call it, you know, when they're connected to their voice,
Speaker 1: when their voice is expressing what they're feeling and what
Speaker 1: they're thinking, then we're getting into the realm of eloquence.
Speaker 1: As a speaker, you know, your voice carries emotion, the
Speaker 1: voice does. Everybody's voice carries emotion and thought. So that
Speaker 1: if you're listening to someone who is feeling something and
Speaker 1: expressing their passions, say about how they feel about a
Speaker 1: project that they want to do or something, you can
Speaker 1: feel that the audience, the people in the room will
Speaker 1: feel your the vibration. And and that's a telepathic way
Speaker 1: that we humans have of communicating. How we can tell
Speaker 1: what someone is feeling, how we know when someone is
Speaker 1: lying or telling the truth. I think that we are
Speaker 1: hearing a lot of lies coming from some of our
Speaker 1: leaders and always have. It's not a new thing. It's
Speaker 1: just seems like we're hearing that more than ever. And
Speaker 1: part of it is what you're saying is not showing humanity. Often, uh,
Speaker 1: people can tell you can feel it in your body,
Speaker 1: and I think everybody listening will acknowledge that they have
Speaker 1: at some point in their life been able to feel
Speaker 1: in their body or know somehow when someone is lying
Speaker 1: to them, you know. And I want to also make
Speaker 1: this more nuanced because yes, like we have wow experienced
Speaker 1: what like flat outlies now sound like, But also this
Speaker 1: humanity question, it's like lying isn't just literally saying something
Speaker 1: that isn't true. It's also projecting a persona that isn't real,
Speaker 1: or projecting an emotion that isn't really you know, there's
Speaker 1: like just this yeah. Lying also just is when our
Speaker 1: our yeah, our bullshit meters like, oh that person is
Speaker 1: not acting like a human. Yes, it's not and doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like a human. You hear their voice. And as
Speaker 1: it was talking about the vibration going into the bones
Speaker 1: of the body, the more sensitized you become to vibration,
Speaker 1: the more. You can feel this. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: doing this work since the nineties and I actually can
Speaker 1: now have become like an EmPATH almost. I can when
Speaker 1: I'm working with someone, I can feel their tension in
Speaker 1: my own body. And it's really a world, the world
Speaker 1: of vibration is a whole world, almost like another sense
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't even know is there.
Speaker 1: Well so, And to bring this back from you know,
Speaker 1: obviously as my as my five year old calls him,
Speaker 1: the bad guy in charge of America to us, you know,
Speaker 1: some of us are accidentally doing some of the same stuff.
Speaker 1: Some of us are guilty of also not coming across
Speaker 1: as a human, and it is not because we are
Speaker 1: intentionally doing so, right, and it's often a survival technique
Speaker 1: or it's masquerading as one. I mean, I think where
Speaker 1: you and I are working with people is often in
Speaker 1: this like you know, liminal space between the the On
Speaker 1: the one hand, the place where um, well, I know
Speaker 1: I can't break that rule, that one's a real that's
Speaker 1: a real hard and fast and then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you know this free version of themselves, this version that
Speaker 1: feels more like a human even over zoom, say, even
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, our whatever, our current form of communication
Speaker 1: is professionally and trying to find like, how do I
Speaker 1: find a version of myself that actually dances in that
Speaker 1: middle space. Yeah, I don't think it's that hard. I
Speaker 1: think it's not one or the other. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's two extremes. That being having a free voice doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you're crazy, wild woman running around with wolves. You know,
Speaker 1: it's actually gives you way more power. Um, You're able
Speaker 1: to express what you want to express when you want
Speaker 1: to express it. It's it's a it's a self awareness.
Speaker 1: It's not like you're unconsciously crazy. Now, You're You're You're
Speaker 1: still you, You're more you. You're not going to do
Speaker 1: things that are going to jeopardize yourself for your career.
Speaker 1: You know. When people are present, it's uh, it's very
Speaker 1: very powerful. If you're listening to someone who's really present speaking,
Speaker 1: their chances are they're they're gonna move you in some way.
