March 29, 2022
| This weekend gave me ample opportunity to reflect on the importance of self-expression – the messy process of learning to say what you feel in the moment that you feel it, rather than stuffing it down, only to have it be vomited back up at the most inopportune time. How do you create safe containers to work through ALL the good, bad, and ugly of your emotions? You shower and brush your teeth at regular intervals. What practices do you engage in, on a regular basis, to cultivate and maintain your spiritual / energetic / emotional hygiene? While many of us have had huge watershed moments in our lives where we couldn’t access our voices (everything from forgetting all the words to a song or speech during an important performance, to being attacked and unable to scream, and everything in-between), I find that stifled self-expression tends to be more like death by a thousand tiny cuts. Here are examples of those micro moments from my own life that inspired my commitment to creating spaces for full self-expression to flourish. 1. I have had so many moments when a joke – thoughtless at best, intentionally cruel at worst – was made at my expense, and I laughed along because I couldn’t access the words to express how hurt and angry I actually felt in the moment. 2. I have had moments when a friend stood up for me when I didn’t stand up for myself, and I felt a mixture of gratitude for my friend, and shame that I didn’t speak up on my own behalf. 3. I had a moment when a male friend did NOT stand up for me when I was catcalled. I remember the feeling of instantly losing respect for that friend. I didn’t realize how deeply that code of chivalry was embedded in my psyche until that moment. 4. I had a moment when a woman I had known for all of five minutes talked about her rape experience as a way of attempting to connect with me. I felt both compassion for her compulsion to bond through trauma, and discomfort about her over-familiarity. I prefer intimacy one brick at a time, rather than a wrecking ball. 4b. At one point, I found it charming that my easygoing ways seemed to make people feel at ease with immediately sharing their life stories with me, but the more I got in tune with my own voice and my own story, the less inclined I was to take on the emotional labor of being a safe harbor for other people’s stories under the guise of empathy, uncompensated. 5. I have had moments where – when I DID respond, the intensity of the response was WAY out of proportion with the intensity of the offense, because of all the buildup of unexpressed angst that came gushing out at the most inappropriate moment possible. 5b. I see that dynamic play out all the time on social media. So how DO you maintain your emotional hygiene on a day-to-day basis, so that in those moments when a jab gets under your skin and you DO get triggered / activated / emotionally charged (and those moments will come, no matter how love-and-light you think yourself to be), you have tools to regulate your emotions, shift out of tunnel vision / survival mode and recalibrate to the bigger picture, the more expanded state of consciousness from which you’re better equipped to actually solve the problems and manifest the desires that the triggers are pointing you toward. That capacity to discern and shift in real-time is a muscle to be developed. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps develop that muscle, along with meditation and journaling.Giving yourself a creative outlet for releasing emotional constipation also helps develop that muscle. Vocal expression is particularly potent, because the unexpressed affects the throat chakra first. That’s where I come in as a voice-based integration coach, bringing all the different aspects of your being to wholeness through a process that is as playful as it is profound, using tools of vocal improvisation, chakras, archetypes, somatic experiencing, and mindfulness. Ready to book a session? Use this link below. |
My work serves holistic-oriented women committed to moving beyond fear and emotional stuckness to voice their truth, expressive arts enthusiasts whose souls are deeply nourished by community vocal rituals, spiritual eclectics who embrace wisdom from a wide variety of sources, or some combination of these.
Through structured group improvisation and vocal embodiment practices, I facilitate sound healing sessions, workshops, private vocal empowerment coaching, retreats, and concerts that “a-ha!” you to new levels of self-discovery, emotional freedom, joy and creative flow. I am a partner artist at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute as a core member of the vocal improvisation ensemble, Moving Star.