Your voice is unique to you. It grows as you grow. It changes as you change. If you’re curious about the relationship between your voice and your body, your heart and your mind, welcome. My name is Michèle Voillequé and I can’t wait to hear you. 

Something that’s true for me this week is that it’s been a really stressful week, and I feel that very clearly in my body. My neck is tense. My shoulders are tense. My upper body is tense. My hamstrings are tense. My feet are tense. The whole thing, my whole self, it feels like, is tense.

My stress has, well, my stress is in many ways, all the time stored in my body. This is probably true for you, too. But this week has kind of brought it to a tipping point where I’m aware of a lot of it.

Working on our voice asks us to engage in a deeper, more intimate relationship with our bodies. Because speaking and singing are physical activities, for them to go well on a bigger stage, right, when you’re trying to amplify your voice, develop your voice, that kind of thing –

I’m not talking about kitchen table conversation, I’m talking about using your voice in a larger, more artful way – 

that project requires us to develop a more intimate relationship with our body. Because it’s the everyday tensions that we carry in our body that get in the way of good vocal production.

So this week, my everyday tension is screaming at me. Like, I’m so aware of how I hold tension in my body. It’s been a real learning, and I’ve been kind of forced onto the floor.

You know, I’ve needed to roll out my shoulders with a tennis ball. I’ve needed to just lie on the floor. and feel like the earth is holding me up and there isn’t anywhere for me to go and I can just let my shoulders down.

There’s kind of been no way around it this week.

I think like a lot of people, I spend some of my days just powering through, just papering over, just pretending that things aren’t achy, that things aren’t a little askew, that I can make this work, right?

I can hack my way through this.

And there are times, like this week, when that’s just not possible. I really do need to stop and address the problem.

I can’t change the world to my liking. I mean, of course, that’s the first thought, that my body would feel so much better if these ten things were different about the world. That’s not an option.

I need to actually stop and take care of myself.

And this thought I need to actually take care of myself, take better care of myself, that collided with the idea of “getting out of your own way,” which has always, to me, felt like a call to pretend that I was braver, more resourced, more believing, than I actually am. And it’s never really felt like a good thing to say or to hear, “Get out of your own way.”

But I’m feeling this week how much actually I’m in my own way. The tension in my body is making it harder for me to sing, making it harder for me to speak, is making it harder for me to feel grounded and calm and comfortable and smart and capable.

And so, “getting out of my own way” today really feels like it means “listening to my body.”

Before, I would have thought, I would have said, “getting out of my own way” would be a call to ignore my body’s signals, to pretend that I don’t feel this way or that way.

But today, I feel like “getting out of my own way” is about attending to my jaw. It’s about attending to my shoulders.

Asking them like they’re a dear old friend, “What’s up? What’s going on? What do you have to tell me? What do I need? Shoulders, what do I need right now? What do you, not what do I need, what do you need right now to feel better? Because you’re screaming at me and I, I hear you and I, I want to listen. I want to know what it is that you have to tell me, and I want us both to feel better. So what do you say?”

I don’t know what this would look like in your own life, in your own circumstances, but I think, I know from singing, I know from speaking, it’s been so valuable to me to think of my body as an instrument, that my whole self is an instrument.

And when something isn’t going well, when I’m not having a good singing day, for example, when things just feel phlegmy and gross and stuck and terrible, that that’s not about me as a person.

My whole self is my instrument, yes, but this technical problem that I’m having right now, this functional problem that I’m having, that’s not about my worth as a person. That’s not about my soul being entirely free of sin. That’s not about my mind having the greatest ideas.

There’s actually something physically awry. You know, my shoulders and neck are really tense, and it’s harder for my voice to work, therefore.

So I can give my attention to loosening my neck and shoulders, rather than bearing down and forcing my way through, thinking that I can muscle my way to a better sound, when really what I need to be doing is letting go.

Sometimes I’ve sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and actually asked my jaw to tell me what’s going on, and taken notes, like taken dictation. What is this part of my body trying to tell me?

I haven’t done that yet today. I think it could be a very good idea. What I have done that’s worked so far, is taken deep intentional breaths.

I’ve stretched and moved and tried to loosen things up that way.

I’ve lain on the floor.

I’ve used a tennis ball.

Lots of things to coax my body into a softer, more pliable state.

And I will try to get some more sleep tonight.

This is a shorter episode this week, but all I’ve got is tension and I just don’t want to go on and on and on about it.

I hope this slight reframe of “getting out of our own way” is helpful.

The last thing that I need right now is to be putting any more pressure on myself to be perfect, beautiful, articulate, brilliant.

I think what I need right now is rest and a good massage.

I hope you’re taking good care of yourself this week.

Thanks so much for listening

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new people find the show. Subscribing ensures you’ll learn about new episodes as soon as they come out. If you have a question about singing or speaking or being, please send me an email at letters@mvmusik.com.

That’s letters at M as in Mary, V as in Victor, M U S I K.com.

Transcripts and show notes are available on my website. You can subscribe to my newsletter there, too. Can’t Wait to Hear You is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media. I’m your host, Michèle Voillequé. I can’t wait to hear you.