Speaker 1: It is the biggest risk when we're public speaking. I mean,
Speaker 1: even talking about public speaking feels so quaint right now,
Speaker 1: but pretend that we were able to go into public
Speaker 1: But it's the biggest risk when we're public speaking to
Speaker 1: think in the middle of our thoughts. We have this
Speaker 1: preconceived notion many of us, many of the people I've
Speaker 1: worked with, that coming across as polished is the best
Speaker 1: thing to do. And there is of course an element
Speaker 1: of tensionality that I think is what people actually mean
Speaker 1: by that, Like, I've come with a with a with
Speaker 1: an intention in mind, and here's what I would like
Speaker 1: you to come away with, and here's what i'd like
Speaker 1: you to feel, audience. But we should not mistake that
Speaker 1: for a kind of polish that leaves our spontaneous selves
Speaker 1: out of the room. Yes, I agree. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say if you worked with transgender people, because I know
Speaker 1: that voice stuff comes up. Yeah, because obviously because we're
Speaker 1: talking about how we are, you know, constructing and presenting
Speaker 1: our identity out exactly and speaking with a voice that
Speaker 1: feels like us. You know, you speak with a voice
Speaker 1: that feels like you, which is very hard when your
Speaker 1: biology is different from who you feel like. Um. And
Speaker 1: so there's there's kind of to two sides of working
Speaker 1: with transgender or even any kind of gen gender fluidity
Speaker 1: at all is um. You know, there's the technical way
Speaker 1: that if it's a if it's a male to female
Speaker 1: of helping her find the higher tones with greater ease
Speaker 1: so there's less strain, and the same thing in reverse
Speaker 1: for female to male is finding the lower sounds without strain.
Speaker 1: And that's a that's just on a technical level, that's
Speaker 1: a really great thing for people to do, but it's
Speaker 1: also about finding themselves in their sound so that they're
Speaker 1: not now just performing another voice. They're actually finding themselves
Speaker 1: in that vibration, connecting to the vibration um in a
Speaker 1: way that makes it feel like them. And that's that's
Speaker 1: a that's a deeper bit of the work that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: As everybody works on their voice under all kinds of
Speaker 1: heightened and unheightened circumstances, we can all think about when
Speaker 1: I am the most relaxed, when I do maybe some
Speaker 1: of the exercises on your website that I'll send people to,
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about feeling my most confident, that voice
Speaker 1: that comes out, it's not about the opposite of what
Speaker 1: I was doing before. It's about this person that lives
Speaker 1: in me being on the outside too. Yes, it's just
Speaker 1: about being more of yourself, really, and it is definitely
Speaker 1: not either or, and it's never my intention to change
Speaker 1: anyone's voice, you know, and that isn't what it the
Speaker 1: work is about at all. It's you're right, And I
Speaker 1: think when we are speaking fully in our in our
Speaker 1: humanity and in our bodies and from our truthfulness, you
Speaker 1: you can't. It's not like you can't still decide what
Speaker 1: you're gonna say. You can still decide what you're gonna say.
Speaker 1: But your voice and the intentions that you have when
Speaker 1: you're speaking are are so clear and so powerful, and
Speaker 1: almost nobody does it. And when people do it, others
Speaker 1: stand up and notice, and it's important. Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we're gonna be back
Speaker 1: and find out who you brought in for us. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're back with Adele Cabot and Adele tell the
Speaker 1: people who you have brought in for us. I have
Speaker 1: brought in Oprah Winfrey. Finally, okay, let's take a good listen.
Speaker 1: This is her receiving the c Silbidameil Award at the
Speaker 1: Golden Globes the year that everyone wore black for me
Speaker 1: to here we go, I've interviewed and portrayed people who
Speaker 1: withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you.
Speaker 1: But the one quality all of them seem to share
Speaker 1: is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning
Speaker 1: even during our darkest nights. So I want all the
Speaker 1: girls watching here now to know that a new day
Speaker 1: is on the horizon. Something that happens, and it's it
Speaker 1: doesn't just happen. She's doing it. Is that the audience
Speaker 1: starts to respond, and then she starts to top them,
Speaker 1: and then they respond and she tops them and then
Speaker 1: right and topping isn't even the right metaphor. It's like
Speaker 1: writing them, you know, writing along with them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like an exchange of energy, which is which is actually
Speaker 1: what it is. The speaker, you know, plays off the
Speaker 1: energy that that she's getting back from the audience and
Speaker 1: and sort of it does like top it, but she's
Speaker 1: she's right. She rises up from it in a way,
Speaker 1: you know, and it requires more breath. I mean, you
Speaker 1: watch that little section and she is digging. She is like,
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a version of all of us,
Speaker 1: including her, who could have been like WHOA, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of energy to push, you know, to to to
Speaker 1: That's a lot of energy to reflect. I'll just go under.
Speaker 1: And she made the boulder choice of course, because she's
Speaker 1: outprah and said I'm going to not you know, sort
Speaker 1: of poop out, I'm going to ride this all the way. Yes,
Speaker 1: she she did that exactly, and she does not pull back.
Speaker 1: She stands by herself. You know, she's in a way
Speaker 1: standing up for herself and a million other people when
Speaker 1: she's doing that, which is very powerful, but huge amounts
Speaker 1: of breath to do that, but none of it is
Speaker 1: forced because what she was feeling, the impulse, the reason
Speaker 1: why she was speaking those words, was so huge in
Speaker 1: the moment that it created huge breath in her body.
Speaker 1: And because she was out of her way, her she
Speaker 1: was allowing her body to breathe and allowing this to
Speaker 1: come through her is what it actually feels like it sometimes.
Speaker 1: And you're right what you said about it being bigger
Speaker 1: than her. It's so, I mean, for all of us
Speaker 1: who have any opportunity or you know, her forced to
Speaker 1: speak publicly when we can connect to the why. You know,
Speaker 1: the reason we're connecting to the why it is because
Speaker 1: it connects us to something larger than us. Yes, beautifully
Speaker 1: said yes. And when she says, when she says, I mean,
Speaker 1: she brings back because she mentions at the very very
Speaker 1: beginning of this ten minute speech, when she was a
Speaker 1: little girl on you know, the Millennium floor watching Sydney
Speaker 1: Potty a be the first black man to get the
Speaker 1: Academy Award. And then she connects it in the middle
Speaker 1: of the speech to the little girls who may be
Speaker 1: watching her be the first black woman to get the
Speaker 1: season the mill And then at the end she says
Speaker 1: to those little girls, I mean, she says that in
Speaker 1: this section that we picked, and you know, what a
Speaker 1: great way to physically get your body to remember, ah,
Speaker 1: this is bigger than me. How great. Once you have
Speaker 1: that experience, you just want you know, it feels great
Speaker 1: and you don't feel like you've overstepped at all. I Mean,
Speaker 1: the reality is a lot of us do that other
Speaker 1: thing because there is some element I mean, I use
Speaker 1: the metaphor, there is some element of trial ballooning. I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to say something that matters to me
Speaker 1: or something decisive, but I don't know what do you
Speaker 1: guys think? And so much of all all our body
Speaker 1: tension comes from that. And here is you know, of course,
Speaker 1: the epitome of someone who already knows what everybody thinks,
Speaker 1: and they all love us, and she's earned the funk
Speaker 1: out of that. We don't see that color in her
Speaker 1: voice at all. No, no, and we we don't have
Speaker 1: to see it in in anybody's voice. Adele, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for this conversation. I feel very vulnerable right now,
Speaker 1: and in a good way, like I do have lots
Speaker 1: of feelings in my body about how you know, how
Speaker 1: important and so hard and so easy and so fun
Speaker 1: and so heavy and all of the things. This work is.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, this is the work of ourselves,
Speaker 1: it really is. And thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me on This is, This is I've really really enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking to you. Thank you to Adele for joining me.
Speaker 1: You can find out more about her in the show
Speaker 1: notes or on our website Permission to Speak pod dot com.
Speaker 1: There's also a really cool bit of bonus content this
Speaker 1: week on our Instagram feed at Permission to Speak Pod,
Speaker 1: where Adele breaks down in one minute flat, how to
Speaker 1: take a good breath. It's not a way to think
Speaker 1: about it that I've ever heard before, and it totally
Speaker 1: blew my mind. Also, while you're there, please feel free
Speaker 1: to send me das voice memos at Permission to Speak
Speaker 1: pod again on Instagram or on the website, and you know,
Speaker 1: let me know what's going on with your voice. We
Speaker 1: will discuss it in the next mail bag episode. You
Speaker 1: can also send me what kind of questions you want
Speaker 1: me to be asking guests. I will integrate them. And
Speaker 1: I just want you guys to know that I am
Speaker 1: so here for you. Especially during these strange and deeply
Speaker 1: unsettling times. We have an opportunity to think even more
Speaker 1: intentionally about how to communicate with vulnerability and with heart,
Speaker 1: and I want to have that conversation with you. Thanks
Speaker 1: as well to Sophie Lichtman and the team at I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, my family and cohort and all of you.
Speaker 1: We're recording this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles
Speaker 1: on land that is the historic gathering place for the
Speaker 1: Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit U S d
Speaker 1: A C dot us to learn more about honoring Native land.
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak is a production of My Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and
Speaker 1: Mark Canton. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, listen
Speaker 1: on the ihar radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your favorite shows. H.